capitalism4good

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.

The green consumerism trap

As the sustainability movement takes hold, more and more companies are redesigning products and marketing them to “green consumers” – but the problem is, fundamentally, consuming isn’t very green.

A great article in the New York Times follows a reporter’s dilemma of whether to replace her decade-old refrigerator with a newer and greener model. The trouble was, her fridge worked just fine, and there is some ecological cost to manufacturing a new appliance.

Further, if you replace the fridge, the eco-sensitive solution is not to put the old one in the garage and use it for beer – then you’re practically doubling your environmental impact. And selling the old fridge isn’t the right environmental solution either, because someone else will be wasting the same amount of energy that you’re trying to save. Proper disposal can be tricky as well. 

In the end, someone from the National Resources Defense Council came up with a great rule-of-thumb: if the fridge is avocado-colored or brown, it was probably made in the 60s, and is so inefficient that it’s worth replacing. Any later than that, and the greenest consumer choice is to not buy anything.

See:  “If Your Appliances Are Avocado, They Probably Aren't Green”

Switzerland and Sustainability

I'm writing from St. Gallen, on the eastern edge of Switzerland, where I'll soon be starting some studies in sustainability - and getting the European perspective on these issues.  More on the program later, but for now I wanted to relate what my hairdresser had to say about the country's environmental woes.  Here is a paraphrase:

"They have to wash the water from the lake now, before we drink it.  I know that sounds crazy, but they do.  And up in the mountains, the cows have to go higher and higher to find land, and to make the grass grow up there they use fertilizer, and it kills some types of native wildflowers."

Unilever concedes to Greenpeace on palm oil

Following an immense, costly, and very successful multimedia attack by Greenpeace, “Unilever Does About-Face On Palm Oil” and officially backed a call for a moratorium on deforestation in Indonesia and said it would buy palm oil only from suppliers who can demonstrate they haven't cut down forests.

A new critic for Exxon

Exxon-Mobil, already perhaps the most heavily criticized of all oil companies, has a new and powerful critic: its founding family, the Rockefellers. Through proxy resolutions and a press conference, a dozen family members are criticizing an over-centralization of management and a failure to “address the future of energy and related industry hurdles.” (“Rockefellers call for change in Exxon leadership”)