For quite some time, I have been trumpeting Toyota as perhaps the best company in the world. The combination of the most successful eco-product ever (Prius), the leanest manufacturing, and top-notch marketing make the company extremely hard to beat. But now we’re seeing a disturbing trend around their new hybrids. This past weekend, The New York Times published a scathing, but fair, article about the new Lexus hybrid (cover of the Automobiles section, titled "Conspicuous Consumption with Green Illusions"- ouch).

Apparently, the hybrid gets worse mileage than the non-hybrid version (a not-that-impressive 21 mpg vs. 22 mpg in tests). The extra 700 pounds of weight from the battery and other components don’t help. So what exactly makes the car green then? It is a super ultra-low emissions vehicle (SULEV), which is a measure of air pollutants, not CO2. But there are many non-hybrids that get SULEV ratings. So the green must just be the extra $30,000 it costs over the regular Lexus. As the author cheekily points out, you can buy the regular one, then use the extra $30K to buy a Prius for around the town driving.

This kind of false greenness is bad news for a company that has so much brand value riding on its environmental image (and sadly, this isn’t the first time the company has been accused of this problem – its hybrid SUVs gain extra power, but not much extra fuel-efficiency).

From a strategic perspective, none of this makes much sense to me. A big part of Toyota’s rise to world’s #1 was what it did right on green issues – mainly the Prius. I hope this won’t happen, but Toyota may find out that brand good will can be destroyed much faster than it’s built.

This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.

Home Depot announced last week that it will collect and recycle compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in nearly 2,000 of its stores. This is great news since it eases the transition to low-energy bulbs by solving a big customer problem: what do I do with this bulb when I'm done with it? Home Depot is the not the first - IKEA and local stores have CFL recycling programs - but it brings a bigger scale and reach to solving the problem.

First, bravo. Home Depot is, in part, taking responsibility for the "end-of-life" of one of its products (in wonky terms, this is "extended producer responsibility" and it's the law for some products in some parts of the world, such as electronics in Europe). But in the New York Times article on this program, one quote really struck me. Ron Jarvis, the company's SVP for environmental innovation (cool title) said, "We're trying to do the right thing...Some of the things that we do are for the community and not for the bottom line."

I'm always a bit frustrated at a slightly sheepish explanation for a green program that costs some money and might impact the financial performance of the company. Of course it will affect the bottom line. But I think it will help it. No doubt Mr. Jarvis meant what he said, but may be wrong, and here's why. When are people most likely recycling a bulb? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it's when they need a new one. Why wouldn't they buy it while they're at Home Depot recycling the old one? And what about that mop or plant or lumber they've been meaning to get? Solving a customer eco-problem can drive business.

From a strategy perspective, Home Depot is utilizing a critical eco-advantage mindset and approach: thinking about the value chain. Here's how I'd recommend finding these kinds of business and green opportunities. To oversimplify...

1) Think about - and measure if possible - the full value chain impact of your products. Where are the big impacts for energy use, water, toxic waste, and so on?

2) Look forward in the value chain (after thinking about upstream opportunities as well). What issues do your customers face? In this case, you might hear two complaints:
A) Boy are my energy bills going up;
B) I have no idea what to do with my old CFL bulb.

3) See if you can solve their environmental problem. Solving A is easy: sell them CFLs (and insulation and better windows and on and on). Solving problem B is harder but possible with scale: start a recycling program.

4) Reap the benefits of a closer relationship with your customer who now thinks of you as a solution provider (and if you're Home Depot, sort of apologize for it).

OK, Home Depot didn't mean to do the last part of #4 I'm sure. But I can't figure out why any company should have to dance around how a green program might help the bottom line after costing some money upfront - in most cases, that's just called investment. Only on environmental initiatives do people feel the need to apologize about short-term expense. Home Depot and its execs were right to crow about the environmental benefit and doing the right thing. But they are also fully justified to promote the likely payback and business benefits of investing and bringing customers into their stores.

Or perhaps Mr. Jarvis and the Home Depot team are craftier than I realize. Maybe they didn't want to let their competition know how much of a win-win this could be. Sorry if I let the cat out of the bag.

Ok, I'll admit upfront that this isn't a green posting exactly. But I was thinking about customer service after an interesting comment at the Fortune Brainstorm Green event i just went to in California (more posts to come). One attendee said he had seen analysis on companies with high customer service scores (by some independent organization that ranks customer service) vs. those with lower marks for pleasing customers. Through this decade, apparently, the higher group started having a significant advantage in stock market performance. To stretch the analogy to green, perhaps companies that get the intangibles right -- including some aspects of connecting to customers around social and environmental issues -- will be rewarded. The context of this comment was in a session on investing in greener companies and the higher performance (and lower risk) of greener stocks. The session included the always funny and interesting Matt Kiernan, founder of Innovest and one of the true experts on green investing.

But anyway, I was in customer service mindset when I drove my Hertz Prius back to LAX and had two diametrically opposed customer experiences within 5 minutes.
A few blocks from Hertz is the gas station, AM PM Arco, right on La Cienega and W. Century Blvd. Everyone stopping there was filling up a rental. When you pull up to the pump, there are no instructions and you can't put any money in. A helpful gentleman pointed to a central payment station. But that didn't take credit cards. So you have to go in, wait in line, give them a credit card...which they keep and make you come back in for. When I came back in and waited for register, I got to the 'wrong' one and had to wait for the other guy with my card (handing it over was not possible I guess). So nobody was rude exactly, but the only helpful part of the process was the homeless guy out front making a living helping people negotiate this byzantine process.

So cut to 10 minutes later at Hertz. I get on the courtesy bus #26 driven by John, the single best bus driver I've every had. He paused the bus before we left the Hertz parking lot and asked if everyone was sure they hadn't left anything in their cars. Then he told us what to do if we realized we left something in the car later, or even left something in the bus -- "call us and i'll turn my bus around and come back to your terminal." He offered candy to everyone and helped every person on and off the bus. It was remarkable. I actually sent an email through the Hertz website to commend him.

Yes, it's sad when people doing their job well is so noticeable, but we've come to that. It's relatively easy to be remarkable in this environment, so why not? (see the work of Seth Godin and the "purple cow" concept for more on this.

So, a strange Earth Day-week post from me. I'm sure there's a green connection here (like being remarkable, which truly green-focused companies generally are -- think Patagonia -- pays off), but I won't stretch too far to find it.

The Superbowl ads this year were fairly mediocre, on top of often being oddly dated and consistently anti-women. But one ad is getting a lot of discussion/attention in the green world: The Audi ad about the Green Police.

If you didn't see it, it depicts a new police force arresting people for choosing plastic bags at the supermarket or setting their jacuzzis at too high a temperature. Then a driver of an Audi "clean diesel" is waved right through an eco road block.

Was it funny? Yes (it's hard not to laugh when the eco-police, on their Segway's, ask a real policeman to "step out of the car" for drinking out of a styrofoam cup).

But was it also cringe-worthy? Yes. The ad really plays on all the worst stereotypes about how going green is hard and how you'll be judged. The redeeming quality is that the person doing the 'right' thing, the driver, gets a free pass.

But in terms of promoting green consumer choices, does Audi help the movement (and its own product) or hurt it?

What do you think?

Every year, major sporting events get greener and the goals for renewable energy use, carbon-neutrality, or zero-waste get tougher. The Vancouver Olympics which just ended featured a large range of greening activities; the sustainability staff worked on them for years, producing sustainability reports as far back as 2007. In their bids for the 2016 Olympics, not only did Chicago describe its games as "low-carbon", but Tokyo actually claimed its event would be carbon-negative. As a special advisor to U.S. Soccer's bid for the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022, I can tell you that there will be some tough goals in place for that event as well, should we win the bid.

In addition to the event committees themselves, what I find fascinating is how big, corporate-level sponsors are increasingly bringing their own sustainability agendas to the table as well.

It's smart, because if you're a sponsor, helping to green big events serves a number of purposes.

First, and most obviously, it's a great way to demonstrate your green bona fides, build your brand, and sell new products. There's no bigger or more passionate audience than live and TV-viewing sports fans. For a World Cup, for example, U.S. Soccer expects roughly five million fans through the gates, another ten million at fan "fests" nearby, and a cumulative audience of nearly 26 billion (multiple views for each of billions of fans, obviously) watching around the world. So of course companies fight to get these coveted spots and use them. For example, in 2008, GE leveraged the Beijing Olympics as a way to demonstrate its ecomagination portfolio.

But second, and perhaps more importantly, these events serve as a testing ground for new products, processes, and ways of doing business. Right before the games, Coke announced its aggressive targets for Vancouver — zero-waste and carbon-neutrality. The tactics behind these goals include employing new refrigerants to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, deploying hybrid delivery fleets, the use of Coke's new "PlantBottle," and the purchase of carbon offsets as a matter of course.

It's not just the Olympics. At the PGA Phoenix Open (which also just ended), sponsor Waste Management is using the opportunity to try some new waste reduction and management techniques, including moving toward a zero-waste goal, introducing Solar Compactors, and installing "reverse" vending machines that collect recyclables. (Full disclosure: Waste Management hired me to speak at a dinner at this event -- more on that trip later.)

While cynics will say it's just grandstanding by these big brands, I actually do see real action and serious learning going on. Only with live tests like these can Coke learn, for example, how consumers react to a new bottle or whether low-GHG refrigerants perform as expected in the field. These events are pilot projects — they're circumscribed in time and space and allow new thinking and action on a controllable scale.

These efforts offer a great lesson for all companies. Any organization can try green initiatives out in a single office building or at a single corporate event (Earth Day events are the most obvious, but anything will do: a "fun run", fundraiser, etc.). Not all new ideas will work, so look for project opportunities of moderate scale — and sponsoring an external or internal event is a good place to start — and build from there.

(This post originally appeared in an earlier form on Harvard Business Online)

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