It’s not all bad news on the retail front. The Sundance Catalog opened its second retail store on Oct. 4 at the Village at Corte Madera in Marin County, California.

Sundance’s retail stores offers many of the same items found in its catalog as well as an assortment of items unique to the retail environment.

In June 2007, Sundance opened a flagship store in Denver. At the time, DMNews reported that this was part of a planned national roll out of retail locations that was supposed to include 20 stores over the next four years. That store was designed to reflect the brand’s commitment supporting to environmental sensibility, and was constructed with recycled woods.

The second store features a stacked stone storefront fitted with steel and glass barn doors and reclaimed tobacco barn oakwood floors and fixturing.

Sundance doesn’t comment in the press release about any additional store openings.

The retail industry’s budding efforts to make its stores more environmentally friendly recently received a boost in the form of technical assistance awards from the US Department of Energy to Best Buy, JC Penney, John Deere, Macy’s, SuperValu, Target and Whole Foods Market that are earmarked for the adoption of energy-saving technologies.

The awards are part of the DOE’s Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative. In total, 21 companies across the retail, financial and commercial real estate industries were awarded $15 million in technical assistance.

 “The Net-Zero Commercial Building Initiative is designed to achieve real, substantive change in commercial buildings,” said John Mizroch, DOE acting assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, in a statement. “We must work together with the private sector to shape our practices and define cost-effective solutions.”

In 2007, commercial buildings consumed about 19% of U.S. energy and accounted for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the DOE.  

Each of the 21 private sector companies will have its design and facility management team work with DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory to design, build, tune and operate at least one new prototype building and to retrofit an existing building project for 50% and 30% energy savings, respectively. 

Vermont Country Store owner Lyman Orton is urging consumers to embrace line drying their clothes, even if they live in neighborhood or community with restrictions prohibiting line drying.

In an editorial that appears in the fall 2008 Vermont Country catalog and on the Web site, www.vermontcountrystore.com, Orton says: “At The Vermont Country Store, we have been promoting a new kind of civic disobedience — putting up outdoor clotheslines in plain view as an act of civic inclusiveness — not only to save energy and reduce our carbon impact on the planet, but to preserve Americans’ innate rights and return to a small town feel of inclusion instead of sterile exclusion and status.

I love this effort for several reasons: It’s unique but true to this folksy, New England brand, it takes a practical approach to environmentalism and it sheds light on an interesting aspect of our country’s history.

Orton questions the rationale of continuing restrictions on line drying as Americans seek to reduce their use of energy. He is in favor of recent legislative efforts — particularly in the New England region — to protect the custom of air-drying laundry. Recent legislative initiatives in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont to legally preserve this right despite any homeowner ordinances have failed. Clotheslines are banned or restricted by many of the roughly 300,000 homeowners’ associations that establish residential guidelines for more than 60 million Americans, according to the commentary.

Orton explains that line-drying clothes is one important way American can reduce their use of energy. Rules against the practice are held-over from post-World War II snobbery as some tried to set themselves apart because they could afford an electric clothes dryer while others couldn’t.

HP and, increasingly, Walmart, have been putting a lot of effort into their sustainability programs. The latest news from both of these companies is a unique application of these ideas to a popular consumer product, the computer notebook.

Walmart recently challenged it consumer electronics suppliers to come up with a product innovation that reduces the environmental impact for it product category while also employing great design that attracts consumers. Oh, and don’t forget that the packaging design should also facilitate reuse and recycling, reduce waste and reduce or eliminate the use of toxic materials.

The winner is an HP notebook that comes in messenger bag made from 100% recycled materials. It is displayed in the bag and that is how customers who buy it will take it home. All other packaging has been eliminated, thereby making it easier for consumers to make a more environmentally responsible choice by removing the need to dispose of cardboard, foam or plastic typically found in consumer electronics packaging.

By reducing product packaging by 97%, HP is able to conserve fuel and reduce CO2 emissions by removing the equivalent of one out of every four trucks previously needed to deliver the notebooks.

The HP Pavilion dv6929 Entertainment Notebook is exclusively available in nearly 1,700 Walmart stores and 594 Sam’s Club locations for $798.

I just stumbled across a handy media kit put together by the Association of Postal Commerce (PostCom) for any mailers that are concerned about do-not-mail bills in their area. The kit includes facts and links to information about some of the misinformation around paper and postal use.

Most inspiring is the variety of sample letters that mailers can use to communicate with nonprofits, the media and their legislative representatives.

Of course, underpinning any progress in this movement is mailers’ actual commitment to the environment. The PostCom materials claim: “The volume of material landfilled amounted to 138.2 million tons in 2006 — that’s less than the volume of MSW landfilled in 1990 when the country had 50 million fewer people.”

If mailers expect to use these and other positive facts in letters to voters and Congressmen, they also must ensure that this positive progress in reducing negative environmental impact continues.

Research company ComScore recently launched an initiative to encourage panelists to join and stay active in its research that caught my attention. It partnered with Trees for the Future and donated enough money to plant 1 million trees in developing communities worldwide. ComScore has also pledged to continue to make donations when new panel members join and remain active in the panel.

DMNews recently looked at the difficulty in providing incentives to participate in market and demographic research. It will be interesting to see how the market researcher’s green efforts work toward this goal. Is your company considering an environmentally friendly way to get attention or response? Tell us about it!

While the US consumer watches gas prices rise, there may be a positive spin for the cataloger and other direct marketers who save consumers a shopping trip. Bloomberg reports that petroleum gasoline futures are at  $3.40 per gallon today and I’ve seen several reports that gas averages $4 a gallon at the pump.

Here’s some math: The average American commuter driving a sedan at 20 miles per gallon would use 1.36 gallons per 1-hour round trip to the mall.  At $4.00 per gallon, that’s a $5.44 savings. If you’re company’s shipping fees are lower than that, you’ve got some feel good savings to pass on to the customer.

But before you start rewriting all of your promotional copy, consider the true nature of costs and benefits. The carbon offsets and increased prices for delivery of products to individual homes will still have an environmental impact. In addition, according to a recent study by Connected Nation, it takes 50 orders that save the consumer an hour of driving, to make 1 cent of carbon offsets for each individual. Thanks to multiplication, this can eventually total to dollars of change.

I was struck today by some recent CNN coverage of a growing consumer segment dubbed YAWNS - young and wealthy but normal – that is people in generation X and Y who live below their means for ecological or sociological benefit.
At first, the idea of a growing segment of the population actively seeking to trade goods with online community members, adopt a DIY attitude towards furniture, clothing and appliances and reduce luxury spending overall may seem a scary prospect for a marketer. If consumers don’t want to consume new products how are companies going to grow their profits and invest in large-scale marketing campaigns?
This is where the economy of direct marketing is so fundamental to good business. Many marketers already provide YAWNS with what they are looking for: good experiences rather than pure product and true relevance rather than excess. In fact good direct marketing is just that – understanding the need of each consumer and making the products conveniently available to them when and where they want them.
The green marketing talk that has been flooding the advertising industry is more than just labeling a product as eco-friendly. It is about the growing sentiment that consumption for consumption’s sake in developed countries carries unsavory ethical implications. As “spray and pray” tactics continue to fail, today’s market requires an understanding of this new population and it is direct marketing tactics such as customer database segmentation and Web analytics that will lead the way to reaching these “nonbuyers” on issues where they are still willing to spend.