Bloomin’ lovely!

 

Now here’s an idea that takes outdoor advertising to a whole new level. It’s spectacular, good for the environment and right on-brand. And it involves collaboration between one of Germany’s branding giants and a small start-up agency. Plenty of boxes ticked aleady.

The project, “Magenta Blossom” is a nature sponsorship for Deutsche Telekom. Fields near Euskirchen, an area as big as 56 football pitches, have been planted with millions of wild flower and herb seeds. Come August, the whole lots will bloom in the form of a “T” logo in the brand’s distinctive magenta colour, as well as the sustainability hashtag #GreenMagenta.

 

The agency involved are a (as yet) small outfit from Munich who specialise in uniting the interests of framers, nature and companies. They’re called GEOXIP   and are whizzes at precision sowing, amongst other things. As well as looking magnificent and colourful, all those blooms will atrract bees and help to regenerate the land, improving soil quality.

Everything will be coming up roses. Or similar.

I’m also wondering how long it will be before more of those stories about farmers selling advertising space on cows will recirculate. Moo. 

RETROWURST: Vegetarianism June 2005

 

For this month’s Retrowurst, I’m biting into a rather meaty topic. Or not. Back in 2005, I could count the number of true vegetarians that I knew in Germany on the thumbs of two hands. And I remarked that vegetarianism seemed rather less militant and in-your-face here in Germany compared to the UK. How have things developed in the last 18 years? Has Sauerkraut Strudel taken over the world? Or is Schlachtplatte still the order of the day?

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The other day, I came across a rather unusual situation in Germany - at a lunch for twelve people, half of these decided that they wanted a vegetarian option rather than the roast pork (no surprises there!) that was on offer. The restaurant was extremely obliging and managed to conjure up six portions of something rather tasty involving aubergines in less time than it takes to say Schweinshaxe und Sauerkraut.

 

What was unusual was that so many of the party wanted a vegetarian option: maybe, predictably enough, all were female, but, interestingly, no-one was actually a “real” vegetarian – it was just that it was a hot day, we were eating outside and fancied something a bit lighter than slabs of roast pork and gravy. In fact, I can count the number of “real” vegetarians I know here in Germany on the thumbs of two hands, whereas almost everyone I know in the UK is either a vegetarian, a “demi-veg”, a poultry-and-fish only, whatever that’s called, trying to cut down on red meat, has given up beef since BSE or is going through some phase involving some combination of the above.

 

I tried to find some figure on the internet to support this apparent absence of vegetarians and found that, actually, there are more vegetarians in Germany than in the UK, in terms of pure numbers and that around the same % (about 7-8%, depending on which survey you look at) in both countries are actually vegetarian. These figures seem to contradict people’s experience: for visitors from the UK who have a vegetarian inclination, Germany does not seem a particularly vegetarian-friendly place. I often hear complaints that even innocent-sounding soups, fried potatoes or salads turn up with pieces of bacon or other meat in them and that there don’t seem to be very many vegetarian options on menus, let alone vegetarian restaurants.

 

My first observation on this apparent paradox is this: in Germany, vegetarianism is perfectly acceptable but the vegetarians themselves are not as vocal and “militant” as they may be in the UK. In good restaurants, vegetarian options are always available, but you have to ask for them. The chef will then prepare something almost tailor-made to your tastes and to what is in season. In Italian, Turkish or Greek restaurants, the usual meatless choices are there for the taking (or eating-in) but no menus are emblazoned with V-Signs or other symbols of militant vegetarianism. There are no trendy vegetarian cooks on the TV or blatant “veggie-only” brands of ready-meals in the freezer cabinet. Vegetarians in Germany hide their light a little under a cabbage leaf. What vegetarian restaurants there are tend to be in a bit of a 1970s sackcloth and sandals time-warp- humble, worthy and unassuming. Although vegetarianism has grown since the BSE crisis, there just doesn’t seem to be the “noise” about it that one finds in the UK. Perhaps it doesn’t help that one of the German-speaking world’s most famous vegetarians was He Who Must Not Be Named.

 

In contrast to the unassuming vegetarians, meat-eaters in Germany are a proud and loud lot. The Germans are totally unapologetic about meat, and no-one is regarded as a pig or a glutton if they manage to devour three or four large steaks at a barbeque - and that’s just the women! A good proportion of red meat in the diet (as long as it is from pigs or cows of German origin) is regarded as normal and healthy and certainly not something to be ashamed of or to try and cut back on. There is a total lack of squeamishness about meat and its origins here. Whereas meat is trimmed and shaped and then wrapped in layers of plastic in the UK supermarket, traditional butchers here still enjoy a roaring trade; meat is minced, sliced or carved with skill and pride before your eyes in Germany. No-one gets too upset about bones, meat on the bone or identifiable parts of the animal here. At one wedding I attended, the main dish was Spanferkel or roast suckling pig (and no, there wasn’t a vegetarian alternative although one could have gnawed on a pretzel or two) and the pigs’ heads were put on display and even photographed amid the other decorations on the buffet table, something that my UK sensibilities found a little odd. Small Gasthofs and pubs will regularly hold something called a Schlachtfest, where meat and sausages from a newly slaughtered pig will be consumed with great gusto. And I remember another occasion where a vegetarian friend of mine from Switzerland turned an interesting shade of green and almost had to leave the table as he watched a group of slim young girls (the types that look as if they survive on lettuce leaves and grated carrots) devouring boiled pork knuckle off the bone in an Apfelweinkneipe in Frankfurt.

 

So there you have it – it is not so much that vegetarianism is absent or frowned-upon in Germany- it is simply that it can’t make itself heard above the raucous meaty cacophony that is integral to German life. Perhaps it is because the German meat industry has, as yet, proved itself to be BSE free or perhaps it’s because the Germans are so much closer to the land than we Brits, but the day of getting the average German to swap his Schnitzel for a courgette crumble looks to be in the far-distant future, if at all.

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The first thing that struck me, reading this again, is that I have zero memory of that aubergine lunch, which is rather worrying. Perhaps I made it up. The second thing that’s interesting is that there’s no mention of “vegan”, “plant-based” or “climate change” whatsoever in that article.

Diet has become political in the last 18 years, here in Germany too, with the Greens in power. And this makes it difficult to figure out what is actually happening. I found plenty of articles in UK news sources to suggest that Germans are going vegetarian en masse. But on closer inspection, these are mainly based on interviewing young trendies in Berlin, and an excuse for dreadful punny headlines involving the word Wurst. Who on earth would resort to such cheap journalism?

What reasonable-looking data I could find suggests that vegetarianism is around 10% of the population in both the UK and Germany. And I’d probably have to summon fingers and thumbs on both hands now, especially when it comes to my son’s friends. But on the other hand (hang on, I’ve used both already in the last sentence), meat consumption in Germany is still pretty high compared to the UK and not really falling that much.

I suspect that, as usual, the answer is “both”. More flexitarians and people dipping into veganism and vegetarianism when it suits them, but also more people enjoying the increasing variety of meat and meat products offered. 

And one brand that has got catering for all down to a fine art is Rügenwalder Mühle - a trusted brand that’s been making sausage and cold meat products for nearly two centuries, but is also knocking out credible vegan products faster than you can say Bierwurst.  

RETROWURST: Chemicals in Home & Garden September 2004

 

In September 2004, I wrote on the rather unpromising-sounding topic of chemicals in home and garden. Nevertheless, the article references schoolboy bombs, drinking your own urine and packs of fags for under £2. So here goes:

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In September, everyone in Germany is back from their holidays, feeling a little glum as the first leaves start falling in the beer gardens and the mini-golf courses close up for the Autumn. People retreat back into their homes, start packing away the summer clothes, inflatable boats, garden furniture and barbeques. It’s the time of year to make a bit of an effort in the garden and a recent visit to the garden centre has inspired the theme of this month’s Extrawurst - the German war against chemicals.

 

It may seem a paradox that the country that spawned so many chemical and drug giants - Hoechst and Bayer to name but two - should be waging war on chemicals, but please hear me out. To illustrate my point, let’s pop back to the garden centre. I was after something to kill off a few weeds- in the lawn and growing up between the patio stones. I didn’t anticipate any difficulty and had the German word for weeds - Unkraut, literally ‘un-herbs’ – in my head. In the UK, of course, it’s completely in order to pick up products off the shelf to rid your lawn and garden of dandelions, thistles, slugs and even unwanted cats. Only the neat Sodium Nitrate (or whatever it is) that my brother used to combine sugar with to make schoolboy bombs back in the 1970s is probably under slightly stricter control these days. In Germany, however, I searched high and low and couldn’t find any easily accessible products on the shelves of the garden centre. I eventually saw a locked cabinet behind an information desk and enquired hesitatingly if they had anything to rid my lawn of a few dandelions. I was subjected to a complete interrogation as to the dimensions of my lawn (who, other than the average German, knows exactly how many m² their lawn is??!!) and given a lecture as to how the products were not to be let near any footpath, pavement, road or any other public place (accompanied by pointing at large handwritten signs to this effect) before the cabinet was unlocked and my weed killer handed over.

 

Maybe some of this attitude can be put down to the inherent closeness and responsibility that Germans feel for the Umwelt, or environment. There are many words that exist in German which relate to the environment which don’t have a direct English translation- such as Mülltrennung, or ‘rubbish-sorting’. But the war against chemicals is also fought on fronts with a less direct connection with the environment. Some of you may remember my piece about the Kräuterhexwhich looked into the reluctance that Germans have about treating ailments with something that might actually work. While it’s quite easy to sneak into Superdrug in a UK high street and buy copious quantities of Anadin and Alka-Seltzer (or your preferred poison) to deal with the hangover from Hell, in Germany it is rather different. None of these remedies are available in the Supermarket or even the Drogerie. You are expected to go to the pharmacist where you will be questioned carefully as to the nature of your headache and will be asked which dosage level, pack size and even possibly dosage form (don’t think about this too closely - let’s just say suppository or Zäfpchen and be done with it. Yes. For a headache.) The moral of all this is, go easy at the Oktoberfest.

 

Within the household cleaners category, the same rules seem to apply. Finding an oven cleaner that is at all effective is hard work, almost as hard as cleaning the oven itself. Ditto stuff to unblock drains - everything proudly promotes its Bio mode of action, which seems to actually mean elbow grease and sheer man (or woman) power. Needless to say, the lurid Oxy-this and Vanish-that types of products with their day-glo packaging haven’t really caught on here. At my last ‘real’ job I remember hours spent trying to convince brand managers at a well-known US detergent company that ‘anti-bac’ variants of washing powder were the ultimate turn-off to German Mums - this is the country, after all, where quite normal women’s magazines run articles about the health benefits of drinking your own urine (although marginally preferable to drinking someone else’s, I suppose.)

 

The reluctance to spray chemicals everywhere also has its consequences when buying fresh produce. It is not unusual to buy a lettuce and find it crawling with caterpillars or buzzing with bugs, and this is not just from the Bio, or organic section - I imagine one would find a whole menagerie lurking in the Lollo Rosso there! Rather than throwing up their arms in horror and demanding a refund, most Germans would find this reassuring that their salad leaves had been properly raised in a natural ecosystem.

 

Of course, it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security and suppose that, as long as we stay away from chemicals and unnatural substances, then we are giving the Germans what they desire. But there are always exceptions to the rule. While paranoid about polluting the environment, many Germans have no such qualms about their own bodies when it comes to smoking. Smoking still bears almost no social stigma here, cigarette vending machines are on every street corner at a height that a four-year-old can reach and even Aldi Süd have capitulated and are now selling cigarettes. At €2.90 for a packet of 19 ‘Giants’ (that is just under £2), there is not much financial motivation for anyone to give up!

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Covid has made a little dent into the “germ/ans are good” perception, but other than that, the view on chemicals is just as strong as before.

Plus ca change? Well, not exactly. Remember those £2 ciggies? In your (pipe) dreams. At last, it appears, the tide is turning and we may well be at the fag-end of the great German smoke-fest (to mix more metaphors than is good for me). 

Top of the Tortoises

 

There's a whole new area developing in assessing how good companies are performing on the triple bottom line. The latest new Index looking at how good companies actually are (in every sense of the word) is from Tortoise Media - The Tortoise Media Responsibility 100 Index

This index takes the FTSE 100 and rates these on indices relating to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, across the two broad areas People and Planet. There's a full detailed transparent methodology link included on the website for those interested in the nitty gritty and yes, of course, there is a degree of judgement in terms of how the indices are derived and weighted. 

Always worth bearing in mind.

Looking at the results, Top of the Tortoises this year are:

1. Unilever

2. Severn Trent

3. Diageo

4. AstraZeneca

5. BT Group

There are several things I like about this index - first of all, there's the "talk" and "walk" division - what the companies are committing to, and what they are actually doing. And I believe both are vital. Companies that simply donate a bucketload of cash to a trendy cause on the spur of the moment aren't in it for the long-haul, usually. 

It's good to see the top five from a complete mix of sectors - retail & consumer, engineering, pharma and services are all represented. And yes, it is the FTSE Top 100 which is generally about established companies, but it's encouraging to see all the Top 5 were established in the last century (with roots going much further back, in some cases) - these are certainly not "new kids on the block" who have social and environmental responsibility baked-in from the beginnings.

What I'd really like to see accompanying this is a "Hare Index" of growth to see if the third part of the triple bottom line really does go hand-in-hand with the other two to the finishing line.

Frydays for Future?

I haven't taken the plunge into Veganuary this year, but I have used the first week to catch up on some reading - and the subject of two reports that have been lingering around since last year is The Future of Food.

Sainsbury's Future of Food report is entertainingly written, with scenarios from 2025, 2050 and 2169 depicted visually and verbally. Jellyfish is on the menu.

And Knorr's Future 50 Foods concentrates on non-animal ingredients we should be looking to for healthier people and a healthier planet. Currently, the human race is limited when it comes to what we eat: 75% of global food comes from 12 plant and 5 animal species. The Future 50 covers cereals, grains & tubers, beans, legumes & sprouts, vegetables, mushrooms and nuts & seeds. I played a little game with myself to see how many I'd seriously never heard of. Here are the 16:

Laver seaweed
Black turtle beans
Bambara beans
Cowpeas
Marama beans
Nopales
Fonio
Khorasan wheat
Teff
Orange tomatoes (yup, OK, I've heard of these as in not yet quite ripe ...)
Beet greens
Broccoli rabe
Pumpkin leaves
Enoki mushrooms
Maitake mushrooms
Saffron milk cup mushrooms
Lotus root
Ube (Purple yam)

It's distinctly possible I may have eaten some of these unknowingly, although I don't think I've consumed jellyfish without my knowledge.

And while I'm on the subject of food and future, there has been a flurry of articles this week about edible or consumable packaging and utensils, and doing away with packaging altogether.

The humble ice cream cone has to be the role model here. There are toothpaste tablets in bags - Just like paste, without the waste. Or how about toiletries packaged in soap? Or straws made from seaweed or flavoured flour?

Maybe jellyfish shopping bags will be the next big thing? Beats crocodile handbags.

How green was my valley?

In the last few weeks, I have noticed crosses by the side of fields while driving. The first couple, I probably didn't register - assuming they were shrines put up at the site of road accidents. But then I noticed something unusual - the crosses were green.

While walking the other day, I came across (ha, ha!) one by a local field, and attached to it was a notice addressed to walkers:

This campaign - Grüne Kreuz - is a "silent protest" from German farmers to lobby the government and powers-that-be to respect their work. It's about everything from dumping prices at the supermarkets, importing cheap goods and giving in to public pressure (maybe too hastily) on environmental protection issues, such as the use of fertiliser and pesticides.

The protest took on a new angle last week when thousands of farmers (and tractors) descended on Berlin. That, I expect, wasn't so silent.

Whatever your views on the issues regarding agriculture and the environment, this does strike me as a masterstroke in terms of campaigning. Using fields as a medium for the campaign and a symbol that immediately evokes interest. The mainstream press tends to be one-sided on this topic and I know I've heard a lot more in the last year about saving bees than I have about farmers' livelihoods.

Farmers for Future, perhaps?

Sober October?

Could there be a better way to celebrate the end of summer than a drop of something rich and red? As marketeers seem to be developing a conscience these days, for some, the wine might taste even better if it comes from Garçon Wines .

"Sustainable wine packaging solutions" may not sound that exciting, but just take a look at the Eco Flat Wine Bottle:

The company has been going since 2016 and originally designed their wine bottle to fit through a UK letterbox. Of course, it has additional benefits. While respecting tradition in terms of its proportions and colour, it's 40% spatially smaller and 87% lighter than a typical glass bottle. It's made of pre-existing plastic and recyclable, so it is doing its bit to offset the climate crisis and reflect changes in people's attitudes and behaviour.

The traditional glass wine bottle was invented in the 17th century, but selling wine in bottles is a relatively recent thing, dating only from the early 20th century. Before that, you came along with your own container and wine was sold direct from the barrel. The new bottle shares this "disadvantage" in that the wine only maintains its quality for around a year.

Although the design and virtuous part of me likes the flat bottle, I'm afraid that the hedonist in me feels a bit yuk about it. But then again ... I don't say no to wine boxes for quaffing wine, or plastic bottles in aeroplanes (although I draw the line at tins). And, I'm sure ten years ago or so, I was very snooty about screw-tops, but completely accept them now.

But what a thing to virtue-signal with if you can't quite face Sober October!

Brilliant or bullsh*t?

I've worked on the client side, the agency side and somewhere in the middle, as a consultant. And I still feel these conflicting personas, rather like the Good Cop and the Bad Cop, leaping around in me trying to gain supremacy when I see communication ideas.

Take the recent Burger King "Meltdown" campaign in the UK. The agency side of me is terribly excited about this one. It ticks all the boxes and then some. Where to start? Well, the idea originally came up as a result of a petition from two eco-conscious schoolgirls, Ella and Caitlin, aged 7 and 9. It's big and bold and involving and exciting. It's about actually doing something (people donating unwanted toys, Burger King working with up-cycling partners to convert the unwanted plastic into play areas and trays) rather than just blabbing on and empty virtue-signalling. The execution, from the melting logo to the giant sculpture, is terrific.

And it takes a good pot-shot at McDonald's in tune with the brand's recent edgy attitude campaigns.

My agency side is practically having a meltdown, screaming "what's not to like?" at my less easily-enthused bah-humbug client side.

I don't know. A year or two ago I might have found this original. But now it feels, however good the execution, rather like an opportunistic stunt. One of these. Does it come from the core of the brand? Not really. And sniping at the main competitor merely deflects from the real problem. As pointed out in the article linked above, the campaign broke on the same day that Burger King was presented with an award by Greenpeace for "flame-grilling the Amazon." Perhaps the "Meltdown" campaign name and logo are a little insensitive?

I wonder what our junior eco-warriors think of that?

Talking of which, I'm won't be surprised by a flood of Greta Thunberg wannabes and Fearless Girls appearing in forthcoming brand communications. It has already started, for example, in this campaign for Zürich's public transport (admittedly timed to coincide with Ms Thunberg's visit to the city). The ads are telling us that if we take the tram or trolleybus, we're a little bit Greta.

I'm not convinced there's such a thing.

How green is your alley?

I sometimes wonder just how green environmental activists are in their everyday lives, or whether the collective will disintegrates when it comes to everyday behaviour. Do Fridays for Future teenage activists all religiously sort out their rubbish and avoid unnecessary packaging? I'm not convinced ;)

When it comes to helping solve the world's problems, brands can and should play a role.

The obvious role is perhaps in the big actions which draw attention to issues facing people and planet. For example, Le Grand Defi, which took place at the end of May. Rather like a glorified version of a school class tidying the playground of rubbish, this event set to draw attention to the fact that the Mediterranean represents only 1% of the world's marine waters but contains 7% of the  micro-plastics in the world's seas. The event was a race for swimmers and kayakers to collect plastic rubbish from the sea.

But arguably the more difficult task is to ingrain a new way of behaving into people's lives. More difficult, because this isn't about a collective noise for a day. It's about every individual, every day of his or her life.

There have been plenty of news reports about Waitrose Unpacked this week. This is a trial where you can refill your own containers with anything from pasta to beer and wine to cleaning materials (hopefully not mixing them up). But it's only in one store for 3 months. Imagine the enormity of the task of rolling that out nationally.

Let's hope it's a task the supermarket is prepared to invest in, and that the initiative is more than a PR stunt.

Just right

Sometimes advertising and communication ideas feel just right. Perfectly simple and hit exactly the right spot. No more, no less.

That is how I feel about the IKEA campaign The Lagom Collection from Proximity London. What's clever here is that it's not about products as much as ideas - ideas and inspiration being as much in the IKEA DNA as the unmistakeable product range. And of course, the Swedish concept of Lagom fits beautifully to the Swedish retailer. The simple executions reflect typical IKEA style and that quirky lateral thinking humour.

Finally, the message of reuse, recycle, repurpose couldn't be more spot-on for today, culturally. IKEA may have been responsible for the perpetration of a "throwaway" mentality in days of yore, and, yes, you could argue that this is another example of Homegrown Problem:Solution advertising.

But when something is done with such charm and aplomb, that would surely be churlish.

Knocking Purpose off its pedestal

The Edelman Earned Brand 2018 report is another useful chapter in the development of brands, what they are, how they work, and how they can progress as the 21st century grows up out of its teens.

The big soundbite to come out of this research is that nearly 2/3 (64%) of people around the world say that they "buy on belief" - a massive 13 percentage point increase over 2017. Even taking into consideration the inevitable amount of virtue signalling that this involves, the scale of the increase is pretty impressive.

But somewhere along the line - in this report, too - I have the feeling that two quite different ideas (which may, and possibly should be linked)  are being muddled.

Is it about brands taking a stand? Or about brands standing for something?

Taking a recent example, of what might go down in history of as the most unlikely brand taking a stand and achieving a huge impact, at least in the short-term, there's the story of Rang-tan.

I first saw this beautifully-made and moving commercial in Campaign back in August. I think one Facebook friend posted it, and it got a couple of likes. I don't know how many people signed the petition. Now, it's difficult to escape the news coverage. It took Iceland's collaboration with Greenpeace, a "ban" and social media outrage to get the commercial noticed on a wide scale. It's interesting that it was the relatively small and unlikely player Iceland that took up Greenpeace's challenge and not one of the big guys.

No-one can deny that this has been an effective act of brand activism, but I'm not sure how much it has to do with purpose. I may be wrong, but I doubt Iceland's purpose is to save orang-utans, or even to reduce palm oil in their products. These may well be related to the overall purpose, but in my book, purpose is broader than one or two campaigns on social, environmental (or even political) themes.

Purpose is connected to a company's products or services and to its values. It can be high-and-mighty, but it doesn't have to be. Not every brand is Patagonia. In fact, a more down-to-earth purpose that's closer to people's everyday lives is often easier to put into practice, and is more authentic for a brand that has no history of standing on a soapbox and shouting about major issues.

The Effective Use of Brand Purpose Report 2018 from the WARC talks about the idea of "purpose" going mainstream. Here, it's not about campaigns, or jumping on the latest cause bandwagon, but finding a genuine, unique purpose for the brand which can act as a navigation compass for the whole company. With product, purpose and profit working together symbiotically.

In this way, purpose can be seen as the new boss for the 21st century.

A beautifully bright idea

A couple of years ago, I was wowed by an idea from the fashion industry - Manufactum's sustainable fashion, which included the beautiful silks from Johanna Riplinger, dyed using flower petals from Indian temples.

I was reminded of that when I saw this stunning idea from JAT Holdings and Leo Burnett Sri Lanka. Petal Paint is made from the flowers left in buddhist shrines and temples, which would otherwise go to waste.

There are 5 shades to reflect the Buddha halo - Lotus Red, Pigeonwing Blue, Marigold Orange, Temple Flower White and my favourite, Trunpet Yellow.

The paint is sold through JAT's normal channels, and also donated to local artists to restore murals in temples.

If that's not circular economy at its best, what is?

Recycled paradigms

Vancouver is one of my favourite cities, and this week it has been playing host to Sustainable Brands 18 "Redesigning the Good Life", where the good and great in branding and marketing get together to talk about how brands can help make the world a better place. Vancouver seems an apt choice for the host city, as it aims to be the greenest city in the world by 2020.

One of the speakers at the event was Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G. In this interview for Sustainable Brands, he talks about what needs to be changed in the world of branding. No huge surprises, but it's a useful summary of the way that branding has evolved over the last decade or two:

*Lead disruption rather than trying to follow
*Focus on growing the market, not just gaining share
*'Built-in' doing good rather than 'bolted-on'
*Big is beautiful when it's good
*Sustainable is mainstream, not niche

So there we are. It seems that one place to start with being a sustainable brand is to recycle your old marketing paradigms and models - and possibly re-purpose them as frameworks ;)

Circle of Life

So many years have passed since the word 'sustainability' entered the language of business that I believe many people have forgotten the difficulties they may have had in understanding exactly what that word means. Although I use the word, it's one I've always had misgivings about. It's a heavily-laden word,  weighed down by its own worthiness, implying a lot of hard graft for not a lot of reward. It has associations with endurance, with injury and suffering, but none with anything positive, be it people, purpose, planet or profit. It's a must-do rather than a want-to do.

I'm pleased that businesses have started talking about the 'circular economy.' Like the idea of the 'sharing economy', it's an idea you can understand intuitively. I'm surprised the term has been around since 1989 (raised by British environmental economists) as I have only been aware of it in the last two or three years.

Rather than a linear economy, with its produce - consume - dispose beginning, middle and end, the circular economy, as you see above is all about keeping resources going and giving value for as long as possible, and then re-cycling.

Incidentally, this ties in well with my abhorrence of the word 'consumer' - in this model, people are active participants, creating, selling-on, adapting, repairing and recycling as well as using the goods.

It's only a pity that many of the major tech companies with their in-built obsolescence don't seem to have got the hang of this just yet.

A bundle of good

One of the biggest problems in the modern age is getting rid of stuff - and I know I certainly feel the pressure to get rid of stuff in a responsible way, not just 'chuck it out.'

Mothercare have estimated that there are some 183 million items of outgrown baby clothing lurking in UK cupboards and drawers, and they've come up with an excellent promotional idea in time for Mothering Sunday/UK Mothers' Day. The thought is Gift a Bundle , with Mothercare partnering with environmental charity Hubbub - pick up one of the promotional bags from your local store, fill it with 6-10 items of baby clothing, and return it to be given to a local family in need.

This is a nice down-to-earth idea that combines lots of good stuff: topical, local, sharing, bringing people together, good for the environment - and all of this through a simple action, not preaching from on high with questionable statistics, expensive film directors and heartstring-pulling plinky piano music.

This is called driving the band waggon (for a short trip, at least) rather than leaping on it.

Plastic Fantastic

As a manufacturer or retailer intent on doing Good as well as making a profit, you could do worse than using the UN's 17 sustainable development goals (aka 'Goals to transform our world') as a framework for action.

Announced recently at the World Economic Forum at Davos is an initiative from P&G that hopefully will have some impact on goals:

3. Good health and well-being
12. Responsible consumption and production
14. Life below water

... and maybe a few more besides.

Head & Shoulders in the '1st recyclable shampoo bottle made with beach plastic' will be available at Carrefour in France this summer. The bottle is made with up to 25% recycled beach plastic, (PCR = post-consumer recycled ) and P&G have developed this with recycling experts TerraCycle and SUEZ.  Numerous technical problems had to be overcome such as UV exposure and degrading of plastic.

Now, yes, it's 'up to 25%' and, yes, it's only going to be available in a limited run in France, and, yes, P&G haven't got the cleanest slate in other areas of responsible production (record on animal testing),  but I do think this is a great step in the direction 'part of the solution instead of part of the problem.' Hats off to P&G (which I can happily do if I use Head & Shoulders.)

Using beach plastic has also inspired adidas, who are co-operating with the organisation Parley for the Oceans to produce trainers using the recycled waste from the seas and beaches.

And, while P&G are claiming their 'first', there's a small but great brand who have been doing this for a while - Method.

If I was working at Method, I'd have a slight sly smile on my face about all P&G's ta-raaing about their Head & Shoulders bottle. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Reuse, recycle, resauna

Some of my favourite new product ideas are actually old product ideas.

In other words, new uses for old or obsolete products. I've seen telephone boxes used as mini libraries, bags made of old lifejackets, airline drinks trolleys for the home bar, old boats converted into bookcases (although I'm not convinced the boats in question have ever sailed) and even old skis used as signposts.

Talking of ski-ing, the latest idea to catch my eye is Saunagondel, where old ski lift gondolas are converted into mobile electric saunas. They're available to rent or buy and can be used more or less anywhere. Quite the thing for the stylish exhibitionist.

I'm convinced this is an area where brands could do more. It sends such a positive message when new uses are found for something old, with a little ingenuity. One of my pet peeves is the short lifespan of electronics - TVs, printers, scanners, computers and so on. The old ones are difficult to dispose of and no-one wants to repair anything any more.

Or there's my current favourite jewellery - made from old Nespresso capsules.

Slow Fashion

Image: Richard Pflaume for Manufactum

The fashion industry and sustainability is not exactly a marriage made in heaven, and the juxtaposition of 'fashion' and 'responsibility' is one that throws up a mass of contradictions. There's the whole ethos of the fashion world, with its ever-changing collections, trends, fads and must-haves. There are the horror stories from Asia associated with the cheap mass-production of fashion items. And then the throwaway mentality and problem of landfill - where does yesterday's fashion end up?  

I was delighted to attend an evening event last week put on by Manufactum in Frankfurt. One of my favourite retailers, Manufactum is known for quality household and garden products produced as they were in the good old days - 'the good things in life still exist.' Manufactum has always offered clothing, too, but it has to be said that this has had little to do with fashion. Rather, it's been the epitome of the high quality and sensible - the kind of thing Miss Marple would wear.

That has all changed now as Manufactum introduces a number of new designers to their range of women's clothing. The question posed is:

How can fashion and sustainability work in harmony, rather than at odds?

Last Thursday evening, we took part in a journey to meet 5 different designers, who have answered that question in different ways with their collections, available at Manufactum. From the Goodsociety  jeans, produced with minimum use of water and chemicals, to the striking Japanese-inspired designs of twins Anja and Sandra Umann (Umasan) to the beautiful silks of Johanna Riplinger, dyed using flower petals left over from Indian temples, there were fashions that not just look good, but feel good in every way, too.

Image: Richard Pflaume for Manufactum

Redefining success

I started work in the 80s, the Thatcherite, loadsamoney, yuppy era when success was very clearly defined. It was primarily about money and, after that, power. When the decade changed, however, I clearly remember believing that the 90s would be different. We talking about the "caring, sharing 90s" at the ad agency, and, although "sustainability" didn't have quite the omnipresence that it has today, "green" was definitely on the agenda. I believed all this because I'd already seen colleagues in their 20s suffering from stomach ulcers, breakdowns and other stress-related illnesses.

In the 90s, I made a career move that wasn't incredibly clever in terms of money and power. I moved to a country where I could order beer but was otherwise clueless about the language, where Strategic or Account Planning was in its infancy in the ad agency world and where being a mother and having a career sat uneasily together.

But I gained so much more personally. This was followed by my decision to go freelance twelve years ago. I have found my own way and success on my own terms.

It's sad that not much has changed in thirty years in the way that Western culture measures success. And that there seem to be even more people suffering from burn-out and stress-related illnesses. Part of it, I am sure, is that many people have become slaves to technology - that double-edged sword that both simplifies and complicates our lives.

The latest book on the subject is from Arianna Huffington - Thrive. In it, she talks about the "money and power" definition of success as being like a two-legged stool. At some point you fall off. And that the 3rd leg of success is about Well-being, Wisdom, Wonder and Giving.

You may not be able to stop the world and get off, but you can certainly switch off the virtual world every evening.

The new luxury

Showing off used to be about conspicuous consumption of luxury brands and articles - my car, my house, my yacht. But these days it's more about the conspicuous experience and the sharing thereof on Facebook - my perfect family diving in the Maldives. And the luxury brands are being appropriated by the movers and shakers in the developing markets. It just takes a ski holiday in one of the classic resorts of Old Europe to see how times are changing.

But a new form of luxury is emerging - discreet luxury. Actually, I am sure that this has been there all along - people who furnish their homes with family heirlooms or one-off antiques rather than the latest bling-bling. And much of this is, like the antiques, previously-owned.

A perfect example is Byronesque, conceived by ex-M&C Saatchi planner Gill Linton (we do have our uses!). Described as "Designer vintage fashion for the subversive and androgynously chic", this has nothing to do with twee floral frocks or polka-dot blouses. Most of the pieces offered on sale are from the 90s (which is worrying for an oldie like me!) and can set you back - like the Vivienne Westwood coat above - thousands of pounds.

But for someone looking for exclusivity, this has it all: it's democratic and accessible in terms of not having to make your way to a snooty shop in Bond Street, but the prices naturally count most mere mortals out. Uniqueness and style are there by the metre, sustainability is built-in.

And, every piece comes with a long story attached. Just like the family heirlooms.