capitalism4good

News Tidbits

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

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?

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)

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

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Responsible Business Summit in the UK (Part I)

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. 

A web portal for environmental information

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.