Mike is responsible for a wide range of projects within the Climate Change programme at IBM UK, looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions from service provision and develop service offerings to assist clients with theirs. As Associate Partner of Strategy & Change, in IBM's UK Climate Change Programme within its Global Business Services, he specialises in carbon reduction strategy, employee engagement and behaviour change. Mike has been previously responsible for IT-enabled Organisational Performance and as a consultant to and director of global companies during the past two decades. In the US he was a Change Leader, facilitating a major strategic business transformation programme; and consulted to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, identifying corporate benefits from emerging technology. Mike has run the IBM UK Innovation Centres and has developed an Innovation Strategy for UK Government. He teaches psychology of Creativity and Innovation within IBM.

Tell us about what you are working on right now

"I'm pretty focussed on employee engagement and behaviour change around climate change these days. With my consultant hat on, I'm helping a UK Government Department with their Sustainability Leadership programme and a UK Government Agency with employee engagement on new ways of working to reduce business travel. I'm also just starting a project inside IBM UK using Appreciative Inquiry [an organisational development philosophy] techniques to drive positive change in 'green' behaviours."

What are your proudest 'green' achievements?

"Late in 2006, I started the UK Climate Change Programme as a very small project - it is now a formally staffed Centre of Excellence helping many clients reduce their carbon emissions. We in the UK are leading on behalf of the global corporation to develop the company's carbon reduction services and solutions. I think being that catalyst for change in an organisation as large and complex as IBM ranks as one of my career highlights."

What are the biggest challenges you face in your role and how do you deal with them?

"I think people are always the biggest challenge. In the context of driving change towards low carbon ways of working I come across two key issues constantly. The first is competing priorities - people have the motivation to change but the current business practices and objectives are not aligned with 'low carbon' as a real priority. The second is translating good will into action. The social norms and rituals of most organisations do not readily support 'low carbon' working practices, such that even if people are motivated to change they are unlikely to translate that motivation into the desired behaviours without significant help. The two are related but the former needs to be addressed by the organisation - the latter by the individual.

"I deal with these challenges in different ways. From an organisational perspective it is about gaining agreement on what we mean by 'low carbon ways of working' and then applying formal and informal change management techniques, such as new travel policies, to encourage the emergence of new social norms and ultimately a new 'culture.' From an individual perspective I always stress the importance of being a role model and of making public commitment to a 'green identity' through their actions."

What differentiates IBM from other companies in terms of the its environmental impact?

"Our values, experience and expertise. Apart from the fact that we have been at this a long time - our first formal environmental policy was published in 1971 - we have recently reaffirmed our core values as a company and they drive the way we do things. 'Innovation that matters for our company and the world' is one of our core values. It is realised by our use of collaborative tools and processes which enable all 350,000 or so employees across the world to share ideas and have a dialogue on important topics, called 'Jamstm'. The Better Planet Jamtm held in 2006 really put this topic front and centre in the minds of all our employees. In the UK we held a local 'THINKCo2' event which engaged all of our UK consultants in debate on two questions - what should we do to reduce our carbon emissions when we deliver projects for clients?' and 'what can we do to help our clients reduce theirs?'

What has been your most successful low carbon initiative?

"It would have to be THINKCo2 - its impact was widespread and visible. As a result we now have our 'Carbon Sensitive Code' which we offer to clients to agree a low carbon way of working on projects. In fact we just completed one project for a client with no business travel at all! It was difficult and actually took slightly longer, but cost less, than if we had travelled for face-to-face meetings but because we had mutually agreed this new way of working upfront with the client they were very happy with the outcome."

Are current UK Government climate change targets to reduce carbon serious enough?

"As an individual I think that to a large extent the actual number of the target is not that important - whether it is 60%, 80% or 100% by 2050 is not the important point. The importance is that the UK Government is trying to take a leadership position, which is essential to stimulate innovation. My own view is that 100% reduction should be the challenge as I actually believe we need to start thinking 'No Carbon' not 'Low Carbon'."

What low-carbon trends do you predict in the technology sector?

"Smart everything - smart buildings, intelligent transport, intelligent energy management, smart metering - forming a virtuous circle with Carbon Information Management, giving better feedback to users to drive behavioural change and with increasing focus on supply chains; and Social Computing and Telepresence as a way to reduce business travel. This is what I predict and it is necessary to buy us time, however I would like to see more focus on zero carbon technologies rather than low carbon. We need to aim for the equivalent of the artificial intelligence concept of a 'singularity' where zero carbon energy is produced by zero carbon supply chains."

What's next on the IBM Climate Change Programme agenda?

"We need to continually improve our carbon reduction services and solutions and are working hard across all of our 'house of carbon' rooms - the model we use to describe the issues and opportunities for action - to innovate further. Water Management is also becoming a significant issue, and we plan to use a similar approach to the one we have used for carbon reduction for water use reduction."

What would you advise someone who takes on a role similar to yours?

"Be careful and realistic about your own 'green' identity. You want to be a role model, but equally you don't want to be a scary evangelist. That will only turn people away. Also you have to recognise that your own behaviour may not always be as 'green' as it should be. I prefer to pick a couple of key behaviours and let people know that these are my 'walking the talk' commitments - one is to only use public transport for business travel and the other is a 'lunchtime vegetarian.' I couldn't give up meat completely but it's hard to justify the meat-intensive diet that most of us in the western world are used to, in environmental terms."

Low Carbon Board Report

From Green Overheads To Green Assets

Reputation and climate change

Ask yourself this: how many of your staff would be able to tell a friend, or a client, about your carbon commitment? How many of your customers put your climate action at the top of their reasons to buy? What impact does your reputation for low carbon have on your shareholders and regulator?

If you can’t answer these questions then you’re in the same position as most of British business. In fact, in the UK, 61% of people say they are ready to pay a slight premium for environmentally friendly products or services (ICM 2006). In 2003, one in every two French respondents was prepared to pay up to 5% more for an “ethical” product (Credoc 2003).

EcoAmerica found even 40% of American citizens are willing to see taxes raised to address global warming. For most of your stakeholders, climate concerns are affecting their decisions, whether that means the $2 trillion ‘ethical investment’ market or the 79% of students who would not work for a company with a poor ethical record.

Climate branding

Of course, climate change can affect your brand whether it is built into your communications or not. The Carbon Trust has tried to quantify the threat of climate change to brand value. While you might expect the oil and gas sector to have the most to lose, the industries with the most intangible value at risk are airlines and food and drinks (50% and 10% of market value at risk, respectively).

Risks for the oil and gas sector and the three other sectors investigated – retail, banking and telecommunications – were much lower, less than 2 to 3% of market value. But as the Carbon Trust concludes, “even this small percentage can still equate to several billions of pounds in value in the UK market alone”.

This is not a strange little UK phenomenon. In 2005 the US branding firm Landor Associates asked 510 US adults to rank the green credentials of automotive and energy brands, as well as brands in categories such as personal-care products and coffee manufacturers. In the petroleum and energy category, BP came out as the greenest company, beating Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Toyota was picked as the greenest car manufacturer, ahead of Ford, General Motors and BMW.

Who cares?

But, according to the HenleyWorld 2006 survey, while 60% of consumers now believe companies are responsible for causing environmental damage or climate change, only 10% actually consider this a key factor when deciding which product or service to buy.

So a reputation for climate integrity counts, but not always, and not with everyone. One group for who it’s increasingly an ‘entrance criteria’ to discussions on policy is government. Research shows (P. Utting 2005) a strong correlation between the introduction of parliamentary bills to create legally binding constraints and the voluntary initiatives of companies.

In other words, these green initiatives can affect the application of a law that is at the drafting stage or shows legislators that businesses are capable of self-regulating their activities.

So how do you generate an excellent reputation for climate responsibility?

Firstly, you must act. Any communications without substantive action is a crisis waiting to happen. There are a number of excellent schemes and programs that can ensure your carbon footprint measurement is comprehensive and then support you through managing that down.

As a London Leader representing the London Sustainable Development Commission I must recommend the Green500 carbon mentoring scheme, that audits, manages and publically recognizes your existing and ongoing climate action.

Once you are confident that your climate action is strong then it is time to focus on your reputation. There are at least four ways in which a company can communicate your climate commitment.

Firstly, corporate communication, which is the development of your company brand image and communication of your company principles. For climate change this has primarily been through dedicated sub-sites on the company site, or through CSR and other reports intended to convey a responsible image of the company.

Increasingly, however, companies are aligning their whole brand image and reputation with environmental principles; think of GE’s ‘ecomagination’ fundamental rebrand. For most companies corporate communications is the furthest their green messaging has gone.

However, there are other ways to transmit your message. Social marketing has become popular, the purpose being to encourage consumers to behave responsibly rather than in corporate communications where you promote your own responsibility.

Thirdly you could undertake stakeholder dialogue on the topic. Gathering together your customers, shareholder, suppliers or staff to discuss climate action.

Golden rules of green marketing

The final reputation enhancer is green marketing or product communication. It is possible to integrate climate change into every level of the marketing strategy. Indeed, you’ll find your competitors doing more of it every year. A Marketing Week survey of marketers showed that half think green credentials are already important and that 84% predict that importance to rise over the next two years. In fact, the generally accepted 5 ‘p’s of marketing have been given a green makeover:

· Product: what are the social and environmental impacts of your products or services over their whole life cycle (production, use, waste)?
· Price: Is the social cost of production shared out fairly? Have you considered fair trade?
· Place: are the methods used to transport and distribute the product environmentally friendly?
· Promotion: is the sales message based on fact and is information transparent? Does the message encourage responsible green behaviours?
· People: Does your company ensure equal treatment for your employees? Do you protect them against discrimination?

As the marketing survey goes on to show, 72% of companies have yet to integrate corporate social responsibility into their marketing plans. It would be wise to remember the immortal words of Oscar Wilde: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”.

Solitaire Townsend is co-founder and CEO of Futerra Communications, the award winning green marketing agency. She was recently named as one of 15 London Leaders for Sustainability by Mayor Ken Livingstone. The London Leaders programme was developed by the London Sustainable Development Commission following an international research programme which reviewed how other cities are embracing sustainability. For further information see: http://www.londonsdc.org/.