Keynote Speakers Set for Seeley Conference

Here is the latest Seeley Conference press release:

The 25th annual Seeley Conference topic, Floriculture's Environmental Footprint: An Inconvenient Truth or Consumer Opportunity?, has been announced and conference coordinator, Dr. Charlie Hall, and the Seeley Conference Board of Directors are excited to announce the line-up of keynote speakers. The conference will be held June 26-29, 2010 in Ithaca, NY.

Dr. Hall, holder of the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture at Texas A&M University, is particularly excited about the slate of keynote speakers for this year’s conference. “We have a lineup of keynote speakers who are not only noted in their respective fields, but are experts in the environmental arena,” Hall noted.

Kicking off the conference is Dr. Ron Stavins who is Director of the Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program. Professor Stavins’ research has focused on diverse areas of environmental economics and policy, including studies of market-based policy instruments; regulatory impact analysis; environmental benefit valuation; competitiveness effects of regulation; and costs of carbon sequestration. Professor Stavins directed Project 88, a bi-partisan effort co-chaired by former Senator Timothy Wirth and the late Senator John Heinz, to develop innovative approaches to environmental and resource problems. He continues to work closely with public officials on matters of national and international environmental policy. Dr. Stavins’ opening keynote will set the stage for the entire conference by providing an overview of the water and carbon-related issues facing the U.S. and the driving forces underlying these issues.

A second keynote will be delivered by Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com, which is produced by Greener World Media, of which he is co-founder and chairman. Previously, he was editor of The Green Business Letter, an acclaimed monthly newsletter on corporate environmental practices, which he founded in 1991. He is author of more than a dozen books; his newest, “Strategies for the Green Economy,” has been called “a clear and compelling vision of what's possible when companies harness environmental thinking” by Stonyfield Farm founder Gary Hirshberg. Noted green architect William McDonough called the book a “hopeful vision of companies transforming challenges into opportunities, re-imagining not just their products and processes, but themselves.” The Associated Press has called him “The guru of green business practices.”

The conference’s closing address will be given by Robert Dolibois, Executive Vice President of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA). Dolibois serves on the board of directors of the Washington Youth Garden Council and the advisory council of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, one of the partners in the Sustainability Sites Initiative, which recently released the first rating system for sustainable landscapes. This keynote will highlight the responses made by green industry participants in addressing environmental issues, the importance of consumer and legislator perceptions about our products and services, and what is being done in the industry to convey our value proposition of enhancing the lives of consumers through ecosystems services and other benefits (health, aesthetics, economic, etc).

As always, the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders regarding these timely issues. For more information regarding the Seeley Conference and this year’s program, please visit the conference website at www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference, or Facebook users can refer to the Seeley Conference fan page.

Seeley Conference to Highlight Environmental Footprint

Here is the official news release that went out this week regarding this year's Seeley Conference:

The 25th annual Seeley conference will be held June 26-29, 2010 in Ithaca, NY. The theme this year will be: Floriculture's Environmental Footprint: An Inconvenient Truth or Consumer Opportunity?

For several years, we’ve heard about global warming and climate change as issues we need to address. And the debate has had arguments spanning from compelling science to just a natural cycling of weather patterns. Now, legislators the world over have begun to amend the dialog to one of measuring the carbon footprint. Scientists have added water to the equation and now are beginning to speak of measuring the entire environmental footprint.

One can hardly open the newspaper, watch the news, or go anywhere without running into some mention of what has become the most notable environmental issue of the decade, said Dr. Charlie Hall, holder of the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture at Texas A&M University, who is coordinating this year’s Seeley Conference.

For our industry, the issues are more compelling. We think of ourselves as being the original green industry, but we often fail to promote that, perhaps, partly out of fear. Do we know what our environmental footprint really is? Are we as green as we think? Do we have an opportunity for better promotion, or do we need to get our house in order first?

Of course, the real issues revolve around what it means for our individual businesses -- our bottom lines. Will the outcomes of the legislative debate impact our businesses? Are there modifications we need to make to stay in business once the debate ends and the laws are enacted? Will our businesses be able to remain financially solvent or will regulations force us out of business?

Hall adds that business owners should not think of the climate change debate as merely an environmental issue. Instead, they should view it as a market transition and as in any market transition; there will be winners and losers. With the water and carbon policy debates occurring locally and nationally this year, this year’s conference is all the more critical to attend, Hall notes.

As always, the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders regarding these timely issues. For more information regarding the Seeley Conference and this year’s program, the conference website is www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference, or Facebook users can refer to the Seeley Conference fan page.

Bill Gates on Sustainability at TED 2010

One of the day’s strongest talks at the most recent TED conference was by Bill Gates. He’s spoken at TED previously on a variety of topics, among them education and malaria (last year he set free some mosquitoes from the stage to make a point about the latter). This time he directed his mind toward energy and climate; in particular how to get CO2 levels to zero. He presented an equation in which:

Total CO2 = People x Services Per Person x Energy Per Service x CO2 per unit of energy.

So, if he’s right, one of the variables on the right of the equal sign has to go down to zero. He argued why it won’t be any of the first three and focused on the last one, CO2 per unit of energy. He spoke of reducing and converting fossil fuels, managing nuclear energy in ways that are safe and don’t promote proliferation. He’s investing in these areas and he was clear that he’s early on in thinking about his problem. This one is a must watch.

Sustainable Sites Initiative releases landscape guidelines

The Sustainable Sites Initiative has released the nation’s first rating system for the design, construction and maintenance of sustainable landscapes, with or without buildings. It was developed through a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden. The initiative’s rating system represents 4 years of work by the country’s leading sustainability experts, scientists and design professionals, as well as public input.

“While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green buildings, sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach,” said Nancy Somerville, exec. v.p. and CEO of ASLA. “Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water, increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured until now.”

“We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges such as water scarcity and climate change that require fundamental changes in the way that we interact with the land,” said Susan Rieff, exec. director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at Univ. of Texas at Austin. “This voluntary rating system and guidelines covers all aspects of working with outdoor spaces of all sizes, and provides information for designing landscapes that go beyond beauty to actually improving ecosystem health and the health of communities for generations to come.”

The rating system works on a 250-point scale, with levels of achievement for obtaining 40%, 50%, 60% or 80% of available points, recognized with one through four stars, respectively. If prerequisites are met, points are awarded through the 51 credits covering areas such as the use of greenfields, brownfields or greyfields; materials; soils and vegetation; construction and maintenance. These credits can apply to projects ranging from corporate campuses, transportation corridors, public parks and single-family residences. The rating system is part of two new reports issued from the initiative, “The Case for Sustainable Landscapes” and “Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009.”

To test the rating system, the initiative opened a call for pilot projects in conjunction with the release of the rating system. Any type of designed landscape is eligible, so long as the project size is at least 2,000 sq. ft. The call will remain open until Feb. 15, 2010, and the initiative will work with and oversee the projects during the two-year process.

HT: Garden Center Magazine

Make sustainability a core part of your business

From today's Management Tip of the Day from the Harvard Business School:

Sustainability is here to stay. Yet too many organizations treat sustainability as a temporary compliance issue. Use these three tips to make sustainability central to your business:

1. Elevate responsibility for sustainability to the C-suite. Everyone at the top of the organization should be focused on sustainability, but ultimately, responsibility should lie with one person. Establish a Chief Sustainability Officer and fill the position with someone who has the expertise and power to make it an influential role.
2. Treat sustainability like a product or service. Incorporate the "triple bottom line" into the company lexicon. Ask people to think about economic, ecological, and social returns.
3. Establish permanent partnerships with the sustainability community. Identify the NGOs who have influence in your field. Treat them like critical customer accounts and cultivate relationships that allow you to identify win-win solutions to problems.

Factors Affecting Growers’ Willingness to Adopt Sustainable Floriculture Practices

From the August 2009 issue of HortScience by Tanya Hall (Purdue University) et al:

In June to Oct. 2008, a U.S. floriculture survey was conducted to examine the factors affecting growers’ willingness to adopt sustainable practices. The factors affecting adoption of sustainable practices were evaluated in five areas: environmental regulations, customer value, growers’ attitudes toward sustainability, age, and operation size. A logistic regression model was used to examine factors affecting growers’ adoption of sustainable practices. Nearly two-thirds (65.2%) of respondents thought sustainability was very important to the environment. Similarly, more than half (63%) of the respondents had sustainable practices in their operations.

Although respondents had positive attitudes toward sustainability and the environment, these positive attitudes alone were unable to predict adoption behaviors. The two most important factors that affected adoption of sustainable practices were the concerns about implementation and the risk perceived by growers. Neither perceived customer value nor the stringency of state regulations affected the adoption of sustainable practices. The results from this study provide original insight into growers’ views of sustainability and identify the educational assistance needed by growers to overcome the factors affecting their adoption of sustainable practices.

More on Walmart's sustainability push

Wal-Mart's Environmental Game-Changer
Wal-Mart Exposes the De-Value Chain
How the Wal-Mart Eco-Ratings Will Save Money
Wal-Mart Asks: Where's the Beef (From)?

Walmart unveils sustainability index

Walmart today unveiled its Sustainable Product Index, a guide for rating the sustainability of products. The project will be rolled out in three phases, beginning with a survey of all of Walmart's suppliers around the globe. The survey consists of 15 questions in four categories: energy and climate, material efficiency, natural resources and people and community. Suppliers will be asked to fill out the questionnaire by October 1.

The second phase of the project involves the development of a Sustainability Index Consortium, a coalition of universities and suppliers, retailers, NGOs and government entities working together to build a global product-lifecycle database, measuring the impact and resource use of products from raw materials through to end-of-life. Walmart said it intends to make the database open to the world rather than use it as proprietary information, although the company has yet to choose a partner help develop of the database.

Finally, once all the lifecycle data has been compiled and analyzed, Walmart and its partners will develop a customer-facing rating system to enable shoppers to make choices based on the environmental impact of their purchases.

Click here and here for more information.

Sustainability as a differentiation tool

With the current emphasis on sustainability, much attention has been placed (and some very good articles have been written) in the trade press on what growers can do to become more "sustainable." From a marketing standpoint, I tend to focus on whether or not sustainability can be a tool for differentiating products/firms in the marketplace. Click here for an introductory discussion and here for an example of a grower already attempting to use sustainability as a marketing platform. A current research project being conducted by colleagues at Purdue will answer part of the question regarding whether or not consumers are willing to pay more for plants that are produced in a more sustainable manner. More to follow on this topic later. In the meantime, you can check out previous posts on sustainability here.

Lawns offer positive carbon footprint

Sustainability is a major topic of discussion these days, particularly at the recent Seeley Conference. It may not seem like it, but ultimately sustainability IS an economically-based subject whether you view it from a short-run or long-run perspective. The more the Green Industry can demonstrate its sustainable practices (and mitigate those that aren't), the better off economically the industry will be.

Several folks in the media and otherwise have articulated the need for our industry to be proactive in demonstrating its "sustainableness." Project Evergreen, America in Bloom, Arbor Day Foundation are examples of just that.

Research is desperately needed to document the carbon offset, or better yet, the "oxygen credit" that is provided by our industry's products. One such piece of research recently released is a study that documents the fact that healthy turfgrass can capture as much as four times more carbon from the air than is produced by lawnmower engines.

See http://www.opei.org/carbonreport/ for the full report.

Other university studies are underway, but it will take some time because life cycle analysis is far from an exact science at this point. But in the historic words of Larry the Cable Guy, let's "Git-R-Done!"

Seeley Conference Delivers!

Wow!

It's been 48 hours since we closed to door on this year's Seeley Conference and I am still chewing on some of the stellar presentations that were made.

Jim Marstiller kicked off the conference in good fashion. He is Senior Vice-President of Consulting Services for TNS Retail Forward, a leading management consulting and market research firm specializing in consumer behavior and its impact on retailers, those that supply retailers, and the economy. He is also the author of The Power to Innovate. Jim's talk focused on growth strategies, category reinvention, brand development, and innovative merchandising solutions. For a publication that provides much of his discussion, click here.

I followed Jim on the program (not an easy task I might add) with a discussion I called Industry 2015, which focused on the driving forces and historical trends of the green industry. For an overview of that talk, click here.

That evening, Bill Lipinski, Chief Executive Officer, First Pioneer Farm Credit discussed the difficulties that many businesses had had in expanding while adjusting to the ever-changing business climate. Very few firms have done this successfully for several reasons: (1) the leap from hands-on management to delegating is difficult; (2) there is often a disconnect between strategy creation and strategy execution; (3) there is a hesitancy to change business strategy to the changes going on; (4) a lack of management systems and information; and (5) a lack of an ability to lead.

I opened the Monday morning session with a discussion of the economic drivers underlying differentiation strategies, particularly addressing the nature of perceived value on the part of our customers. Click here for more on this discussion. You can also click on the "differentiation" label on the right hand side of this blog page for more posts regarding this strategy.

The rest of the day highlighted a series of case studies illustrating firms who have been successful in differentiating themselves in the marketplace including Brian Minter of Country Garden and Minter Garden Center, who has one of the premier gardens & garden centers in the Northern hemisphere.

He was followed by Gary Mangum of Bell Nursery, who has been featured in several trade journals articles (click here). Gary discussed the Bell Nursery model and the unique and innovative ways they carry out their own differentiation strategy in servicing Home Depot.

Ball Publishing's Jennifer Duffield White finished off the day by asking whether sustainability in floriculture is a tipping point for producers, retailers and consumers. The last morning of the conference, Peter Moran, Executive Vice President/CEO of the Society of American Florists (SAF), concluded the conference with a discussion of the draft sustainable standards for agriculture currently being proposed by SCS, the firm who is behind the Veriflora certification.

Needless to say, it was a busy 2.5 days but well worth it. If you missed the conference, the only respite you have is that your brain probably hurts less than mine right now.

New IPM blog available

The East Texas Nursery and Nursery Greenhouse IPM Program has recently added another method to distribute information -- the "East Texas Nursery and Greenhouse IPM Program Blog" at http://etipm.blogspot.com/. This site will have regular updates regarding advances in greenhouse and nursery pest management, meeting information, efficacy study results and newsletters. If you would like to have updates emailed directly to you the day they are posted, go to http://etipm.blogspot.com/ and simply enter your email address.

No Company is an Island

For the twelve weeks from January 23 to April 16, 2008, HBRGreen (the sustainability arm of the Harvard Business Review) hosted six discussions on the emerging intersection of business and the environment. Leaders of the business world asked provocative questions and readers from around the globe answered with robust and lively commentaries, bringing an unparalleled level of insight and experience to the conversation. Click here to glean important sustainable directives for your business.

Standards Committee deadline extended

Due to increased interest in the development of the Sustainable Agriculture Practice Draft American National Standard for Trial Use, the deadline has been extended for applications to participate on the Standards Committee and/or supporting subcommittees to May 23, 2008.

This extension is being implemented based on numerous requests to allow time for additional stakeholders to submit their applications. To learn more, click here for the official deadline extension announcement and click here for the Leonardo Academy press release announcing the call for Standards Committee applicants.

Why is it important to get involved? Ever heard the phrase "taxation without representation"? Need I say more?

SAF and OFA have great summary websites if you need to get caught up on this critical issue.