Comments on Jennifer Saranow Schultz’s post for the New York Times surprised and excited me. What I quickly saw as a smart idea with positive effects was seen as phony, even downright insulting.

“I don’t believe in paying money to volunteers, even indirectly. That’s the whole point of being a volunteer: you do it for the love….I’m not an American Express customer. If I were, I would not sign up for this. It is antithetical to my purpose in being a volunteer–indeed, it goes against everything I believe about volunteering.”

And

“Not exactly volunteering if you’re doing it for the miles…”

Certainly this speaks to the pride that volunteers have. I get this. The offer of a reward, even indirectly, seems to diminish their relationship to the people and cause they volunteer with.  But there’s more here.

There’s confusion between money and cause. People are as squeamish about being rewarded (in whatever form) for an act of goodwill or support of a cause, just as people are squeamish about cause or goodwill when they’re connected to business. They’re two ends of the avenue with a glorious park in the middle where pedestrians meet and good things happen.

We don’t complain when an employer gives us paid time-off to volunteer and we don’t complain when (as one commenter to the post deftly remarked) we get lunch or free or reduced admission to an event. We don’t complain when the Springfield Credit Card Company offers its reward members gym discounts to encourage healthy behavior, even though they are projecting a certain image in doing it.

So why is this causing hand-wringing? Is it over a fear that more people will volunteer…for miles? Scary stuff, that. Or is it because the reward comes from a corporation (this particular kind having a bludgeoned public perception) instead of from  a nonprofit?

To be frank, I can’t foresee swarms of people switching to American Express and beginning to volunteer to collect miles, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did work that way? Wonderful for the nonprofits who can use more hands and for those mileage-greedy volunteers who are likely to gain more than miles for their time and volunteer again or become a continued supporter of the cause.

The cause-washing claim is pretty lousy here. AmEx isn’t requiring participants to purchase anything. I find it more generous than the company’s 1983 pioneering cause marketing campaign which required a purchase to trigger a 1-cent donation from AmEx. In the end, the company grew card use and new applications significantly. But it also helped to put a shine back on Lady Liberty by donating $1.7 million for restoration.

As consumers we’re rightly skeptical of public relations moves that polish a company’s image. But this campaign isn’t strong enough to negate any bad behavior on AmEx’s part. That needs to be fixed through one-on-one customer service. Customers are too smart to fall for just a PR stunt, right?

You can read about the whole program here.

Weigh in. Clearly, I have a lot to say about this, but what do you think? Leave it in the comments or email me directly, olivia(at)causecapitalism.com.

I spoke with Joe, who shares a commonality with many entrepreneurs. He left his comfortable seat making good money for a Fortune 500 company to start a better business–one that not only had a positive environmental impact, but that gave him the opportunity to flex his entrepreneurial muscles. For the past 12 months, he’s lived on savings and credit cards as he and Lauren launched PineMark.

PineMark offers two levels currently. Anyone who takes the 8-minute audit, which scores the ecological impact of his home, travel, purchasing and eating choices, can access a large marketplace with retail discounts on products ranging from solar systems to adventure trips to clothing. If you score high, you can become PineMark Certified, giving you access to premium discounts and PineMark’s online community and a certification badge.

• Joe wasn’t an ardent environmentalist before starting PineMark, and he’s not now. He’s always been conscientious and feels Boy Scout experience and his regular surfing runs give him a respect for nature. He sees his average level of environmental knowledge as an asset, allowing him to design sustainability criteria, education and rewards for the large pool of individuals who, like him, recycle but may not yet understand the full impact of airplane travel.
• Joe and Lauren didn’t pay a cent for the website. Instead, he used some of his entrepreneurial flex to find a developer and designer who identified with PineMark’s mission and built the site entirely on sweat equity and founders’ stock.
• To design the assessment process and algorithm, the co-founders worked with professors and experts from Vanderbilt University, whom they’d found through their research.
• A 90-day certification program that gives day-by-day steps to green your life is in the works. Individuals can enter the program at any level and receive the information and support to reach certification–rewarding them with energy and water savings, premium discounts and a certification badge.
• PineMark plans to monetize through a combination of fees for the certification program and retailer listing and affiliate charges. They will license out the scoring application to non-profits without charge.
• PineMark has brand appeal. Affiliated brands are excited to talk about their role in providing sustainable products and contributing to a consumer’s greener lifestyle.
• The marketplace is not “about buying more stuff,” says Joe. “It’s about making the socially responsible choice when you do buy something.”
• I asked Joe how it feels to live the vision of creating his own business that makes a positive worldly impact. He says that it doesn’t feel really good yet because the business model is still unproven, but he is seeing success in areas (like retailer partnerships) and capitalizing on them. And he loves talking to skeptics.
• In his personal life, Joe has been shaped more by the entrepreneurial element of PineMark than by the environmental. He continues to recycle, buy responsibly and forgo fast-food (and his bulbs have long ago been changed). His work ethic has become stronger and his daily habits more structured. One thing Joe is committed to: his next surfboard will be sustainably sourced and crafted.

Joe and PineMark are on Twitter at @GreenSurf and @PineMark, respectively.

I spoke with Ron Gonen, co-founder and CEO of RecycleBank, to learn how he built one of the largest public-private partnerships that creates incentives for social good.

RecycleBank is a reward program that motivates people to recycle by measuring the amount of material each home recycles and then converting that activity into RecycleBank points that can be used at more than 1,500 local and national reward partners like Target, Kraft foods, Coca-Cola and Starbucks. Households can earn up to $400 annually in RecycleBank points. The program piloted in Philadelphia in 2004. It’s expanded to 20 states and is days away from its UK launch.

Why recycling?

I’ve always had an interest in social policy and the environment, and I wanted to make sure that what I did could have an impact today.  There’s a lot of great discussion around global warming and climate change and things like the electric car. Those are all very important initiatives, but they don’t relate to the average person’s life today; the average person can’t get involved and I think it’s incredibly important for the environmental community to remain sustainable and you do that by getting people active at a large scale right now.  So I took it as my goal and my interest to find something that would activate people’s interest in the environment today.  Recycling is something that touches everybody: you could be rich, poor, black, white, Hispanic, urban, suburban. If you bought something during the week, you should be recycling it.  I felt like [recycling] would give me maximum penetration to touch the most amount of people.

How does it work?

Every body gets one of our RecycleBank recycling containers, there is a chip embedded in that container and a mechanical arm retrofitted to the truck that reads the chip to identify how much is being recycled.  That information is sent wirelessly to our servers. We run an algorithm that posts credit to your account and you can log on to your account. It’s like looking at a bank statement—you can see how many points you have earned and you can use those points to shop at over 1,500 different stores and you can also see your environmental footprint.

Class discrepancies around recycling

The biggest discrepancy that I see is an infrastructure issue. In upper-income neighborhoods, people are generally given a cart with a lid and wheels for recycling, whereas in lower-income neighborhoods, people are given a bucket, or nothing. That’s the biggest discrepancy.  I don’t think that recycling, or for that matter, most environmental decisions are rich or poor.  I sure would say infrastructure, access and convenience are the issues.  The more affluent you are, the better the neighborhood you live in, the more convenient it’s going to be for you, and the more infrastructure you’re going to have to support this action that you want to take.

Recycling creates a level playing field

RecycleBank is trying to level the playing field.  Because everyone can participate, everyone can be rewarded, both financially from his or her Recycle Bank points, as well as from seeing their personal eco-footprint. The good neighborhoods set a great example of what’s possible. I want to try to bring some of the middle- and lower- income neighborhoods up to that standard, from an infrastructure and convenience standpoint.

What’s non-trash worth? RecyleBank’s revenue model

We’re paid by diverting waste from the landfill, and via some of our reward partner relationships.  One of the ethoses of RecycleBank is that we want to support environmental actions that are also smart economic decisions. Cities today spend a lot of money disposing of waste in the landfill. We’re very focused on helping municipalities divert that waste, which saves them a lot of money. We take a cut [usually 50%] of the savings that we generate from municipalities. So, the revenue we make from each municipality can range dramatically, depending on what their existing recycling rate is, and what their disposal fee is. Some of our reward partners have advertising deals with us as well.

Providing society incentives to promote market economies

I have a strong interest in economics, and economics is around lining up incentives.  The government thinks it’s a good idea for people to save for retirement, so we create a 401K account—incentives around retirement.  The government said if you’re willing to save this amount of money, we’ll allow you to save it tax-free.  We see home ownership as a good idea, so we told people you can deduct the interest on your mortgage, which aligns incentives.

I’m a big believer in aligning incentives, and when you recycle, you create a lot of value.  You create value for your city because the city doesn’t have to pay to dispose of waste in a landfill; you create value for manufacturers who receive the materials.  So if you want people to give you more of it, you should align incentives, and give them some of that value.

Can social incentives mend the health care crisis?

If I were as involved in health care as I am in environmental policy, I would be creating incentives for people to stay healthier.  So, you should be able to use some of your money tax-free for yoga classes, or going to the gym, or get a tax deduction for each day that you ride your bike to work.  Most of our health care costs occur after we become unhealthy.  People should be given [financial] incentives to keep themselves in good shape.  It doesn’t mean that they won’t get sick but the rate of disease and the rate of illness would go down significantly, and the recovery time would go up significantly, and would save a lot of money.

Ron will be speaking at Sustainable Brands 09 in Monterey, California, on June 3.