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!

On the eve of the Food Marketing Institute’s Sustainability Summit, I feel compelled to point out the importance of adopting sustainable products and processes by grocery retailers.  Certainly some have heeded the call and have made sustainability a hallmark of their operations. But too many grocers continue to hold on to the outdated belief that they are simply a middle man between product manufacturers and their customers.

Increasingly, the evidence points to the fact that consumer buying habits are a reflection of their values. The widely publicized Cone Survey shows that fully 90% of Americans consider themselves “conscious consumers”. Not only do they want to purchase products from manufacturers that reflect their values, they want to buy from retailers who reflect these same values. The entire value chain - from raw materials to packaging and production to the point of sale - is under scrutiny by the increasingly conscious consumer. As the Hartman Group so effectively tells us, it’s not just what they buy, it’s where they buy it.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at what Greenpeace is doing to Trader Joe’s.  With its website and series of email campaigns entitled “Traitor Joe’s”, Greenpeace is exposing Trader Joes’ irresponsible seafood sourcing practices. How long can a grocery retailer - already hit with reduced consumer spending amid historically razor thin margins - afford to maintain unsustainable practices? The answer is obvious, and it’s equally obvious that grocers need to get ahead of the game by rapidly adopting more sustainable practices throughout their operations.

By the way, if fear is not motivation enough, the fact that sustainability-minded consumers spend significantly more than the average consumer at the grocery store should be enough to move smart grocers in the right direction.

When was the last time you took part in a creek clean up?  It had been a while since my last one, so I thought it would be worthwhile to spend some time cleaning up my community and learning about the state of the waterways. Wow, was it educational.

Over the past 18 months I have participated in countless meetings on disposable bags - the paper and plastic bags that are commonly provided at grocery stores and other retailers. The environmental side will tell you about the horrible toll that these bags - in particular the plastic - take on our environment. They will site studies that show the volume of plastic bags in our waterways and the thousands of birds and sea creatures that die every year from these bags. The other side - typically made up of a few lobbyists from the plastics industry -  are quick to call into question those studies, reminding us of the convenience that these bags provide us in our everyday lives. They claim that bags are only a tiny fraction of the waste that pollutes our streets and waterways.

So I thought a little time spent in a local creek might shed some light on exactly who is right. What I saw in Stevens Creek was crystal clear: it’s true that by weight plastic bags make up only a minor percentage of waste, but by quantity they were easily 40% of all the waste items we removed! Not only were they numerous, they were in various phases of degradation, resulting in thousands of tiny bits of plastic. Since this stuff never fully decays, it’s easy to see how it is ingested by wildlife or will eventually wash out to sea, ending up in the gigantic plastic swamp in the Pacific.

So, to answer the question, plastic bags are a real problem. And at a consumption rate of 500 billion plastic bags per year globally, they are a huge problem. I am more convinced than ever that we need to get rid of non-biodegradable plastic bags entirely…and while we’re at it, we need to get rid of the wasteful and energy-intensive paper bags as well. It’s time that consumers be rewarded for making reusable bags an everyday habit.

Having spent the past 3 weeks in Italy, I’ve had an opportunity to compare how a country with a long history has adjusted to environmental challenges. The first impression is that the Italians, and probably Europeans generally, live a far more sustainable lifestyle than Americans.  Average car size is tiny, translating to far better MPG. Homes are smaller, and single family homes are few. Cities are much more conducive to walking, and public transportation is widely available. Use of electricity for “luxuries” like air conditioning is far less. Even trash cans, while plentiful, are of a size that discourages waste. Public bathrooms are almost always outfitted with a non-paper drying mechanism. And bath/showers essentially force conservation of water.

At the same time, I experienced plenty of examples of eco-waste. The “system” and all of its inefficiencies undoubtedly takes an unnecessary toll on the environment. But more specifically, restaurants often times use excessive amounts of paper.  Bottles, whether glass or plastic, are of small size. And recycling opportunities are fewer than I had expected.

It’s clear that Italy’s eco-efforts are very much a result of longstanding realities. For example, the small high-MPG vehicles are largely a reaction to pre-automobile streets. Similarly, the lack of natural resources has forced Italians to consume according to their needs rather than to their wants.  So while I did not see evidence of a keen awareness of our environmental challenges, I saw a people who have spent many decades arriving at a sustainable lifestyle.  Ultimately, while America has exported McDonald’s and consumerism to the old world over the past 50 years, I expect that during the next 50 years America will need to import a lot of learning from our old world brothers across the Atlantic.

During my quest to understand where all this is headed, I ran across Natural Capitalism which is essentially a manifesto for the new green economy. I will not endorse the entire book until I’ve read it in its entirety, but the first couple chapters have me intrigued. Clearly, others have thought about how capitalism - and all of the positive energy that it unleashes - can co-exist with a healthy respect for our environment.

Similar to my thoughts on the less is more economy, the authors of Natural Capitalism discuss how “resource productivity” will be the force that drives the next industrial revolution. Whereas human productivity (making the same amount of things with fewer people) was the primary source of progress thus far, the new economy will be driven by our ability to do more with the same amount of raw inputs. In other words, in the new economy we will be able to do more with less - make more, faster, better, safer products with the finite resources available to us.

They support this line of thinking with some interesting facts, namely the almost disgusting level of waste/inefficiency in the current economy. The evidence is everywhere (the U.S. economy actually utilizes something like 37% of the energy that is produced…the rest is wasted at various points of storage, distribution, etc…). A factoid from the book that I found interesting is that in the U.S. economy, the weight of all materials used to produce the goods that the average American consumes in 1 year is 2 million pounds! I’m not sure how much weight I actually consume, but it’s certainly not 2 million pounds…making the rest waste.

There is more to the story, and I intend to uncover it and share the key points on this blog. In the meantime, take a look around you and become more aware of the waste that you produce even at a personal level. Many new opportunities will come to those who help make our use of resources more efficient.

Since my last post I have thought hard about what a new picture of progress might look like. On the surface it’s easy to believe that we just need to develop some new technologies and buy more hybrids and we’ll be well on our way towards a green future. True, first steps are critically important. But even these first steps are tiny when you consider the scale of what’s in front of us. To use an old consulting term, we truly need a paradigm shift if we’re going to continue to improve our quality of life while simultaneously respecting the planet.

The environmental optimists attempt to rally the masses with promises of new, high-paying jobs in this new green economy. They sit side-by-side with the environmental realists who implore us to reduce, reuse, and as a last resort recycle…a message which is hard to dispute when you really think about the unsustainable nature of our consumption habits. But the naysayers make a strong argument that this message of reduce, reuse, and recycle will certainly take us down a path to economic failure.

And that’s where the waters get a little muddy. As the naysayers will tell you, “reduce” sounds a lot like “recession”. And it’s a fair question: can you really reduce consumption while simultaneously growing the economy? I’ve been trying to marry these ideals of reduce, reuse, and recycle with the only outcome that we can all agree is a positive one: a better quality of life. Can the 2 really co-exist, and if so, what’s it look like? What is that picture of progress?

Progress as it’s been defined in recent decades can be summed up in the words “better, faster, cheaper.” The next big thing necessarily had at least one of these attributes. In the 1980s the Japanese showed us how to build cars better, faster, and cheaper. Today computers get better, faster, and cheaper at an unbelievable rate. When products meet these criteria, the economic engine continues to hum right along. And as a result, we consume resources at an increasing rate.

So what will progress look like in the coming years? I am certain that consumers will continue to want better, faster, and cheaper. But as they become more aware of the impact their choices have on our planet, a new attribute will become critically important to their buying decision. That attribute is “less”. To make the same product, with all the same attributes and perhaps even better ones, while using less resources. The eco-aware consumer will pay more for these products…allowing the economy to grow while reducing our resource consumption.

An example should help to paint this picture. Today’s TVs are purchased based primarily on size and resolution. But as the problem of ewaste continues to gain in importance, manufacturers will increasingly develop designs and processes that allow for efficient recycling of materials and decreased reliance on toxic materials. Improved design will allow my 45 inch plasma TV to be recycled into a 52 inch super-plasma in the next generation…increasing my quality of life without draining resources.

It is certainly true that “reduce” will mean that some industries will fade away and jobs will be lost. But that is a part of capitalism that we’re all familiar with. Because “reduce” does not mean that we need to survive with less stuff - it just means that the stuff we want will utilize less resources - there will be new sectors in the economy with demand for new skills and workers. In order to get there we need revolutions in design, in material science, and in processes. There will be much dislocation, and many new opportunities, in the less is more economy.

At last we have a metric that works. The recently formed 350.org, leveraging research done by the noted climatologist Jim Hansen, is beginning to publicize the goal of 350 ppm (parts per million) as the safe amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Currently we’re at about 380 ppm. Yes, we have work to do - but we’ve heard about that for a while. Now we have a hard and fast target, an easily measurable metric, that our global community can aim for.

I see this as a critical moment in the “marketing” of climate change. With the simplicity of this approach, the burden of proof now shifts to the naysayers - if 350 is not the right number, then what is? Why is that a better number than 350? All of the questions that they’ve been asking for years are now turned against them. We now have a consumable, digestible, and consistent rallying cry for this all important cause. Get used to the number - it’s going to become embedded in everything we do.

Predicting the future is an imperfect science, but here’s a prediction you can bet on: 5 years from now the 2008 Beijing Olympics will be viewed as the turning point in the fight for our planet’s sustainability. To be sure, most of the press leading up to the event has focused on the high levels of pollution in Beijing. The environmental concerns are substantial, here are some startling statistics:

70% of all fresh water around the city is undrinkable

1,200 new motor vehicles are added in the city each day

Over 400,000 people die prematurely from air pollution each year

Air pollutants over China increased by 50% in the past 10 years alone

These concerns are shared by the International Olympic Committee which has weighed in with their own assessment, stating that for certain events “there may be some risk” to the athletes. Given the substantial pollution concerns surrounding the event, the IOC and other international groups are setting up a measurement system and fallback plans in case the health risks to athletes are excessive.

Beijing’s “Clean Up” Effort

In an effort to deal with these concerns and avoid a black eye once the eyes of the world tune into the Games, the city of Beijing and the Chinese government have taken several near-term steps. The city has shut down or relocated many factories to places outside of the city and put into place a system of measurements and standards to assess the number of clean air days (called “blue sky days”) each year. Beijing has taken other measures, including trial traffic bans, increased tree planting and ordering its power plants to switch from coal to gas. For their part, the Chinese government established a far-reaching set of rules, guidelines, and goals that are part of a 5-year environmental plan from 2006 through 2010. The 5-year plan includes improving energy efficiency by cutting energy consumption by 20 percent per unit of GDP, along with a 10 percent cut in major pollutants, between 2006 and 2010.

But China is a huge country whose economy is growing quickly, with a voracious appetite for fossil fuels and related pollutants. On the one hand, it’s not realistic that the economy will slow significantly for any event, even the Olympics. Equally unrealistic is that measures put in place within the past 1 to 2 years could have a meaningful impact in such a short timeframe. Indeed, the country’s discharge of sulfur dioxide and COD (a measure of water pollution) saw year-on-year increases of 1.2% and 1.8% in 2006. And the government recently announced that the air pollution goals for 2007 were missed. So what’s the real story? Are the changes going on in Beijing and China prior to the Olympics just for show? Are are they the beginning of systemic changes that will have a global impact?

Turning Olympics Promises Into Environmental Realities

If you read between the lines and dig into the action plans, you’ll see that the Chinese government is taking broad and meaningful steps to address the environmental crisis that threatens the country long after the Beijing Olympics are gone and forgotten. Some of these steps are bold not only in their scale but also in their intent. A few examples:
*Measurement - Hebei Province, near Beijing, has installed over 500 air and water monitoring facilities

*Accountability for waste – the government is testing a new system that charges residents by the amount of trash they generate

*Automobile emissions – the government has placed a ban on sales of cars that don’t meet “China IV standards” (same as Euro IV) from March 2008

*Investment in new technologies – the government has committed to increase investment in nanotech, including eco-friendly applications

As the Games approach and China is faced with global shame amid the spotlight, we will hear a lot of debate about the sincerity and breadth of China’s environmental \commitment. I can hear the claims of greenwashing already. But to me, the symbol of China’s environmental efforts surrounding the games – the water cube – is an appropriate symbol. It’s a perfect example of the meaningful steps taken over the past few years – indeed, 80% of the facility’s water is recycled, it was designed for use after the Olympics end, and it contains a bevy of other green building features. So while the Olympics may have indeed been the catalyst that spurred the Chinese government into action, the combination of heightened awareness among top officials coupled with meaningful actions taken will serve to make this the turning point in the globe’s largest environmental challenge. And as the rest of the world looks upon China, with its huge population and seemingly insurmountable environmental challenges, and realizes that they have taken substantive steps to decrease their environmental footprint in a short timeframe, it should give the rest of the planet reason for hope.

Americans have awakened to the environmental crisis that has been building for decades, and the impact will be felt in all aspects of our lives. Certainly, travel and vacations are no different. There are eco-tourism destinations sprouting up by the day, but they tend to be expensive and not exactly appealing to the “average family on vacation”, at least not yet. But the “average” family will feel the effects of global warming, water scarcity, and all of the other environmental ills that will plague us if we don’t change our ways immediately.

So the question is: what can the Smiths, Johnsons, Changs, and Shahs do to make a difference during their travels? The answer: a lot. There are significant steps that the traveling family can take in every dimension of their trip - from transportation and lodging to dining and entertainment.

Getting there:

Flying - if going far, flying may be the only realistic option. Try to avoid short-haul flights which are the most damaging to the environment. Whatever the distance, be sure to offset your flight with a few extra bucks.

Driving - studies show that when your tire pressure is 3% below the optimal level your car emits 3% more CO2 per mile. Be sure to check your tire pressure before your trip. Also, extra weight increases emissions, so leave the non-essentials at home.

Alternatives - consider whether a train can get you there…fun for the kids, but make sure they have a bar car!

Once there:

Rental car - it’s easy to find hybrids for rent. If you’ve never tried them, you’re in for a treat - it will add a fun dimension to your trip and help educate the whole family about how technology and innovation play a role in the emerging green economy. Despite common misperceptions, hybrids tend to have good safety ratings and plenty of power.

Public transportation - availability definitely depends on the location of your trip, but be sure to check out your options. It’s fun to ride the L in Chicago, the trollies in SF, and the subways of NY.

Eco-tourism at a local level – see the sights and do the activities that focus on the outdoors. A lot of great cities are best enjoyed on foot. Plan your days with “walking tours” in mind. Not only will you be able to better savor the sights, you will be able to work off some of the extra calories that we all have a tendency to put on during vacation.

Hotel:

Look for “green” hotels that provide benefits to green travelers. The hospitality industry is an “early adopter” of green techniques and products - from non-toxic cleaning products to providing travelers the option to re-use their towels on multi-night stays.

Towels and sheets - make sure you and your kids choose to re-use your towels and bed linens on multi-night stays. After all, how often do you launder these items at home?

Dining:

“Organic” restaurants - as long as you’re going out somewhere new, look for restaurants specializing in locally grown ingredients and organic foods. By using no chemicals or pesticides and minimizing transportation, these foods both taste great and are good for the environment.

Eat on premises - an easy way to lower your footprint is to eat where you sleep even while on the road. Of course you wouldn’t want to do this every night, but staying out of the rental car for even 1 meal will make a difference to the environment.

Throughout your vacation:

There are many other easy and eco-friendly actions you can take during your travels that are also good habits to follow when you’re not on vacation.

Refillable water bottle - not only will you save lots of plastic waste, the bottle will be a constant reminder that you need to stay hydrated on the plane and throughout your travels.

Backpack - we always need to carry items around while site seeing, and we often buy knick-knacks along the way - save the paper and plastic bags by putting them in your backpack.

Hopefully these tips will make your next trip more eco-friendly. If you have other ideas for how we can all go easier on the environment while we’re on vacation, let us know!

I attended a speach given by Yale’s President Levin recently and was intrigued by the future that he painted. In collaboration with many great minds at Yale and around the country, he has been trying to understand how the carbon cap/trade/tax market will develop, the extent to which emissions will need to be limited, and how significant these changes will be on our economy. His basic conclusion is that we will need to spend roughly 1-2% of GDP in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will be manageable from a global warming perspective (e.g. roughly to the levels outlined in the Kyoto Treaty). But the path to that future was striking.

It’s easy to imagine a future in which essentially all companies face limitations to the amount of CO2 that they can emit. But when you think about the fact that the majority of emissions are controlled by individuals (think: how many miles you drive, at what temperature you set your thermostat, how often you fly), it becomes clear that we will likely need to place limitations on the amount that individuals can emit! This will come with huge challenges in multiple realms: invasion of privacy, political considerations, massive measurement issues - just to name a few. The more I think about it, the more I realize how hugely disruptive to “life as we know it” this climate crisis will be.