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I tend to be pretty skeptical of companies and organizations that drone on and on about how consumers can do “small things” and make “big differences” in energy consumption and the fight to go ‘green’. Most companies simply advertise their own consumer products/services under a ‘green’ disguise and try to convince customers that the company’s products/services will help them create a “sustainable lifestyle” even though they don’t provide a real incentive for consumers to actually take action. (ie: see my previous post about the Ikan).

I recently read an article titled “How to Turn Pennies Green” in BusinessWeek, however, that highlighted a company that I think approaches ‘green’ in the right way. Apparently soaring copper prices are making it very expensive to make coins: it now costs 1.3 cents to make a penny and 7.7 cents to make a nickel. Also, there’s an environmental cost to minting new coins, namely copper mining and refining involves huge amounts of power and water. Coinstar, a company that is known for its huge coin counting machines that convert change to cash or credit at supermarkets and drugstores estimates that there are around 150 billion coins going unused in the U.S. Cashing in just 10% of this amount would translate into sizable environmental savings. More specifically, 82 million showers (water), 4.1 million 60-watt light bulbs (energy), or 12,619 cars removed annually from the roads (CO2 emissions). The company does of course charge a fee for this conversion to cash/credit (8.9% to be exact), but the service is actually entirely free for consumers if they choose to convert their coins into a gift card for a select number of vendors (including popular companies such as Amazon.com, Circuit City, Starbucks, JCPenney, iTunes, etc). And more importantly taking action in this case is actually beneficial to the consumers who are rewarded for being careful with their coins. I personally have a coin jar that I’ve been collecting loose change in since middle school and I plan on cashing it in at a Coinstar machine at the end of college. I’m pretty excited about all the cash I’m going to get back, and it’s nice to know that I’ll be doing a little something for the environment

At the end of the day, Coinstar is using ‘green’ advertising to promote its service but at least consumers have a personal motivation to cash in. This is just one small example but basically I think that companies that really want to promote sustainability and the green movement ultimately have to have both a profit agenda as well as a legitimate way to motivate customers to succeed. Non-profits and community service can only achieve so much. That’s my two cents anyway.

Last night my 13-year-old cousin dragged me to the movie theater to see WALL-E, the new Pixar film set in the distant future in which a “small waste collecting robot slowly begins to become sentient and inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.” It was no Finding Nemo or Ratatouille- after all, how can a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class be cuter than a crippled clown fish or a rat that can cook- but don’t worry, I’m not here to review movies or hand out little gold stars so I’ll let you judge the movie for yourself.

More interesting, I think, is that even Pixar has jumped aboard the ‘green’ bandwagon. WALL-E presents a fairly contemporary, ecologically minded agenda with a lightheartedness that keeps the message subtle. The film portrays a world overrun by consumerism where humanity pollutes the planet until it is uninhabitable and comments on the drastic consequence of not addressing the problem of waste and pollution in the now. And although you’ll be smiling through the majority of the film, there are some scenes of the earth, covered in nothing but trash and signs for the fictional monopolistic corporation (representative of overwhelming consumerism), that are slightly sinister and strike a chord as you watch.

Although people have been making documentaries about current events or shooting satirical movies that comment on society’s problems for years (ie: Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, etc.), they are usually aimed strictly at an older audience. No doubt WALL-E was not intended to have nearly the same effect as a film like Sicko or Super Size Me, but it is amazing what a large and diverse audience the Pixar film will be able to reach (it has already grossed 63.1 M at the box office). Last night the theater was split pretty evenly, and there were just as many teens and adults as there were children (if not more). Some people think the film did not focus enough on its environmental theme and have suggested that it should have had “environmental advice” or a link to an environmental website in the end credits, but as I left the theater I overheard a very little girl talking to her parents and she said “Can we plant some more flowers near our house so we don’t run out like they did in WALL-E?” Perhaps environmentalists and film makers should focus their efforts on the generation that might really take their messages to heart.

The Ikan is a new countertop appliance whose mission is to eliminate trips to the grocery store. In essence it serves as a barcode scanner that offers a color screen, a laser scanner, and an interior Wi-Fi antenna that connects to your home’s wireless network. Basically every time you’re about to throw away an empty container you pass it under the scanner like you would at a price-check machine at Wal-Mart. The Ikan will beep, consult its online database of products, display the name and description of the item, and then add it to your shopping list saved somewhere in cyberspace. Every few days you can review the list online at Ikan.net and click to have your groceries delivered to your house at a time that you specify.

Reactions from users so far have been pretty varied. Some people can’t believe how much time it saves while others don’t think it takes much more effort to just maintain a handwritten list. With services like Stop n’ Shop’s Peapod grocery delivery service, the added benefit of delivery via the Ikan isn’t all that alluring. Yet others praise the “environmental benefit” the company claims to imbue.

This is where my head starts to explode.

Just because a green recycle logo appears on the screen when you scan a package that’s recyclable does not make Ikan a ‘green’ company. Plus, the gadget is always on. Even though it only uses a little bit of electricity, seeing the lit up screen night and day “will bug the environmentalist in you” says the New York Times. Oh, and when they deliver the items each comes in its own white plastic bag- every package of cheese, every tub of butter. That, my friends, is not ‘green’ by any means. I’m a huge proponent of ‘environmentally friendly’ but the millions of companies that gloat just because they hired a ‘green consultant’ (what does that even mean?) or because they recycle are not really ‘green’ at all.

Back to the Ikan though. So even if it’s not quite environmentally green there should be some other benefits right? Wrong. The Ikan encourages us to buy processed foods, be completely unimaginative and buy exactly what we’ve bought before, disregard seasonal, local, and fresh foods, and avoid an occasion to get out of the house and go to the grocery store (and even potentially bond with mom or dad or daughter or son).

We are already overly reliant on our smart phones to remind us about events, birthdays, important dates, etc. We really don’t need another $400 device to further weaken our memory, make us lazier, and reinforce bad eating habits.

Yesterday Honda Motors celebrated the start of production of its FCX Clarity, the world’s first hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production. That’s a mouthful, but the car represents a major breakthrough in alternative energy automobiles. Honda only plans to make 200 of the FCX Clarity’s in the next three years but plans to increase production volumes in the future. The first five customers include actress Jamie Lee Curtis and a film producer in LA. The Clarity can drive 280 miles on a tank (almost as far as a gasoline car) and gets higher fuel efficiency than a gasoline car or even a hybrid- around 74 miles per gallon according to Honda.

No doubt the Clarity, and hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell vehicles still face several hurdles. The cars cost several thousand dollars to produce, but Honda predicts this will drop to less than $100,000 in under a decade since it has found ways to mass produce the car and take advantage of economies of scale. For now the company is subsidizing its customers who can lease the car for only $600 a month, which is not much more than leasing one of Honda’s top line Acura line luxury cars. The other major problem is infrastructure: very few states have built many hydrogen filling stations, though California is currently leading the way and setting an example for the rest of the states.

For now, the initial customers seem to be drawn mostly to the car’s novelty more than anything else. I can relate as my family bought me a Prius in its early stages back in 2004. Of course I loved the wonderfully quiet engine, the decreased gas costs, the ‘Park’ button, and the fact that I never had to take my key out of my purse, but most exciting was the look on people’s faces when I drove around and the awe of my friends. At the time experts predicted it would take 8-9 years to make up the premium we paid on the hybrid… now that number has dropped to approximately 3.

And that’s the thing that’s most interesting. Of course everyone is praising Honda and Toyota now that fears of major climate change, $140/barrel oil, and depleting fossil fuel resources are becoming the reality, but in the past two decades both companies have been criticized publically several times for pouring money into “unproven” technologies while refusing to follow the rest of the industry into large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Well “unproven” is what innovation is all about! Now Honda is in an enviable position – Toyota too- while other companies try to deal with large inventories of gas-guzzling trucks and massive cars that requite large incentives to sell.

Just another example of how important it is to continue to invest in radical innovation (not just incremental) even while “things are good”. And as Jeff Bezos, the chief at Amazon, has always maintained, competitor-focused companies risk complacency when they become industry leaders- but customer-focused companies must always keep improving. Other CEOs and other companies, whether in the online retail industry, the automobile industry, or in ones completely unrelated, should learn a thing or two from these guys.