Where Will Santa Live – Brilliant campaign by the David Suzuki Foundation
As a marketing and communication firm focused on health and environment initiatives, we know how hard it can sometimes be to get people to stop, understand and act in ways that benefit personal health and the health of the planet. This is especially true during the holidays when we may have our minds on other things like shopping lists, meal planning and events.
Despite distractions, the David Suzuki Foundation’s recent ‘Where will Santa Live’ campaign has cleverly inserted itself into the merriment. It’s asking Canadians to make charitable donations by purchasing symbolic gifts such as reindeer water wings, elf-sized hockey sticks or a dri-fit Santa suit. Donations go toward developing a clean, renewable energy plan for Canada.
What unique marketing programs addressing health and the environment during the holiday season have you noticed or admired?
About: Amber Yake
Amber Yake is an Account Manager at Communication Solutions. Email Amber Yake
Our Company’s Sustainability Headline
We work with a number of clients across the country with health and environment goals, but know it’s as important to spend time focusing the lens on our own organization’s contributions to sustainability. One action we’ve taken recently as a company in that regard is identifying, measuring and reducing our carbon footprint through the Climate Smart program.
This week we attended the second of three training sessions focused on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We started the session off with a fun, brainstorming exercise. We were asked to create a news headline that encompassed our company’s big goal or vision for the future; something to shoot for five, 10, or even 20 years out. Vancouver’s vision to be the greenest city in the world by 2020 was one example.
We came up with two headlines that encompassed some of our organization’s sustainability goals. Our first headline – Marketing Company Brings Rooftop Produce to Market – focuses on a vision we’ve had for rooftop herb gardening and composting.
The second headline – Communication Solutions Finds its Place in the Sun – is a play on words regarding our “Place in the Sun” video for the City of Kamloops. It refers to a much larger and long term vision where our company would be based out of a solar-powered office space.
This exercise was just what we needed to get the ball rolling for the remainder of the session where we brainstormed ways all participants in the session could reduce GHG emissions. Who knows, one day in the future updates on this blog may be coming to you from a solar-powered office. And the timing for our brainstorming couldn’t be better. We also just learned our local city council just voted to make it mandatory for all new homes to have solar hot water “readiness”, joining 36 other BC municipalities who have made similar commitments.
What is your company’s sustainability vision? What would your “headline” be?
About: Amber Yake
Amber Yake is an Account Manager at Communication Solutions. Email Amber Yake
Our total business review
It’s amazing how the Total Business Review we participated in more than a year ago — through internationally renowned agency management guru David Baker of ReCourses – benefits our day to day work, our decision making and direction. Baker’s advice helped us to recognize the benefits of narrowed expertise, improve our definition of roles, and create focused positioning related to our experience. It’s been quite a transformational process at Communication Solutions, and even in our “infancy” of implementation, the advantages are felt. If you manage anything, we recommend you read David’s newest book, Managing Right for the First Time.
About: Jennifer Muir
Jennifer Muir is Director, Client Service, at Communication Solutions. Email Jennifer Muir
Trust – Can’t Be Left Up in the Air
Beijing, China and San Luis Obispo County, California, are an ocean apart. But in the past few weeks, they both faced pressure from the media and the public in relation to air pollution.
In the case of Beijing, city air quality officials and the government have been increasingly called to task on the details of their air quality reporting, specifically the levels of particulate matter (PM) in the air. They’ve also been criticized based on conflicting air quality monitoring made available through the US Embassy in Beijing, which suggests air pollution levels are much higher than what the city reports. Just last week, Chinese officials bowed to some of that pressure by committing to upgrade their air index and to include levels of PM 2.5 in their data sharing, in addition to PM10.
In San Luis Obispo County, residents learned air quality research commissioned in 2008 to measure particulate matter near a recreational vehicle area has been accused of being flawed. The study was completed to help officials determine how to reduce PM traveling downwind from a popular off-road recreation park. It’s important research with an admirable goal. However, if people doubt the study process, will they have faith in the results?
And that’s the tie; public trust – earning it, maintaining it and protecting it. No small feat when trust is your most valuable asset in communicating about air quality – whether you’re a public, private or not-for-profit organization.
Air quality reporting has become a vital public health service that is gaining more and more attention. We know from our research on branding and communicating air quality indices, people are more likely to make decisions about how to manage their own health, and how to be stewards of air, if the air quality information comes from what they consider a trustworthy source – whether that be a health care provider or a government agency.
Organizations that report air quality have an obligation to uphold an open and transparent system for measuring, reporting and communicating relevant messages so people, no matter where they live, can have faith in the information, and the information source.
Do you understand and have faith in the air quality information in your community?
About: Jennifer Muir
Jennifer Muir is Director, Client Service, at Communication Solutions. Email Jennifer Muir
The Power of 7 (Million)
We are constantly searching for, and evaluating, communication and outreach efforts related to air quality, health and environmental stewardship. And our curiosity has no borders. We are as interested in community consultation about air quality in Beijing, China as we are to our home province of British Columbia.
Pan Shiyi is founder of SOHO China, the largest real estate development company in Beijing. He is one of the most influential business leaders in China. He’s my age (middle?), obviously ambitious and extremely savvy when it comes to using social media. His personal blog is hosted on more than 10 major portals and gets visits in the millions. He’s active on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, where he has 7 million followers.
Recently, Pan Shiyi focused some of his corporate citizenship karma on the issue of air quality in Beijing.
Interesting how a few days ago, the Ministry of Environmental Protection in China, responding to increased public pressure, made a commitment to providing improved monitoring and access to information on air pollution. They announced new air quality monitoring standards to include the minute levels of particulate matter known as PM 2.5 as well ozone and C02 levels – by 2016.
Health and environment scientists the globe over concur that PM2.5 is harmful to health. China’s concentrations of PM2.5 are currently several times higher than what the World Health Organization considers safe. It’s also credited as one of the major causes of Beijing haze – haze that is not only harmful to health but to Beijing’s economy as well.
Any surprise the Ministry of Environmental Protection in China announced new commitments not long after someone as influential as Pan Shiyi jumped on the air pollution band wagon – potentially empowering the voices of many millions in China.
Was Pan Shiyi moved to advocate for improved air quality by moral motives, or did he recognize the economic costs associated with air pollution? People don’t want to live and work (or buy expensive condos) where they can’t breathe?
Whatever his motive, we salute him. Active public involvement is driving political change.
About: Sharon Stevens
Sharon Stevens is the owner and CEO of Communication Solutions. Email Sharon Stevens
Communication Solution’s Kate Stebbings highlights merits of professional accreditation
As strategic marketing and communication professionals, it’s always gratifying to know our expertise and experience is supporting efforts to raise the bar within our industry. This month our Director of Strategy, Kate Stebbings, is featured in the International Association of Business Communicators’ (IABC) publication Communication World, discussing the merits of the IABC Executive Accreditation Seminar (EAS), an intensive week long accreditation option for communicators who have at least a decade’s worth of experience in the field. Kate became accredited through IABC in 2007 and has volunteered her time for the past two years serving as the Director of Business Development for IABC’s Accreditation Council. Read the article.
About: Sharon Stevens
Sharon Stevens is the owner and CEO of Communication Solutions. Email Sharon Stevens
Who cares about the air?
Well it turns out, not enough of us.
Health Canada recently released an Environics’ Survey that examined our knowledge and attitudes about air quality – and the survey results will have profound changes on how air quality is managed and reported in Canada.
If you are like the one-in-seven Canadians surveyed, you are probably saying “so what” at this point and may be thinking about your dinner plans. Well don’t make your shopping list just yet. It seems that air quality affects us all. We just don’t know it yet.
The study found a significant difference between our understanding that air quality affects our health and our awareness of our own local risk factors. About 96% of Canadians believe air quality affects health to some degree; yet few Canadians seek out air quality information regularly.
A majority of us continue to rely on our sense to tell us when the air is ‘bad’. And it seems that we tend to think about the long term effects of poor air quality but are less good at identifying the immediate impact on health unless “the connection has been made directly through a personal experience”.
So why is it that even those of us living in the most polluted parts of the country do not seem to make the connection between air pollution and our own health?
The Survey authors suggest our collective head-in-the-sand approach might be due to a “they must be talking about someone else” reaction or even a “this is too big for me to think about” response.
But perhaps we are not getting information we know how to use.
When Environics compared provinces that had the highest (BC) and lowest (Alberta) air quality awareness, they found one critical difference – the Air Quality Health Index.
Launched in BC in 2006, the Air Quality Health Index is the first air quality measurement tool in the world that reports the health impact of the air we all breathe. It makes the connection for us. BC residents have been learning about the Index and now use it to manage exposure during times when the air quality is poor – like in the fires of 2010.
Those same fires created the worst air quality in Alberta that has ever been recorded in the province. But without the AQHI, residents had no way of knowing how the outside air was affecting their health. That is changing. Seeing the success, the Government of Alberta committed to a province-wide launch of the Air Quality Health Index in the summer of 2011. Now the AQHI is reported across the country.
Ask us again in a few years. It appears Canadians do care about the air and this new tool will help equip them in making decisions toward improved personal health.
About: Kate Stebbings
Kate Stebbings is Director, Client Strategy, for Communication Solutions. Email Kate Stebbings
Why mom’s voice is a good one when it comes to clean air
Listen to your mother – she’s got a powerful voice. It’s a message that has united a group of knowledgeable, eloquent, and determined women across the US who make up Mom’s Clean Air Force – an organization that has aligned itself with some of the most respected health establishments in the US to rally against air pollution.
The force includes a keen and informed group of bloggers (mostly mothers and some fathers, too) who fare from a variety of professional and personal backgrounds, providing many voices, points of view and calls to action to improve the air. The appeal has attracted politicians, elite athletes and well known authors, among others, who lend their support to the cause. The organization also provides tools, resources, and events for those who want to get more involved.
As a group of professional women and mothers who focus our work on communicating about outdoor health, we are impressed.
About: Jennifer Muir
Jennifer Muir is Director, Client Service, at Communication Solutions. Email Jennifer Muir
Rewards of writing “the book”
Sometimes it’s best to not fully know what you’re getting yourself into — and just agree to do it. Sometimes, what you agree to is good for you and you know it. Marriage. Becoming a parent. Teaching your teenager how to drive. It’s just that there are fuzzy edges and you’re just not sure how you will get through.
My most recent “I can do that” commitment was agreeing to write a book chapter – in collaboration with about 20 other authors spread across Canada. Sound chaotic? Truth is this cooperative process has been well organized – from the initial online author guidelines, to viewing chapters in development and direct access to the editors.
The greatest challenge, as you can probably guess, is setting time aside to give the writing undivided attention.
I’ve listened carefully to the advice of two professionals I respect – David Baker and Blair Enns – both published and both with a list of benefits that committing to book writing can bring. I accept their points, hypothetically. But it’s totally different to decide to make it so.
Why then did I agree to do this?
Because writing is one of the best ways for me to express what I know in an area that’s not wholly explored – air quality communication in support of public and environmental health. I’ve allowed myself to pursue answers to questions on this topic others may not have considered. Writing the chapter compels me to plunge into a specific subject, which in turn, provides you some new information and makes me smarter having been forced to dig deep.
And there’s the conversation. The book has spurred discussions with health protection professionals in the UK, with engineering and medical academics in California, with air quality experts in Hong Kong. I may be doing this with the goal of getting words on paper, but in the process, I have a new reference point for conversation and collaboration with colleagues and clients.
Making it so has been so rewarding.
Next time you get the opportunity to do something you know will be good for you, but you just don’t quite know how you will do it, force yourself to take the time away from all other distractions and simply get started. The rest will follow.
The book, Air Quality Management / Canadian Perspectives on a Global Issue, will be published in hard copy and e-book by Springer in Summer 2012.
About: Sharon Stevens
Sharon Stevens is the owner and CEO of Communication Solutions. Email Sharon Stevens
How can we help people care about air?
It’s a challenge common to many parts of Canada and countries in both the developed and developing world… how to make people more aware of air quality and its effects on their health. In Canada, we’ve worked to do this in conjunction with the introduction of the world’s first Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). Read our case study here.
About: Amber Yake
Amber Yake is an Account Manager at Communication Solutions. Email Amber Yake