Pizza generates guilt. Some people feel guilty eating the calories and carbs. Others feel guilty because of the waste. You use paper plates that get thrown out. And, since the box won’t fit in the fridge, you have to wrap each leftover slice in aluminum foil, which gets thrown out, too.

What to do? William Walsh has a solution.

Walsh’s company, e.c.o. Incorporated, has created Green Box, a pizza box that acts as its own paper plates and storage unit.

The box’s lid is perforated to tear into four square plates. The bottom of the box folds over into a space-friendly storage container for leftover slices.

How did Walsh come up with the Green Box? In college, he lived in a house with forty football players who opted to throw out their dirty dishes instead of washing them. One day, they were eating pizza when Walsh noticed grease dripping down his housemate’s shirt. Walsh tore the lid from the pizza box, ripped it into makeshift plates, and handed them to his fellow diners. An idea was born.

Walsh, an engineering student, bought 150 pizza boxes and went to work with a ruler and an exacto knife and experimented on improving the design.

With business partners, Ned Kensing and Jennifer Wright, he later filed a patent for the box.  

In 2007, they were granted the patent and went door-to-door to pizza restaurants with their new design. Things moved slowly as the partners worked other jobs and finished up business school.

In the last month, though, interest in Green Box has skyrocketed. What happened?

Wright used Twitter to send a message and web link to actor Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher, who was the first user to reach one million Twitter followers, re-tweeted her message with a note that said “Smart.”

Overnight, Green Box became a sensation. Walsh’s company received 1,500 domestic and 150 international email requests for the product.

They posted a YouTube video, and in five days received over 435,000 views.

Several pizza chains are reviewing the Green Box. Walsh wants to have regional distribution of the packaging so that the company’s carbon footprint is as low as possible.

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New Soap, Old Bottle is a company that buys name-brand soap and packages it in reused, sanitized soda bottles.

Founder Scott Amron says his products offer consumers a “greener option. . . New Soap, Old Bottle saves two bottles for each bottle sold. That’s the bottle that would have been manufactured and the bottle rescued.”

Why though doesn’t the company manufacture its own soap? “We believe you need a brand name to add value to the old bottles,” Amron says.

The concepts behind New Soap, Old Bottle are simple and smart. They repurpose trash into something valuable, which is particularly striking when considering that Americans throw out 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, according to the Clean Air Council.

By repurposing the bottles, New Soap co-opts the expected experience. While everyone else in the world is getting Dr. Pepper out of a Dr. Pepper bottle, you’re getting soap. It’s a subtle deviation that’s memorable.

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The Yellow Pages Group claims its New Zealand Yellow Pages can provide all the resources anyone would ever need to get any project done.

To prove its point, the organization staged a marketing stunt that’s paid big dividends: They built a temporary restaurant in a tree house, and used the Yellow Pages to make the project happen.

The group hired a spokesmodel, Tracey Collins, to serve as the face of the project and the restaurant’s hostess. Tracey tracked the day-to-day construction on her blog.

Called the Yellow Treehouse, the eatery took about two months to complete, and was designed by Pacific Environments Architects. The 33 foot wide space sits 39 feet above the ground. The kitchen and bathrooms are on the ground, and the dining area is accessible by a walkway almost 200 feet long.

The restaurant seats 18 for lunch, dinner, and afternoon tea. Its exact location, in a forest near Warkworth, is only given to those with booked seating.

The Yellow Treehouse opened on January 9th and has been so popular (completely booked, in fact) that the Yellow Pages Group has considered keeping it open past the slotted closing date of February 9th.

According to Springwise.com:

“Besides serving as a marketing tool for its original sponsor . . . the Yellow Treehouse is sure to provide a fresh experience consumers won’t soon forget. The secrecy of its location and the scarcity of reservations, meanwhile, only increase its appeal.”

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Nearly 20% of shoppers in Denmark ride bicycles to the store. Carrying home larger purchases, then, can be a problem. IKEA came up with a way to make things easier on customers.

Teaming up with bicycle manufacturer, Velorbis, IKEA offers customers temporary use of free trailer bikes and carts. For a small refundable deposit, customers can haul goods home in an environmentally-friendly way.

Besides helping customers manage purchases, IKEA’s logo-rich bike trailers also function as moving billboards.

By understanding its customer and the pitfalls of its shopping experience, IKEA has been able to make lemonade from lemons. Rather than lose sales, the furniture giant has found a way to better serve its customers and itself.

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In their book, Greentailing and Other Revolutions in Retail, authors Neil Strauss and Will Ander write about a study they conducted with a thousand consumers regarding green in retail. One question, in particular, revealed an intriguing statistic:

“ . . . while many retailers are considered to be making a decent effort at being green, they are not doing a particularly good job of educating the consumer on what they are doing. Just 6 percent of consumers rated retailers as excellent or very good at educating consumers on green, while over half believed they are below satisfactory or poor.” P. 59

Supporting a cause or having a strength is one thing. Letting people know about that cause or strength is quite another.

Whether you’re championing green or doing something else to help the planet or your customers, remember that good communication is part of a strong experience.

Don’t think you’re showing off. Let your customers know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how everyone stands to benefit.

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