Cleaning up the planet one bag at a time (and having fun doing it): An interview with Ellen Ornato.

The tenth installment in our on-going Leaders of Sustainability series of interviews with executives and entrepreneurs of sustainability-minded business is with Ellen Ornato, VP Strategic Marketing & Fun for ECOBAGS. ECOBAGS is the pioneering firm that introduced reusable bags to U.S. consumers 20 years ago. Today, they manufacture and distribute a complete line of reusable bags using natural and certified organic cotton, recycled cotton and hemp/cotton blends and sell a wide array of reusable products produced in fair wage/fair labor facilities.

As always, our hope is that entrepreneurs and business leaders of sustainability-focused businesses will find this series helpful and instructive in growing their businesses and dealing with both the challenges and opportunities facing businesses trying to make a profit at the same time reducing their impact on the environment.

This interview concludes my two part interview series with ECOBAGS. I spoke with Sharon Rowe, CEO and Founder of ECOBAGS.com earlier this year.

Justin – Thanks Ellen for taking the time to speak with me today.

You have a very interesting background, and your journey that brought you to ECOBAGS is very intriguing so let’s start there if you don’t mind.

Ellen – Sure.

Well, I think it’s important to begin by pointing out that my experience is different than Sharon’s experience.  As you know, Sharon Rowe is the founder of ECOBAGS, and she is also my sister.

I have been with ECOBAGS.com for almost 2 years. During the first 17 years of ECOBAGS, as Sharon was pushing the proverbial “rock up the mountain”, I was taking a much different path.

My academic and professional background is quite eclectic. After earning my Masters in Urban Planning and working extensively in community planning, I moved into public relations and then into event marketing. Eventually I established my own consulting firm, Solutions PR & Marketing, LLC, prior to joining ECOBAGS.com.

During those first 17 years that Sharon was in business, we were running this sort of parallel path –her personal and professional life committed to sustainability, where as I was basically living the lightest green life you could find right. I thought nothing of using single use containers or products, and was not nearly as aware as one should be of the implications of my consumption choices on the environment and society. Sharon and I were definitely on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Over the years, I have become much more aware as my professional life has progressed, and there has been a confluence of thinking and feelings which brought me to the point where I really felt compelled to join Sharon and the amazing team here at ECOBAGS.com.

Justin – How has the competitive landscape for reusable, sustainable bags changed over the years?

Ellen – Well, first of all, defining who our true competitors are is not as straight forward as you might think.

Throughout the first 17 years of ECOBAGS’ existence, our challenge was getting people to understand the impact of single use bags. On many occasions, it felt very much like a group trying to push a very big boulder up a very steep hill. During those years, there were four or five companies we considered as our competitors. They were organizations working primarily in the natural organics industry servicing non-profit organizations with printed canvass bags. Our customers were looking for not only the commodity of a bag, but also the whole story of sustainability.

Over the past two or three years, as more and more consumers have begun to appreciate the impact of single use bags, the definition of our “competition” has gotten blurred.

Theoretically any company that sells a reusable bag is a competitor. But it’s important to understand that “reusable” does not necessarily mean “sustainable”.

We define ourselves not just as a bag company, but also as a company that employs sustainable wage and labor practices and produces extremely high quality bags. This definition changes the nature of who we consider to be our competitors and how we define our markets, and ultimately how we describe our company.

Justin – Unfortunately many consumers do not understand that “all bags are not created equal”. How do you convince consumers that a high quality, sustainable bag is worth paying more for than the $0.99 bag most consumers can pick up at their local grocery store?

Ellen – Well, it’s a process.

It’s a process because for us we never want to make anyone feel bad about their decision to bring a reusable bag to the store because that’s a right decision.

It’s a process that is based on education. First we want to help consumers change what has been a long standing and ingrained habit. We want to change the habit of going to the store and coming home with 20 of those flimsy plastic bags and recycling less than 4% of them. So that’s step #1.

Step #2 also requires education – ensuring consumers actually remember to bring their reusable bags back to the store on their next shopping trip. It hasn’t become a habit for most consumers yet – it takes 21 times of doing anything for 21 consecutive days before it becomes a habit. And I will be the first one to admit that I have walked into a store empty handed.

At the center of it all is convincing consumers to accept a new definition of “better”. For so long, a big part of better has been cheaper, less expensive. The notion of durability, sustainability, social and environmental responsibility must become part of the equation when consumers are trying to figure out which product or service is “better”.

Justin – I’m interested to know what goes through your mind when you are standing in-line at the grocery store and you see others in line without their own bags. Are you disheartened to see other consumers ignoring the need to use re-usable shopping bags, especially given the fact that ECOBAGS has been leading this crusade for 20 years?

Ellen – Well, I am disappointed from an environmental perspective, but I am also motivated from a business perspective. I see it as an enormous opportunity to help people feel good about being able to make some impact on global warming and pollution.

Those people in that are in line with me, those who have not yet gotten the message, are all business opportunities for us.  So it’s actually kind of exciting.

Justin – What do you think is required to convince the majority of consumers to change their behaviors and their approach to consumption? What do you think we need to do as business people to get consumers to consider environmentally friendly products more often?

Ellen - Well there are a couple of things.

I think that the education piece is critical, and continuing to pursue innovative ways to communicate with people is critical. During the last few months we’ve started to really engage in social media. Check out our Facebook fan page or follow us @ECOBAGSdotCOM on Twitter.

For Sharon and me, we are part of an older generation so this is not our natural way of doing business. We are fortunate to have some great, younger people in the office who are intimately familiar with blogging, Twitter, and all the other Web 2.0 applications, and doing whatever it is they know how to do, right, really effectively.

In addition to engaging virtually every type of media to communicate to consumers, we are very active in event sponsorships. We donate bags to certain key events and we came up with the non-profit fund raising model called ECOBAGS for GOOD where schools and non-profit organizations can use our products in a structured fundraiser to raise dollars for their organization, selling things that people actually want to buy.

Justin – Can you tell us a little bit more about ECOBAGS® for GOOD™.

Ellen – Sure. We launched ECOBAGS® for GOOD™.to help us better meet the needs of non-profit organizations and their fundraisers.

We’ve helped non-profit organizations with their fundraising efforts for years.  Traditionally, non-profits would want to create a custom printed bag to sell in order to raise funds.  It was pretty straight forward – they would bring us their graphics, and we would sell them the product at a great price because we have always priced our products really aggressively for non-profits to maximize their profits.

Over time, our non-profit customers came to us wanting to expand the types of products they sold as part of their fundraising efforts. They began to request other items – like water bottles. The challenge was helping our non-profit customers better meet their fundraising requirements with quality products that we were proud to be associated with, while keeping everything simple – not getting too many different companies or organizations involved. We wanted to create something that was very simple that would meet their needs.

The promise behind ECOBAGS® for GOOD™ is that, in the process of selling stuff to people, we will make sure that stuff is well made, of high quality and that it replaces a disposable product. We wanted to create not only an opportunity for people to buy products at a great price and for the non-profit organizations to earn significant profit, but also provide that non-profit organization or school a platform from which to talk about the impact of single use products on our environment.

The ECOBAGS® for GOOD™ program has just six products. We have ECOBAGS® Canvas Bags in natural and black, EcoUsable™ Reusable Water Bottles, ECOBAGS® Canvas Lunch Bags, ChicoBag™ totes, and ECOBAGS® Produce Bags

Justin – Thanks for taking so much time with us today Ellen. Before I let you go, I have a few final questions that I would like to ask that are a little more personal. First, do you have a favorite business book you would recommend to our readers?

Ellen - I really enjoyed “Fish”. It’s a book about engagement, creating an amazing work environment, positive attitude and the role of fun in the workplace. Everything we have been talking about is all very serious stuff; we are trying to clean up the planet one bag at a time (that’s a trademarked phrase, by the way), but the bottom line is; if we don’t have fun, if we make people feel guilty for doing the wrong thing, they are not going to buy a product from us.  Conversely, if we educate and give our customers a voice in what we offer, they will want to work with us.  The book “Fish” was all about engagement!

We want to engage our customers in a conversation about what they can do to make an impact in their world, and that every change that an individual makes is the step in the right direction.  Even using the wrong bag to do the right thing is a step in the right direction, right?

Justin – Do you have a favorite musical artist?

Ellen - Eva Cassidy. She was a folk singer from the greater Seattle area who died of breast cancer at the age of 36. Her voice is extraordinary.

Justin – Are you inspired by a particular business or political figure?

Ellen – Gandhi – I’ve always found his view that we can achieve a lot more with peace and good intention than we can with force and violence to be very compelling.

Justin – That’s great, and that’s it. You have been most gracious with your time, and it has been an incredibly enlightening conversation that I am sure my readers will enjoy and benefit from. Thank you.

If people would like to learn more about your company, and its products, what should they do?

Ellen – Thanks Justin, I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you as well. The best thing for them to do is visit our website at www.ECOBAGS.com

Ellen Ornato, VP Strategic Marketing & Fun, ECOBAGS

© 2009, Justin. All rights reserved.