Archive for September, 2007

Remember the recent recalls of toys for lead paint and other harmful materials because they are a harbinger for change in our supply chain – China.

If you are looking to point fingers or ask why lead paint was being used for children’s toys produced in China then look no further than Mattel’s mea culpa. As corporations continue to press their suppliers (in China) for lower costs, it’s inevitable that sustainability and the environment take a back seat.

Tom Friedman, the popular New York Times columnist offers hope in his latest column. Friedman talks about how change is beginning to happen in the supply chain and it’s a result of leadership coming from corporate America not government.

Wal-Mart with its famous rock-bottom prices and mission of acting in the best interests of consumers has made impressive gains with its commitment to bringing sustainability into its business practices.

Keep in mind that this is the same company whose business practices use to only provoke outrage (there are still no Wal-Marts in New York City or Vermont) with routine reports of the coerced unpaid overtime, the foreign sweatshop labor, health-insurance packages that left thousands of employees to rely on Medicaid, and the sucking dry of mom-and-pop stores.

Hopefully Wal-Mart’s emerging transformation of its business practices in terms of sustainability encourages more North American corporations to engage in similar initiatives.

By Grant Draper at The Element Agency in New York.

This week’s green blog round-up features several interesting posts on things we can all do to change how green we live our lives.

Brooke Olive in Daily Green Tips at AboutMyPlanet.com describes for us the steps we should be taking to green our bedrooms.

Over at the personal finance and frugal living guide Wise Bread, the authors have come up with several new ideas for going green on the cheap.

For those of you facing the twin challenges of ever rising gas prices and housing market uncertainty checkout this week’s consumer survey in Green Biz which reports that more and more consumers are turning away from large gas-guzzlers  toward smaller gas-sipping vehicles.

Next we want to draw your attention over to our friends at Treehugger and their popular “Green Your Sex Life” series where the comments thread and list of advertisers continues to grow and grow.

By Don Millar at The Element Agency in New York

Remember the Time Magazine’s 2006 person of the year?

Everyday it seems more and more companies are launching efforts to discover or learn about what it means to be a “Green” company. 

Who is driving this learning process of what it means to be green? 

You are. 

Consumers and businesses are rewarding those companies that they perceive are producing the best products and services and doing it while employing sustainable business practices.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal ran a feature story on the absence of any reliable guideposts for what constitutes “a green company” in a given industry.

The answers these companies should be looking for can be found with their customers - consumers like you and me.

As more companies begin serious efforts to stake out a competitive position or their “EcoAdvantage” by doing more and by doing it better than their competitors they also should commit themselves to a course of behavior that aligns their green initiatives with their customers in the green marketplace.

Sites featuring consumer ranking such as Do the Right Thing are powerful vehicles for consumers to express their opinions and rank companies based on their positive or negative social impact versus their popularity or other factors.   

By Grant Draper at The Element Agency in New York

In the rush for companies to be carbon neutral the market for carbon credits has exploded. This growth has allowed opportunistic entrepreneurs to profit on programs that do little to help the environment.

Recently the Financial Times launched an investigation into some fraudulent practices surrounding carbon credits. Amongst a host of problems they found that, there were rarely proper verification processes, services sometimes had no value, shady brokers were taking unreasonably high profits and industrial companies were promoting their purchasing of a small amount of carbon credits and profiting off the publicity.

Meanwhile some NGO’s that have been protecting wilderness for years such as Land Conservancies are struggling through red tape and grey areas to become carbon credit vendors.

Who is going to step up and regulate this industry?

There are several interesting posts throughout the green blogosphere this week discussing a range of green marketing and communications news and events. Every week the number and the demand for this information grows which speaks volumes about the direction in which the marketplace is headed.

Hank Green at EcoGeek writes about the surprising idea that most of America is farmland - windy farmland that is – and how a company with a long-standing relationship with farmers is making wind power a reality.

Joel Makower of two steps forward has a great post on the rise and rebirth of corporate interest in the green consumer as he points to four significant green marketing conferences slated for this fall - up from zero just a year ago.

David Widger has an interesting post talking in-depth about his research into a who’s who of the “green” blogosphere over at Marketing Green.

And over at DeSmogBlog they are having some fun this week running a Greenest Photo Ever contest with 38 entries submitted on the first day.

By Grant Draper at The Element Agency in New York

Everyday choices are being made by businesses and policy makers about how green they want to be. The skyline of Downtown Vancouver British Columbia has changed drastically over the last 5 years. It is literally unrecognizable. Meanwhile there has been no increase in the ability for the downtown core to handle traffic and developers are building up not out.

The city has made it clear that its priorities for commuters are,

1. Pedestrians

2. Cyclists

3. Public Transit

4. Commercial Traffic

5. HOV’s

6. Single Occupancy Vehicles

Developers such as The Adera Corporation are taking notice and building higher and adding green elements such as car co-op parking and walking access to stores and transit. One development they are currently completing in Burnaby is even named GREEN.

Are the days of the yard and the two cars to raise kids gone? Replaced by urban parks, eco density and walking distance. Vancouver is certainly at the forefront of the new model – one that includes urban parkland, eco density, zoning variances and residential amenities downtown.What is your city doing?

Everyday choices are being made by businesses and policy makers about how green they want to be.  The skyline of Downtown Vancouver British Columbia has changed drastically over the last 5 years.  It is literally unrecognizable.  Meanwhile there has been no increase in the ability for the downtown core to handle traffic and developers are building up not out.

The city has made it clear that its priorities for commuters are,
1.    Pedestrians
2.    Cyclists
3.    Public Transit
4.    Commercial Traffic
5.    HOV’s
6.    Single Occupancy Vehicles

Developers such as The Adera Corporation are taking notice and building higher and adding green elements such as car co-op parking and walking access to stores and transit.  One development they are currently completing in Burnaby is even named GREEN.

Are the days of the yard and the two cars to raise kids gone?  Replaced by urban parks, eco density and walking distance.  Vancouver is certainly at the forefront of the new model – one that includes urban parkland, eco density, zoning variances and residential amenities downtown.

What is your city doing?