The sixty-four thousand dollar question is this: Are issues stressing ecology, global warming or ‘organic’ in competition with - or allied to - the economy in the ‘real’ world? Are they incompatible? Friend or foe?
Popular coverage of eco-issues tends to brand products and services which carry an eco label as being more expensive and at first glance there is some truth in this. At the supermarket foodstuffs carrying an ‘organic’ label do cost more than their non-organic competitors. Not always, but often. Recycling waste calls for an initial outlay for separating paper, glass or metal. Vehicles using non-petroleum engine systems, or systems that spread the effort between (say) petroleum and electricity, do cost more than their petroleum only stable mates fresh out of the showroom.
There are other issues affecting the debate on how we use, mis-use or re-use things. One of the most obvious, of course, is that global warming is not the same thing necessarily as over-population, or organic production. They are often related, justifiably so, but they are not synonymous. Over population, of course, could make many types of organic production (especially of food) plainly impractical. Ditto for global warming. Both threaten more mouths to feed but with dwindling resources to do so.
Yet opinion makers, in the media, in government and industry, tend to use one or more (usually just one) as a sort of icon for the others. Developing a new light bulb and calling it ‘green’ is fine, especially if it is a good product that uses less electricity than ordinary bulbs: but it is not necessarily eco-friendly. It may be, then again, it may not. Does it help reduce global warming? Perhaps. Is it environmentally friendly? Perhaps.
A company offering organic baked bean, guaranteed GM-free, will require more land and (possibly) more resources such as water. Good for the buyer’s health in (say) Germany: less good for others who cannot afford the beans, indeed has difficulty affording any type, GM-free or otherwise, since more resources have gone into producing the organic can.
What we end up with is a plethora of terms and adjectives that confuse the issues. Every time a claim is make for a product being green/eco friendly/organic there comes a counter claim that it actually does more harm than good.
Surely, a cucumber on sale in a supermarket does not need a plastic wrapper. Cucumbers do not have plastic wrappers naturally: they are added, later, by human hand and plastic uses valuable petroleum resources. It is unnecessary: a waste.
But tarry a while. Wrapping a cucumber in a plastic sheet keeps the product fresh for several days longer: so, less wasted cucumber (good) and fewer trips to the supermarket by carbon emitting vehicles: bus, train or car (good too).
So where do we go from here?
Who knows?
OK, so where do we not go from here?
Well, the one road we should not start down is that of throwing in the towel and giving up because economic times are hard. It is certainly very tempting and history strongly confirms that in difficult times governments and industry (but not exclusively these) go for easy options.
In fact, the very open nature of the debate is itself an opening. There are real opportunities here for businesses to define the terms. That is not an excuse to abuse them. Some, certainly, will claim to be green, eco-friendly, organic, fair trade, whatever while being no such thing. But others will use the occasion to define the terms, see how they can implement changes as needed, and offer products that really do benefit their customers, their world and, yes, even themselves.
Over the coming months we will be returning to this subject in our newsletters and elsewhere.
At Fashion Access in October of 2007 we embarked on a project to bring eco-issues to more people in the industry. Among other topics in our programme of seminars we heralded the achievements of exhibitors using eco-friendly materials and methods. It proved enormously popular.
 |
|
In the most recent Fashion Access, held in October 2008, we extended this to include a seminar on Lifecycle, Recycle and Upcycle. The event, included an introduction to Eco-Textile (what the Buyers Want) by Eco Textile News, and a talk on Fair Trade by the Advocacy of Philippine Fair Trade, was moderated by Mike Redwood.
Included in this newsletter we offer two pieces from Mike Redwood: one general, one specific. The piece entitled Chromium Tanning and Its Issues provides a clear illustration of the difficulties we refer to above in defining what is eco-friendly, green or organic …. and what is not. |
In the most recent Fashion Access, held in October 2008, we extended this to include a seminar on Lifecycle, Recycle and Upcycle. The event, included an introduction to Eco-Textile (what the Buyers Want) by Eco Textile News, and a talk on Fair Trade by the Advocacy of Philippine Fair Trade, was moderated by Mike Redwood.
Included in this newsletter we offer two pieces from Mike Redwood: one general, one specific. The piece entitled Chromium Tanning and Its Issues provides a clear illustration of the difficulties we refer to above in defining what is eco-friendly, green or organic …. and what is not.
There are real business openings to be made here and we welcome hearing from you if you have any experience or thoughts about being eco-friendly. Really, please contact us.
