GreenGuide

[judi clark]

Yesterday's NY Times Internet section had an article On Web and iPhone, a Tool to Aid Careful Shopping of interest. The article described GoodGuide:

... a Web site and iPhone application that lets consumers dig past the package’s marketing spiel by entering a product’s name and discovering its health, environmental and social impacts. “What we’re trying to do is flip the whole marketing world on its head,” said Mr. O’Rourke. “Instead of companies telling you what to believe, customers are making the statements to the marketers about what they care about.”

The article continues:

“What we think of now as green is a marketing mirage,” usually based on a single environmentally friendly practice, said Daniel Goleman, author of “Ecological Intelligence,” who switched deodorants and shampoos because of GoodGuide. The site could potentially “have a revolutionary effect on industry and commerce,” he said, by educating shoppers about the ramifications of buying a particular product. That could also be the problem with GoodGuide, said John R. Ehrenfeld, executive director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. He worries that by collapsing dozens of data points into a single number, GoodGuide does not adequately inform consumers about each consequence of each ingredient.

“Consumers need to be very carefully educated as to what these scores mean if it’s going to serve the purpose GoodGuide says it does,” he said.

So how do we become more aware and socially responsible? Are we faced with ratholes?

[Judith Burton]

It's difficult to dig out the details and what they mean in most cases. In trying to lessen my carbon footprint, I have been researching alternative energy sources for home use. When digging into the details and really trying to apply the alternatives, I am finding out more than I ever wanted to know about what doesn't work.
I often find myself wondering about all products that are advertised as green, perhaps the ingredients are green, perhaps the package is green, perhaps even the entire manufacturing process is green, but what about the people involved; how are they all treated along the way. Are they treated fairly and responsibly? Do they have good working conditions? is their environment healthy and supportive. Does the manufacturer contribute and support the local community?
This is what ChoixVert is all about. These are the things we intend to research. JB

[judi clark]

Judith,

These are good points. Has anyone published a "guide to green" yet? What are the metrics we'd use? What were the metrics used in the Fortune article on which the ChoixVert information card is based?

[Judith Burton]

From what I can tell, the Fortune study, all though extensive in many ways, falls short of what we are looking for over the long term. The companies named in the results were voted in by their peers in each category as noted.

If you want to know more about the company practices, most have a page on their respective web sites explaining their programs.

We are working with a company to develop the "green criteria" for Project ChoixVert.

[judi clark]

Thanks Judith,
I look forward to your green criteria.

You might find these articles of some interest. Seems that sustainability is increasingly being tied to social responsibility (though I believe the latter is a much larger concept).

Legitimate sustainability strategy could be rewarded by shareholders:

According to the A.T. Kearney researchers, what distinguishes “true” sustainability from tactical lip service to the concept is the following: * Long-term planning that is at least five years to 10 years or longer into the future * Contributions from outside the company’s inner sanctum from policy experts, scientists, business partners — anyone who can provide value insight and criticism * Top-down support
* A strong corporate governance framework
* Healthy risk management policies that identify potential corporate liabilities that are related to environmental factors
* And, a history that proves its long-standing commitment. After all, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index was started a full decade again, long before sustainability was such a sexy headline.

and McKinsey tackles value of corporate sustainability programs:

...the data suggests that the more tightly integrated a sustainability program or a corporate social responsibility program is into a company’s core business values, the more likely it is to have an impact on value (positively OR negatively). Interestingly, the CFOs answering the McKinsey survey were more likely to consider these programs according to the bigger picture than the corporate social responsibility professionals.