Martin Melaver, CEO of sustainable consulting, construction and real estate firm Melaver, Inc., will speak to the Society for Marketing Professional Services April 7. The meeting is open to the public.
Melaver’s topic is "Dogs, Kangaroos and Ringtail Monkeys: Knowing Who You are Before Marketing Green for Clients."
"When it comes to marketing sustainability, there needs to be close alignment in terms of values and practices between a marketing firm and its client," Melaver said. "Otherwise, you are asking for all sorts of problems."
"In the world of sustainability, what speaks more loudly than anything is one’s actual behaviors," Melaver said. "Done well and you have the potential for leveraging a business to be an agent for positive social change. Done poorly, where one’s talk exceeds one’s walk, and you practice a form of hypocrisy that confirms the market’s suspicions that you’re just out to make a buck even at the cost of selling your soul."
The meeting will be held Tuesday, April 7, with networking at 11:30 followed by lunch at First City Club, 32 Bull St. With an RSVP, the cost is $20 for SMPS Members and $25 for Non-Members. The cost is $5 more with no RSVP. Price includes buffet and beverage, and free Valet Parking is available. RSVP to arango.c@thomas-hutton.com by April 3.
Melaver grew up in Savannah and received his BA from Amherst College. He holds a Masters and PhD from Harvard University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. He is a past Fulbright scholar to Tel Aviv University, a recipient of a Mellon fellowship to Jesus College, Cambridge University, and a Lady Davis Fellowship to Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous articles on sustainable building practices, is the co-author of the upcoming book The Green Building Bottom Line, to be published the fall of 2008 by McGraw-Hill and author of Restoring Who We Are, to be published in the spring of 2009 by Chelsea Green. He has been a featured/keynote speaker at various conferences and guest lecturer at Harvard, Dartmouth, and other academic institutions.
Melaver currently serves as the Board Chair of the Georgia Conservancy, is a board member of Urban Land Institute’s Sustainability Council, the Ossabaw Island Foundation, the Savannah Country Day School, the Chatham Environmental Forum and serves as an advisory board member for various other companies and organizations.
Melaver, Inc. is a third-generation, family-owned business based in Savannah, Georgia. The sustainable real estate developer currently has eight LEED certified projects in their portfolio and developed one of the first LEED certified buildings in the U.S. which is also on the National Register of Historic Places. Melaver Inc. also developed the first all-retail LEED shopping center in the country, Abercorn Common, including the first LEED McDonald’s worldwide. Melaver, Inc. also has LEED consulting and construction divisions.
Contact: (912) 236-0781
www.melaver.com