What does Wal-Mart and the United States government have in common? Answer: buying power. According to USAspending.gov, the U.S. government spends more than $500 billion in products and services each year from roughly 230,000 different companies. It is the world’s largest buyer of goods and services. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest consumer products retailer, buying roughly $300 billion each year in products it sells in retail stores from more than 100,000 different companies.

The U.S. government and Wal-Mart’s buying power are influential in setting the stage for corporate social responsibility requirements. According to Information Management, the U.S. government and Wal-Mart will begin phasing in corporate social responsibility requirements for their suppliers and vendors over the next few years. Read more at Utah Business Magazine.

PilmerPR was honored by its peers in Utah for its outstanding media relations, Wednesday.

The Golden Spike Awards committee recognized PilmerPR in the Publicity and Media Relations category for its work promoting the ElectraTherm Green Machine. As part of the campaign, PilmerPR garnered 38 news articles, a syndicated radio interview, interviews on FOX Business News, The 700 Club, and multiple local television stations, and an online podcast. We also helped catch the attention of Popular Science Magazine, which awarded the ElectraTherm Green Machine in its “Best of What’s New” issue. In one year, the campaign reached more than 304 million people, and achieved publicity that would cost around $570,000 if gained through advertising.

PilmerPR founder John Pilmer was also recognized as one of the top five PR pro’s in the state for his accomplishments and ethics.

According to the committee, all Golden Spike entries are judged by fellow PR professionals, following a stringent set of criteria that ensure only the best in the industry are recognized.

These awards represent our commitment to provide best-in-class results for our clients. They can depend on our staff’s media relations skills to bring new top-tier investors and customers to their door.

We are pleased that our results are not only recognized by our clients, but also other PR professionals. We look forward to the years ahead.

Read the full press release here.

Obama is talking about it. Gap, Hewlett Pack (HP) and Timberland are talking about it. Neighbors, executives and world politicians are also talking about it. What are they are all talking about? … Answer: Social Responsibility.

A recent article in Time magazine written by managing editor, Richard Stengel, introduced the idea of a new kind of consumer. “We are again entering a period of social change as Americans are recalibrating our sense of what it means to be a citizen, not just through voting or volunteering but also through commerce: by what we buy. There is a new dimension to civic duty that is growing in America – it’s the idea that we can serve not only by spending time in our communities and classrooms but by spending more responsibly. We are starting to put our money where our ideals are.”

Never in the history of capitalism has social responsibility played such an important role. Gone are the days of cheap talk and sparse metrics to prove the importance of corporate social responsibility. In fact, according to a recent poll in Time magazine, 40 percent of all respondents said they purchased a product in 2009 because they liked the social or political values of the company that produced it. From that same poll, 82 percent said they have consciously supported local or neighborhood business this year. Read more at Utah Business Magazine.

U2 has launched one of the largest, most over-the-top tour production tsunamis known to rock n’ roll.  189 trucks will roll cross the world supporting what’s sure to be a really big show. Their PR team swears the tour is green (story). I think this is a perfect example of what’s wrong with the growing support for buying indulgences (carbon credits). I can pollute like crazy, waste resources and then buy my way into green heaven.

Producing 65,000 tons in carbon emissions, this tour smacks of Greenwashing to me.

Here’s the process Bono and company likely went through: 1)Let’s make the biggest bang ever for a rock concert tour (with no thought for the environment – the bang makes up for lagging brand equity) 2)Public Relations team says, “Well guys, since Mr. Bono has been talking a good Green PR game in public, this is gonna raise some Green eyebrows with a Carbon footprint of 65,000…” 3)The team hatches a plan to donate to the right green charities and buy enough carbon credits (ie cap n trade indulgences) to offset the extravagance. 4) All is right with the green rock n’ roll world. Bono and the boys get richer and still call themselves socially responsible.

I don’t buy it even though there are a few U2 songs I can’t do without, and even though I’ve enjoyed playing rock and blues bass for many years. We teach our clients that when it comes to corporate social responsibility, you should BE GOOD before you talk about being good.  Are you listening, Mr. Bono?

What do you think?

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Last week, Green Week in Review’s Bart King interviewed William C. Olson, Senior Vice President and co-founder of ElectraTherm–a company that has developed modular technology (the ElectraTherm Green Machine) to harness waste heat from a variety of industry sectors.

The United States produces enough industrial waste-heat (think smokestacks) to replace roughly 30 percent of the electricity produced by burning fossil fuels. According to the United States Department of Energy, there is more waste heat available in the United States than all other sources of renewable energy combined. Yet most of it goes to waste.

ElectraTherm has fielded interest from all over the world in the company’s fuel-free, emissions-free systems. The ElectraTherm Green Machine can produce power from a wide array of heat sources including industrial waste heat, engines, biomass, and solar thermal installations

Read more and hear the podcast.

Hewlett Packard is feeling the heat from Greenpeace after a little roof painting. Greenpeace activists climbed to the top of HP’s global headquarters in Palo Alto, CA and painted the message “Hazardous Products” on the roof.

The painting on HP’s roof is in response to HP’s alleged backtracking on its public commitment to eliminate key toxic chemicals in its products by the end of this year. According to Greenpeace, ”HP continues to put hazardous products on the market despite promises made years ago to phase out these toxic compounds.”

In response to the claims made by Greenpeace,  HP said it “has a comprehensive approach to environmental sustainability, with three main components: minimizing our impact, helping our customers to improve their environmental performance and driving towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy.”

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“PilmerPR is pleased to announce the garnering of yet another honor for exceptional public relations results. Thank you to a great client, ElectraTherm, for accepting sound PR advice and thanks to skilled staff that holds up the standard of communications excellence at PilmerPR.”  John Pilmer – President and Founder

EarthTimes covers this Green PR news.

In previous entries we have discussed that Green PR is a subset of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In tough economic times some companies find themselves trying to justify budget for going Green or socially responsible programs. Just yesterday I was sharing PilmerPR philisophy that CSR should be woven into the very fabric of who we are as a company.  This article I read today in the Financial Times does a great job of exploring the issues around commitment to CSR in today’s economic environment.

The triple bottom line, CSR and social responsibility are all buzz words gracing headlines and the agendas of corporate meetings both large and small. But what do they all mean? And why is everyone talking about them?

Corporate social responsibility or CSR is a relatively new and increasingly large concern for corporations and small businesses alike. CSR is also known as corporate citizenship, corporate responsibility, sustainable responsible business (SRB) and corporate social performance. Simply put, corporate social responsibility is self-regulation built into a company’s business plan.

In a perfect world, a company’s CSR policies would self-monitor in accordance to their obedience to laws, ethical standards and governmental regulations. In other words, the company would force itself to comply with standards before the government gets involved. Read more at Utah Business Magazine

According to a United Nations report, global investments in renewable energy attracted $155 billion US in 2008, surpassing the investment in carbon-based fuels for the first time. According to the Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009, the 2008 investment was four times higher than in 2004 with $36 billion invested in emerging economies, and $105 billion spent directly developing power generating capacity from wind, solar, small-hydro, biomass and geothermal sources. Wind power attracted the most investment with $51.8 billion, while solar accounted for $33.5 billion. The report was prepared for the UN Environment Program’s Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative. (Source: AFP, June 3, 2009)

Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2009, Executive Summary