Recommended reading
September 4th, 2009 | Posted by Christian HicksA few odds & ends to round out the week:
A recent survey of green consumers found that (a) their biggest priority, by a wide margin, is the economy, not the environment and (b) there is widespread misunderstanding about basic issues, such as the impact of CO2 (e.g., half said that it depletes the ozone layer). The not-so-surprising conclusion? Stereotypes about green consumers limit the effectiveness of marketing communications. See Sustainable Business for the full story.
A column on GreenBiz by Richard Seireeni of The Brand Architect Group makes the interesting observation that Japan’s cultural obsession with perfection is at odds with sustainability. For example, only fruit that looks perfect makes it to the grocery—any apple or pear that has a bruise or even is a bit misshapen is tossed. This culling happens at every phase of the supply chain, from farmer through distributor to the grocery itself, leading to massive waste. Those pieces of fruit that do get through the gantlet are individually and intricately wrapped. Together, this tendency to throw out perfectly good products (including clothes, tatami mats and even cars) and use excessive packaging puts Japan behind the sustainability curve, even as it leads in other areas, such as producing hybrid vehicles. All of which suggests there is an enormous need for a long-term communications effort to raise awareness and change behaviors in Japan. But it won’t be easy, given how culturally ingrained these behaviors are.
Sustainability is a focus of this month’s issue of Harvard Business Review. The lead story, “Why Sustainability is Now the Key Driver of Innovation,” lays out the five stages of adopting sustainability, ranging from compliance to developing new business models and creating new platforms for business practices. It’s not necessarily groundbreaking, but the article does do a good job of using real-world examples to succinctly make the business case for investing in sustainability.
On Sustainablog, this review of Less is More: Embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, a caring economy and lasting happiness, a new book by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska, sounds promising. It speaks to the growing trend of people pulling back from the stress-ridden, career-focused, material-driven lifestyle (in part because of the economy) in pursuit of happiness and fulfillment. Great. But whenever I get the urge to buy a new book about sustainability or simplicity, I’m caught in a Catch-22—doesn’t the act of buying something go against both of those goals? I could wait for it show up at the library (or invest in a Kindle), I suppose, but it generally takes weeks, if not months, to get a copy of a new book from our local library. And I’m not inclined to drop $300 right now (to say nothing of the longer-term question of e-waste). What’s a reader with a conscience to do?