share
Sustainability Buzzword Bingo
Posted by solitaire in blog October 21, 2011Have spent most of this week writing reports, articles and thought leadership on sustainability, CSR, climate change etc. Sometimes it’s felt like playing a very personal game of Buzzword Bingo.
I get 10 points every time I manage to avoid writing…
Mindset change
Win-win
Greenest (government, games, business, etc etc) Ever
Zero…waste, water etc
Efficiency…resources, energy or time
Footprint
Low-carbon
Smart
Low-hanging fruit
‘In our DNA’
Innovative
Blue (vs green)
Leadership
Key stakeholder
Sexy
I’d love some more nominations. What’s the WORST word in sustainability?
leave a comment
12:48
Paradigm shift!
12:50
green jobs, green product, green anything
12:51
Paradigm shift!
13:01
Geat idea. 100 points for coming up with it! My contribution : Paradigm shift. If I hear that one more time with little action to back it up I might not be responsible for my actions.
14:37
You should check out John Rentoul and his campaign to ban cliches – @JohnRentoul on Twitter. You two are clearly kindred spirits!
15:07
Paradigm shift can be OK I think if it REALLY IS a paradigm shift…there’s way too much overuse/misuse of it as a term or phrase. Here’s a quick guide:
1. Reformulating your soap powder is NOT a paradigm shift
2. Making your car slightly more fuel efficient is NOT a paradigm shift
3. Doing the stuff you’re supposed to (good green house keeping, energy efficiency etc) is NOT a paradigm shift
16:19
Paradigm is a definite winner. I saw an event recently advertising the content as “strategies for a new paradigm”. Ugh. However, I also twitch at: “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”, “establishing your base-line”, any mention of “changing lightbulbs”, “Plan A” or “Greenwash [sorry guys]“. Saying all this, I’m the most guilt of uttering these according to my colleagues…
16:39
I heard someone say about a many-country urban development project, where they want the citizens to stay put but are happy to shunt ‘experts’ around for no partic special purpose, “we did invest carbon in the expert meetings”. Investing carbon. What a thought. It’s like investing child labour in my iPhone.
17:36
So I have spent years in the IT / software business. I’ve seen so many buzzwords I have probably forgotten more than I can I care to remember.
But.
Some are there simply as shorthand. Take ‘low hanging fruit’ for instance. I don’t like the phrase at all, but if you have to say ‘the customers or actions or activities that will deliver us the most effective and efficient use of our resources’ all the time, it could get a bit tedious.
Paradigm was a great fav in the IT business in the 90s.
It made everything  sound sexy by showing unrivalled leadership in delivering synergy of user interface and application platform by innovative integration of smart technology to provide a win-win situation for users and service providers.
Perfect sense
Meanwhile, IT has gone green too. They can’t go blue as that would be a reference to Big Blue – IBM.
Anyway…….
12:49
Hello, my name is Sabrina and I am a student at Bournemouth University. I have an assingment on heroes in advertising and you are my hero. I would like to know if there is any book or written about you or your work, because I can’t seem to find anything on the internet.
08:20
The very word’Sustainability’ itself.Â
Low hanging fruit is old hat – use shallow vegetables instead
15:05
Really? Energy efficiency and Footprint are out? Seems like ppl really understand those terms and they’re not yet stale. Key stakeholder and low hanging fruit are total bingo. Fun post.Â
http://deepblueblogx.blogspot….
23:15
I vote for ‘natural’ as one of the worst buzz words (perhaps it’s so meaningless/could mean way too many things that you don’t have any trouble avoiding it).
19:47
From Sustainable Investment, I would lose: “ESG” – ugly jargon, “extra-financial” – just nonsense, “investors need more data” – simply a lie, “reputational risk” – unless it can be quantified …
06:52
‘Initiative’
06:59
Do you mind me using this stream as personal therapy? Â BTW, Pete, I love ‘shallow vegetables’ and aim to use it three times today in client meetings!
21:39
‘In our DNA’ because base pares have very little to do with CSR directly