The phrase “put your money where your mouth is”  has been coming up a lot here lately—in part due to our work with New Resource Bank, which lets sustainability-minded businesses, nonprofits, and individuals do just that, and in part due to our decision to join 1% for the Planet.

If you’re not familiar with it, 1% for the Planet is an alliance of businesses of all sizes that commit to give one percent of their yearly revenues to environmental nonprofits. And the organization holds members to it–you have to submit tax documents and proof of donations to maintain membership.

We’d been thinking of doing this since learning of 1% via a Fast Company interview with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, who co-founded the organization with Craig Mathews, fisherman and owner of Blue Ribbon Flies. What finally kicked us into gear was hearing Hunter Lovins give her “The Business Case for Sustainability” speech at New Resource’s bimonthly speaker/networking event, re:think.

Lovins includes an apt quote from Interface chair Ray Anderson: “What’s the business case for destroying the planet?” But what really got to us was her parting question, “What are you doing?” Somehow, “helping sustainable businesses and environmental nonprofits” didn’t sound like enough. So here’s another chip on the table.

Try it—it feels good.

Changing behavior, at the corporate level as well as the individual level, will be key to solving our energy problems and reducing the world’s carbon footprint. (Often it’s the elephant in the room, sharing the sofa with energy conservation.)

Information alone isn’t going to accomplish the task, and a couple of events are coming up that look at this issue. One is the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change conference in Washington, D.C., Nov. 15–18 presented by ACEEE, Stanford’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center and the University of California’s  California Institute for Energy and Environment. (I’ll be there, presenting on Thinkshift’s Credibility Quotient assessment tool in the poster session.) It will bring together industry, academics, policy makers and others to consider the latest research, pilot projects, and more.

One of the main speakers will be Doug McKenzie-Mohr, who’s also presenting a two-day workshop, “Fostering Sustainable Behavior,” Nov. 2–3 in Portland and Nov. 4–5 in San Francisco. McKenzie-Mohr literally wrote the book on the subject, available as a free download from his website (which is loaded with articles, case studies, and forums). Workshop info is on his site; registration is here. (Thanks to the Triple Pundit post by Deborah Fleischer for alerting me to the workshop and the book download.)

Companies making vague and poorly supported environmental claims are about to get a smackdown from the Federal Trade Commission’s upcoming revised Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (aka Green Guides), according to Victor Bell of Environmental Packaging International, which has been giving the agency feedback on the long-awaited revision. That is, if the guidelines are enforced—and Bell believes they will be.

Bell’s presentation at the recent Sustainable Packaging Forum conference in Atlanta caused a stir—many in the audience seemed taken aback by the draft guidelines’ stringency (and possibly by Bell’s delightfully vehement presentation of them). For example, Bell said, a brand name like Eco‐Safe would be considered deceptive if it leads consumers to believe that the product or package has environmental benefits that the manufacturer can’t  substantiate. A wrapper labeled “environmentally friendly” because it wasn’t bleached with chlorine would be considered deceptive if production of the wrapper created other harmful substances. And claims that packaging is recyclable will be considered deceptive unless they’re recyclable in at least 60 percent of U.S. communities.

I preceded Bell on stage with a presentation on the Thinkshift Credibility Quotient—the public debut of  the official version of our system for measuring the credibility of any communication. I was happy to see that the criteria we’re using line up neatly with the FTC’s draft guidelines. (Bell told me later that he thought I was saying essentially the same thing; I was just nicer about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been!)

I see credibility questions popping up more and more—and I think companies that believe they can continue forever to make grandiose, unsupported claims are in for an unpleasant surprise.