George D' Utley, III President

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George D. Utley, IIIPresident
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An Eco-Friendly Weekend

• As I was developing my thoughts regarding this
  presentation and the subject matter at hand, I
  thought it might be of interest to see how my
  personal life is being affected in this
  environmentally conscious business climate.
• The following is an outline of my last weekends
  adventures.

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SATURDAY To start our day, we went out in our
Prius to get a cup of organic coffee - in our own
reusable mugs, of course!
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Green Spa
Feeling a little run down from a hard week at
work, we went to a spa for eco-friendly
exfoliation, a blueberry pedicure and a blueberry
body-wrap.
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Sustainable Furniture
Feeling rejuvenated, my wife decided she wanted
to re-decorate the family room, so we went
shopping for bio-degradable furniture. We looked
for a couch with wooden frames made from trees
harvested in sustainably managed forests,
uncoated nails, organic fabrics stuffing,
nontoxic dyes and biodegradability.
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Art
In our continuous attempt to educate our 3
daughters, we went on a family outing to the
sustainable art exhibit. There we saw trash
sculptures made from recycled paper, plastic and
metal.
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Publications
Coming home tired, I retrieved the mail and
browsed through magazines, reading about green
cars and about how industry is going green.
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Green House
Sunday started early. We visited our friends who
live a green building, constructed with 100
natural floor tiles, energy saving appliances,
painted with zero VOC paint, lighted with energy
saving LEDs and a green roof to keep the
building cool.
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Fashion
While in town, my daughter insisted that we see
the Future Fashion Show featuring Stella
McCartney Donna Karans new fashion lines made
with nature-friendly or second hand fabrics.
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Lush

• Made to order

We then made a mad dash to Lush cosmetics for
some fresh organic hand made cosmetics, and
finally made our way back home.
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Expo

• Green
• Manufacturing Expo

As I settled in for the night, I made my plans to
go to the green manufacturing expo.
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Re-usable

• 100 recycled paper
• 80 post consumer

Made use of some green toilet paper, of course.
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Bedding

• Organic and
• Chemical free

And finally, we got into our bed with organic
cotton sheets and a hypoallergenic comforter.
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Final Analysis of the Weekend

• BASTA!
• (enough!)

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About Utleys Inc.

• Before we move on I thought it might be helpful
  for you to know what Utleys Inc. does. For those
  of you unfamiliar with us, we have been in
  business for over 50 years as a prototype model
  shop catering to the liquor, consumer goods,
  industrial design and cosmetic industries, with a
  heavy emphasis on luxury goods packaging. We
  have worked with all major luxury good companies
  and have seen their evolution over the last
  half-century. In fact, many of the images you see
  in luxury goods ads as well as in the following
  six images, are, in fact, our models and not the
  real product.

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Liquor Bottles
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Consumer Goods
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Industrial Models
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Cosmetics Models
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Luxury goods
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Green Washed?

• When Marc asked me to speak at this panel, I
  gave the concept of less is more a lot of
  thought and research. The more I looked into the
  issue, I found that I kept coming up with
  questions, but very few answers. Green is the
  buzzword of today, as my weekend adventures
  showed it is impacting EVERY aspect of our
  lives. We are expected to reduce use and waste
  in all arenas of our lives, but are we being
  green washed?
• I wonder if the message has more to do with
  marketing, and cost savings than about true
  green business practices.

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As a hunter and outdoor enthusiast, saving the
environment is very important to me.
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But is this attempt to be green real? And
how does it relate to our industry?
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What Can Be Done?

• In the context of excess and less is more I
  will try and outline not the technical specifics
  of how we reduce or change physical packaging,
  but how we change our industries M.O. to achieve
  less is more.

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Self indulgence?
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Are Luxury and Conservation inherently at odds?

• One of the first questions I posed to myself
  was, do luxury consumers truly care about less
  being more?
• What is the motivation of the luxury consumer to
  buy luxury products? Isnt it true that the
  luxury and excess goods that consumers are
  purchasing are goods that bring
  self-gratification and a heightened sense of
  self-indulgence?
• Its only a lipstick, compact or fragrance
  bottle, right? How bad can it be for the
  environment?

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A Few Bites Can Break a Diet

• But dont all production processes add to
  pollution energy use?
• But like breaking a diet, how bad can one
  indulgence be? Just one compact, one lipstick or
  one fragrance bottle wont blow the environmental
  balance, or will itif you eat enough chocolate
  cake, youll blow your diet
• I hope you can see where I am going with this
  analogy.

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Ads
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Searching for Substance

• As I attempted to further identify the problems
  in our industry as they relate to Excess, I
  found that the current crop of magazines are
  filled with ads articles all related to the
  issue.
• However, I feel what needs to take place is a
  discussion about what is happening and why.
• There is no Green housekeeping seal of
  approval for our products. How do we know when we
  have reached our goal of less is more?

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Impact?
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More questions keep coming up, and real answers
remained obscure.

• What are purchasing/sourcing departments doing
  about excess and why?
• What are marketers doing about excess and why?
• What are designers doing and why?
• What are producers/manufacturers doing and why?
• What is the consumer doing and why?

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Green Smoke
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Bottle Redesign
Are bottles thinner walled for green purposes or
for cost savings? And are retail prices lowered
if there are savings or raised as the product is
sold as green?
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Cost of Utleys Solar Installation
Will production costs drive green manufacturing
up or down? If green is more expensive, what is
the motivation to use it?
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Spin
Will a company (producer or end seller) sacrifice
profit for an altruistic green corporate mantra,
or only as a marketing tool?
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Second Opinion
Will corporations sacrifice the bottom line for
green, and will the investors tolerate it?
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Design Strategies
Is there time to be green as the luxury industry
races from one new product to another? There is
no relative longevity to our products versus
cars, phones, computers, etc. Does this reduce
the motivation for our industry, compared to
others, as these images and articles suggest?
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Sustainability Leader
A company can have or advertise having a very low
carbon footprint but still make or use very toxic
products in the production process
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Pollute somewhere else
many times at some remote, out of sight -- out
of mind location.
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DK Gold
It is readily apparent that everyone is trying to
go green, but what is driving them?
Is it government driven by laws, taxes, and
fines being imposed? For example, Roger
Caracappa, who was unable to attend today,
informed me that the DK gold bottle was
redesigned for sale in Europe so that it could be
disassembled to meet recycling laws there.
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Returnable

• Supplied
• Prepaid envelope

It is designer driven? Do the designers in our
luxury industry really take this to heart? In a
discussion with Kevin Marshall I found that he
had the novel idea of including a return envelope
with each Luxury item sold so that it could be
returned for recycling, similar to printer
cartridge recycling. Will our consumers buy into
this?
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Classics
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Designing for Longevity

• Is it ironic that the classics Chanel, Dior
  havent changed and are designed for longevity.
  How do we design for longevity in our industry,
  for something that can be honored, celebrated and
  appreciated?
• Personally I have seen little if any attempt by
  the majority of our industry to develop less
  packaging for environmental purposes. There is a
  constant start/stop/change, hurry up and get it
  done mentality.
• And what reduction there is, is usually cost
  driven. Remove 5 stones from the Britney Curious
  bottle to save 5 cents not because it will save
  the environment. Does the consumer see these
  changes and do they care?

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Hot Products
Are the changes in luxury goods consumer driven?
If people buy green products it is inevitable
that companies will adapt to meet the demand.
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Green Waste
But on the down side, if we make products
healthier but make more of them, are we making a
difference?
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Walmart
Are the changes corporate driven? Out of concern
for the environment, cost savings costs, or for
marketing purposes? As this article shows,
Walmart plans on reducing packaging 5 by 2013.
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Mass versus Luxury
But, can the Luxury industry sell Walmart style?
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Monadnock Mill
Is the change production driven? Companies going
solar to take advantage of Government incentives
as well as reduced production costs. Is this a
solution, or a marketing tool for our industry?
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Answers?
Everyone has their own view of his/her personal
environmental contributions, and I wish that I
were able to pose some solutions instead of only
questions.
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More with Less, or More for Less?

• On a corporate level, we have done our best in
  trying to do more with less, but from a
  development perspective and working closely with
  designers and marketers, I have seen little or no
  attempt, in our segment of the industry, toward
  the goal of less is more. In fact, we have seen
  the industry norm develop into a more for less
  philosophy with little or no concern for timing,
  or for the effect that decisions have on people
  or on the design/manufacturing process.
• Our company has become a 7 day a week operation.
  Quite regularly we are asked to make changes to
  models and deliver them on Saturday or Sunday. I
  have had a designer call the office at 3 pm
  requesting a pick up at their building and asking
  us to revise and return the model in two hours
  the client was incredulous as to why we could not
  get it done.

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New Direction

• From what I have seen in the industry, and truly
  believe will lead us down the path of less is
  more are the following changes
• Education
• Marketing and Design working together for
  sustainability
• Technology

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Education
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Education

• The training of the creative forces in our
  industry are light years apart from an ID
  education. Look at the differences in the
  curriculum for the degrees obtained at the more
  popular art colleges versus more technical
  colleges. There must be some middle ground
  between these schools in educating our industrys
  future creative forces to work smarter, cleaner
  and greener.
• Although, I do think the trend is moving in the
  right direction in this regard to education. A
  lot of designers have the passion and the
  intention to do better, but not the know how.
  Ironic for a group of people running around
  calling themselves problem solvers

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Collaborating for Sustainability

• Also, there often seems to be a clash between
  the goals of marketing and creative / packaging.
  We must get these people on the same page! How
  can our industries marketers participate in an
  open conversation about these issues when they
  are supposed to have all the answers? And how
  can they celebrate making changes that arent
  always sexy and cool?

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The Designers Accord
Do the marketers and designers of our industry
attempt to solve these problems together? In
most cases, I think they fail to do so. Look at
the designers accord, or as it has been called
the Kyoto treaty of design.
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Sustainable guide
Will our industry buy into being educated, and
make the hard choice of using resources available
like the Okala, a hands on guide to sustainable
design?
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Life cycle
Will they buy into taking the time to think about
the life cycle of a product using life cycle
thinking and apply it to the process?
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Digital Information
Technology in and of itself adds another
dimension to our problems. In most cases, design
and marketing cannot review or open files sent by
Utleys, their own packaging departments or
manufacturers. This leads to lost time as well
as, on occasion, the wrong parts being
prototyped, and possibly produced!
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Constant Contact
The Internet and devices such as Blackberries now
make it possible for people to maintain constant
contact with each other, allowing no time to
think, plan, or lay out strategies. Designers
are pushed to create in hours instead days, and
to make revisions even faster. Vendors feel the
impact of this as well, with the added rounds of
revisions contributing to the more for less
agenda I mentioned earlier.
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Luxury Goods
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Challenges Ahead

• Even if we, as an industry, are able to address
  and correct these issues there are still major
  problems working against us.
• Luxury is a dream, something to strive for, the
  best of the best. What does the luxury industry
  have to sell if there is no excess? Look at
  these images. In some bizarre way it defies
  logic to expect our consumer to believe less is
  more and for our industry to embrace it. I refer
  back to my initial point about buying luxury
  being an indulgence, like just having one more
  donut.

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Conclusion

• In Conclusion, if there is truly hope to achieve
  a less is more agenda for our industry it will
  have to involve
• A true improvement in the working environment. To
  achieve this goal will require design,
  production, packaging and marketing to be all on
  the same page working together for a common
  good.

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Conclusion

• In Conclusion, if there is truly hope to achieve
  a less is more agenda for our industry it will
  have to involve
• As always, if the consumer makes the choice,
  companies somewhere, somehow will meet the need.
  If our clients arent demanding it and design and
  marketing arent pushing it, it wont happen in
  our or any industry.

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Conclusion

• In Conclusion, if there is truly hope to achieve
  a less is more agenda for our industry it will
  have to involve
• And finally, to project outside of this issue,
  isnt population control a major concern? Luxury
  packaging is a small segment of the global market
  place. As China, India and other developing
  countries grow isnt the real threat the masses
  and not luxury goods? It wont matter what your
  carbon footprint is if we do not control the
  world population.

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• Thank you for your time!