What disturbs me even more than greenwashing: Self-described green bloggers who help corporations greenwash. It is, I fear, a growing trend. The latest example: Lighter Footstep.
Let me back up: Not too long ago, I posted about Sustainable Group’s Green Back to School kit — a $44.99 collection of school / office supplies, all with 85 – 100% post-consumer content. Not too long after that, Chris Baskind at Lighter Footstep put up a post deriding the kit:
How embarrassing: A similar setup of conventional supplies would probably cost half the price at full retail. Most school-grade paper products already contain recycled fiber.
No one disagrees that conventional supplies are cheaper — but they’re cheaper for a reason: They destroy rain forests and pollute the planet! These cheap conventional products come at high environmental cost — which is exactly why people are looking for non-conventional, green products. Yes, we’d all like to save money, but we’d like future generations to have forests too!
Even worse, Chris basically puts all products with recycled content on the same level with his statement that “Most school-grade paper products already contain recycled fiber,” never mind that many of these products contain like 10% recycled fiber that’s not even post consumer! Chris’ post basically paints all products with any sort of green tinge (i.e. 10% pre-consumer recycled) as being on the same green level as products that are dark green — then says those dark green products are a rip off because they’re more expensive.
Doesn’t this kind of attitude just encourage companies to greenwash? After all, if a company can get all the green kudos it needs for doing the bare amount of greening it can get away with — and knows it’ll receive only blogger backlash for actually daring to put dollars towards going greener — what incentive is there for companies to NOT greenwash? Why would any company up its post-consumer recycled content when faced with this kind of “green” consumer market?
I did like Chris suggestion about getting supplies used whenever possible to save money and the planet — yet notebooks and pens tend to fill up and run out and must be bought new. And as Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish pointed out to me over email, vinyl folders, even if gotten used, are no one’s friend especially if you have kids of the age where everything goes straight into their mouths. Says Beth:
While I normally advocate reducing the amount of new stuff we buy, I would much rather buy a new binder made from recycled cardboard that comes with reusable metal rings (so that only the covers need to be replaced if they wear out) than a used PVC-covered binder that could be offgasing phthalates or leaching lead. If we don’t support companies producing healthier products, we’ll always be stuck with the same old plastic crap we’ve always had.
And in fact, Sustainable Group’s products encourage reducing and reusing — much more than the conventional crap. Beth asked Sustainable Group how its binders were different from other binders like the one she has from NakedBinder. Says Beth: “They explained how Sustainable Group’s are actually better because the metal rings can be ureused over and over again. Awesome.”
Yet even when it comes to buying new stuff, it seems Chris is happy to encourage people to buy the conventional cheapo stuff, encouraging people NOT to buy eco-goods but instead “simply buy an extra stack of notebooks and pencils, and send them along to your child’s homeroom teacher” to be distributed to kids in need.
Is anyone else bothered by this “You paid extra for green supplies? Then you don’t care about poor kids!” sort of reductive argument? So now somehow Wal-Mart and other big box stores with their dirt-cheap conventional goods are champions of the poor and the environment because they’ve successfully managed to cut business costs by pillaging the environment?
To add insult to injury, many so-called green bloggers seem to be unquestioningly buying Chris’ argument, hook, line and sinker — with everyone from organic_beauty_ to save_electric to ecostreet retweeting Chris’ post with glee. I understand higher prices are a tough sell in this economy, but is it too much to ask for a real evaluation of green products beyond an “it’s not 99 cents — so it’s of course a company trying to rip people off with ‘green’ marketing!” knee-jerk reaction?
If anyone actually looked at comparable products at Staples, to use a big box example, he would’ve seen that Sustainable Group’s prices are actually a bargain! Wanna know how much a 1.5″ Avery Eco-Recyclable Binder costs? That would be $7.79 — EACH — and that’s for a binder that’s simply RECYCLABLE. The product description doesn’t mention recycled content. And while the item can be disassembled for recycling, the metal rings aren’t made for reuse like Sustainable Group’s ReBinder.
Despite the eco-inferiority of all the Staples’ Eco-Easy items, I tried some calculations to create a greenish kit with the same number of supplies as Sustainble Group’s. With 3 of those Avery binders, 6 2-pocket folders (only 50% post-consumer content), 6 pocket dividers (unknown post-consumer content), 6 notebooks (80% sugar cane waste, 20% unknown), and 3 recycled pens, the total came to $51.18. Note that with Sustainable Group you’d also get 9 CD storage-related supplies; I just simply couldn’t find anything with any glimmer of green in the CD storage unit section of Staples.
What’s clear is that when it comes down to basic eco-friendly — and I mean non-greenwashed eco-friendly — products, Sustainble Group’s package is a pretty decent deal. Yes, I totally understand money’s tight for a lot of people right now — but I do also think that the many gleeful retweeters of Chris’ post could actually afford the stuff if they so chose. I mean, most of my friends own iPhones and Blackberries — and they’ll still sometimes complain about paying a few bucks extra for chicken that wasn’t grown in battery cages and pumped full of antibiotics. We’ve simply just gotten too used to low low prices — and we’re too eager to embrace so-called green blog posts that let us maintain our complacency.
That’s not to belittle the difficulties of the people who really can’t afford to pay a cent extra for school supplies. But — while I do hope that the green market will reach a bigger scale and prices will come down — is the solution really making green products as cheap as conventional ones? I really don’t think that’s possible. Michael Pollan puts it nicely in his statement about the higher cost of organic food:
I don’t think our goal should be to make all food in America as cheap as cheap food is now. … If the goal is cheap food, we’re going to hurt our farmers, we’re going to hurt the environment, we’re going to hurt the public health. The goal should be to give people the money so they can afford to buy good food.
We’re in this kind of reverse Fordism situation. You know, Fordism was this idea that Henry Ford said, “I’m going to pay my workers enough so they can afford to buy my cars.” It raised everybody’s boats. This was the social compact in America, an economic compact, up until the ‘70s, and then it collapses.
We have the opposite, it’s kind of the Wal-Mart model, which is, “We’re going to pay you so little you can only afford to buy our crummy food.” And that’s the kind of cycle we’re in.
The answer is to give people the buying power.
For now at least I can commisserate with Beth, who told me “I totally disagreed with [Chris'] assessment of those [Sustainble Group] products…. If we as green writers don’t praise the truly green products and expose the greenwashers, who will?”
What do you guys think, after reading this megalong post? Please share your thoughts in the comments. In the meantime, Sustainable Group’s agreed to give away 3 Green Back to School Kits to green LA girl readers — so watch out for a freebie post in the next couple weeks. Priority will be given to non iPhone or Blackberry-owning readers (hey, I don’t own those either) who honestly wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford these eco-products.
So, in general, I would agree. It is good to reach for the most “pure” in some regard, especially when we are talking about marketing terms like “green” and “recycled” and whatnot. These sorts of words are endlessly confusing to consumers for exactly these sorts of situations. The same thing is still very common with food.
With that said, for many, the path to green is a path and not a giant leap. I can understand how it sometimes takes a while for people to come around to why something in particular matters. Everyone also has things they can jump more easily into than others. I may have used crappy plastic binders when growing up, but I also would tape them together, deal with barely functional covers and after a while, used a fabric binder cover to kinda hold everything together.
For some people, the path to green leads them more into the direction of spending their money in the way they see as doing the least harm and most good. Some people don’t have quite enough money to make that sort of decision or haven’t been able understand why it might be a priority. For them, green might mean using everything you have until you can’t find anything else to do with it and using the resources immediately available to you. Sometimes the investment needed upfront is difficult to save for.
Both ideas are green-supportive in different ways and the ideal solution would be a combination of both. As the markets expand for these sorts of items, it many times becomes easier to find them and there are more options. Maybe at some point someone will design a binder with removable rings and a way to replace the cover with any fabric and cardboard/chipboard you have at home. That might be even cheaper and be even more green in some manner. Maybe something less heavy duty would be more suitable (I don’t really have any feel for what ’18 point recycled FSC Certified bending chipboard’). I am sure there are tons of other ideas people can come up with to even improve this item in some way.
People do need to readjust to considering the whole life cycle of items. It is hard to get them to that point since so much is being and has been done to make that part of the purchased item unimportant and unclear. When that stuff happens on a small scale in your community, it’s easier to find that sort of stuff out.
With that said, I also don’t know if I can expect everyone to be 100% green all of the time with the sort of society we’re in and everyone has room for improvement. It’s a good idea to praise the ideal, but also face the surrounding reality and determine the current limitations. And although I could probably manage to afford a iPhone or Blackberry, my old phone still works, so I haven’t replaced it!
M’s last blog post..morning walk
Comment by M — July 21, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
Hey M — My phone’s like 3 years old now and the paint’s chipping off! I really think I’ll need to replace it soon though b/c it’s been acting up a bit :)
I’m totally with you: We can’t be expected to make the perfect choice all the time. I think I’m just arguing more that we need to acknowledge that some choices are better than others — even if we can’t always make the better choice (due to money issues, etc.) — instead of somehow making that better choice sound like it’s a worse choice.
So if we can’t buy the uber green binder, just acknowledge that ok I just can’t afford it right now, or I didn’t plan ahead and need it today so I have to buy it at Staples, or whatever the reason is — as opposed to doing the “it’s more expensive than walmart and therefore a ripoff!” thing, which is just misguided.
Comment by Siel — July 21, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
siel, i think your criticism of “lighter footstep” is well-placed and you make the case for changing the desire for cheap things well. it is so very hard to retrain the desire for a bargain but precisely the job of media focused on environmental awareness is to point out the many ways in which these cheap products which are made with environmentally awful products are not actually bargains.
i clicked over to the lighter footstep blog and i thought the attack against the sustainable group’s products to be incoherent. first, an attack against the way the stuff looks and whether it will be pleasing to your child, then ending on being in harmony with your community, none of it actually broke down what it takes to get school supplies that have the lowest possible environmental impact, which seemed to be the point of your initial post. i found it profoundly lazy that the lighter footstep blogger did not put up a comparison breaking down what this kit would cost if you were buying its non-recycled counterpart at walmart–including the materials, as you did with the staples example. buying second-hand is always fabulous, but notebooks with enough pages to sustain an entire semester’s worth of work? i’m in thrift stores all the time for clothes and have never seen anything that would come close to adequate school supplies. totally irksome response to your post.
Comment by mb — July 21, 2009 @ 9:35 pm
I totally agree with your rant. Unfortunately, a lot of green products are more expensive and sometimes you have to choose the cheaper “bad” product at particular times. I only hope that more people will buy from Sustainable Group so that someday the price will come down and/or more people steer away from the “cheap” products.
Comment by Anne — July 21, 2009 @ 11:29 pm
One other point that should be made is that the prices of green products will never come down without demand for them. If those of us who can afford to spend more don’t, the price won’t come down for everyone else. At least I think that’s the way it works, right?
Beth Terry, aka Fake Plastic Fish’s last blog post..Join Me for a Live Chat Today on Living with Less Plastic
Comment by Beth Terry, aka Fake Plastic Fish — July 21, 2009 @ 11:36 pm
This says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp5xH-4Phos&feature=related
I love these guys!! Siel, thanks for your post. These guys also employ handicap workers..that’s priceless..
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Comment by Karen Solomon — July 22, 2009 @ 2:49 am
I have to say that people often take the short sighted, greenwashing approach to their own lives. They think they are green if they recycle-even as they sit in their SUV with it running to keep the AC on…
This is the mentality of America, a short sighted “me and my comfort” approach to life that has us in this mess to begin with. Those of us in the know need to take the time and effort to do more for the world and gently prod and educate along the way. As for cheap…we need to be very careful where we spend our dollars. I have written about voting with our dollars several times at my blog- http://www.greatlakesgreenpages.com The real deal is that green is really grey, there are many variables and values within the spectrum. We have to choose the right products for us at that time, to serve us and do the least damage. I feel a blog post coming on….
Robert Stockham’s last blog post..Ingenuity is Ingenius…
Comment by Robert Stockham — July 22, 2009 @ 8:52 am
Actually I think you’re both right. It’s a dark green product and if everyone purchased it availability would go up, prices would go down, and it would be better for the planet if more students used supplies like these. But it’s also more expensive than your typical folder that has a lesser amount of recycled content and some kids may not find it aesthetically pleasing. other kids will jump at the chance to personalize it. Depending upon the person’s situation, they may perceive it as a luxury green item that’s not in the budget and want to find other ways to green their kid’s school supplies. Others will say its expensive but worth it. How is both bloggers acknowledging both the pros and cons considered greenwashing?
Comment by Condo Blues — July 22, 2009 @ 9:45 am
Condo Blues — How exactly does Lighter Footsteps acknowledge both the pro and cons? I don’t think his calling SG’s products “embarrassing” and exhorting people not to buy them and to stick to cheap ungreen products counts as a fair look at the issue.
Comment by Siel — July 22, 2009 @ 9:59 am
And some would argue, as Derrick Jensen did in this Common Dreams article, that “Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance.”
“Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/08
It is well worth reading, the almost 300 comments are good too.
Lisa T’s last blog post..California Constitutional Conventon events Friday and Saturday
Comment by Lisa T — July 22, 2009 @ 11:44 am
I do think that essay makes some good points, but one thing I wish it focused on more is that often, it’s the personal changes that actually lead people to get involved politically. I began with taking shorter showers, then got curious about the bigger issues about water in California, then wrote a post about it and have been getting more involved with the issue (I’m going to an Environment California event tonight about wise water use — right before Blogger Prom!).
Personal change and political change are hardly mutually exclusive — The two really work in conjunction with each other. I think it’s the very people who start off taking shorter showers who push for laws like the water conservation mandates that went into effect in L.A., that helped convince the judge who made the ruling that farmers need to conserve water because salmon need water too.
Comment by Siel — July 22, 2009 @ 11:54 am
Thanks, Siel, for the long post and all your research.
Comment by Nancy — July 22, 2009 @ 11:55 am
Keep fighting the good fight Siel! I agree with Beth – “If we as green writers don’t praise the truly green products and expose the greenwashers, who will?” Go get ‘em!
Comment by Barent Roth — July 22, 2009 @ 11:56 am
Kudos Siel!
This is one of the best, well thought out arguments for promoting the manufacturing and buying of green goods. I was very impressed by the research you did into existing mainstream products vs environmentally and human rights friendly products. As environmentalists we all have a responsibility of balancing human rights issues with environmental ones. In my opinion, the growing conciousness of society coupled by creativity and better technology can and will weed out the green washers and mainstream the sustainable products!
Thank you for the time and insight you put into this blog post. It really resonated with me.
Sincerely,
Elisa Brown
Comment by elisa brown — July 22, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
Thanks for the 2 cents, everyone. I think it also didn’t help that Lighter Footprint’s painting as anti-poor and elitist a company that actually goes out its way to give jobs to disabled people. The ReBinder’s assembled by an AbilityOne certified disabled workforce.
Comment by Siel — July 22, 2009 @ 4:56 pm