What an incredible time to live in: where the best thing a company can do for itself is convince us not only that a product is good, but that it is good for the world.
I just spent a week in New York with my family for the Jewish holidays. Upon arrival, I was greeted with eco-everything, everywhere. “This is what you can do about climate change!” shout radio commercials. “This is what I will do about climate change!” shout presidential candidates. “These apples were grown by local farmers in New York!” shout produce sections at the supermarket.
Even classic foes of the environmental movement are re-marketing themselves for an eco-conscious public. Hybrid SUV’s (and their hardly inspiring 14 miles per gallon) roam suburb streets. “Eco-Shaped” disposable
bottles (30% less plastic!) are new homes for bottled spring and mineral water. I call under a year till we see the first solar-powered oil drill.
It’s these pseudo-eco-products that make me the most hopeful, because they signify how vital positive social impact is to today’s successful marketing plans. As in, even if a product really isn’t all that great by social standards, the company has to find some way to claim that it is. Imagine that doing good has become the parameter for being cool!
Hassidic rebbes tell us that even if we don’t feel close to God, if we want to feel close to God it’s still okay. And not only that, but if we want to want to feel close to God, then still, we’re okay. (They actually say that we can have nine degrees of wanting- wanting to want to want to want to want to want to want to want to want to be close to God and still be on a high level.)
The rules between person and person are a bit different than those between person and God, and we’ll have to get better to for things in the world to be better, but the message of the rebbes still applies:
The desires we have to improve are infinite fuel for our actions. Where those desires go, our intelligence, our ingenuity, our science and art, politics and business and learning and doing will most certainly follow.
I'm Julian, Co-Founder of 
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This post is tongue in cheek, correct?
Smaller labels on bottled water? Solar powered oil drills? Pseudo products make you *hopeful*?! While it is true that sometimes lip servcie can lead to real commitments– I hate to be a pessimist, but in the commercial-industrial realm– it seems like it’s much more often the opposite. They do things for image, “greenwash” very detrimental things (SUVs, bottled water, etc.) and use it to avoid doing anything real.
If people think that SUVs and bottled water are now green(er)– then they’ll comtinue using them, feeling ok with themselves that they are now so environmentally-friendly. When in fact they need to do something else entirely: take back the tap, and boycott bottled water altogether; support mass transit, biking etc– and not use any form of SUV.
Let me phrase it as a question: what should we (citizens) or regulatory bodies do to make sure we, and they, the industries don’t stop there? That their image polishing needs to be based on real improvements?
respectfully.
Great upbeat article for a change! Yasher Koach
I have to agree with Jeremy, making a bottle of water with 30% less plastic and a smaller label is just detracting from the real issue: that bottled water can be done away with altogether by the vast majority (so can SUVs). Sometimes we have to sacrifice our conveniences, not alter our conveniences, to make a real difference. Unfortunately this is something very few are willing to do.
The precept of this article is a sound one. The companies involved may just be doing lip service to environmental issues, but people aren’t and will think through the real environmental benefits of products rather than buy the hype someone is trying to sell them. People aren’t so easily sold. Anytime anyone puts on a sales hat we tend to get suspicious and our first question is nearly always “what’s the catch?”.
I agree and disagree with Jeremy. There is a need for bottled water when we have disasters where we must have a supply of drinking water. In general, people should install filters in their kitchens and on their water lines to their refrigerators, but when the water in the tap is not drinkable, the only safe water is bottled water. Filters don’t clean non-potable water to a level safe for drinking.
The important thing to do is to use bottled water only when necessary, reuse the bottles several times by refilling them from the tap after the water is safe to drink again, and recycling those bottles when we’re done using them.
And why are we picking on bottled water? We should also pick on the small bottles and cans of soft drinks. There are a lot more of those around than water bottles. Then there are all those beer cans.
Recycled water and drink bottles become new bottles for water and drinks. It takes a lot less energy to recycle than to make new plastics from virgin sources. The same is true for recycled cans. It takes 95% less energy to make a new can from a recycled one than to make a new can from virgin metal.
As far as cars and trucks go, we need to encourage everyone to choose the best mileage vehicle they can that will still suit their needs. We also can’t ask people to just go out and buy a new vehicle because theirs doesn’t get good gas mileage. Cars and trucks are very expensive and a lot of us out here only buy another vehicle when we absolutely have to.
We can encourage everyone to drive less, walk or bike more and take public transportation when possible. That would mean a significant infrastructure project to provide public transportation systems to the millions of people who don’t have them in their cities and towns.
My small SUV (1997 Honda CRV) gets 23 mpg but I’ve been able to reduce the number of tanks of gas I buy every month from 3 to 1-2 by combining trips and planning ahead to be sure I take care of everything on the way to or from work. My grocery store, pet store, post office and pharmacy are all on the way I usually travel. Combining trips also saves time, a very nice plus.
Companies can pay lip service to the environment for a little while, but as Americans become much more environmentally aware and make bigger gains toward improving the environment and reducing climate change, companies will have to follow suit or be left behind to close like the buggy whip factories did in the early 1900’s as people started buying cars.
I used to work in the chemical industry, and we found that using less solvent and more environmentally friendly processes and chemicals, the company saved a lot of money. They expected costs to go up by changing but found they went down, so they started hitting all processes to make them as environmentally friendly as possible and profits went up.
Once companies experience the reality that being environmentally friendly in a real way costs less, they will make great strides to make real, lasting changes that benefit the environment and their bottom lines.
Sherri
Green is the new black!
I have to agree with Jeremy and Ant. While I think it’s great that environmental issues and the need to be ‘greener’ have become part of the greater publics’ awareness, finally, at the end of the day all that’s happening is that the greenwashing makeovers these companies are doing are just ensuring that the public doesn’t feel so bad for being selfish, irresponsible and continuing to destroy the environment. Rather than change their lifestyle in ways that are going to significantly improve the situation most people (still) are going to choose ‘the blue pill’ (reference: The Matrix), but now they have billions in corporate feel-good advertising to support them in their delusion that they are helping the planet by continuing to consume wasteful manufactured goods and drive around in 14mpg SUVs.
interesting discussion happening in the comments. i believe that big change comes slowly — and in our consumptive society, changes related to consumption come most slowly of all. while i see the danger in people thinking that just a little bit better is OK, i don’t think they’ll go from our where we are to the best possible environmental choices. incremental change is just an incremental step on the journey: first you shrink the label, then you make the bottles bigger, then you eliminate single-serve bottles…and on and on.