“I hope that five years from now, ten years from now, we’ll look back and say this was the start of the revolution. The existing paradigm isn’t working anymore—this is the future.”

Those were Patagonia founder and CEO Yvon Chouinard’s closing words as he led a parade of companies up the steps of the Secretary of State’s office this morning to become California’s first benefit corporations. He captured the spirit of the moment perfectly—many of us got up long before dawn to be in Sacramento when the office opened so that we could become benefit corporations at the first possible moment. (What’s a benefit corporation? See this previous post.)

For Thinkshift, and I think for the other newly minted benefit corporations as well (Give Something Back Office Supplies, Dharma Merchant Services, Sun Light & Power, Opticos Design and many others), it felt like we took a significant first step in support of the kind of business culture that can build a sustainable, responsible and vibrant economy.

B Lab co-founder Jay Coen Gilbert, whose organization has been leading the push for benefit corporation legislation across the country, described California’s law as the “most rigorous” yet and “on its way to becoming the most used.”

Why is this important? Benefit corporation status ensures that mission-oriented buisnesses can honor their social and environmental commitments as they grow (and take on investors) without fear of shareholder lawsuits. Chouinard compared it to a conservation easement on a property. “It’s a conservation easement on a business, and I’m pretty excited about that,” he said. It also gives clients and customers a way to separate companies that are walking sustainability from those that are just talking it.

We’re a bit dazed here in the Thinkshift studios, since we also just became a corporation (moving up from a partnership) in conjunction with becoming a benefit corporation (benefit status relates to governance; we also needed to elect a standard corporate structure). The fact that we were able to do it all, in less than a month and over the holidays, is thanks to our lawyer Donald Simon of Wendel Rosen Black & Dean, who helped write the benefit corporation law and is a rock star.

A great start to 2012!
 

The Business Council on Climate Change presented a program last week on how games are inspiring ways to get people on board with sustainable behavior change. The presenters, from Blue Shield, Sabre Holdings, SunPower and RideSpring, all had great stories to tell about how their interactive contests are inspiring people to increase their environmental efforts, get healthier, carpool more, or boost their store of knowledge about solar power.

Goals for these programs vary: improve employee and customer health (Blue Shield), boost employees’ sustainability behavior and knowledge (Sabre), increase market awareness and sales (SunPower), and expand knowledge and use of alternative transit and ridesharing among commuters (RideShare). (More info and links to programs are at the BC3 site.)

The experiences of all four reinforce what research has been telling us all along about getting people to act more responsibly in all kinds of arenas.

Make it relevant. Sabre’s Leilani Latimer noted that employees didn’t care about environmental actions at home—they wanted to know what they could do at work. Blue Shield’s Bryce Williams had similar experiences with his program.

Don’t chastise. Admonishing people for bad behavior or not fulfilling a goal almost never gets results, at least in the long term.

Go team. Competition gets intense in the Sabre and Blue Shield programs, in which participant teams compete by performing environmentally friendly or healthy behaviors. The actions are recorded and tracked online.

Peer pressure works, even if you’re not in high school. Team members pulled their own weight, and everyone reported that knowing what everyone else was doing meant people weren’t likely to cheat. Several people noted that fame—for instance, seeing your name in a company e-mail announcing winners—is a motivator.

Prizes work (if they’re coveted). Paul McGrath of RideSpring swore by regular prizes (his programs provide them via random drawings), as long as they’re good ones.

Prizes don’t work (if they’re eh). Sabre’s program offers prizes to workgroups, but they’re so small that they’re not the main motivator, said Latimer.

Make it easy. No one will do anything if it’s too complicated, time consuming or difficult. All these programs feature easy online access and simple steps.

A friend recently alerted me to this great video presentation about motivation based on a presentation by Daniel Pink, whose new book is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It got me thinking about how we make assumptions when we’re communicating about sustainability and marketing green initiatives.

Pink points out that research on what motivates people to excel at their work flies in the face of common assumptions when the work involves cognitive skill and critical thinking. Monetary rewards actually backfire; studies show that motivation comes from self-direction, mastery, and  making a contribution. I’d like to see more about motivation where sustainability initiatives are concerned. I hear anecdotes that “doing the right thing” isn’t enough to get people to act. Research I’ve seen about energy conservation behavior shows that’s true. But we don’t know enough about what does make people conduct their business in sustainable ways. It’s always assumed that the clincher always has something to do with money (you’ll save it or spend less) or effort (it’s easier) or competition (looking better than your neighbor).

It’s not that simple. In my work I’ve recently seen how sustainability goals unite employees and inspire them to go the extra mile. I also see customers making the green/sustainable choice because it’s the right thing to do. In both cases, these groups are active advocates. What can we learn about the other two factors, mastery and self-direction, that will help us market more effectively and change behavior—and bring about lasting results that will make a dent in climate change?

So I’m off to find a copy of Drive at the library. (And forgive me if this sounds like an ad for the book, which was published in December.) I’ll report back.

One last note: The video is incredibly creative—an artist draws cartoon illustrations on a whiteboard in time with Pink’s talk. It’s a production of RSA, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. RSA are brilliant (they’re British so I can say it like that), and so fun, progressive and insightful that you’d never guess the organization is 250 years old.