I have to give my husband credit for this idea. What can companies with a storefront presence do in the middle of a garbage strike when the coffee cups with their branding all over them start to pile up and litter the streets for all the locals and tourists to see? Encourage self-responsibility with a surcharge.

If every Starbucks and their competitors charged customers during a garbage strike an additional $0.25 for a take out cup, because the customer did not bring their own, then the money could be used to clean up the mess outside and creatively dispose of it.

Conversely, if a customer brings in their own cup, deduct $0.25 and do so loudly so all can hear. Or, the coffee company could choose to sell their own permanent mugs at cost.

What does this type of conversation sound like.

Barista: “Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? “

Customer: “A double tall mocha frappachino with extra whip, please.”

Barista: “Would you like a cup with that drink or did you bring your own?”

Customer: “Cup, please. I’ll have to remember to bring mine next time.”

Barista: “Would you like it in our travel mug? We are offering them at cost during the garbage strike.”

Customer: “Oh, well in that case, the travel mug will be fine.”

Barista: That will be $3.75 plus 2.25 for the travel mug, the proceeds of which we will be using to help us clean up the cup litter out on the street during the garbage strike. Thanks very much for doing your part on this!”

Way to be the ripple Starbucks… or will one of the local coffeehouses pick up this idea first. We shall soon hear about it or see it. Which coffee company will use this Catch 22 to turn it into a brand building opportunity for themselves and have a clean front sidewalk and which logo will we see being attacked by the crows and rodents and kicked around by the tourists?

Strikes are going on in Alameda and Vancouver and Forbes Magazine is already writing about the impact on tourist business.

I will be keeping track of which companies get on the bandwagon. Tell me what you see out there. Send photos. Send your stories.

Over a glass of wine last week, a colleague was showing me plans for how their multi-national was going to embark on the green journey. “What do you think?” He was eager and tentative.

I looked at the list. Electric cars, green roofs, e-waste recycling, lunch time talks with noted ‘local experts’. I nodded but was quiet.

“Where can we fine tune it… I mean what should we tackle first?”

Here’s what I shared that I thought readers going down the same route might want to know:

1. What’s your goal? If reducing your impact on climate change is the goal, only do projects that reduce your GHG emissions. Biggest contributors? Buildings (50%) and transportation.

2. Pick the projects that don’t involve people changing behavior in order to get a result. Why? We don’t like to change our habits. Many habits that contribute to GHG emissions are unconscious. Too hard. Examples? Change the lighting  and look at other lighting and energy controls in every building throughout the multi-national organization. Measure electrical and GHG emissions usage before and after. Get help doing this from this handy reference and look at other organizations’ examples like the University of Victoria.

3. Celebrate your achievements. Tell everyone what you will do, how you will measure it, do it and then show them the result. Do this internally first, then tell the world.

“Light bulbs? Like Live Earth was going on about?” He looked at me like sustainability and greening should be harder than that.

“You will get big results. Employees, leaders, suppliers, will be proud. You will be doing a good thing, being a great ripple.”

I added the next thought with a smile. “Then you will have buy-in for the tougher stuff that involves people doing things differently. You be a good ripple for them, they will be a good ripple for you. You have to start first.”

“Oh and by the way, make sure you get budgetary approval first by showing the cost savings the lighting change project will save. Payback is usually 1-2 years. Then you’ll get the buy-in from the CFO too, especially if he reads this survey of what other companies are doing about energy costs and how they are viewing the economic vs. environmental payback.”

The sun came out about that point. He nodded. ”I can do this… no, we can do this.”

Our conversation will continue in later posts while you digest this one.

For every new innovation that causes a positive ripple for the innovators, it leaves catch 22s for the status quo… until the statu quo learns how to turn it into a business opportunity ripple for themselves.

Take eggs. Everyone buys them. Some people care about free range, others care that they come in a recyclable container and then there are buyers who them cheap and plentiful. Labels are confusing. Different target markets, right? If you are a farmer, could you cater to them all? Not very well, it turns out.

The plight of chickens held in captivity to produce our eggs is becoming a big uncontrollable variable in many farmers business plans. Why should you care? PETA and the Humane Society are out to protect chickens, not only for their benefit but for our health benefit too. They want the recently caged Paris Hilton as the chicken spokesmodel. They have been successful in getting educational institutions and city governments to ban all but free range eggs.

If more institutions and governments follow this ripple it will then affect:

1. Packagers – Will styrofoam packaging finally be a foot note in our landfills? Will this increase business for recycled cardboard packaging or some other innovation?

2. Grocers (Safeway, Costco, Whole Foods) Will consumers vote with their wallets? Or will grocers take a stand too and only sell the cruelty-free eggs in recycled packaging? Wild Oats and Whole Foods have adopted new policies. But then what if they can’t get any true free range eggs? How deeply will they invest in their supply chains to help those farmers convert? Could be a ripple, or a Catch 22.

3. Food supply (Compass Group) Will they have to build new supply agreements with Free Range chicken Farmers who are already producing at maximum output?

4. Regulatory bodies (Egg Marketing Boards) Will they have to bow to grass roots interests and really live up to their mandate ‘to ensure a safe (for both human and chicken?), clean (for both human and chicken or is it the egg?) and consistent supply’? Or will they wait for consumers to demand that to be safe and clean for humans then you have to have safe and clean for chickens laying the eggs? Then the board would have to scramble to catch up. Catch 22.

5. Caged Chicken/Egg Farmers – Will they find sales declining which may force them to change their chicken accomodation practices? Hilton, anyone? What new service suppliers may now spring up to help this conversion from prison to freedom? Who will help match newly minted free-range egg farmers with newly green grocery chains? New business innovators already hatching plans, I hear.

6. Free Range Chicken/Egg Farmers – Will growing demand outstrip their ability to supply forcing the price of their eggs up even higher, making it difficult for lower income people to participate in the greening of the economy? Will farmers have to pay consulting groups to change their chicken management practices?

6. Chicken/egg systems and cage manufacturers (not needed anymore?) Will new chicken management systems be needed to monitor running chickens instead of caged chickens?

For every ripple there is a catch 22 for some business. How your business deals with it can make or break your future home on the range. Go on, get cracking!

Life is a catch 22. You think of a great way to help out on climate change and then you run headlong into a regulation, policy, insurance issue, nay-sayer or glitch that just won’t get out of the way for your innovation to do the job. Take Green Limousine  (to the airport, to your hotel, please and do your ripple for the climate) in Toronto, Canada.

Steven Frei and his partners had a great idea. Those big limos and extended football field size SUV’s idling in the traffic jam on the 401 are adding significant GHGs to the Toronto atmosphere. 35% more CO2 than your average car.

He thinks, why don’t we offer to take people to the airport in Toyota Prius cars instead? As long as the two suitcases fit in the trunk (check) this little measure can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 90%. (check).  What a great way to ripple – new business, new competition to fuel the economy, job creation, more Toyotas purchased and less smog so Toronto can prevent itself from becoming anymore polluted than it already is. I wonder if tourists care about the air they breathe?

So Steven et al goes off to the city of Toronto to apply for his taxi license to operate at Pearson Airport. Ooops. Sorry, Toyota Prius aren’t big enough to meet the regulations to be a limousine. The city is worried that if they allow the Prius and Green Limousines to get a license it will have a ripple effect on the limousine industry at the airport. Change will upset the apple cart. Yes, it will. Life is a catch 22. Steven Frei took his plight to the CBC, voila catch 22 becomes instant press.

Ah, but then the catch 22 has moved on to greener pastures. The big limo companies may soon have to deal with a regulation change. They will have to come up with another creative way to deal with that catch 22. I wonder what change they might make as a result of the ripple that Toronto is considering? 

But let’s compare and contrast the catch 22 Toronto has with green limousines to the events in London, England. Before Toyota’s Prius became a hot ticket item, that city placed a congestion tax on its citizens. It doesn’t matter what you drive, if you go past Hammersmith into the city, you will pay tax. There’s a camera that takes your license plate picture (yes, that’s you in the background, madam) and sends you a bill. The city councillors gave special dispensation to those vehicles that minimize their CO2. Prius gets in and out for free. London took control of their future before the market decided to come control it.

Which led my cousin Jonathan Broom (in the interests of full disclosure here) to start ecoigo – the green executive car service that now zips around people like Al Gore and execs at companies that need to buy themselves some green guilt relief (ripple). So London planted a catch 22 challenge (and added revenue to the city coffers) to its citizens and several have risen to the occasion to fill the need created by the regulation change (ripple).

So the choice is yours. Do you want to be at the mercy of the catch 22 or at the steering end rippling your way to greener profits? Governments slow to get off the mark on their regulatory initiatives might want to think about this. Toronto, didn’t you sign up to be part of the Clinton Climate Initiative? Ah, that was only making a commitment to a green building retrofit program. That’s a great start. Now what about air quality. It’s time to take the next step before the markets do it for you.

I wanted to commend all the low frills airlines trying to give us cheaper ways to get around the globe.  EasyJet’s attempts at being green are getting news. Yup, they care about the environment… but at what cost to customer service? MyTravel and Canadian Affair use baggage weight bouncers controls to keep hefty passengers suitcases from stepping foot onto their planes. So there we were, unpacking on the grubby floor at Gatwick Airport, while those waiting in line for their own bad news perused the detritus of our three weeks jetting to and fro in Europe. Our goal? Attempt to re-distribute the weight in all our bags so we’d arrive at the magic weight for our check on bags before MyTravel closed off the flight.

Now I don’t know about you, but how many of us carry a weigh scale while we are on holiday? What does this airline think we are going to do at this point in our travel? Pay the fine of course. What a great way to bring in additional revenue. Alienate your customers by humiliating them in front of their fellow passengers and then charge them more for the pleasure.

Now folks, this is not a great way to be the ripple. I bet you that bag weigher lady goes home each night ready to tear a strip off of someone from having to be MyTravel’s enforcer. What kind of ripple does she spread with her colleagues? Seemed the check-in employees were a little beyond irritated with all of us by the end. I wonder why they thought it would be a great idea to broadcast all that frustration right in front of us as if we weren’t really there? Airing some dirty laundry, me thinks. You get what you (see!) think about all day. That’s a big red flag to me that all is not sunny behind that green curtain.

Hmmm… you know, I bet there must be a better way to be green and eliminate the hassle for your customers. At the rate the competititon is growing for bargain fare airlines, I bet the next green wannabe EasyJet or MyTravel will find a way to do both. Or can Thomas Cook really do a better job now that they are acquiring MyTravel. Can we help them avoid some big customer gaffes while they wrestle through their transition?

People… CEOs… there is a better way to be green and customer friendly!! I bet we could all think of a few things that EasyJet could do. I’ll start brainstorming, you add…

1. The airline could place a weigh scale at the beginning of the line and place a curtained-off area for passengers to work out how they will deal with their luggage before they’ve just spent 1.5 hours in the queue.

2. The airline could set up a joint venture with a package delivery service and have a customer counter with that firm right there, beside you in the line after you’ve just gotten the bad news that it will cost you big bucks to send home your dirty laundry and that lovely bottle of Limoncello you just had to buy. Better yet, EasyJet could start their own package delivery service and charge half the rates of a competitor to get your overweight treasures home. Then they could get that extra revenue they would forgo by removing the customers’ pain.

3. I’ll add your ideas here as you send them to me in the comments.