Green-Living Firms Try For Mainstream Balance

One of Crooke's first orders of business has been a "green audit" of all Revolution Living-owned companies. Anything not eco-friendly, down to the carpet and wall coverings, is being replaced, he said. Business cards are printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink.

"The worst thing we can be is poseurs," said Crooke, a former Navy Seal and forestry major who shuns meat and takes vitamins customized for him by alternative medicine guru Andrew Weil. "Once you're found to be poseurs, you're done."

The consumers Crooke is trying to attract value "lifestyles of health and sustainability" and are most likely to be baby boomers concerned with health and spirituality or Gen X- and Y-ers who grew up recycling and took Pilates in gym class.

"There are people who believe anything sold at Whole Foods is healthy, ecological and probably socially responsible. That is far from the truth. But from Whole Foods' perspective they've successfully engendered trust," said Joel Makower, a green-marketing consultant and founder of Green Business Network. "If Revolution can establish itself as the trusted brand of alternative lifestyle products and services, they'll come out a winner."

Green consumers, who can be hyper-vigilant whether they're reading ingredient labels or watching television commercials, are not easy to please. Their expectations are always rising, said Gwynne Rogers of the Natural Marketing Institute. Where organic coffee once was acceptable, now it must be fair trade, too.

At the conference Case attended in Santa Monica, market researcher Paul H. Ray told an audience of green entrepreneurs they "need to look more virtuous" than their competitors to survive.

"You need a lot of street cred to step into this space. You cannot buy your way into this space," said Lawrence "Axil" Comras, founder of GreenHome.com, which sells eco-friendly household goods.

Conference attendees even grumbled that Gaiam -- despite Rysavy's living arrangements -- sold yoga mats that included polyvinyl choloride, a source of the environmental pollutant dioxin. (The company just introduced mats made of natural rubber and jute.)

Promotional speeches by the event's sponsors inspired quips about "infomercials." Displays of organic roses flown in from Ecuador were criticized as a waste of fossil fuel.

Case managed to escape negative associations despite his brush with corporate scandal. Hardly anyone mentioned the accounting troubles that plagued AOL under his watch or the millions of dollars stockholders lost when AOL-Time Warner's shares plummeted following the merger. He was introduced at the conference as the man "who changed the way we all communicate."

Hank Wasiak, a veteran advertising executive who attended the conference, epitomized the reaction to Case in Santa Monica.

"We just don't know all the reasons why the AOL-Time Warner merger didn't live up to expectations. And now, the fact that one of the principals in that merger, Steve Case, is bringing his passion, energy and purpose to the business of [sustainability] should really have no bearing on his new company's authenticity or chances for success," Wasiak wrote in an e-mail. Having sat in on a presentation by Revolution Health, he added that Case and his colleagues have put forward "a clear vision of their corporate mission and ethos which they are following."