PPB March 2020

H ome to three trillion trees, our world is a green place—and David Betke wants it to stay that way. Betke, principal of distributor Do Better Marketing in Edmonton, Alberta, a division of Avatar Brand Management, Inc., uses his position as a promotional products professional to catalyze major environmental changes— so major, that his campaigns have successfully saved a 65,000- acre forest slated for logging, significantly reduced emissions in a city and called attention to the world’s dwindling amphibian crisis, among other feats. Betke’s first project, and the one that kicked off his passion for cause marketing, involved the West Arm of Kootenay Lake in British Columbia. The year was 1990, and Betke launched the first iteration of his business, P.E.T. Project—“Preserving Our Environment For Tomorrow”—to save forests near his home that were facing threats of being destroyed. “I was tired of waking up to chainsaws and seeing some of the beautiful places I used to hike disappearing to logging,” he says. The Lasca Creek watershed on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake wasn’t just a forest, he explains, but one of the great stands of temperate interior rainforest. It was a cause that not only caught Betke’s attention, but also roused other community members as well. “Parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren were all out on the road trying to make sense of what they heard,” he says. Betke decided, then and there, that he was going to do something about it. So, he got to work designing and printing t-shirts, stickers and magnets, and he hit the road, visiting colleges and universities throughout Canada and the U.S., selling merchandise and speaking with the media as much as possible. During the evenings, Betke says, he would visit area stores and ask store owners to carry his merchandise, post the petition and point-of-sale poster and support his letter- writing campaign in exchange for promoting their store at the school he was visiting that day. In all, Betke personally picked up 180 stores nationwide. And some five years later, the 65,000-acre West Arm Provincial Park was established, “protecting the forest forever,” he says. Betke’s work has continued since then. The company’s most recent “win” includes saving a critical wetland and bird flyaway in southern British Columbia, now known as Crawford Creek Regional Park. “I donated Do Be t t e r Ma r ke t i ng SOCIAL GOOD David Betke is making the world a little greener, one tree at a time. by Danielle Renda Campaigning To Save The Environment The West Arm Provincial Park of Kootenay Lake in Balfour, British Columbia (pictured), is a 65,000- acre forest that has been saved, thanks to David Betke's steadfast dedication to a five-year campaign intended to raise awareness and save the forest, which brought him all over North America more than a dozen times. 90 | MARCH 2020 | THINK