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Program set for 2011 Seeley Conference

May 5, 2011 by Charlie

Floriculture’s Biggest Challenge: Creating MindShare Opportunities

In today’s post-recession marketplace, the “reborn consumer” is asking tougher questions. She is making more critical decisions as to what is really important and what she really needs.

Marketers can no longer assume the consumer will return to buy what she has bought before. Indeed, total consumption levels have already returned to pre-recession expenditure levels, but not every subsector of the economy has rebounded, as the consumer is spending differently, buying more in some categories and less in others.

Join us at the 26th annual Seeley Conference and we’ll explore these questions through thoughtful relevant presentations by industry leaders and lively group discussion.

  • Why are people blind to the plants and flowers that surround them in everyday life?
  • Can the industry overcome plant blindness and increase mindshare in the consumer by understanding and communicating that our products are necessities in people’s lives and not mere luxuries?
  • How has consumer mindset changed during the Great Recession? Will spending ever go back to the way it was before?
  • Can we focus our value proposition on the unique ways in which plants enhance the quality of life by economic contributions, environmental eco-systems services, and health/well-being benefits of flowers in interior and exterior landscapes?
  • How do others do it? Case studies of firms using social media to articulate THE “more than pretty” value proposition
  • What is the role of advocacy groups, promotion programs, or city-wide beautification programs?
  • What happens when an entire city takes on a green attitude?
  • Does engaging your neighbors improve your bottom line? Case studies of major greenhouses and nurseries who are opening up their facilities for public inspection and good-will generation
  • Creating the Urban and Destination Connection: Case studies in building involvement with plants and flowers
  • Do we need to rethink our offerings one product at a time, or does everything we do need a major makeover to connect with the consumer?
  • How to put it all together and build consumer mindshare for your products and business?

June 27 – 29, 2011  Ithaca, N.Y.

  • Program ends by noon June 29
  • Conference brochure

Seeley Conference on Facebook

Featured speakers include:

  • Ian Baldwin, garden retail consultant
  • Tim Farrell, floral designer
  • Susan McCoy, president, The Garden Media Group
  • Katy Moss Warner, president emeritus, American Horticultural Society
  • Lisa Paschke, vice president for marketing and sales, Bachman’s, Inc.
  • Adam Schwerner, director of the Dept. of Natural Resources for the Chicago Park District
  • Beth Zwinak, manager of Tagawa Gardens, Centennial, Colo.
  • Full profiles and additional speakers


Register online. Pay online with credit card.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Seeley Conference

Last chance to register for Seeley Conference

June 11, 2010 by Charlie

The 25th annual Seeley conference is only 2 weeks away (June 26-29, 2010 in Ithaca, NY) and there are a few seats left. This year’s theme is: Floriculture’s Environmental Footprint: An Inconvenient Truth or Consumer Opportunity?

For several years, we’ve heard about global warming and climate change as issues we need to address. Of course, the real issues revolve around what it means for the bottom line for our individual businesses. How will the outcomes of the current legislative debate impact us?  Are there modifications we need to make to stay in business once the debate ends and the laws are enacted?  Will our businesses be able to remain financially solvent or will regulations force us out of business? These are but a few of the critical questions this year’s conference will address and the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders.

Kicking off the conference is Dr. Rob Stavins who is Director of the Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program. A second keynote will be delivered by Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com, whom the Associated Press refers to as the “guru of green business practices.”  Steve Windhager of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center closes the first day with an overview of the newly released Sustainable Sites Initiative guidelines.

The second day starts with case study presentations by representatives from Walmart and the Food Marketing Institute relating their respective sustainability experiences. This will be followed up with detailed presentations from Kaji Kado of PPD Technologies and Will Healy from Ball Horticulture with each of them discussing procedures for calculating water and carbon footprints using life cycle analysis. The day will wrap up with case study discussions from floriculture and nursery industry leaders regarding their respective successes and challenges in this area.

The closing keynote address on the last morning of the conference will be given by Robert Dolibois, Executive Vice President of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) who will highlight the responses made by green industry participants in addressing environmental issues, the importance of consumer and legislator perceptions about our products and services, and what is being done in the industry to convey our value proposition of enhancing the lives of consumers through ecosystems services and other benefits (health, aesthetics, economic, etc). The final speaker on the program will be Fred Haberman who will lead attendees in a discussion of how best to tell their story regarding their sustainability-related business practices.

As always, the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders regarding these timely issues. One of the objectives of the conference is for attendees to have a very concrete, well-defined plan for addressing the issues discussed as they go back to their respective businesses. This year promises to not only do that but provide a very necessary primer on this critical issue facing the industry.

To register online and to find more information regarding the 2010 Seeley Conference and this year’s program, the conference website is www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference, or Facebook users can refer to the Seeley Conference fan page.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: education, Seeley Conference

Hurry to reserve your seat at this year's Seeley Conference!

May 8, 2010 by Charlie

The 25th annual Seeley conference is only 7 weeks away (June 26-29, 2010 in Ithaca, NY) and there are a few seats left. This year’s theme is: Floriculture’s Environmental Footprint: An Inconvenient Truth or Consumer Opportunity?

For several years, we’ve heard about global warming and climate change as issues we need to address. Of course, the real issues revolve around what it means for the bottom line for our individual businesses. How will the outcomes of the current legislative debate impact us?  Are there modifications we need to make to stay in business once the debate ends and the laws are enacted?  Will our businesses be able to remain financially solvent or will regulations force us out of business? These are but a few of the critical questions this year’s conference will address and the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders.

Kicking off the conference is Dr. Rob Stavins who is Director of the Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program. A second keynote will be delivered by Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com, whom the Associated Press refers to as the “guru of green business practices.”  Steve Windhager of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center closes the first day with an overview of the newly released Sustainable Sites Initiative guidelines.

The second day starts with case study presentations by representatives from Walmart and the Food Marketing Institute relating their respective sustainability experiences. This will be followed up with detailed presentations from Kaji Kado of PPD Technologies and Will Healy from Ball Horticulture with each of them discussing procedures for calculating water and carbon footprints using life cycle analysis. The day will wrap up with case study discussions from floriculture and nursery industry leaders regarding their respective successes and challenges in this area.

The closing keynote address on the last morning of the conference will be given by Robert Dolibois, Executive Vice President of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) who will highlight the responses made by green industry participants in addressing environmental issues, the importance of consumer and legislator perceptions about our products and services, and what is being done in the industry to convey our value proposition of enhancing the lives of consumers through ecosystems services and other benefits (health, aesthetics, economic, etc). The final speaker on the program will be Fred Haberman who will lead attendees in a discussion of how best to tell their story regarding their sustainability-related business practices.

As always, the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders regarding these timely issues. One of the objectives of the conference is for attendees to have a very concrete, well-defined plan for addressing the issues discussed as they go back to their respective businesses. This year promises to not only do that but provide a very necessary primer on this critical issue facing the industry.

To register online and to find more information regarding the 2010 Seeley Conference and this year’s program, the conference website is www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference, or Facebook users can refer to the Seeley Conference fan page.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Seeley Conference

Interesting time ahead for Federal climate policy

April 23, 2010 by Charlie

Dr. Rob Stavins will provide the opening keynote at this year’s Seeley Conference (registration is now open for the conference which will be held June 27-29 in Ithaca, NY). Below are comments he made yesterday in his Harvard University blog:

In just a few days, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman will release their much-anticipated proposal for comprehensive climate and energy legislation – the best remaining shot at forging a bipartisan consensus on this issue in 2010.  Their proposal has many strengths, but there’s an issue brewing that could undermine its effectiveness and drive up its costs.  I wrote about this in a Boston Globe op-ed on Earth Day, April 22nd (the original version of which can be downloaded here).

Government officials from California, New England, New York, and other northeastern states are vociferously lobbying in Washington to retain their existing state and regional systems for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, even after a new federal system comes into force. That would be a mistake – and a potentially expensive one for residents of those states, who could wind up subsidizing the rest of the country.  The Senate should do as the House did in its climate legislation:  preempt state and regional climate policies.  There’s no risk, because if Federal legislation is not enacted, preemption will not take effect.

The regional systems – including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the Northeast and Assembly Bill 32 in California – seek to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other sources, mainly by making emissions more costly for firms and individuals.  These systems were explicitly developed because the federal government was not moving fast enough.

But times have changed.  Like the House climate legislation passed last June, the new Senate bill will feature at its heart an economy-wide carbon-pricing scheme to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, including a cap-and-trade system (under a different name) for the electricity and industrial sectors.  (In a departure from the House version, it may have a carbon fee for transportation fuels.)

Though the Congress has a history of allowing states to act more aggressively on environmental protection, this tradition makes no sense when it comes to climate change policy.  For other, localized environmental problems, California or Massachusetts may wish to incur the costs of achieving cleaner air or water within their borders than required by a national threshold.  But with climate change, it is impossible for regions, states, or localities to achieve greater protection for their jurisdictions through more ambitious actions.

This is because of the nature of the climate change problem. Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, uniformly mix in the atmosphere – a unit of carbon dioxide emitted in California contributes just as much to the problem as carbon dioxide emitted in Tennessee.  The overall magnitude of damages – and their location – are completely unaffected by the location of emissions.  This means that for any individual jurisdiction, the benefits of action will inevitably be less than the costs. (This is the same reason why U.S. federal action on climate change should occur at the same time as other countries take actions to reduce their emissions).

If federal climate policy comes into force, the more stringent California policy will accomplish no additional reductions in greenhouse gases, but simply increase the state’s costs and subsidize other parts of the country. This is because under a nationwide cap-and-trade system, any additional emission reductions achieved in California will be offset by fewer reductions in other states.

A national cap-and-trade system – which is needed to address emissions meaningfully and cost-effectively – will undo the effects of a more stringent cap within any state or group of states.  RGGI, which covers only electricity generation and which will be less stringent than the Federal policy, will be irrelevant once the federal system comes into force.

In principle, a new federal policy could allow states to opt out if they implement a program at least as stringent.  But why should states want to opt out?  High-cost states will be better off joining the national system to lower their costs. And states that can reduce emissions more cheaply will be net sellers of Federal allowances.

Is there any possible role for state and local policies?  Yes.  Price signals provided by a national cap-and-trade system are necessary to meaningfully address climate change at sensible cost, but such price signals are not sufficient.  Other market failures call for supplementary policies.  Take, for example, the principal-agent problem through which despite higher energy prices, both landlords and tenants lack incentives to make economically-efficient energy-conservation investments, such as installing thermal insulation.  This problem can be handled by state and local authorities through regionally-differentiated building codes and zoning.

But for the core of climate policy – which is carbon pricing – the simplest, cleanest, and best way to avoid unnecessary costs and unnecessary actions is for existing state systems to become part of the federal system.  Political leaders from across the country – including the Northeast and California – would do well to follow the progressive lead of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles, who have played key roles in the design and implementation of RGGI, and yet have also publicly supported its preemption by a meaningful national program.

California’s leaders and those in the Northeast may take great pride in their state and regional climate policies, but if they accomplish their frequently-stated goal – helping to bring about the enactment of a meaningful national climate policy – they will better serve their states and the country by declaring victory and getting out of the way.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: climate change, Seeley Conference

Seeley Conference keynote discusses cap & trade

March 30, 2010 by Charlie

Dr. Robert Stavins, who is Director of Harvard’s Environmental Economics program and the opening keynote speaker for this year’s Seeley Conference (June 27-29 in Ithaca, NY) provides the following perspective on the future of cap & trade legislation:

In a recent article in the New York Times, John Broder asks “Why did cap-and-trade die?” and responds that “it was done in by the weak economy, the Wall Street meltdown, determined industry opposition and its own complexity.”  Mr. Broder’s analysis is concise and insightful, and I recommend it to readers.  But I think there’s one factor that is more important than all those mentioned above in causing cap-and-trade to have changed from politically correct to politically anathema in just nine months.  Before turning to that, however, I would like to question the premise of my own essay.

Is Cap-and-Trade Really Dead?

Although cap-and-trade has fallen dramatically in political favor in Washington as the U.S. answer to climate change, this approach to reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is by no means “dead.”

The evolving Kerry-Graham-Lieberman legislation has a cap-and-trade system at its heart for the electricity-generation sector, with other sectors to be phased in later (and it employs another market-based approach, a series of fuel taxes for the transportation sector linked to the market price for allowances).  Of course, due to the evolving political climate, the three Senators will probably not call their system “cap-and-trade,” but will give it some other creative label.

The competitor proposal from Senators Cantwell and Collins — the CLEAR Act — has been labeled by those Senators as a “cap-and-dividend” approach, but it is nothing more nor less than a cap-and-trade system with a particular allocation mechanism (100% auction) and a particular use of revenues (75% directly rebated to households) — and, it should be mentioned, some unfortunate and unnecessary restrictions on allowance trading.

And we should not forget that cap-and-trade continues to emerge as the preferred policy instrument to address climate change emissions throughout the industrialized world — in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan (as I wrote about in a recent post).

But back to the main story — the dramatic change in the political reception given in Washington to this cost-effective approach to environmental protection.

A Rapid Descent From Politically Correct to Politically Anathema

Among factors causing this change were:  the economic recession; the financial crisis (linked, in part, with real and perceived abuses in financial markets) which thereby caused great suspicion about markets in general and in particular about trading in intangible assets such as emission allowances; and the complex nature of the Waxman-Markey legislation (which is mainly not about cap-and-trade, but various regulatory approaches).

But the most important factor — by far — which led to the change from politically correct to politically anathema was the simple fact that cap-and-trade was the approach that was receiving the most serious consideration, indeed the approach that had been passed by one of the houses of Congress.  This brought not only great scrutiny of the approach, but — more important — it meant that all of the hostility to action on climate change, mainly but not exclusively from Republicans and coal-state Democrats, was targeted at the policy du jour — cap-and-trade.

The same fate would have befallen any front-running climate policy.

Does anyone really believe that if a carbon tax had been the major policy being considered in the House and Senate that it would have received a more favorable rating from climate-action skeptics on the right?  If there’s any doubt about that, take note that Republicans in the Congress were unified and successful in demonizing cap-and-trade as “cap-and-tax.”

Likewise, if a multi-faceted regulatory approach (that would have been vastly more costly for what would be achieved) had been the policy under consideration, would it have garnered greater political support?  Of course not.  If there is doubt about that, just observe the solid Republican Congressional hostility (and some announced Democratic opposition) to the CO2 regulatory pathway that EPA has announced under its endangerment finding in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts vs. EPA.

(There’s a minor caveat, namely, that environmental policy approaches that hide their costs frequently are politically favored over policies that make their costs visible, even if the former policy is actually more costly.  A prime example is the broad political support for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, relative to the more effective and less costly option of gasoline taxes.  Of course, cap-and-trade can be said to obscure its costs relative to a carbon tax, but that hardly made much difference once opponents succeeded in labeling it “cap-and-tax.”)

In general, any climate policy approach — if it was meaningful in its objectives and had any chance of being enacted — would have become the prime target of political skepticism and scorn.  This has been the fate of cap-and-trade over the past nine months.

Why is Political Support for Climate Policy Action So Low in the United States?

If much of the political hostility directed at cap-and-trade proposals in Washington has largely been due to hostility towards climate policy in general, this raises a further question, namely, why has there been so little political support in Washington for climate policy in general.  Several reasons can be identified.

For one thing, U.S. public support on this issue has decreased significantly, as has been validated by a number of reliable polls, including from the Gallup Organization.  Indeed, in January of this year, a Pew Research Center poll found that “dealing with global warming” was ranked 21st among 21 possible priorities for the President and Congress.  (It should be noted some polls are not consistent with these.)  This drop in public support is itself at least partly due to the state of the national economy, as public enthusiasm about environmental action has — for many decades — been found to be inversely correlated with various measures of national economic well-being.

Although the lagging economy (and consequent unemployment) is likely the major factor explaining the fall in public support for climate policy action, other contributing factors have been the so-called Climategate episode of leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia and the damaged credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) due to several errors in recent reports.

Furthermore, the nature of the climate change problem itself helps to explain the relative apathy among the U.S. public.  Nearly all of our major environmental laws have been passed in the wake of highly-publicized environmental events or “disasters,” ranging from Love Canal to the Cuyahoga River.

But the day after Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught on fire in 1969, no article in The Cleveland Plain Dealer commented that “the cause was uncertain, because rivers periodically catch on fire from natural causes.”  On the contrary, it was immediately apparent that the cause was waste dumped into the river by adjacent industries.  A direct consequence of the “disaster” was, of course, the Clean Water Act of 1972.

But climate change is distinctly different.  Unlike the environmental threats addressed successfully in past legislation, climate change is essentially unobservable.  You and I observe the weather, not the climate.  Until there is an obvious and sudden event — such as a loss of part of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to a disastrous sea-level rise — it’s unlikely that public opinion in the United States will provide the bottom-up demand for action that has inspired previous Congressional action on the environment over the past forty years.

Finally, it should be acknowledged that the fiercely partisan political climate in Washington has completed the gradual erosion of the bi-partisan coalitions that had enacted key environmental laws over four decades.  Add to this the commitment by the opposition party to deny the President any (more) political victories in this year of mid-term Congressional elections, and the possibility of progressive climate policy action appears unlikely in the short term.

An Open-Ended Question

There are probably other factors that help explain the fall in public and political support for climate policy action, as well as the changed politics of cap-and-trade.  I suspect that readers will tell me about these.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: climate change, legislation, Seeley Conference

Keynote Speakers Set for Seeley Conference

March 23, 2010 by Charlie

Here is the latest Seeley Conference press release:

The 25th annual Seeley Conference topic, Floriculture’s Environmental Footprint: An Inconvenient Truth or Consumer Opportunity?, has been announced and conference coordinator, Dr. Charlie Hall, and the Seeley Conference Board of Directors are excited to announce the line-up of keynote speakers. The conference will be held June 26-29, 2010 in Ithaca, NY.

Dr. Hall, holder of the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture at Texas A&M; University, is particularly excited about the slate of keynote speakers for this year’s conference. “We have a lineup of keynote speakers who are not only noted in their respective fields, but are experts in the environmental arena,” Hall noted.

Kicking off the conference is Dr. Rob Stavins who is Director of the Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program. Professor Stavins’ research has focused on diverse areas of environmental economics and policy, including studies of market-based policy instruments; regulatory impact analysis; environmental benefit valuation; competitiveness effects of regulation; and costs of carbon sequestration. Professor Stavins directed Project 88, a bi-partisan effort co-chaired by former Senator Timothy Wirth and the late Senator John Heinz, to develop innovative approaches to environmental and resource problems. He continues to work closely with public officials on matters of national and international environmental policy. Dr. Stavins’ opening keynote will set the stage for the entire conference by providing an overview of the water and carbon-related issues facing the U.S. and the driving forces underlying these issues.

A second keynote will be delivered by Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com, which is produced by Greener World Media, of which he is co-founder and chairman. Previously, he was editor of The Green Business Letter, an acclaimed monthly newsletter on corporate environmental practices, which he founded in 1991. He is author of more than a dozen books; his newest, “Strategies for the Green Economy,” has been called “a clear and compelling vision of what’s possible when companies harness environmental thinking” by Stonyfield Farm founder Gary Hirshberg. Noted green architect William McDonough called the book a “hopeful vision of companies transforming challenges into opportunities, re-imagining not just their products and processes, but themselves.” The Associated Press has called him “The guru of green business practices.”

The conference’s closing address will be given by Robert Dolibois, Executive Vice President of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA). Dolibois serves on the board of directors of the Washington Youth Garden Council and the advisory council of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, one of the partners in the Sustainability Sites Initiative, which recently released the first rating system for sustainable landscapes. This keynote will highlight the responses made by green industry participants in addressing environmental issues, the importance of consumer and legislator perceptions about our products and services, and what is being done in the industry to convey our value proposition of enhancing the lives of consumers through ecosystems services and other benefits (health, aesthetics, economic, etc).

As always, the think-tank atmosphere of the Seeley Conference will allow for plenty of interaction with fellow industry leaders regarding these timely issues. For more information regarding the Seeley Conference and this year’s program, please visit the conference website at www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference, or Facebook users can refer to the Seeley Conference fan page.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Seeley Conference

Solving the cost-price squeeze

August 29, 2008 by Charlie

According to Table 10 in today’s BEA report, real disposable personal income increased in July by 1.2% compared to July last year, following a 3.4% annual increase in June and 6.3% increase in May. Both growth rates (May and June) were above the 2.6% average growth in real disposable income since 2001, following 7 months (October 2007 to April 2008) of below-average growth.

Although real disposable income growth showed weakness in the last quarter of 2007 (0.6%) and the first quarter of 2008 (-0.7%), the above-average, year-to-year growth rates of 6.3% (May) and 3.4% (June) contributed to an 11.4% increase in real disposable income during the second quarter 2008 (see Table 6), one of the biggest quarterly increases in history, largely due to the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.

Couple this increase in real disposable income with the core inflation rate holding relatively steady (see 8/15/08 post) and this means that [a sizable portion of] our end consumer in the green industry has the means with which to purchase our products and services, but do they have the desire — particularly at the prices we must charge in order to cover our current cost-price squeeze?

My friend, Lloyd Traven of Peace Tree Farm, just reiterated to me of how tough it is for growers right now given the “20% increases in pots, film, chemicals, and 30+% for fertilizers, soil, etc—and don’t forget to add energy, labor, etc. BTW, medical just went up again, and let’s not forget tuition.” The recent news of Hines Nursery’s bankruptcy (and the rumors of others pending) also reminds us that no one is immune from the effects of this cost-price squeeze.

But the key question is what to do about it? Logic would tell us there are only two options — either (1) employ the supply side strategy of continuing to shave costs out of the value chain internally or (2) opt for the demand side strategy of increasing price. Anyone who has been reading Making Cents for a while will readily know that I have been pushing for growers to embrace both strategies, but particularly option #2 (click on the differentiation tab on the right hand side of the page to view relevant posts).

On the flip side, however, never underestimate the value of a regimen of lean flow analyses on your value chain activities. Several growers at the Seeley Conference related some impressive cost savings testimonials to the rest of the group. You might want to give Gary Hudson a call if you’re interested in finding out more about lean flow. Also check out recent issues of Greenhouse Grower and GMPro for lean-related articles.

Stay tuned on more on the cost-price squeeze topic later…

Filed Under: News Tagged With: costs, differentiation, pricing, Seeley Conference

Lawns offer positive carbon footprint

June 28, 2008 by Charlie

Sustainability is a major topic of discussion these days, particularly at the recent Seeley Conference. It may not seem like it, but ultimately sustainability IS an economically-based subject whether you view it from a short-run or long-run perspective. The more the Green Industry can demonstrate its sustainable practices (and mitigate those that aren’t), the better off economically the industry will be.

Several folks in the media and otherwise have articulated the need for our industry to be proactive in demonstrating its “sustainableness.” Project Evergreen, America in Bloom, Arbor Day Foundation are examples of just that.

Research is desperately needed to document the carbon offset, or better yet, the “oxygen credit” that is provided by our industry’s products. One such piece of research recently released is a study that documents the fact that healthy turfgrass can capture as much as four times more carbon from the air than is produced by lawnmower engines.

See http://www.opei.org/carbonreport/ for the full report.

Other university studies are underway, but it will take some time because life cycle analysis is far from an exact science at this point. But in the historic words of Larry the Cable Guy, let’s “Git-R-Done!”

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Seeley Conference, sustainability

Seeley Conference Delivers!

June 26, 2008 by Charlie

Wow!

It’s been 48 hours since we closed to door on this year’s Seeley Conference and I am still chewing on some of the stellar presentations that were made.

Jim Marstiller kicked off the conference in good fashion. He is Senior Vice-President of Consulting Services for TNS Retail Forward, a leading management consulting and market research firm specializing in consumer behavior and its impact on retailers, those that supply retailers, and the economy. He is also the author of The Power to Innovate. Jim’s talk focused on growth strategies, category reinvention, brand development, and innovative merchandising solutions. For a publication that provides much of his discussion, click here.

I followed Jim on the program (not an easy task I might add) with a discussion I called Industry 2015, which focused on the driving forces and historical trends of the green industry. For an overview of that talk, click here.

That evening, Bill Lipinski, Chief Executive Officer, First Pioneer Farm Credit discussed the difficulties that many businesses had had in expanding while adjusting to the ever-changing business climate. Very few firms have done this successfully for several reasons: (1) the leap from hands-on management to delegating is difficult; (2) there is often a disconnect between strategy creation and strategy execution; (3) there is a hesitancy to change business strategy to the changes going on; (4) a lack of management systems and information; and (5) a lack of an ability to lead.

I opened the Monday morning session with a discussion of the economic drivers underlying differentiation strategies, particularly addressing the nature of perceived value on the part of our customers. Click here for more on this discussion. You can also click on the “differentiation” label on the right hand side of this blog page for more posts regarding this strategy.

The rest of the day highlighted a series of case studies illustrating firms who have been successful in differentiating themselves in the marketplace including Brian Minter of Country Garden and Minter Garden Center, who has one of the premier gardens & garden centers in the Northern hemisphere.

He was followed by Gary Mangum of Bell Nursery, who has been featured in several trade journals articles (click here). Gary discussed the Bell Nursery model and the unique and innovative ways they carry out their own differentiation strategy in servicing Home Depot.

Ball Publishing’s Jennifer Duffield White finished off the day by asking whether sustainability in floriculture is a tipping point for producers, retailers and consumers. The last morning of the conference, Peter Moran, Executive Vice President/CEO of the Society of American Florists (SAF), concluded the conference with a discussion of the draft sustainable standards for agriculture currently being proposed by SCS, the firm who is behind the Veriflora certification.

Needless to say, it was a busy 2.5 days but well worth it. If you missed the conference, the only respite you have is that your brain probably hurts less than mine right now.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: alliances, green industry, recession, Seeley Conference, strategy, sustainability, trends

Seeley Conference Begins Today

June 22, 2008 by Charlie

For the next several days, I will be participating in the Seeley Conference here at Cornell University (for more info, see www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference). The topic of the day? One of my favorites, of course, differentiation in the marketplace!

As you have heard me say in previous posts many times, in a time of heightened rivalry resulting from a maturing marketplace, firms need to differentiate themselves from the competition. This year’s topic — “Profit Squeeze: Is Differentiation the Solution?” — addresses changes in the industry’s marketplace, focusing on differentiation and innovation as ways to achieve success.

Stay tuned for insights gleaned from the conference!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: differentiation, Seeley Conference

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