Make Hay Ethical E-Media

Please be aware of any letters or invoices you receive asking you to renew or transfer your domain name. There seems to be yet another round of false reminders from a company called ‘Domain Renewal Group‘. Their paperwork is suspiciously similar to the previous company (Domain Registry of America / Europe / Canada) we warned about in our November ‘08 newsletter.

If here at Make Hay we have registered a domain name for you then we will remind you in plenty of time when it is due for renewal. The correspondence will come from us and only us.

Even though their letters look official please do not pay the ‘Domain Renewal Group’ any money as this is a scam.

I shall send the false letters we receive to Trading Standards Institute so they are aware of the scam.

Update 5th Oct 09 - Another new domain scam - look out for e-mails from ‘ISP Renewal’ with the address ‘…@onlinereminder.org’ and don’t fall for it!

This month Make Hay turns 5 years old. The time has flown so fast but at this milestone it makes us very happy to take a look back and a look around, to reflect on how we’ve grown and how responsible business is becoming more mainstream. There’s still a great responsibility for the business world (including us) to increase and improve our green and ethical habits but we should celebrate the achievements too!

Business Driven by Purpose

Make Hay was officially founded in September 2004. Long before then though it had had been whirring around in our brains. Disillusioned by traditional business models and encouraged by the potential of business driven by purpose, not just profit, we decided it was time to take our combined positive experiences and skills and make our contribution to changing the world. I know that might sound a bit cliché but that was, and still is, the driving force behind our business.

Back in 2004 the world was a different place. It was quite unusual for a new business to say they would turn work away if it meant making money from a particular industry or market or seek out suppliers with positive ethical credentials even though they may be more expensive. As we excitedly told friends and family what we were planning to do we were often met with bemused looks or remarks like “that’s crazy, you’ll never make any money”. Concerned supporters suggested “why don’t you start off without an ethical policy and when you’re established then go down the ethical route?” – There was no question of that. We did have positive encouragement too and to those people we are hugely thankful. Without it the beginnings of our fledgling business would have been difficult and isolating.

It wasn’t long before we found a few other businesses that we could look to for collaborations and support. I remember very well one of the first businesses we discovered was Ethical Junction. In great anticipation of meeting more greeny business types we added our details to what was then a humble directory ran by a handful of folks. Now, I’m happy to say, Ethical Junction are a mighty force, connecting responsible business owners all over the UK and we’re very proud to still be members.

How Things Have Changed

Personal highlights in our Make Hay journey include setting up Make Noise, to help promote the work of our amazing web design clients and adding the Green Hosting arm to our business, which enabled us to provide websites powered on renewable energy. We also co-founded and became host to the Green Girls Global blog and later Green Guys Global and joined the steering group of a local Fairtrade campaign as business representative. More recently we launched our Make Mail service, providing clients with e-mail marketing newsletters so that they could reach out even further and our blog, another useful voice in sharing the work of our clients and news and views on responsible and sustainable business.

More widely we’ve noted some vast changes in the business world as you will have too. Nowadays we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to green stationery, equipment and furniture. We can have our offices powered by the wind and become listed in a wealth of useful directories and networks working hard to get green to the masses. Gone are the days when shop keepers look at you aghast for bringing your own bag and even the big supermarkets are hiding their plastic carriers under the till.

Let’s not be fooled or get complacent, there is a still a long, long way to go and it won’t be easy. But we can be buoyed by the way that green business has begun to seep into the mainstream, even in Make Hay’s short lifetime, and use that to drive us forward. Let’s see what we can achieve in the next 5, 15, 50 years!

Thank You!

All that remains to say is a big thank you to our clients, colleagues and friends for your support over the years. As a way of showing our gratitude we have a prize for one lucky client to win. Please see the details in our latest newsletter.

This week we received an e-mail which was such a perfect example of how not to ‘get’ green business I had to share it. The e-mail was from a salesperson who suggested we would be interested in buying his products because we are a company who sells “solar promotional products”. We don’t, and never have, sold solar goods.

His amazing products are novelty desktop wind turbines, made from either plastic or metal. They are fitted with a little solar panel or USB ports to plug into your computer and power the rotating blades.

Apparently these merchandise would make great gifts to our clients, they could even be personalised with ours or our clients’ logo.

After we stopped laughing at the sheer preposterousness of this I felt quite irritated. They had got it wrong on so many levels:

1. It’s Still Spam
Just because you perceive your business and our business to have a common green focus doesn’t mean we want to hear from you or buy your product. We get unsolicited e-mails from companies selling ‘green’ or ‘ethical’ products on a regular basis, it’s still spam nonetheless.

2. Show Me Something Relevant
Ok, so you’re green and we’re green but is your product even relevant to us? If you insist on sending us spam, at least take the time to understand our business. This is just good marketing sense at the very least. We don’t sell solar products and putting that in the first line of your e-mail turned us off immediately.

3. You Just Don’t Get It
Why do you think we built our business on values of working efficiently, sustainably and putting careful thought into the things we buy? Why do you think we’ve taken lots of care to implement ethical and environmental policies and seek new ways to become even more efficient, less wasteful and more conscious of our impact on the environment? Do you think we’ve done these things to spend our hard earned cash on novelty plastic wind turbines from the other side of the world? Were you thinking at all????

4. Green by Name doesn’t always mean Green by Nature
Making something look green or sound green doesn’t mean it is green. In this case the product almost certainly isn’t but I wouldn’t know because you haven’t told me about its source or manufacture. We feel that transparency is so important so that customers can make informed choices. Without transparency consumers become justifiably suspicious. What happens then is that suspicion and mistrust spreads to all businesses which call themselves green. It basically gives all green business a ‘bad name’.

The folks at Business Link are providing a free consultation and diagnostic service on resource efficiency for small to medium businesses in the East Midlands. Following this your business may be eligible for a grant of up to £10k to help you improve your environmental performance.

Resource efficiency is about managing energy, water and materials to reduce waste and cost. There’s no excuse for businesses not to implement at least some strategies these days with help like this.

Find out more about the East Midlands Business Link Resource Efficiency Grants.

Business Link provide advice and support nationally on improving your environmental performance.

I recently read a great study on how consumers percieve green products and their decision making behind choosing green, or not. It got me thinking about how we as ethical businesses can reach out more into the mainstream by getting to understand the reasoning behind consumer choices.

Having the support and approval of like-minded folk is fantastic but to bring about real change we have to reach more people, especially people who aren’t yet making green/ethical steps or don’t understand how it will benefit them. I feel like its time to stop preaching to the converted and encourage widespread positive steps.

Understanding how consumers (whether that’s the public or other businesses) make decisions about where they spend their money can help us put responsible business on their radar.

Read the article ‘Colorblind: How Consumers See Green‘ on the Floov Website to find out more.