If you follow me on Twitter, you probably see my Tweets talking about Timberland’s Earthkeepers (www.earthkeeper.com), a website project that I lead from concept, design to development which launched earlier this year. Recently, it won the Gold award in the “Green” category of the Davey Awards! The contest is an international competition and has over 4,000 entries every year- so I was stoked to hear the great news of winning the gold!

I thought use a blog post entry to share with you some details about my involvement in leading this project full disclosure: this is not a paid blog post- I’m writing this on my accord.

The Timberland Earthkeepers website project was is exciting to me since the goals and mission are something I personally believe in. To help you understand- let me explain the word “Earthkeepers”. First of all, it’s not a real word- Timberland made it up. “Earth”- where we all live, plus “keeper”- a protector or guardian …when combined, basically means someone who cares about the environment.

If you want the corporate mumbo-jumbo description, here’s the official Timberland take on the Earthkeepers mission:

“We at Timberland started Earthkeepers because we love the outdoors. Making outdoor boots, shoes and gear is what we do for a living. No more outdoors means no more living. For us—or anyone else. Of course, we realize that by making our products, we’re part of the problem. We believe it’s time for companies, like ours, to take a look at how the way they do business affects the environment and do something about it. Earthkeepers is one way we’re trying to do exactly that. Our goal—inspire and engage one million Earthkeepers.”

Pretty cool huh? I think so. If you’re curious for more information, take a look around at the website for more information. There are several exciting updates and enhancements on the road map.

When I first started working on this project, I was aware of the popular environmental issues and general steps you can take to help- but I certainly wasn’t exposed to the deeper niche topics. It was is a fun education process learning about all the aspects of the eco-conscious mindset. There’s a quote that I learned that I share with others that really hits the nail on the head of why a movement like this is so powerful:

Small changes, when aggregated on a large scale, can make a big change in the world.

What’s even more interesting is the positioning of Timberland’s Earthkeepers program is seeing a retail company not only embrace this attitude- but running with it and taking actions quickly. This movement is being driven by everyone in the company, including the person at the top, their CEO, Jeff Swartz. If you’re lucky enough to hear Jeff talk, he describes so fluidly his personal passion and mission of the eco-concious mindset companies should adopt. Furthermore, he uses Twitter to affect the masses of people and/or other CEOs.

Seeing and hearing all the things Timberland has dedicated itself to is exhausting (and I’m not just saying that because they’re my client). They do everything from planting over 1 million trees worldwide, to things like Timberland’s CEO banned bottled water at all their corporate offices.

Personally, since I’ve started this project, I’ve learned so much and started to take steps of my own: I now use a reusable water bottle at work and at home, I use reusable grocery sacks, I’ve convinced our office to not buy styrofoam cups or plates, I even created an Earth Day video blog earlier this year to get the good word out …just to mention a few.

I’m really excited to be leading the Earthkeepers website development- there’s lot of exciting things happening now and lined up for the future. For example, Wyclef Jean recently was announced as our celebrity spokesperson!! Keep tabs on www.earthkeeper.com for updates.
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