As painful as this recession has been, there is reason to cheer. According to research firms like The Hartman Group and Natural Marketing Institute, the age of the “conscious consumer” has dawned. It seems that during these tough times, each and every one of us has been reminded that our buying decisions matter. The result is both a renewed frugality and a desire to make sure that our purchases count.

EcoUnit is a firm believer in conscious consumerism, as evidenced by our resuable bag program and product promotions that we run. EcoUnit credits, which are earned when consumers take part in our programs, are explicitly designed to foster this type of mindful, responsible consumerism. Every time an EcoUnit participant takes part in one of our programs they deliver a double environmental benefit - the choice they have made is in itself environmentally preferable, and the EcoUnit credits they earn go back into the environment.

In a recent test, EcoUnit and Ray’s Food Place offered shoppers 5 EcoUnit credits when they chose organic salad mix at select stores. The shoppers could use their EcoUnit credits to support local environmental projects. True to form, Ray’s shoppers took advantage of the opportunity to make their purchases count (in this case, by helping the local environment), and they chose the organic option 24% more than usual.

Ultimately, we don’t want shoppers to consume more. But when they shop, we want them to select items that are environmentally preferable. Organics, which are both better for you and better for the earth since they’re grown with no pesticides or toxic fertilizers, are an excellent choice for the conscious consumer. And since they earn EcoUnit credits which support the local environment, there is a double environmental benefit. Power to the conscious consumer!

Having been a solution provider to virtually every industry on earth, I have come to recognize that the grocery industry as a whole is relatively conservative. New technologies, solutions, and business models are simply not embraced and adopted overnight. And frankly, until recently, I believed the same could be said about sustainability (see recent blog post). So I was pleasantly surprised during last week’s Food Marketing Institute Sustainability Summit to see the strides that grocers are making towards more sustainable operations.

Yes, it’s easy to find grocery chains with new LEED buildings, improved lighting and more efficient refrigeration. But what is truly heartening is the extent to which real progress is being made among the products on store shelves. Many grocers are looking to expand their selection of organics, some with private label offerings. And many are taking a hard look at their sourcing policies in important areas like sustainable seafood practices. Futhermore, several leading grocers are helping their customers understand which products are environmentally preferable through shelf tags. In my view, more responsible sourcing combined with improved customer education are critical steps towards enabling more responsible consumerism.

Another area of increasing activity among grocers is around the “bag issue”. Based on at least 30 conversations that I had with grocers during the Sustainability Summit, it’s clear that grocers realize that they need to go beyond providing a discount for use of reusable bags. Nearly every grocer has a committee looking at new programs that they can put in place to significantly impact the use of reusable bags at their stores.

Clearly, leaders in the grocery industry have begun to recognize that their responsibility extends to the products on their shelves and the buying behaviors of their customers. With this new mindset, we can expect great strides to be made by the grocery industry over the coming months and years.

All of us who have studied economics have heard the term “externalities”. Conceptually it’s pretty simple - as defined in Wikipedia, an externality is “an impact (positive or negative) on any party not involved in a given economic transaction.” You can read more about it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalities. The word itself has a sort of dismissive feel about it, but in fact this term has come front and center in the new eco-aware economy.

Natural Capitalism talks about how externalities - both in the form of valuable resources that are consumed in the production of goods as well as pollution, waste, and other by-products of industrial processes - somehow got lost in the “story of capitalism”. In other words, as amazing and powerful as capitalism is, capitalism as we have known it over the past 100 years somehow manages to disregard the huge toll we take on our planet when we consume valuable resources (trees, clean water) and dispose of products at end of life (toxic chemicals, non-recycled paper and metal).

So the new capitalism will need to incorporate these externalities into the true cost of doing business. We will see a rapid rise in the cost of resources. We will see a price tag placed on pollution. We will see companies forced to incorporate the cost of handling their products at end of life. Once market forces begin to incorporate these costs, we will be on the fast-track towards a sustainable economic system.

For those of you who read about the “less is more” economy, I found a great example. Check out TerraCycle at www.terracycle.net. They are a product company whose raw materials are empty juice packs and power bar wrappers. They recruit average consumers to collect and send in this “trash” which they turn into saleable products and containers. Very cool. As consumer begin to *prefer* these types of products, then we’ll truly be in the less is more economy.

Corporate America continues to make strides towards a more transparent economy, led by long-time eco-conscious companies like Patagonia and even companies not typically thought of in this vein such as Xerox. Two recent announcements highlight this trend. Patagonia launched the Footprint Chronicles which shows the cradle-to-cradle footprint of several of their products. For their part, Xerox announced a new sustainability calculator that measures the impact of using their products, including a feature that suggests opportunities to optimize usage.

For all the criticism that corporate America gets for its environmental record, we need to recognize and embrace meaningful change when it occurs. And a first and critical step towards sustainability is transparency and awareness. These companies know that the steps they’re taking will not necessarily translate into higher revenues or profits in the near-term. Xerox may find that fewer of their printers are needed in the average office. And Patagonia may find that their environmental record does not run as deep as their brand might suggest.

Indeed, in the area of sustainability, the more we peel back the onion the more issues arise. During the process of discovery, there is little purely good news. Patagonia provides a perfect example: as they examined the cradle-to-cradle impact of one of their “recycled” shell jackets, they found that it contains a harmful toxin in the coating. Bad news? Egg on face? Well, somewhat…but it sure is a better outcome for all parties than continuing to bury our heads in the sand.

I applaud these steps by corporate America. This is what we must do. We need to start by discovering, because only then can we take action.

I spent some time on Huddler’s site today and really like what I see. They have created a very intuitive, interactive environment for learning about green products that you might consider buying as well as giving you the opportunity totell others about your experience with products that you’ve already bought. Sign up, build a profile, and share info with like-minded people who have similar product interests. It’s sort of social network meets green shopping - very cool. Check out www.huddler.com

Kent

Okay, so it’s not exactly my new Nissan hybrid. Which, by the way, got 550 miles on its first tank. I literally drove 3 weeks on 1 tank of gas - incredible. The overall MPG during the period was about 35…not bad!

So why should hybrids be afraid? Because the Tesla (I got to sit in this one at a recent fundraiser for Bing Nursery School at Stanford) and other zero-emissions vehicles are on the way. As long as they can figure out how to produce them in a relatively eco-friendly way, this is clearly the vehicle of the future.

One of the on-going mysteries associated with the environmental challenges we’re facing is: if everyone knows that we have a problem, and everyone is motivated to make some changes in order to improve the situation, why is it so hard to get more than a few people to do the right thing? Of course there are many answers to this question, but one that strikes me is the importance of immediacy. What I mean by that is that I believe people *will* change their behaviors in ways that help the environment (or hurt it less) if they are given relevant, timely feedback about the impact that their actions are having.

As a proud new hybrid owner I am experiencing this effect first-hand. As I watch my miles per gallon reading during each outing (the hybrid’s computer shows a lot of MPG-related data - very cool), I find that I’m compelled to take advantage of the gas-saving features more than I ever did in conventional cars. I am much more conscious of the “cost” of passing another driver, and I’m much happier to coast down hills with only the battery on.

Extending this principle to other parts of our daily lives, I can see a future when each of us is able to easily see the gas, electric, and water meters in our homes…and simply by seeing them (moving in the “wrong”direction) we will feel compelled to turn off lights, turn the thermostat down, and take shorter showers. Somehow the monthly bills - even though they show monthly and year-on-year comparisons and often times include financial inducements to lower our usage - just aren’t timely enough to get us to make meaningful changes.

Out of sight, out of mind…

Kent Ragen
www.ecounit.com

As we build the EcoUnit system, I’m struck by the multitude of companies offering to offset this or that based on a click. There may be some legitimate offers, but for the most part they look to me like blatant attempts to capitalize on the green trend and grow a list of unsuspecting email addresses in the process.

Our challenge is to rise above this fray, and I think we can do it. First, we are offering rewards to capture peoples’ attention and keep them coming back. Second, the rewards are not only free, they’re significant - it only takes 5 EcoUnit credits to offset a ton of carbon dioxide. That means that the average participant, who emits about 1.5 tons of CO2 each year, can completely offset their carbon footprint by earning only 7-8 EcoUnit credits per month. Third, and this will take a little bit more time to develop, we’re going to put the individual in control of how their EcoUnits are “spent”. So, with a relatively small investment of time, EcoUnit participants can earn free rewards, and they can use them to help the environment in significant ways.

You can see all this at www.ecounit.com. If you go, and if you like what you read, I hope you will sign up.