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March 2009 | While financial woes may hold back some green initiatives, the future has never
looked greener. Mainly because creating a more sustainable economy is not an option, but a ne-
cessity. And we all know that necessity is the mother of invention. Which is why this month, amidst
crumbling banks, G20 meetings and stimulus plans, we highlight 12 eco sub-trends that any mar-
keter or entrepreneur can act on today.
”ECO-BOUNTY”
From ECO-FRUGAL to ECO-METERING,
future profits will be green.
No, there won't be eco-fatigue in 2009, mainly because it's hard to ignore the mind-boggling for-
tunes (and accompanying power shifts and reductions in pollution) that are in store for those who
figure out how to get the world off its addiction to polluting power sources and wasteful consump-
tion.
So while banks are crumbling and multinationals are laying off people faster than you can say
‘downturn', every key player—from the Obama administration (find a short overview of its ambi-
tious eco-goals here) to the Chinese government—plans to dominate the post-recession economy
by going sustainable, including a heavy dose of rules and regulations. But it’s not all macro-
economic-geo-political-powerplay. Recession or not, consumers will continue to demand respon-
sible behavior from brands. Just one statistic: “Four out of five people say they are still buying
green products and services today--which sometimes cost more--even in the midst of a US reces-
sion.” (source: Reuters). Rest assured that the quest for an ECO-BOUNTY will continue at full
force:
“ECO-BOUNTY refers to the numerous opportunities, both short and long term, for brands that
participate in the epic quest for a sustainable society. Some of these opportunities exist despite the
current recession, others are fueled by it, not in the least because of new rules and regulations.
Downturn-obsessed brands who lose their eco-focus will find themselves left out in the cold when
the global economy starts recovering."
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So it's no wonder that we’ll continue to see a stream of eco sub-
trends. Like the dozen or so relatively fresh* ones you’ll find in this
briefing, which are begging to be sustainably and profitably ap-
plied by smart entrepreneurs and marketers. Some of them are
focused on the long-term (since when is a recession an excuse to
not look beyond tomorrow...?), while others will help you come up
with quick-fix, low-cost green innovations fit for recession-ridden
times.**
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"Eco-friendly goods and services sporting bold, iconic markers
and design, that help their eco-conscious owners show off their
eco-credentials to their peers. At the heart of ECO-ICONIC is a
status shift (isn’t there always?): many consumers are eager to
flaunt their green behavior and possessions because there are
now millions of other consumers who are actually impressed by
green lifestyles.”Per the above, ECO-ICONIC is not about all
green products, it’s about those products that through their dis-
tinct appearance or stories actually show that they're green, or at
least invoke some curiosity from onlookers, and thus help their
owners/users attract recognition from their peers. How 'new' is
this? Well, just take a look around: a surprisingly high number of
green products and services, imagined and designed in a distant
Around the world, being eco-conscious has become a status past when green was seen as a compromise, still try to hide their
symbol for consumers, partly replacing traditional status symbols sustainable superiority by looking as much like 'normal', 'non-
that are now associated with pollution, waste and excess. Two green' products as possible."
ECO-STATUS developments to watch: ECO-ICONIC (create an
eye-catching green brand/product, advertise the hell out of it and F o r ( m a n y ! ) e x a m p l e s f r o m l a s t y e a r, c h e c k o u t
make it very recognizable to the masses, which in turn makes it trendwatching.com/trends/ecoiconic.htm. For more recent
easy for buyers to get respect from strangers) and ECO-STATUS- spottings, scan the below:
STORIES (which involves providing buyers of little known/niche
eco-brands with conversation starters and story details to make
sure they’ll get a status fix from their peers).
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• Not super-new, but still fun: Philippe Starck has offered
his own take on the electricity-generating wind turbine.
The design, called Democratic Ecology, features trans-
parent plastic blades and is designed to produce 80% of
a home’s electricity. The first in a series of designs re-
flecting Starck’s new environmental focus, the turbine
could soon be joined by a solar panel that attaches as a
thin film to existing windows. The device will be priced at
EUR 500-800.
What’s your Baacode?
As more brands (have to) go niche and therefore tell stories that
aren't known to the masses, and as experiences and non-
consumption-related expenditures take over from physical (and
more visible) status symbols, consumers will increasingly have to
tell each other stories to achieve a status dividend from their pur-
chases. Expect a shift from brands telling a story, to brands help-
ing consumers tell status-yielding stories to their peers.
• The technology is still in its infancy, but phones are go- The link to ECO is easy: a green lifestyle is (in some circles) the
ing solar. Available from June 2009, the Coral-200-Solar ultimate status symbol, and thus ‘green stories’ are in vogue.
offers basic mobile phone features with an integrated Everything having to do with (eco-friendly) sourcing, production,
solar charger. The device was created by Digicel, which ingredients and distribution represents a potential benefit to con-
primarily serves consumers in emerging Caribbean mar- sumers keen on status stories. And the concept is extra attractive
kets, who are among the 2 billion worldwide with limited for service providers, since they often don't have physical prod-
or no access to electricity. Samsung recently unveiled its ucts with which to convey their eco credentials. Some examples:
solar-powered touchscreen phone Blue Earth at the
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Users can gener-
ate enough electrical power to keep their phone charged
using the solar panel on the back of the phone, and the
phone is made with recycled plastic from water bottles.
The Blue Earth’s interface allows users to quickly switch
back and forth to an energy-efficient screen using the
'eco mode' option. The 'eco walk' function allows users
to count how much they are reducing CO2 emissions by
using a built in pedometer to measure each step they
take.
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• Crop to Cup is a fair trade coffee brand with a twist. In
addition to buying coffee directly from farmers, repre-
senting them in markets and reinvesting in their liveli-
hood, the brand also allows customers to trace their cup
of coffee back to the farmer that produced it. Which in
turn allows them to learn about the origins of the coffee
and engage in a dialogue about the product.
• Windunie is a collective of Dutch wind turbine owners Info is power, power means money, and so on. Keep an eye out
who feed sustainable energy into the grid, for online pur- for a myriad of green intelligence services that will help consum-
chase by consumers. Customers pick a specific owner ers detect, understand, milk or unmask the eco-consequences of
that they want to buy electricity from, and are shown a companies and their own behavior.
'passport' listing full details of the turbine owner, includ-
ing their name, date of birth, location, hobbies, etc.
• Virgin Atlantic has teamed up with Anti-Apathy to create Smart Meter Ontario, an informational site maintained by the
Worn Again, an eco-fashion initiative designed to help government of Ontario, has a good summary of the benefits of
the airline meet its goal of halving its landfill waste by smart meters:
2012. To achieve this, Worn Again has used family-run,
small-scale workshops in Portugal to produce 2,000 • You’ll be able to take action to manage your electricity
limited-edition bags reclaimed from 1,000 old airplane bills. With attention to how and when you use electricity,
seats. Also check out Above + Below, which turns re- you'll be able to contain or reduce your costs.
stored London Underground and London Bus seat cov- • You’ll get real feedback about your electricity use.
ers into shoes. • Your electricity bill will show how much you consum-
ed—and, in the future, detailed information may be
available to you via the internet or by telephone.
• You’ll get more precise electricity bills. The bills you re-
ceive will be based on the hourly readings taken and
sent by your Smart Meter.
Examples:
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• Not to be outdone by Fiat, Honda’s Ecological Drive
Assist System, or Eco Assist is now available on its new
Insight hybrid model in Japan, and will be featured on
the American Insight Hybrid from Spring 2009. During
the journey, the system lights up to give the driver ambi-
ent messages about their driving style. Smooth accel-
eration and braking are rewarded with a green glow
while aggressive starts and stops are reprimanded in
blue.
In our January 2009 Briefing we stated that ‘maps are the new
interface’. A quick refresher:
“Will this year be the year in which all things ‘contextual’, ‘app’,
• And of course ECO-METERING is jumping on the apps- ‘local’, ‘urban’, 'tags', 'lidar', ‘smartphone’, ‘convenience’, 'Cell
train, too: iPhone app MeterRead promises to save us- ID', ‘spontaneity’, ‘infolust’, and ‘GPS’ finally come together in
ers 10-20% off their energy bills by monitoring energy one orgasmic celebration of map-based tracking, finding, knowing
consumption. The application produces reports and and connecting? Embraced by eager consumer masses who will
predicts usage for the next 30 days. Ecorio is an An- flock to anything from friend-finders to lowest-gas-price-locators?
droid application that collects journey data via GPS and, Aided by services that already know which street a user is on?
with the help of information such as mode of travel or
type of car, calculates the carbon output of each trip. Judging from increased levels of MAPMANIA, we’re nearing that
Users can view past journeys and access carpool and destination. As the Googles, Nokias (who expect half of their
public transit recommendations as well as purchasing handsets to be GPS-enabled by 2010-2012), MapQuests,
carbon offsets based on their footprint. Last but not Navteqs, Openstreetmap.orgs, Apples and TomToms of this world
least, Carbon Diem, a new software package that's continue to build the necessary infrastructure, devices and apps,
planned for launch later this year, runs on users' GPS- any consumer-focused brand would be stupid not to be partner-
enabled mobile phones to determine how they're getting ing or experimenting with map-based services. Why? Geography
around at any given moment—on foot, by car, or on a is about everything that is literally close to consumers, and it's a
bus, train or airplane. As an algorithm tracks the trans- universally familiar method of organizing, finding and tracking
portation mode used and distance covered, the software relevant information on objects, events and people. And now that
uses that information to keep an up-to-the-minute re- superior geographical information is accessible on-the-go, from
cord of the user's carbon emissions, displaying the re- in-car navigation to iPhones, the sky is the limit.
sults in both daily and weekly terms.
Eco-angles to MAPMANIA are popping up everywhere, too:
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• Local Reuse (to view it, you have to have access to the
iTunes Store) is a free iPhone application that allows
users to receive and donate free reusable items. The aim
is to keep useful items out of landfills.
More at www.trendwatching.com/trendreport/
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As outlined in our October 2008 briefing, one of the most visible
perks right now is dedicated—if not free parking—for hybrid cars,
but how about free charging, too?
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Reward schemes will forever be a favorite of both producers and
consumers. Here are some green takes:
Our 2OO9 Trend Report comes in PDF and PowerPoint format. 15O+ slides/pages with
bold visuals, speaking notes and videos. Yes, we’ve done most of the work for you!
More at www.trendwatching.com/trendreport/
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ECO-EMBEDDED, which we first highlighted last summer, could
also have been dubbed ECO-PEACE-OF-MIND:
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• To stick with kids: how about green educational toys?
Doesn't sound fun? Check out the Power House by
Thames & Kosmos, a USD 149.95 miniature (working)
green house with solar panels, a wind turbine and a de-
salinization system. The kit’s aim: teach children what it’s
like to live off the grid, and get them (and their parents)
to “consider a life without fossil fuel.” To make the expe-
rience more realistic, the user manual incorporates a
There are plenty of schools out there with green practices among storyline about high-tech pioneers inhabiting a small
their goals, but a new school in Bali will be entrepreneurially green island who must make use of limited resources to sur-
from top to bottom: vive. The 70 experiments and 20 building projects that
form part of the kit mimic the tasks the kit’s fictional pio-
• The Green School in Bali boasts a working organic neers must perform. Expect many new toys to have a
chocolate factory, aquaculture ponds, organic vegetable green slant, not only in the materials they're made of (or
gardens, edible mazes and perma-cultural gardens all being solar-powered, for that matter) but with a green
located on a campus built entirely of low-impact and purpose, too.
environmentally conscious materials. The Green School
is open to preschool through eight grade level children
from all over the world, with tuitions ranging from roughly
USD 4,000 to USD 9,000 per year.
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• During his address to the first Automotive News Green
Car Conference in Detroit on 13 November 2008, Carlos
Tavares (Nissan's executive vice president) outlined his
plans to investigate electric car battery leasing op-
tions as a sustainable component of future versions of
Nissan’s EV. Nissan also plans to work closely with re-
As consumers become more transient*, eschewing anything too tailers on innovative battery production and recycling
‘fixed’—big ticket items having become synonymous with bore- methods in order to deliver improved power supply op-
dom, with hassle, with quickly-out-of-date, with maintenance, tions to its EV customers.
with taking up too large a part of budgets, if not lives—the move
from fixed to ephemeral might just have some positive side ef-
fects for the environment. Think more services and less goods, • Connect by Hertz offers car sharing in London, Paris
more re-use by buying and selling secondhand goods, more and New York City, with more cities to be added later
shared ownership. From our TRANSUMERS briefing: this year. The service offers 180 free miles per day and
free gas at a cost ranging from USD 8.50–10 per hour,
"TRANSUMERS are consumers driven by experiences instead of with insurance, roadside assistance, maintenance and
the ‘fixed’, by entertainment, by discovery, by fighting boredom. cleaning all among the benefits included. Members can
They increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from reserve cars online or by phone, and vehicles are ac-
the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The fixed is cessed via a smart chip-enabled Connect Card. What's
replaced by an obsession with the here and now, an ever-shorter next? How about Hertz Bikes?
satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many experiences and
stories as possible. Hey, the past is, well, over, and the future is
uncertain, so all that remains is the present, living for the now. "
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• From bikes and cars to phones (for TRANSUMERS, the
phone is the new car anyway ;-), and from more to less: Forget traditional advertising for promoting green products and
as part of Nokia's strategy, the company has released a services: make the advertising itself clean and green! Get inspired
variant of their N79 handset that comes in less packag-
by:
ing and doesn't include a charger. The idea is for the
customer to reuse their old charger; saving energy and • British media agency Curb offers low-impact advertising
reducing waste. Which coincides with the EU looking that incorporates natural materials and is easy on the
at forcing mobile phone companies to use a standard environment. Used in high profile campaigns by compa-
adaptor to cut down on waste. Which is very ECO- nies like Adidas and Volkswagen, Curb creates sand
EMBEDDED. But we’re digressing ;-) sculptures of all sizes, projects images onto falling
sheets of water, burns patterns and logos into wood
using that uses magnifying glasses and offers a ‘logrow’
service to cut logos as big as 30 meters wide into turf.
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• Sustainable Development Multimedia’s Pubeco in-
vites French consumers to reduce the environmental
impact of print advertising by encouraging their users to
view ads of local relevance to them online. Users post a
free sticker on their mailbox that reads: "No leaflet, thank
you—I'm reading them on the internet," use a postal
code to create a personal space on the site displaying all
the ads they want to search and earn points each time
they visit the website that are then converted into grants
given to the site's partners.
What already goes for the consumer arena at large, will soon ap-
ply to the eco-arena, too: expectations will be sky-high. This is
what we’ve said in the past:
• Dutch creative agency Spranq has developed a new font "The EXPECTATION ECONOMY is inhabited by experienced, well-
called Ecofont that's specifically designed to extend the informed consumers from Canada to South Korea who have a
life of ink cartridges and toner by using 20 percent less long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every
ink than traditional fonts. The free, downloadable font is good, service and experience on offer. Their expectations are
available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, and works based on years of self-training in hyper-consumption, and on the
best at a 9- or 10-point size. biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources,
curators and BS filters, which help them find and expect not just
basic standards of quality, but the 'best of the best'."
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main electrode materials to keep batteries from explod- • Insider London offers a GBP 12.50, three-hour
ing due to overheating. "Cutting-Edge Green Tour” that highlights the most ex-
citing and innovative sustainable retail concepts, build-
ings and designs that London has to offer. Naturally,
tours are by foot and public transport only.
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With consumers, governments and corporations having acknowl-
edged—and even embraced—sustainability as one of the major
challenges of our time, the opportunities are endless. This briefing
is obviously just a snapshot of all the eco sub-trends that are cur-
rently emerging. So, once again, this is something that’s happen-
ing now, not a forecast for 2012. What to do? If you have even
one entrepreneurial bone in your body, that’s an easy question to
answer:
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