Where will you see Green next? and Silk..and Timberland

"Green," which we are already drastically over-featuring on only the 11th post (this blog is not about Green but about companies that do good...it just so happens that many are Green- focused...), may pop up in front of you at any time.

In magazine articles, on the news, and in the press releases of many companies touting their eco-friendly efforts, for sure.

On the side of a bus, a clothing label or Timberland shoebox, even.

What about on a carton of soy milk? Silk Soymilk says so with its Green Caps for Green Energy sweepstakes, a simple enough program where the company will buy 30 kWt hours ("enough to power an average home for a day") for every UPC code you, the enlightened consumer, enter at their website.

It's a sweet Activist/Philanthropist maneuver from a company that is arguably Business Model Good in that it provides a delicious and healthy product to consumers who potentially need a milk substitute. As an ice cream addict, I can't imagine needing such an alternative, so you be the judge of whether that's Optimist enough. Delicious, however, is my word choice, not theirs, as I've recently fallen into the habit of using the Vanilla Silk in my coffee.

Kudos to Silk, by the way, for not sending you through the ridiculous paces of mailing in the UPCs and milk caps to some obscure PO Box that you're likely to miswrite, like most rebate programs.

PS I love the clever tagline atop the carton: "Shake Well & Buy Often." Simple, unexpected, and not surprising from an effective CPG brander. So ubiquitous is the Silk packaging, in my ad-cluttered mind, that I actually had to look it up to make sure it was the brand name, and not the category of milk. Look out Kleenex and Xerox.

Completely unrelated side note: In case you haven't heard of another great packaging innovation, Timberland's eco-footprint disclosing "nutrition" label on the side of each shoe box, see Joel Makower article from last year on WorldChanging.com.