capitalism4good

News Tidbits

2008-06-02T12:51:14-04:00

Just a few interesting and somewhat random things I've been reading:

In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal (titled "Common Sense Ecology for Homes"), someone pointed out a fundamental inconsistency in the green building craze. Basically, the two goals of environmental footprint and healthy lifestyles have been conflated, and while they usually go together (making furniture with fewer toxins is good for the earth and good for your family), they are not always in alignment. In particular, tightly-sealed homes are good for energy efficiency but bad for indoor air quality. So we can't always have our cake and eat it too, though that always seemed like a silly expression to me, since we generally do eat our servings of cake... but I digress...
There's a new book out that I've very much like to read, called The Marketing of Thirst,* by Elizabeth Royte. Issues of water scarcity and the bottled-water industry are coming to the forefront, and I think they will (justifiably) be getting more and more attention over the coming years. Another book review that caught my eye: Labor Pains by Steven Greenhouse, which chronicles the decline of unions and the corresponding systemic problems in how American workers are treated today.
There was an article on Recycline, a company I've been following for some time because I admire its goal of creating a use for recycled plastic by making products that are also themselves recyclable. However, I recently tried to walk my talk about them, and failed. For one, their "disposable" plates and cutlery are so durable they are actually dishwasher-safe, which makes me feel that they must have more material in them than I really need - perhaps they are more like a substitute for regular plates than for disposable ones. Second, they cost at least 5 times as much as the alternatives. I don't mind a 20% markup, but 500% is tough. I'll be looking for FSC certified paper plates instead.

*Note: Apologies, I inadvertently mixed up the book title and the book-review title. As you can see from the author's comment below, the real title is Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. Great, that's a much better title!

Green Weddings and the Absurdity of Gift Wrap

2008-06-02T10:02:59-04:00

I'm getting married in less than a month, and have been watching in delight as some early gifts come in - and in horror as I unwrap a 2ft x 2ft box to find that it contains 25 pieces of indestructible silverware, along with enough packaging to double our normal weekly landfill contribution.

Seriously, I don't expect everyone to be "green" and I'm certainly not the perfect environmentalist myself, but it's absurd. The silverware, for example, came in 5 different boxes which were surrounded by yards of bubblewrap inside a big cardboard box, which in turn had several yards of cloth trademarked ribbon around it, and then a huge volume of paper to fill up the space between it and the shipping box. You could have fit a small child in this thing.

I've spoken to that particular vendor (Crate & Barrel), and while the staff is sympathetic, there is simply no way in the current system to request less packaging - fairly hypocritical given the new in-store "green packaging" program. The other places we're registered aren't much better. Overall, I think REI has used the most minimal packaging - but they've also tended to ship small items separately when combining them would have been better.

Given the recent popularity of "green weddings," along with the cost of packaging and shipping, this seems like a huge oversight - and also a giant opportunity. I'm sure some couples would choose to register at one store over another if the environmental benefits were significant, and there is certainly room for significant improvement.

How green are consumers, really?

2008-05-16T09:26:44-04:00

This question has been asked again and again - just because consumers say the environment is important to them, does that translate to more dollars for eco-friendly products? A recent article from Ad Week ("Deflating a Myth") has a good and detailed analysis.

The authors conclude that it's not easy to find the profit in green marketing, but with a careful search for the right market segments and attention to other consumer needs, the potential is still very real. And while the green trend does have characteristics of a passing fad, experts feel that responsiveness, transparency, and good intentions will continue to sell well for a long time.

Responsible Business Summit in the UK (Part II)

2008-05-14T07:04:39-04:00

While it's quite fascinating to observe the differences between US and UK/European sustainability, I don't really have anyone to talk to about them (except of course you, blog reader!). In the US, I'd be catching up with old friends at any given sustainability conference, but here there's only one familiar face (and he's the Chairman and unlikely to remember me). At the cocktail hour last night I just stood around awkwardly, feeling like I was at a middle-school dance.

Today, at last, I've met a couple of very interesting people. One works for a company that produces a lifecycle management software, and apparently has not only clients but also competitors - imagine that! In the US, the folks doing this tend to be early-phase start-ups

Another person I met works for the Corporate Register, and we briefly debated the usefulness of the GRI reporting standard - something I've publicly supported in the past. He made some good points that the GRI is not as relevant in Europe, where a substantial number of companies began sustainability reporting several years before the GRI existed, and many of them continue reporting without using GRI. In the US, companies seem to find it quite reassuring to know that there is a standard as they embark on their reporting journey, but I suppose we are several years behind.

While of course it’s good to finally be meeting people, a new problem has cropped up: I’m not familiar with 90% of the organizations they mention. In the US, I believe I have a reasonably competent grasp of what’s going on in the sustainability field – but not here! And embarrassingly enough, several of these groups have opened offices right in Boston, where I live. Five Winds is one, though my conversation partner admitted that the organization has been embarrassed to realize that “wind” can have alternate meanings in the US.

Good to know that I’m not the only one facing cultural adjustment challenges!

Responsible Business Summit in the UK (Part I)

2008-05-14T06:59:30-04:00

As an American, part of the attraction of Ethical Corporation's London-based "Responsible Business Summit" was the opportunity to observe cultural differences between the UK sustainability community and the parallel movement in the US – though perhaps to call them parallel does not do justice to how far the British movement has come.

For some time, I’ve been impressed by the volume and quality of sustainability-related news coming out of the UK, but I did wonder: are the British are really that much more engaged in sustainability issues? And would I be able to see real evidence of that in just a couple of days?

The short answer: absolutely.

After waking up and pulling a bag of fair-trade coffee out of my friend’s energy-efficient freezer, I walked to the Tube and picked up a copy of the Metro – where the front-page article was on climate change. At the Park Plaza hotel, I was momentarily confused by the “Responsibility to Opportunity” conference being held one floor up from Ethical Corporation’s Responsible Business Summit. Sustainability was everywhere.

At the start of the first session, I sat next to a local professor who teaches on sustainability issues - something I found to be quite amazing, given extremely slow adoption of sustainability curricula in the US. During the first Q&A, another sustainability professor stood up to ask something. And another. And I think maybe even one more. These profs were everywhere, and no longer seemed to consider it extraordinary that their job descriptions focused explicitly on sustainability issues.

Then there were the offhand comments in the keynotes and panels. On speaker referenced the fact that "ten years ago, fair trade used to be almost a joke, and now it's everywhere." In the US, I can still hear the laughter, especially when the Starbucks barista has no idea where the fair trade coffee is located. Here, even the gas station convenience stores stock fair-trade products (and the Kleenex is FSC-certified).

Another interesting comment was on the successful campaign against genetically modified foods, which are now considered across the UK and Europe to be absolutely horrible, and something no one would touch. While Europeans are just starting to consider relaxing this hard-line approach, most American have no idea what in their diet might be GM, nor do they much care. The debate pretty much passed us by, though broader food movements (slow-food, organic, local) might eventually encompass it.

Then one of my favorite comments, on the need for an entrepreneurial approach to seeking sustainability innovation: "Whenever people here the word risk, they think of the precautionary principle.... we need to be less afraid of risk." In the US, not so much. We're full of serial entrepreneurs, and for many a first-time failure is like a rite of passage.

Finally, there was the sudden realization that I might want to stop by the breakout sessions on climate change, because they are being discussed in an entirely different context. In the US, it's about proactively addressing something on which the Bush administration is dragging its heels, and it's about voluntary compliance and carbon "markets" based on purely voluntary actions. But here, it's a legal system that's non-optional, and the value contained in carbon markets is absolutely real.

A web portal for environmental information

2008-05-12T20:07:34-04:00

I just found a cool site for the environmentally-inclined: EcoEarth.Info. It takes a “portal” approach to getting lots of ecological information out there, including a newsfeed, blog, campaign network, and search functionality. While EcoEarth isn’t specifically focused on business and the environment, it includes some good information about private-sector issues and impacts.