Ceres, a powerful US-based group formed in 1989 and committed to sustainability, has just released its assessment of 600 companies and their efforts to deal with climate change, water scarcity and energy challenges.  The findings are bitterly disappointing.

“As the world population soars beyond seven billion, human beings are putting unprecedented demands on natural resources, demanding more and more energy, generating ever-higher levels of greenhouse gases”, writes Mindy S Lubber, CEO of Ceres. Ceres counts Ben & Jerry’s, Coca-Cola, Dell, Nike and North Face among its corporate partners.

“Can our global economy, and the environment on which it depends, survive these stresses? How can businesses thrive given the physical, economic and social risks associated with climate change, water scarcity and increasingly extensive, vulnerable supply chains?”  These are tough chsllenges requiring a radical rethink of business as usual.

There are a few bright spots in the report says Lubber, but progress is for the most part glacial. “The bad news is that most companies have barely begun the journey towards sustainability and remain stuck in outmoded ways of doing business. The pace of change must accelerate because our major sustainability threats such as climate change and water scarcity are coming at us faster and harder than projected just a few years ago.”

Our approach to the snail-paced change is to create a new reputation system for brands that insists on taking a well rounded view - how good are their products, how well do they treat people and how well do they look after the planet? You decide a brand's karma.

Leveraging brand reputation in this way could be a powerful force for positive chsnge and we invite you to share your opinions on Brandkarma.

Intangible value, largely reputation, accounts for the majority of market value for Fortune 500 companies.  It’s your opinions that shape and shift these reputations, so they really do matter. 

Share your views on the world’s biggest brands here and now.

 

Our obsession with economic growth has gone unchallenged in mainstream economics for decades.  Growth was considered vital at almost any cost.  Now economists, humanists and environmentalists are looking to Bhutan for inspiration.   In 1972, the King of Bhutan declared that happiness was more important than the economy and established the Gross National Happiness index. 

The serious pursuit of happiness is the subject of a new 158 page report commissioned by the United Nations and edited by luminaries Jeffery Sachs, John Helliwell and Richard Layard. Messrs Lennon and McCartney were spot on when they wrote, “money can't buy me love”, much of the evidence in the report points to the conclusion that money and materialism can’t buy happiness either. 

In the words of Jeffrey Sachs, “We live in an age of stark contradictions. The world enjoys technologies of unimaginable sophistication; yet has at least one billion people without enough to eat each day. The world economy is propelled to soaring new heights of productivity through ongoing technological and organizational advance; yet is relentlessly destroying the natural environment in the process. Countries achieve great progress in economic development as conventionally measured; yet along the way succumb to new crises of obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression, and other ills of modern life.”

Far from being self indulgent or individualistic, the pursuit of happiness is likely to spawn a far more inclusive and kinder society.  Economic growth has proven to be a poor predictor of life satisfaction with significantly less impact on human happiness than relationships.

According to the report, “the first lesson of happiness research is that GDP is a valuable goal but that other things also matter greatly. So GDP should not be pursued to the point where:

• economic stability is imperiled

• community cohesion is destroyed

• the weak lose their dignity or place in the economy

• ethical standards are sacrificed, or

• the environment, including the climate, is put at risk.

GDP is important but not all that is important. This is especially true in developed countries, where most or all of the population has living standards far above basic material needs. Except in the very poorest countries happiness varies more with the quality of human relationships than with income.3  “

As we’ve discussed here before, the economy exists to serve the people, not the other way around.  Simple as it sounds this reversal of the prevailing economic mantras has sweeping implications for all of us.  Not least because it opens up a discussion in which people have a legitimate, loud and clear voice at the same tables as big business . 

One last quote from the report spells some of this out: “The environmental debate could be importantly recast by changing the fundamental objectives from economic growth to building and sustaining the quality of lives, as assessed by those whose lives they are. This will depend crucially on the human capacity for cooperation that we have documented. The assumption that individuals are only interested in their own material standards of life has made the possibilities for preserving the environment seem unrealistic to many observers. But such pessimism is misplaced. On the contrary people gain in happiness by working together for a higher purpose. There can be no higher purpose than promoting the Earth’s environmental balance, the well-being of future generations, and the survival and thriving of other species as well.

Sustainability is an instrumental goal, because without it, our health and prosperity are bound to collapse. But environmental sustainability is also an end goal: we care about nature, we care about other species, and we care about future generations. Building a wider sense of common identity among all peoples, with each other, with other species, and with the future of a threatened planet, will not be easy. But it is the only possible way forward for human thriving and even survival.”

No one is suggesting there is a future without commerce.  What we are suggesting is that we all need to recognize that business is just a part of wider interconnected social and environmental systems.  That’s why Brandkarma is committed to creating a new, open reputation platform for brands that asks, how good are their products and how well do they look after people and the planet? 

Karma, like happiness, is being revalued in mainstream culture.  Please add your voice to Brandkarma and have your say on the world’s biggest brands. 

Apple's reputation is taking a beating with growing calls for a consumer boycott of Apple products. It seems that shiny new iPads come at high human cost.  But how much do you really care? Will you put down your Apple products in protest?  Will you step out of the line for a new iPhone?  At the very least, will you share your opinion with friends and rate Apple's karma?

The announcement of Apple's off-the-charts results for the last quarter had groupies and analysts frothing - $46 billion in revenues, 37 million iPhones and 15 million iPads sold. But by far the more contagious news has centred on the barbaric treatment of Chinese workers in parts of Apple's supply chain.

The story isn't a new one, but this time it's been fired up by mainstream journalists and outraged commentators and consumers.  The latest chapter started with a New York Times article on January 25 entitled, "In China, human costs are built into an iPad".   

It's become clear that Apple has been aware of the issues but is conflicted in dealing with them. But what's that they say about principles, it's not realy a principle until it costs you money?

Anti-Apple momentum is building with The Observer posting this today, "Apple hit by boycott call over worker abuse in China". 

As a conscious consumer you can voice your opinion by a) keeping your money in your pocket and/or, b) putting your views about Apple on the record and into circulation via Brandkarma.

You decide Apple's karma.

(image via pcmag.com)

Use muscles you never knew you had. Environmental and social campaigners say that ordinary citizens have three big levers to use with corporations.  Actually, there are four, and the fourth could be more powerful than the first three put together. 

If you’re a conscious consumer, conventional wisdom says that you have three ways to exercise your values.  First, by using your spending power to support brands whose values you believe in. Second, by investing in the companies behind those brands.  And third, by working for corporations that are doing the right thing.

Aligning your spending with your values is definitely compelling, companies just don’t work without customers.  But the investment and labour levers are far harder to exercise. 

Much of the world’s population is strictly invested in survival with no chance of investing significant money in companies.  As for picking and choosing where to apply your professional talents, that presupposes an abundance of choice and mobility for the seller which, for most of us, is simply not the case.

By far the biggest lever you have at your disposal is your opinion and it costs you nothing to let it loose.   What you think about brands and how far and wide you share your views directly influences friends and family, perfect strangers, and a company’s reputation and value.

80% of the value of S&P 500 companies, and pretty much any publicly traded company, is now intangible (read “brand”).

So we set out to harness this new-found people power with Brandkarma.  It’s a new reputation system that insists we look at brands holistically and think about their performance across products, people and the planet.

Next time a company makes you feel short-changed, aggrieved or powerless, keep your money in your pocket and start flexing your points of view.  

We live in interesting times.  Economies are quaking to the core, governments are rattled and corporations are planning scenarios at the extremes of climate, resource and political change.  So what comes next? Who will lead us into a new era of enlightenment and prosperity?

"We" will. 

If 2011 has taught us anything, it's that ordinary people can organise and mobilise to become potent agents of change.  As the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement have demonstrated, people power, networked and amped up with social media technologies, is an unstoppable force.

We're stepping up. We're taking progress into our own hands. We're writing our own future. 

Together, we're beginning to understand, we're smarter and more influential than we've been led to believe. Pennies are dropping, tables are turning and, happily, the green shoots of this movement are poking up through pavements in some unexpected neighbourhoods. More that just paying attention, business leaders and the broader media are showing some signs of support.

Late last month, Forbes published a story on the centralisation of corporate power - "147 companies control everything."  An extensive research project involving 37 million corporate entities and investors showed that corporate ownership and control is wielded by surprisingly few companies globally.  The story exposed the facts around issues many of us instinctively knew, but just how acutely concentrated this control is came as a shock.  This story inflamed debate and became one of the most tweeted, liked and shared in Forbes' online history. 

Then, this weekend the New York Times published an opinion piece by Jefferey Sachs titled, "The New Progressive Movement" in which he writes, "The overarching challenge of the coming years is to restore prosperity and power for the 99 percent."  It's no small challenge, but this time there's a deep and widely distributed will from people to get involved and find good answers. 

"The young people in Zuccotti Park and more than 1,000 cities have started America on a path to renewal. The movement, still in its first days,  will have to expand in several strategic ways. Activists are needed among shareholders, consumers and students to hold corporations and politicians to account. Shareholders, for example, should pressure companies to get out of politics. Consumers should take their money and purchasing power away from companies that confuse business and political power. The whole range of other actions — shareholder and consumer activism, policy formulation, and running of candidates — will not happen in the park." 

On the other side of the Atlantic, The Guardian continues it's wrestle with the ideal of sustainable business.  Guardian Sustainable Business just published an article written by current captain of industry, Jochen Zeitz, leader of Puma and PPR, on the importance of environmental accountability.  Puma and parent company PPR (owners of Stella McCartney, Gucci, YSL, Alexander McQueen and more) have become the first publicly traded company to adopt Triple Bottom Line accounting principles and discuss their environmental P&L in public.

To put a vale on that, the economic costs of their environmental impact were independently valued at £124m for 2010.  A big negative number, but top marks to Puma for honesty and disclosure. 

It would be easy to discount these moves by business leaders like Zeist and Unilever's Paul Polman as greenwashing and opportunism, but their actions come from a belief that a model for sustainable business needs to be baked into our ideas of progress and prosperity.

As Zeist writes, "Whereas in the past, there was only investor demand for transparent accounting, now there is public demand for transparency on corporations' environmental footprint.  To continue disregarding externalities is to put at risk the health and long-term prospects of our businesses, our society and the planet we live on. "

It's clear that some of the thoughts championed by the OWS movement are occupying minds in the C-suite.

In this era of people power there's massive potential to change the conduct of companies. Combined purchasing clout is one lever, our collective ability to effect the reputational capital of companies is another. Brand value is, hands down, a company's most valuable asset and the point around which ordinary people have the most leverage. 

We've designed Brandkarma as a progressive reputation platform bringing public accountability to brands.  It's an easy way to become an activist, exercise you opinions and amplify your views. 

If you can't spend the time camping out, occupy the brand instead.

Acres of paper and pixels have been expended in attempts to explain the current state of the global economy - Masters of the universe teaching lesser mortals that some combination of financial levers and buttons will put it all back on track.

But suppose that the explanation for the global funk was a whole lot simpler.  Suppose that it had more to do with universal laws than fiscal theory.  Suppose that the economy was actually a small part of a much bigger system governed by forces beyond economics.

Crazy right? Err, not so fast.

In the natural world forces conspire and collude towards equilibrium, balance, harmony.  Every action, said Newton, has an equal and opposite reaction.  Capitalism, the engine of modern economics, works quite differently.  Capitalism drives towards imbalance.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement has been asking, it’s all very well that 1% are doing nicely, but how about the 99%?

Karma is the universal law of cause and effect.  And because it’s universal it’s just as real and inescapable for countries, companies and brands as it is for the little people.

Brands are the public face of the economy worth trillions. Perhaps they’d be worth more if economic value and wider values were better balanced.

Brandkarma is designed to look at brands holistically – how good are their products, how well do they treat people and how well do they look after the planet?

Just sayin’. 

 

Why are we so interested in brands when the world's news media is focused on the Occupy movement and the conduct of big business? Are we barking up the wrong tree?

Well, no.

Eighty percent of the value of S&P500 companies is now intangible, that means "brand" value. Twenty years ago that figure was more like 65%. Brands are becoming a bigger part of big business, with the world's top 10 most commerically valuable brands currently worth over $400 billion.

Surprisingly it's good news for the 99% who don't work in the C-suite or own tranches of shares. Because brands live in the hearts and minds of consumers - real, everyday people with normal jobs, kids, bills and bank balances - real, everyday people who are not to be underestimated.  

Procter & Gamble, the packaged goods powerhouse, went through a remarkable turnaround in the noughties credited largely to then CEO, AG Lafley, and his mantra, "the consumer is boss".

He meant that paying attention to consumers, listening and learning, was the secret sauce.

So, let's make this really simple:

a) Brands represent 80% of business value.

b) People give brands value, not the other way around, therefore,

c) You're the boss of brands.

Now that you know, what are you going to do with all that potential influence? Who do you want brands to listen to and learn from?  How about you? 

Brandkarma 2.0 is the start of a whole new reputation system for brands that isn't fixated with commercial value. We're asking three simple questions about brands; how good are their products, how well do they treat people and how well do they look after the planet?  You're answers decide their karma.

You don't have to pad down to Wall St (St Paul's or anywhere else) and pull out the pup tent. All you have to do is exercise your opinions.

Rate some brands, make suggestions and share your views with friends. Together we can change brands (and business) for good.  

Last week was a redefining moment in the evolution of Brandkarma as our all-new beta site went live with the support of the global Earth Hour community.   “If we want the world to change, we have to act – Brandkarma is a way to do that”, said Andy Ridley, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Earth Hour Global.

Brandkarma.com has been streamlined to give you clear actions and powerful social amplification tools.  In fact, we’ve made the whole idea of a brand’s karma super simple.  How good are (a brand’s) Products, how well do they treat People and how well do they treat the Planet?  Your answer to these three Ps determines the karma score. 

You’re encouraged to rate brands, make suggestions to improve their karma, and share your views with your friends via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

 It’s a whole new reputation system for brands that gives our beta users a loud and clear voice.  If you’re looking at ways to change the world, try doing it one brand at a time. 

We’re very excited about the potential of the new platform to drive change and the initial feedback from users and commentators has been super positive.

“Brandkarma has the potential to revolutionize our idea of brand. A brand's story won't be a professionally crafted piece of fiction, but instead a collaborative biography written by conscious consumers" - Alex Bogusky, FearLess Cottage.

"There has never been a better time for ordinary citizens to make the difference" - Peter Davies, Sustainable Futures Commissioner, Wales.

"Brandkarma is based on two very important truths: first, that in today's world, brands that span national, social and cultural divides can be a greater force for good than governments; and second, that we have much greater power to influence those brands and their actions than we ever imagined" - Jon Steel, Head of Strategy, WPP.

"Brandkarma is as critical as it is prescient. By requiring brands to prove their commitment to social change, it inspires them to improve their bottom line by building a better world. Brandkarma is an indispensible bridge between purpose and profit for brands and customers alike" - Simon Mainwaring, author of 2011 New York Times bestseller, We First.

World’s biggest brands – you decide their karma. Have your say on the new Brandkarma 2.0 site now. BK.

It's taken more blood, sweat, tears, caffeine, late nights, weekends, patience, inspiration and perspiration than anyone imagined, but we'll push the "go" button on the all-new Brandkarma site tonight.

Many months after setting out to radically simplify the Brandkarma concept we've come up with an infinitely simpler and more social solution.  We've made huge leaps and bounds with the user experience and created a powerful platform for a progressive and influential discussion around brands.

The whole notion of a brand's karma has been boiled down to this - how good are its Products, how well does it treat People and how well does the brand look after the Planet?  User ratings for these three Ps determine the brand's overall karma.  With enough users involved there is massive potential for amplification.

You won't find the site via search or URL just yet as it will take up to 72 hours to do the global run around, but we're very close to "live". By Wednesday you'll be able to see what we've been up to and get involved.

There'll also be news very soon on our collaboration with a global NGO that will start this coming week.

Thank you all for your encouragement and support.

More soon...

Passion, persistence and determination are under-rated.  Most people think that success comes from good luck and talent, but it's just not so. It took Joseph Heller 22 attempts to find a publisher willing to put Catch 22 (get it) into print.  That staple of the tool shed, WD40, took even more stamina.  Water Dispersant number 40 took many iterations to get right.  Imagine if they'd stopped at WD39. 

You may have been wondering what we've been up to lately.  Has Brandkarma gone the way of the Dodo? Well, no, more the way of the duck...calm on the surface and paddling frantically underneath, or fighting like Daffy, to get a whole new user experience in place.

Convinced that we're doing something good here, we're going through an extensive redesign and rebuild.  We've scrapped all the original code and started fresh. 

We were also one of the projects selected for the X Media Lab last month and made the most of the opportunity to learn from mentors like Tim Chang (Norwest Venture Partners), Christopher Tanner (inventor of Google Earth), Dr Vesna Petresin Robert, Dr Michael Hawley and many others. The feedback was fantastic and extremely helpful. 

Then there's this great piece from Techcrunch called,  "Startups don't die, they commit suicide", which gave us a lot of heart. The writer, Justin Kan, had this to say. "Long before startups get to the point of delinquent electricity bills or serious payroll cuts, they implode. The people in them give up and move on to do other things, or they realize that startups are hard and can cause a massive amount of mental and physical exhaustion — or the founders get jobs at other companies, go back to school, or simply move out of the valley and disappear."

But it's this quote from Calvin Coollidge that gives us the fuel for the trip, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”.

We know what we're doing is hard and exhaustion is par for the course - anything new is always going to be hard.  But we're committed and on plan to deliver much simpler and more social experience. Stay with us and spread the word, we need all the beta users we can for the next stage.