Spending three weeks on vacation in northern Europe—mostly Amsterdam and Berlin—made me think about the ways we can pretty easily live a little “smaller.” Europeans live in smaller spaces, use less stuff, and reuse much more. They don’t seem as obsessed with green and sustainable as I thought they might be, but it could just be they don’t shout about it as much. They just do it, as they have been for years. For instance:

Bikes are a main form of transportation. Everybody has one, sturdy and utilitarian. In the city, bike paths are ubiquitous. And they aren’t in the road—they typically run between the sidewalk and parked cars. Makes it safer (for cyclists, anyway; I found it a bit perilous as a pedestrian).

Lights for public areas are on timers that switch off after 10 minutes. I’ve wondered for years why we don’t use these in our own apartment and office buildings.

Smaller appliances are the norm, like fridges that hold a week’s worth of groceries (or less) and washing machines that are smaller and front-loading. Air-drying clothes is common, and even families with children don’t always have a clothes dryer. (This is based on very limited observation.)

None of this is news to anyone who’s been abroad, but the climate change imperative threw it into sharp relief for me. In the bigger scheme of things, I also noticed that wind power is taking hold. Old windmills are an icon of the Netherlands, but new wind turbines are also becoming a part of the landscape. I saw some wind farms but was most impressed by the fact that many farms have their own wind turbines. In the northern part of the country it was amazing to see ancient farmhouses coupled with new turbines.

On the transportation front, cars are much smaller overall than on this side of the pond, but I still saw a lot of big SUV-type vehicles, and diesel is in wide general use. On the upside, most filling stations I saw sold biodiesel, and I saw not a few natural gas vehicles and fueling stations.

Finally, I spent my time away without my own computer or cell phone. And since the Iceland volcano kept me in Berlin an extra six days, I was almost unconnected for over three weeks. It was a little freaky, especially toward the end. But ultimately it felt great. Without electronic ties to where I came from, I felt more a part of where I was.

Greener World Media’s State of Green Business 2010 report is out, and, as it did last year, this excellent report drives home the need for companies to communicate credibly and completely about their sustainability efforts and back up green claims with relevant information.

One reason is “radical transparency”—people are using Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms and mobile apps to instantly disseminate news and opinions to desktop and smartphone alike. If you’re not credible, you’ll be called on it—and everyone will know about it. This is good news—it’s making all kinds of companies be more sustainable, and it seems to be prompting better communications (albeit more slowly than I’d like).

But it’s also making heads spin. We’re being overloaded with information, and it’s hard to know what’s credible and what isn’t. In one egregious example, most consumers think “natural” is better than “organic.” Third-party ratings such as Green Seal, the Green Good Housekeeping seal, and Underwriters Laboratories’ UL Environment are helping, but each rating organization looks at things differently, and there’s a plethora of labels.

I hope these rating efforts achieve something close to market consensus and get up to some kind of critical mass this year. The FTC isn’t helping—it’s been foot-dragging for two years or more in its efforts to review and revise its “Green Guides” for environmental marketing. (If anyone knows how to get them moving, I’ll help you any way I can.)

The FTC’s inertia reminds me of a recent New Yorker cartoon in which an executive says to his colleagues, “Let’s never forget that the public’s desire for transparency has to be balanced by our need for concealment.”

I’m not that cynical, but as Joel Makower points out in the State of Green Business, change is coming about in no small part due to pressure from lawsuits, Congress, and activists. Companies need to step up, to be on a truly sustainable path, and to communicate credibly and transparently, all the time, not just when it serves their purpose.

Current talk about the Obama Administration’s trouble with transparency reveals a strong parallel with sustainability-oriented businesses: it’s easy (and sounds so nice) to say you’re committed to transparency; try to deliver on that promise and you’re likely to encounter walls of uncertainty, fear, and bureaucratic resistance.

When transparency means revealing unfavorable or unflattering information (and it usually does to some extent), companies and institutions often get cold feet. They consider the negative publicity that could ensue and decide they can’t risk it. What they often fail to consider is the risk of continuing to hide and the benefits of public confession.

Someone’s bound to find out your secrets eventually, and then you have no control over the story. On the other hand, social psychology research, along with plenty of anecdotal evidence, shows that organizations that acknowledge problems—and say what they’re doing to address them—are perceived as more credible. Telling the truth makes you trustworthy. This is why attention to challenges is a factor in the Thinkshift Credibility Quotient™ (see an earlier post on how this applies to companies introducing advanced technologies).

You may be familiar with one of the best examples of transparency and acknowledging challenges: Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles program, which traces the company’s products through the supply chain. If not, here’s a look at the site in action:

I look up a jacket, and the website tells me the sustainability “good” (it’s recyclable), and the “bad” (the waterproof finish uses a chemical that persists in the environment). It also tells me they’re researching alternatives, but for now the finish stays because it’s essential to performance.

The fact that they’re telling me a negative thing makes the positives they point out all the more credible. It also has the interesting effect of making me as a potential purchaser share responsibility. They’ve told me about the chemical; if I want to reduce its incidence, I can forego waterproofing. If I want the waterproofing, I am partly responsible for the sustainability problem. Nice, huh?