Ecofficiency

By Leah Perri, Intern

If you are one in the growing population that strives to buy organic and “natural” foods, you may need to look twice at what’s on your food labels. I recently read an article on the Organic Consumer’s Association titled ‘Whole Fraud: Exposing the Myth of So-Called Natural Foods’. The leading natural food seller Whole Foods Market is apparently outraged because the Organic Consumer Association is trying to enforce a new bill that would require mandatory labeling of all so-called “natural” foods that actually contain some genetically modified ingredients (GMO’s), many of which are sold at Whole Foods. So as not to mislead the public into thinking they are eating truly organic foods, a label would obviously be helpful.

This debate has been going on for a while now, and it has resulted in more awareness about the organic movement. Americans are seeing why eating organic is a much better decision than the cheaper, factory produced, environmentally unsustainable, and altogether unhealthy foods that have unfortunately become commonplace throughout the country. Between the health factors and the inevitable shadow of global warming looming over our planet, the organic food train is gaining passengers in growing amounts.

What are some steps to keep the organic movement growing, you might ask. Fill your own home with organic foods, by buying labeled USDA certified organic foods, which are accredited as truly organic by the USDA National Organic Program. You can also get in contact with your local and state legislators to pass laws that will require non-organic foods to be labeled as such. This could help bring more natural foods over to the fully organic side as well.

If you’d like to go a step further in creating change in our world, visit http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/ to learn more about making a difference and spreading awareness on such an important issue.

As reported in the Triple Pundit, Raz Godelnik, co-founder of Eco-Libris, and Raphael Bemporad, founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer of BBMG, discuss what they believe will be the year’s top 7 trends of sustainable consumption.

1. The Ubiquity of C2C

In 2012, we will experience a fundamental paradigm shift from a business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplace to a consumer-to-business (C2B) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace -where creating, buying, selling and sharing products and services will increasingly be driven by consumers themselves.

This is part of a transition where consumers are swapping, sharing, and collaborating to find affordable solutions to meet their needs. It’s based on user-friendly digital platforms and grows exponentially also thanks to added values, such as the sense of community or satisfaction from making a better use of resources.

2. The Rise of Generation “Why?”

The rise of the C2C marketplace is driven in part by the influence of values-aspirational, practically minded New Consumers looking for brands that deliver total value: products that work well, cost less, last longer and do some good. Youthful, educated, wired and mostly female, this New Consumer is asking “why” they should care about brands.

3. The Race to Relationship

We believe 2012 will see a race to relationship, where the most successful brands will break free of the lowest-price trap and deliver more value by empowering consumers with better products and experiences and championing their success.

While we see more companies that embrace relationships, the race is still on between ‘lowest-price’ and ‘added value’ propositions and the former might still beat the latter in 2012. Think of it as a contest between Amazon’s price comparison app (“evil app”) and Patagonia’s request not to buy its jacket unless you really need it (“Don’t buy this jacket”). I guess most people will go with Amazon this year, but the good news is that it looks like the gap between the two will get narrower this year, so there’s still hope in relationship.

4. The Imperative of Sustainable Brand Innovation

In 2012, sustainable brands large and small will increasingly connect consumers, brand teams, suppliers and subject-matter experts in the innovation process to embed sustainability and social purpose into every business strategy, product design and stakeholder relationship.

If companies want to grow their business and reduce their footprint at the same time, their best shot is innovation. Therefore companies will continue to seek innovative solutions that offer benefits for both consumers and their (triple) bottom line. We will see also efforts of companies not just to innovate, but also to position themselves as innovative companies to enhance their brands and attract more customers.

5. The Evolution from Occupy to Engage

If the most emblematic word of 2011 was “occupy,” we believe the word of 2012 will be “engage.” In 2012, there is good reason to believe that sustainable brands can lead the way. I believe that consumers will continue to voice their concerns in various ways, enabling companies that want to become sustainable leaders to transform protest into engagement opportunities. One example is Facebook’s new clean energy policy, which came following Greenpeace’s Unfriend coal campaign that attracted 700,000 participants.

6. Apps are the new sustainable brands promoters

As my colleague Bill Roth reported here, “the green app is emerging as the “gun” of the Green Economic Revolution that consumers are firing right at the heart of a business’s competitiveness.” With smartphones and tablets becoming so common, apps have become an increasingly important tool for sustainable brands to promote themselves. This is a place where creativity, innovation and engagement can be combined to create a real added value for consumers, and companies will increase their efforts in 2012 to make the most out of it.

7. Further collaboration between companies and consumers

Bemporad mentioned it on the first trend, but I thought it should get a separate mention. Co-creation will continue to grow in 2012, as companies understand the value of collaboration with consumers in the idea generation phase, while consumers are happy to engage with companies on the design level and not just on the consumption level. The latest FutureScapes project, which was created by Sony and Forum for the Future, provides such an example with the public asked to explore the opportunities and challenges of life in 2025, and to consider the potential contribution that technology and entertainment can make in shaping a better, more sustainable future.

We will also see more collaboration between companies which understand that in many cases the benefit from such collaboration is higher than the cost. One example that Jen Boynton reported on is that retailers “will continue to share best practices “to address pressing social and environmental issues, such as managing product lifecycle impacts, human rights concerns in the supply chain, and the safety of products.”

On the plane to Haiti in November, I came across this little gem of conflicting messages.

Cool! I like that you’re serving me sustainably grown coffee, but…in a polystyrene cup? Talk about WTF!

Who are the people in charge of making these decisions? How is it decided that it would be OK to serve sustainably grown coffee in a polystyrene cup? Go the extra yard, make a stand. Granted, it’s not American Airline’s job, but why not?

Polystyrene is horrible material. First of all, it is a petroleum product, which means there are lots of nasty emissions that come from manufacturing it. Second, while it takes forever to decompose, it breaks apart into tiny pieces that end up deeply embedded in aquatic environments. Fish and birds don’t know it isn’t food, and often eat it. That’s not right.

Third, despite what you have been told, it is really difficult to recycle polystyrene. It’s not so much that it’s hard to recycle, it’s just that it isn’t being done very much – anywhere. There simply isn’t much of a market for it. There are a lot more reasons, but those should be enough for us to commit to using a more responsible, and positively impacting material to drink coffee out of…while on a plane…in the sky. The irony is pretty rich…and by no means is it lost on me.

The urge to invoke the hypocrisy clause is going to be too great for many. Others will ask, “isn’t it enough that they’re at least doing something?” Both are valid enough points that I’ll delve into another time. The point right now, however, is being comprehensive in your actions. Do as much as you can, when you can, with what you have.

Now, does mean that I shouldn’t get on a plane…even if it’s to go to Haiti to do humanitarian work? I don’t think so; we clearly need to operate in reality as well…taking the next, more difficult, step when we can. Serving sustainably grown coffee in a polystyrene cup is lazy. Lots of sustainability planning is lazy. That needs to change. Soon.