This reminded me of a post about poo-power that I published way back in August 2010.
Very cool!
Denver Zoo developed their own on-site poo-power system and tested it out on a rickshaw! bit.ly/GX3hqo—
(@inhabitat) March 23, 2012
I confess.
I did not wear green on St. Patrick’s Day.
Nor did I attend any St. Patrick’s Day event.
I ate no corned beef and cabbage, and I raised no pint of Guiness.
But, I did read, much to my environmentalist delight, that Guiness, the legendary Irish brewing company, has made significant commitments to sustainable practices, earning them an installment in my Celebrating Eco-Progress series.
Via the National Resources Defense Council blog:
“Sustainability and enhancing the environment of the Dublin communities has been a core philosophy of the Guinness Company since it was founded,” said Paul Carty, Managing Director at the Guinness Storehouse, the brewery’s large and historic facility at St. James’s Gate in the Irish capital. Last year the Storehouse, now a major tourist attraction hosting a million visitors annually, received a three-star accreditation from Sustainable Travel International for its environmental commitment. (The actual brewing was moved from the old facility in 1988.)
Among the highlights recognized by the award are these:
- Adoption of environmental performance indicators
- Measures to reduce waste, chemical use, and energy consumption
- Use of paper products derived from sustainably managed forests
- Advanced lighting technology
- Local food sourcing
- Locally sourced construction materials
- Sustainability training for staff
That parenthetical note, that the actual brewing is done at a different facility, does seem a bit of a letdown, and of course the Guiness we drink here in the States necessarily has a regrettably large carbon footprint just for being shipped here.
And yet, as I’ve always said about the companies I feature in Celebrating Eco-Progress, in recognition that every little bit of effort does indeed help, I applaud the measures that have been taken, and I encourage us all to applaud them as well, indicating loud and clear that this is, indeed, a direction their customers would like to see them continue going in.
I’ve written before of my fondness for being down at the pub, having a pint with the lads, so I’m looking forward to, first chance I get, lifting a glass of Guiness stout and drinking it with hope for a sustainable future.
I hate to say I told you so (though I secretly love it!), but, well, I told you so.
Full costs of coal.
ping.fm/a4ZdU—
Cascadia Weekly (@CascadiaWeekly) March 07, 2012
Last month I posited that one of the keys to a successful transition toward electric vehicles is that these vehicles must be utilitarian in design, speaking specifically of trucks and vans, and now a company in Boulder, Colorado is offering up a truly viable 2-ton cargo truck, and they’ve sold their first fleet!
The Boulder EV is the first electric commercial truck capable of reaching 70 mph. bit.ly/zBFwQA—
(@inhabitat) February 06, 2012
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the phenomenon of Brownwashing, a new twist on the well-established practice of Greenwashing.
Brownwashing is the term used to describe business practices that exploit a new consumer awareness that brown paper products can be made from recycled materials, and that they can be products not whitened with toxic chlorine bleach. This, of course, would not be an issue if it weren’t for the fact that paper can now be whitened without the use of chlorine, and one company has taken it one step further, adding brown dye to their product in order to capitalize on this new brown-is-green association.
Enter Method, a company that is founded on sustainable principles, a company that sells non-toxic cleaning products packaged in recycled plastic bottles, and yet a company that has made a conscious choice to not identify as a “green.”
Via GreenBiz.com:
In a wide-ranging conversation with GreenBiz Executive Editor Joel Makower today at the State of Green Business Forum, Lowry and Ryan explained why a company created 12 years ago with environmental responsibility written into its DNA would distance itself from the green label.
“We don’t run from the green, we just don’t make that the lead story,” Ryan said…
Consumers want better products, not necessarily greener products, according to Method Co-Founder Adam Lowry.
That means creating products that work better and give consumers a selfish reason to buy them, even if that reason is simply convenience. But if the only differentiator is a better environmental profile, forget about it.
It’s a rather subversive take on sustainability, and I find myself having mixed feelings about it.
On one hand, I admire the commitment to not take the easy way out by using green graphics and ad copy to market a product just because the green-is-good association exists.
On the other, it somehow strikes me as cynical, defeatist, and even counterproductive to declare so boldly that “consumers want better products, not necessarily greener products,” even if, for now, there’s some truth to it.
If ever there was a fad with a net upside it might be green products, even though some Greenwashing might be taking place.
Anyone REALLY paying attention to issues of environmental protection and sustainability knows about the nefarious practice of Greenwashing, whereby companies and their PR firms make questionable claims that their products are eco-friendly, exaggerate just how eco-friendly they are, or worse, make no claims at all, but by adding green color and graphics of green leaves and trees and such to the packaging, they try to pass off a product that has no special eco-friendly attributes as one that does.
I heard a snippet of a piece on the public radio show Marketplace this morning, that appears to have been taken from an article in the Wall Street Journal, about how brown is the new green:
When consumers see brown they think green, say companies that sell products like paper towels, napkins and diapers.
Dunkin’ Brands Inc. and Target Corp.’s in-store cafes among other chains have made the switch from white to brown napkins. Next week, Cascades Tissue Group is trying what marketers long considered the unthinkable: brown toilet paper. It is pitching beige rolls, dubbing the product “Moka.”
Brown paper products are becoming an obvious way for consumers to show that they care about the environment. They assume the products are made with recycled materials or didn’t involve whitening chemicals.
Now, however, white paper can be made from 100% recycled fibers and whitened without the chemical chlorine, traditionally the primary complaint against it. Still, Cascades says dropping the extra step of bleaching reduces the environmental impact of Moka toilet paper by about 25% compared to their white recycled paper because of energy savings and other benefits…
So far so good. Nothing particularly bad here, right?
Well, this here is where the danger lies:
Even so, Dunkin’ Donuts decided to use recycled brown napkins about three years ago, in part because of what the color “symbolized,” says Scott Murphy, vice president of strategic manufacturing and supply for Dunkin’ Brands. Tests in a handful of restaurants showed the brown napkins made customers “feel like they were doing something good for the environment,” and matched the décor, he says.
Now, Dunkin’ Donuts still made a good decision. It’s great that they are using 100% recycled, non-bleached napkins! But the potentially exploitable thing is knowing what the brown in the brown napkins has come to “symbolize” and that it has the power to make customers “feel” a certain way.
The irony of all ironies in this story comes in the next paragraph:
At least one company adds brown pigments to non-chlorine bleached diapers to drive home the environmental message. The diapers need “visual differentiation,” says Louis Chapdelaine, product director of fibers at Seventh Generation Inc., a Burlington, Vt.- based company that specializes in eco-friendly household cleaning products and paper. It’s important “not so much that it’s brown, it’s that it’s not white,” he says. All diapers, if left undyed, would be the color of raw plastic or semi-translucent, he says.
What?!
Listen, it’s awesome that they aren’t using chlorine bleach to whiten their diapers. But these diapers stink, whether soiled or not, for their obvious attempt at Brownwashing. They could dye these diapers any color at all, so why brown? In fact, considering the unpleasant brown stuff that these diapers typically capture from the babies wearing them, you’d think that beige or brown would be the absolutely last color that Seventh Generation would choose, and this claim by their product director that this is simply a matter of providing “visual differentiation” really rings hollow. They even have a whole webpage dedicated to defending their brown-dyed diapers, though it, too, reads as nothing more than an elaborate rationalization.
Meanwhile, the folks at Babyworks.com and the Mothering Magazine online forum are none too pleased, and I have to say that I’m deeply disappointed in Seventh Generation, a company that has been an originator and a leader in the recycled and eco-friendly product marketplace. It could be that their products are still as eco-friendly as they always have been, but this brown dye thing and the excuses they make for it really has me questioning their integrity for the first time.
Sure, there are worse fish to fry, companies that have made no efforts to offer more renewable/sustainable products, and they won’t be earning a nod from me in my Celebrating Eco-Progress series anytime soon.
Let’s just hope that they don’t take after Seventh Generation and jump on the Brownwashing bandwagon too.
