Environment | The Barefoot Spirit

The Lungs of the World are in Brazil

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 17:00:23 +0000

As the clock runs out on the world’s opportunity to mitigate the climate crisis, the new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, is poised to continue the destruction of the “lungs of the world,” the Amazon Rain Forest. He thinks the environmentalists in his own government have been lying about the importance of the Amazon to oxygen production and carbon sequestration. He ran and won on a populist platform of “Brazil First.” Bolsonaro argues that Brazil’s economy has been held back because of restrictions on the development of the Amazon. He accuses other nations of wanting to develop the Amazon for themselves. He says the Amazon is in “our country” and nobody can dictate to Brazil what to do with it.

Eight former Brazilian environmental ministers wrote in a joint letter in May, “We’re facing the risk of runaway deforestation in the Amazon,” arguing that Brazil needed to strengthen its environmental protection measures, not weaken them. But Bolsonaro himself has violated environmental laws in the Amazon and has been fined. Since he has been elected, enforcement has been significantly diminished sending a land rush signal to short-sighted developers.

According to the Global Change Biology, 2014 report, 30% of our carbon emissions come from burning the rainforests. Climate scientists Karen Vandecar and Deborah Lawrence report that as deforestation increases, global warming is exacerbated, global temperatures increase, and precipitation patterns are altered worldwide (including in the United States).

Destroying Brazil’s Conservations Efforts

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Amazon Rainforest was in the news. It was threatened with logging for short-term agricultural benefits. Several international groups came forward and mounted a global educational campaign to try to stop the deforestation. They were somewhat successful. Brazil was hailed internationally for its conservation efforts at the time.

But just in the past six months since the populist president Bolsonaro, took office, more than 1,330 square miles of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest have been destroyed. This is almost 40% more than what was destroyed last year. Most of the deforestation takes place in June when it’s drier and cooler. 80% more forest cover was removed this June over last June. Why? Because enforcement required to protect this fragile area has dramatically decreased.

So the question is: Can one country take action that has a dramatic negative effect on the life and wellbeing of all the other countries on the planet? Can one country destroy life-supporting international assets simply because they are on their soil? And can they do this at such a critical time in our existence when we are already in a full-blown climate crisis? Can they push the planet over the edge to the point of no return? Evidently, they can!

An analogous question might be: How did we, the inhabitants of the earth, forget the importance of the Amazon to our existence? Was it generational change? Was there so much “noise” that we forgot priority? Did we forget history? Or did we get caught up in the reality show of the latest news cycle? Why was is so easy to convince the citizens of Brazil, the long-time protectors of the “lungs of the world” that they could now destroy this life-giving asset without consequence?

Mixing Business & Conservation Causes

We have long been conservationists. When we began our Barefoot Wine business, we were following an opportunity rather than our passion. But we found a way to incorporate our passion into our business with Worthy Cause Marketing. By using our advertising money to support conservation causes, we like to think we made a small difference in the general public’s awareness of the fragile balance between our environment and our health. Our passion is still in conservation and now is a much more critical time. Today we are writing about companies that are making a buck by making a difference. See our monthly articles in Entrepreneur.com.

But what’s driving the destruction of the rain forest? Companies that are doing just the opposite by indirectly supporting and financing the destruction of the Amazon to offer processed and fast food convenience items for the US and Europe.

Nation vs the World

The US, once the moral compass of the world, has not only abdicated that role several years ago, but it has encouraged the opposite message: “It’s OK to be selfish, and it’s a race to the bottom for the world’s resources no matter the consequences.” Our own administration has negated and dismantled EPA information and protections. Our own administration has an “America First” attitude that is playing out to be counter-productive. And our own administration has left The Paris Accord. So the message is “Every nation for itself!” We are giving the world permission to destroy the environment upon which we all depend. We all need carbon sequestration; we all need oxygen! But who are we to tell the Brazilians what to do?

Read more in the New York Times and do something about it by joining the Amazon Aid Foundation.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Would You Drink Water Out of a Can?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 02:04:40 +0000

A New York Times article released over the weekend, by David Yaffe-Bellany, raises some serious practical questions about water packaging we feel need more consideration.

Would you drink water out of a can? Or would you balk because you couldn’t see its clarity? Would you buy water in a clear glass container so you could see the water inside, even though it would cost more for heavy glass that was inert? Or would you buy it in clear, single-use, light, inexpensive plastic so you could see it even though you knew it was less likely to be recycled and more likely to poison the environment? This is the great dilemma: Convenience vs. Environmental Damage. So far, consumers are voting for convenience and price over safety.

Blind Trust

But now Pepsi’s betting that in order to save the environment, you will give up your demand to see if the water you buy is clear. They are betting that you will trust them to produce it clean and pure, and you will buy it from them in an aluminum can – even though you can’t see it until after you buy it. It will still be light, convenient, and inexpensive! You just can’t see it. They will be test marketing the concept next year in their purified still water brand, Aquafina.

This is an interesting gamble because aluminum is lightweight like plastic and apparently more inert. And according to the article, is more likely to be recycled due to its redemption value. In fact, worldwide only 9% of all the plastic ever made has been recycled while well over 50% of aluminum bought by consumers is reused. Pepsi says these changes should eliminate more than 8,000 metric tons of “virgin” plastic annually and 11,000 metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions.

What’s interesting about the proposition is that, all things being equal, if you trust the producer, you could save the environment from a major source of plastic pollution. Even so, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., plastic bottled water was up more than 5% in 2018. Consumers still want convenience at the expense of the environment. As of 2016, for the first time, American consumption of bottled water exceeded all other packaged soda combined. There is still a huge and growing demand for bottled water sometimes due to the lack of other drinkable water.

Is Aluminum the Answer?

Single-use plastic water packaging is a growing challenge that needs to be addressed. According to Sherrie Rosenblatt, spokeswoman for the Can Manufacturers Institute,

“In a world that is increasingly concerned about scarce resources, aluminum cans have the ability to be recycled over and over, forever, without losing quality.”

But is aluminum the answer? According to the EPA, nearly half of the aluminum consumed by Americans still winds up in landfill. This and the growth of the market mean more mining. This means more open-pit and strip bauxite mines (the ore from which aluminum is made), with more potential for air, water, and soil pollution. So aluminum is still not a panacea. But it may be an improvement. Never mind that giving up packaged water entirely might be the best thing for the environment.

A Better Way

We’re putting our money on more education, reusable containers, home tap water purifiers, reusable bottle refilling stations, outlawing single-use plastics, and significantly increasing the redemption value of glass and metals. How does your water get to you?

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Is Recycling Proving to be Too Onerous and Expensive?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:00:45 +0000

We recently read with great interest an article by Michael Corkery in the New York Times about the mounting waste crisis. Entitled “Recycling Efforts Stall as the Cost Skyrockets“, he thoughtfully examines a problem that is soon going to hit us all in the pocketbook, the cost of disposing of packaging waste.

We write about this subject because we are often asked, “What is the next big thing?” Well, one needs only to be aware of the megatrends of our time to identify the business opportunities that are already demonstrating themselves.

China Won’t Take It Any More

In January 2018, China virtually stopped taking American recyclable materials. They complained that the cardboard and certain plastics that they were looking for were mixed with too much trash to make separation and recycling feasible. Mitch Hedlund, of the nonprofit organization Recycle Across America, says, “Recycling has been dysfunctional for a long time. But not many people really noticed when China was our dumping ground.”

Now, without a buyer, recycling costs are skyrocketing, more of it ends up in the landfills, and the pressure is on municipal governments to raise taxes to cover the increased costs and find better solutions. Some cities have actually taken to incinerators. Even though the heat can be used to produce electricity, residents are concerned about air pollution. Incineration is not a long term solution.

No Level Playing Field

More pressure is being applied to the source, the producers of especially CPG products. Up until now, they have not had to pay the cost of disposing of or recycling their own product packaging. Their argument is basically two pronged:

First, they argue that the consumer may say they want sustainable alternatives, but only a small percentage will actually pay for them. We think this is changing especially in the light of the most recent Nielsen reports on the subject. If cities begin to raise taxes to cover the costs of disposing of the increased waste, won’t the consumer be paying more for their products anyway?

Second, they argue that they can’t compete with producers that produce and sell non-sustainable packaging. As much as industry hates more government controls, it appears to be the only thing that will level the playing field. What if it was illegal to use disposable packaging? What if producers were legally required to use returnable, reusable, or biodegradable packaging instead?

Confusion

There is also a debate about what is “sustainable” or “recyclable.” If a recycling waste company simply moves the waste offshore, is it really being recycled? What if the only recycler in town decides to raise their rates significantly? Several cities are already subsidizing recyclers. Also, in the case of most plastics, if the plastic is turned into fibers that are reused for clothing, for instance, what happens to the fibers after their useful life? Does the micro plastic residue become even more of a problem? Now that China will no longer be taking our recyclables, suddenly it’s our problem to dispose of them, reduce them, or find a better use for them.

“One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure”

This is a problem that’s not going away. In fact, it’s just getting worse. The obvious business opportunity here is to solve this problem.

We often write about entrepreneurs who are addressing these issues and getting ahead of the curve. As Bonnie says, “If you want to change the world, put a buck on it!” In other words, go into business with a solution that’s just plain cheaper than the costs of continuing to pursue an unsustainable course.

TerraCycle is a great example of how to profit from solving part of this problem. They are approaching it from the source. They will be producing a comprehensive, reusable packaging system that will be used by major brands. TerraCycle’s packaging will begin to be seen in the market this year. If your garbage bill was going sky high, wouldn’t you favor purchases that came in non-garbage producing packages?

Synova as another profitable solution. They approach the problem at the other end, at refuse facility. Instead of burial or incineration, they gasify both bio and plastic waste through a proprietary process and use the gas to produce power. The production of power offsets the costs and the waste is eliminated!

Like these pioneers, we hope this article inspires and encourages young entrepreneurs to start businesses that address all aspects of this problem, from packaging materials, to distribution, to collection, to reuse and power production. The latest thing? It’s sitting in your garbage can!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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What is the True Cost of Overseas Outsourcing?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 18:00:16 +0000

From “shortcut-to-riches” internet marketers to Shark Tank, we hear a constant refrain, “If you want to be successful, outsource your manufacturing to a country with cheap labor costs.” If all you are concerned about is the bottom line in the short term, this may be good advice. It will certainly give you an initial advantage in the marketplace. But what about the long term and what about your responsibility to world health?

It’s not just the labor that is cheaper; it’s the overall health standards that are less stringent than here in the United States. Our pollution standards are pretty strict and expensive to comply with because we don’t want to have manufacturing negatively affect our health. Some Americans believe that it’s OK to buy products manufactured overseas, where they are subject to lower environmental standards, because we live so far away they can’t possibly affect our health here. This thinking leaves the door is wide open for questionable overseas manufacturing. But will that door always be open?

Consider what happens when the data begins to be front page news – that our oceans, air and climate are hurting our health as a result of where and how our cheap products are being manufactured. Los Angeles already reports several days a year when they exceed pollution standards, not because of violations in LA but because of pollution that came over the Pacific Ocean from Asia!

Consumer demand for cheap prices is driving this situation today, but sooner or later the true cost of “cheap” manufacturing will be too expensive to support or ignore. We already know it’s unsustainable, which is why we have such relatively high standards in our own country.

Soon “cheap” manufacturing will be unattractive to the consumer. In these days of increasing transparency, consumer groups, health advocates and environmental groups will be exposing the true costs of cheap manufacturing.

New entrepreneurs have to make a choice. Do you want to be part of the past, where you bet that no one would ever refuse to buy your product, no matter where or how it was made, as long as the price was cheap? Or do you want to be part of the future where you realize that world health will eventually trump price and give your environmentally- friendly manufactured products an edge in an increasingly educated and sensitive market?

Millennials who are inheriting this planet are beginning to realize how their decisions today will influence their future. Change is already happening. They know that the quality of their lives will be dependent on factors like pollution standards, water reclamation standards, and protection of the oxygen-producing rainforests. They know they are voting with their purchases every day – and that vote is more profound than anything they can get done at the polls.

Thanks to the proliferation of information, mass changes in attitude will occur at an ever-accelerating rate. Buyers are becoming very concerned about manufacturing processes and their implications to world health. This will be further accelerated by super storms, super droughts, famines, and pestilence. The choices buyers make will become more a matter of survival.

The world of business has cleaned up its act before. We saw the end of widespread use of lead, asbestos, and ozone-destroying additives once it became clear they were hurting our health.

Now is the time for all new entrepreneurs to reject the way things have been done in the past and market clean and healthy products. Beat the rush. Be a leader. Give the emerging consumers what they really want – a sustainable world to live in.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Why Your Business Should Take an Active Interest in Your Parks

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 18:00:37 +0000

These days parks across the country are underfunded. In fact, if all the local volunteers who donate their time to provide access, management, funding and maintenance suddenly quit, the parks would have to close down. In most states, parks are kept open only due to the love and care of local residents and non-profit members. Many who vote against additional funding for the parks argue that the locals benefit the most, and therefore locals should provide most of the support. But there is another group that benefits greatly from the existence of well-maintained and well-managed parks. It’s local business owners and their staff!

How can your business benefit from the parks? Several ways, not the least of which is recruitment. At the higher end of the pay scale where specialties become scarce, you are competing for qualified candidates from all over the country. Country wide, other businesses are doing the same.

Many of these candidates have families. Aside from the job, the benefits, and the career opportunities, they want to know what the lifestyle is like where you are asking them to move. They want to know about the obvious – good schools, low crime, good neighborhoods. But they also want to know about recreational opportunities, such as the parks and open space. Before they make any career decision, they want to know if they and their family will be happy and healthy in the new area. It may be more important than the compensation offered.

So now, from a Human Resources recruitment standpoint and from an employee’s tenure and loyalty standpoint, the parks and open spaces near your business are critical in attracting and keeping the talent you want to hire. Parks and access to open space can be the deciding factor in the candidate’s decision to work for you.

Your HR people should already be aware of the natural attractions immediately surrounding your place of business. But do you, as a business owner, contribute your fair share to this local resource you depend upon? Or do you take it for granted? Maybe you think, “I pay my taxes, so the government should provide these services.” If you do, you haven’t been reading the news. The parks are considerably underfunded and have huge backlogs of deferred maintenance. The parks also are now dependent on volunteers to help with management and maintenance. Chances are the trails you walk on in your local park were built and maintained by a local non-profit.

We believe all businesses have a responsibility to help support the parks that are supporting their communities. You can do this by writing a big check, which would be very welcomed by these non-profit groups, but there are other ways, too.

You company already has heath programs that involve some kind of exercise to keep employees in shape and reduce medical costs. Why not join an organized group to do clean-ups, trail maintenance, and ecological restoration projects in your nearby parks? Your people will love it and you will be helping to pay the parks back for their positive influence on the recruitment and tenure of your staff.

If your business or your affiliates are in construction, building materials, engineering, water, or maintenance, you can donate supplies to the parks and take it as a tax deduction. It will reduce their expenses and be very well received. Further, most parks will allow signage that says donated by your company for all visitors to see. Now you are improving your company image!

Time for your business to say “Thank You” to your local parks that make your business a more attractive place to work!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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The Surfrider Foundation Australia Cleans Manly Beach

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 17:08:00 +0000

Last week we joined in on a beach clean-up on Manly Beach near Sydney, Australia. It was co-sponsored by the Manly Beach division of The Surfrider Foundation and Barefoot Wines. We have been to many beach clean ups before but, not counting Bonnie’s spontaneous and constant solo clean-ups around the world, this was our first organized and publicized beach clean-up outside the US.

What impressed us was the number of young people who pitched in. As bag after bag of trash showed up to be sorted it became clear that the beach trash here in Australia was the same as we‘ve seen on the west coast and east coast of the US and Canada, it’s the same we’ve seen in Chile and Greece, Honduras and Costa Rica. The brand names change but the materials are much the same. In order of quantities, they are: cigarette butts, Styrofoam, single-use plastic containers, and broken glass. There are several other categories, but these continue to be the majority of the pollution. We’re sure the polluters thought they were throwing their trash “away,” but there is no “away.” It’s all still here on the planet.

The Manly Beach cleanup was high profile. The trash was dumped into a large tarp which was sifted through by volunteers who sorted the debris into 5 gallon buckets, each filled with a particular type of trash. Thousands of people walk by keen on enjoying this sunny first day of spring on this otherwise pristine beach not far from downtown Sydney. One by one, they stopped and marveled at the interpretive signs supplied by The Surfrider Foundation, volunteers of all ages collecting and sorting garbage, and the sheer mass of the debris. Was this all picked up from their beach? It was. The sobering reality was hitting home. Many of the passersby grabbed a bag and joined in the cleanup.

For us as Americans, it was heartening to know that people the world over are starting to take notice of this increasingly dangerous international problem – and doing something about it. The volunteers were enthusiastic, felt like they were making a difference, and had a great time! It was their beach and they took ownership. And isn’t that the real message here: “Take ownership.” You wouldn’t want to trash your own home, so why trash your own planet. What we throw away doesn’t go away it. It comes right back.

One cigarette butt pollutes tens of liters of water, kills birds, and take centuries to decompose. And they are making millions more every day. Never mind the health consequences of smoking – what about using our beaches for ash trays. As Bonnie and others feel compelled to say,” Keep your butts off the beach!”

Foam and single-use plastics decompose in the presence of sunlight and then are eaten by fish. Those fish are eaten by larger fish that wind up being eaten by us! The plastics we discard wind up in our own bodies! So there is no real “away.”

The kids who witnessed and participated in the Manly Beach cleanup are learning these important lessons at an early age. Their experience will change their own behavior and encourage them to create and support a credible, monetarily-driven recycling program. The planet deserves to be treated with respect rather than as a receptacle for our discards.

We salute the Manly Beach Chapter of the International Surfrider Foundation and all the other Chapters who are taking action and making a difference in this man made blight of our time. They are living up to their euphemistic motto: “To Protect and Surf!”

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Park Users Should Take Out What They Take In

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 17:00:30 +0000

When Michael was a young boy, his grandfather, a former police officer in the Mission District of San Francisco, would take him to play in Dolores Park where he would summersault down its pristine green banks. Last year almost 15,000 cubic yards of garbage were removed from this historic gem by a so-called progressive city. Times have changed and so has the impact of population, park usage and the proliferation of single use containers.

Today, the weekly trashing of Dolores Park is an unfortunate example of misplaced user entitlement caused in part by the Park Department itself. Every day, park users bring in food and beverages and discard the containers as if it is the park’s responsibility to provide comprehensive garbage service. And why? Because the park provides garbage receptacles. But there are never enough and it overflows throughout the park. When parks provide garbage collection services it gives users permission to leave their waste behind. Trash pick-up was manageable in the past when there was a much smaller attendance, but usage, especially in urban parks like Dolores Park, has skyrocketed over the years.

So what to do? Add more garbage bins? Maybe teach people to use special recycle bins? Both of these solutions avoid the real issue. Park users have been programmed over the years to walk in with their single use containers and walk out without them. The thinking goes something like this, “Someone else will pick it up. It provides jobs. I pay my taxes and I deserve to have my parks serviced no matter how impractical or how expensive that may be. They put a receptacle there, and they’ve always picked up the garbage in the past.”

Regional, State and Federal parks with no back country trash receptacles have a simple message at the trailheads, “Pack out what you pack in!” This policy has been whole heartedly accepted by most hikers, and many feel it’s their duty to pick up and pack out any discarded trash they see on the trail. Why should this be different in urban parks that are coming under increased population and budgetary pressure?

Instead of increasing the number of trash receptacles, why not reduce them and put up a sign on the ones that are left that says, “Please take out what you brought in! Do your part to save your park budget for maintenance, repairs and beautification.”

This approach has been used successfully in several parks across the country. It does not just help keep the parks clean, but it focuses public attention on disposable food and beverage containers by asking park users be responsible for taking them out as well as bringing them in.

We can no longer afford to say, “Bring in your garbage and leave it here.” We have already been successful in training people to take their own bags to the grocery store. So training them to take their own garbage home is not out of the question. But it’s got to be started by the parks themselves with good signage that appeals to people’s sense of community.

If park advocates and volunteers were to start an education process to make users aware of this accelerating situation, would the park users change their ways and take “ownership” of these precious lands made available to them? If children were taught to be responsible for the land around them that they use, how long might it take to reverse this alarming trend?

Let’s apply the decades old “Pack it in. Pack it out!” backpacker’s creed to all park users.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Asia’s Ozone is Polluting Western US

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:56:02 +0000

Over the past three years, Ian Faloona of UC Davis and several other atmospheric scientists have been picking up increased readings of lung-damaging ozone from their monitoring stations along the extreme edge of the Pacific coast. The stations are over 5000 feet up and far enough to the west that they are not measuring ozone produced in the US. In fact they should be getting the cleanest air possible as they face the open ocean. This is particularly alarming since the US itself has significantly reduced emissions over the past few decades.

We can no longer think that if we clean up our own backyard that we will necessarily enjoy the health benefits of our efforts. According to the scientists, emissions from Asia take only a week to cross the Pacific and increase our baseline levels of ozone in western North America.

Local pollution regulators have already begun to argue that they should not be penalized when pollution from Asia causes local smog levels to exceed Clean Air Act standards. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has filed a first of its kind petition to be exempted from penalties imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency for violating air quality health standards. The district maintains that ozone pollution from Asia is the culprit. District representative Seyed Sadredin said, “Our residents should not be penalized for pollution that comes from elsewhere.”

Owen Cooper, an atmospheric scientist from Denver, said, “Here in Denver, our emissions have come down enormously due to cleaner cars, but our ozone pollution isn’t coming down. It’s kind of stuck.”

On top of that, the EPA is reducing the allowable ozone levels this year to 65 and 70 parts per billion. Opponents say that the districts should focus on their own sources of pollution that they can do something about, the implication being that nothing can be done about the pollution coming from Asia. According to Faloona and his assistant Andrew Post, the UC Davis monitoring station on Chews Ridge, high in the Santa Lucia Mountains ,west of any US-caused pollution, has registered concentrations of ozone as high as 80 parts per billion coming in off the Pacific.

This will become a much bigger issue as EPA fines get leveed. The 2012 $100 million fine imposed by the EPA on the San Joaquin Valley District, is made payable by an extra $12 per year in vehicle registration fees, for instance. At what point do we have to look at the bigger picture? Even as we clean up our act, we are being undermined by our neighbors albeit on the other side of the Pacific.

Maybe we should be asking, “What kind of fuels and machinery are we selling to Asia that will turn around and pollute our air and hurt our health?” Maybe the fines should be on the manufacturers of ozone producing equipment, vehicles and fuels. We can no longer act like we are not affected by the products we sell to Asia, nor, for that matter, the products we buy from Asia.

Eventually the air quality will become so bad that there will be a public outcry to hold consumer products made in Asia to the same air quality standards of manufacturing we impose on our own producers. If you import products from Asia and the ozone from that plant comes to the US, are you not culpable for the health consequences?

We live in California and we are pretty proud of our state’s reduction of ozone over the past several decades. It seems like we should begin now, before it’s out of control, to take this issue to the next and obvious level. Factory and auto exhaust from Asia is only one week away. Pollution knows no borders.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Worthy Cause Marketing Makes Dollars and Sense

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 19:30:31 +0000

What we dubbed Worthy Cause Marketing back in 1990 was really an outcome from a serious business problem: How could we get the word out about our products when we had no money for commercial advertising?

We discovered something very important when we got a call one day from a neighborhood non-profit looking for a donation for a kids-after-school park. We had no money for a cash donation but we did have product which we donated for their fundraiser. As a result, the membership of that non-profit was able to sample our products and saw that we supported their cause. Sales in the nearby retail account took off.

When we finally put it together that sales were up in that store because we supported the local neighborhood fundraiser, we decided to try it in another neighborhood. It worked! Then we realized that we didn’t have to give up our true passion which was conservation and civil rights just because we were in business. We realized that we could support worthy causes that were worthy of us, our brand, and our products as a way of getting the word out in lieu of costly advertising that we couldn’t afford anyway.

In fact it worked so well that even when we could afford commercial advertising we did not do it. And we discovered something else that was very important yet subtle. The members of the non-profits we supported not only selected our products when they had a choice, but they actively promoted them to friends, family, neighbors and co-workers. They also promoted our products through their networks by thanking us for our support.

We began to realize another important lesson. Part of the discovery process that makes people want to share their discovery is not only the knowledge that the product is great, but also and most importantly, that the person they are turning on to the product couldn’t have known about it any other way. They believe this precisely because they have seen no commercial advertising. They know they will be gratified when their friend says, “Thanks for the great recommendation! We tried it and you were right. It’s great!” So now we had a business reason not to advertise, because the folks who were spreading the news by word of mouth would simply stop if they saw the commercial ads!

So isn’t this just another type of cause marketing? Not quite. The biggest distinction we can make between Worthy Cause Marketing and Cause Marketing is that within Cause Marketing, the support for the cause is advertised to the general public in the hopes that the general public will chose your brand because you are doing good. In Worthy Cause Marketing however, the support for the cause is not advertised to the general public, but is only known to the non-profits’ members and their supporters.

In both cases the decision to support the cause is a sincere intent to help that cause achieve its goals, but the process differs substantially. We have found that Worthy Cause Marketing creates a loyal following when practiced year after year on a long-term basis.

We were honored to be the keynote speakers today at the prestigious Pepperdine University in Southern California at the Margaret J. Weber Distinguished Lecture Series. Given the school’s admirable commitment to social entrepreneurship, we thought no topic could be more appropriate than Worthy Cause Marketing, a driving influence behind the success of the world’s largest wine brand. We hope that our demonstrated success will encourage start-ups, growth-phase and established companies to use Worthy Cause Marketing in their own businesses. We believe they will see, just as we did, that doing good is just plain good business!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Should We Allow Cheap Gas to Kill Alternative Energy Vehicles – Again?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:30:24 +0000

Regardless of how long it lasts, it seems like everyone is thrilled with the current reduction in price of gasoline. But how does that savings stand up to the increasing cost of climate change? One or two super storms could easily wipe out any savings and ultimately increase our taxes for disaster relief. Are we just taking money out of one pocket to put in the other?

Gasoline automobile manufacturers are already heralding the demise of alternative energy vehicles by saying “This is not the time for alternatives.” Sales of gas guzzlers are up again. Are we really that short sighted?

If we truly do price alternatives out of the market, what have we done? Are we making a full-on commitment to go with carbon fueled vehicles until we run out of “cheap” fuel? The President of the United States says we cannot burn up all the hydrocarbon energy that is in the ground without taking the global temperature up 2 degrees Centigrade. The vast majority of the world’s climatologists agree that an increase over 2 degrees Centigrade will result in a runaway greenhouse effect.

In the past few years we have seen fracking take off all over the U.S. Aside from the questions of safety and long-term pollution, there is a greater issue. It’s flooding the market with cheap hydrocarbon fuels. The good news for the U.S. is that it is much less dependent on imports from unstable, dictatorial, or downright adversarial countries. The bad news is that carbon fuel itself is threatening our future no matter how cheap or domestically available it is. In other words, there’s a much bigger issue at stake.

Who wants to face their grandchildren when they ask, “Gee, Grandma, didn’t you realize what carbon fuels where doing to the environment that I now have to live in?” What will we answer? “Gosh, Honey, it was so cheap back then, and we didn’t think it would happen so fast!’’

If cheap carbon fuel puts alternatives out of business, what kind of vehicles will the emerging markets buy? And won’t that just accelerate the process with more exhaust from an ever-increasing number of hydrocarbon burning vehicles? Don’t they have a right to enjoy our standard of living too, even if it accelerates global climate change?

We often hear the argument, “But where are those electric cars getting their power from if not predominately fossil fueled power plants anyway?” That may be true in the short run, but won’t it be easier to produce sustainable electricity than to change all those fossil fuel vehicles?

So, it all comes down to saving alternative energy vehicles by making them more attractive than carbon burners that consume cheap gas. When gas was expensive, alternative energy vehicles had an advantage. If you didn’t invest to save the environment, you might do it to save a few bucks. But in this particular moment in time, gas is cheap, so why spend our good money to protect the environment?

Don’t get us wrong, we are also thrilled with the lower cost of fuel but are very concerned with the implications to the market for the alternatives. We think alternative energy vehicle technology, like other technologies that have improved our lives such as the railroads and the interstate highway system, should be subsidized to at least be price comparative to fossil fuel vehicles. We need this technology to flourish to reduce carbon emissions.

Now that gas is cheaper, isn’t it time to use those savings to keep alternatives alive and well so they will be the choice of the emerging world and a potential savior for our environment?

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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