Gaining green credentials is of utmost importance to those in the consumer electronics industry. As the demand rises, each company is developing their own labeling system to tote their own personalized green flag. But with so many sets of criteria how do we evaluate the concentration of the green credentials solution?

Philips Electronics recently announced a new consumer product label that will mark simply that the electronic is more environmentally friendly and healthier for the consumer. Titled the “Green Tick”, this label will aid Philips consumers in making decisions about competitive products. Included in the eco-friendly evaluation, the products must meet certain energy efficiency requirements, and use healthier, more environmentally gentle materials in everything from production of the electronics to the packaging. The motivation is to enlighten consumer awareness and to differentiate Phillips products from others. Awarded by external auditors, Green Tick products will be added to the list of Green Flagship products.

It is now becoming easier for Phillips consumers to actively make eco-conscious choices about different products within the company portfolio, but it stops there. The missing link right now is that there is not a tool to leverage the criteria of the Green Tick against that of say Energy Star. When the Green Tick only applies to Phillips products, it becomes difficult for the consumer to make educated decisions about competitive products- how do choose between a “Green Tick” labeled HD TV and an “Energy Star’ rated HD TV? On a seemingly similar note, Sharp
just received an eco-friendly label for their TV’s as well. Boasting
40 EU eco-label awards and additional international energy-efficiency
awards, Sharp was able to achieve so many pillars or environmental wealth because they chose a more common label for
their products- the EU Flower. When the criteria and motivation for these labels are essentially the
same, why compete within the market with private eco-label branding? It is hard to say, but the next step is to get educated and look for labels that are applied to more consumer markets.

Some good news is that many recent European discussions between manufacturers and PR departments have concluded in agreeing to promote green-labeled products and educate with more extensive media coverage throughout the remainder of this year. Hopefully this will result in consumer demand for consistency, and thus an understanding of eco-label activity.

More good news on the horizon is a new widespread European Union Eco-label, the Flower. Taken from the EUROPA Eco-label homepage:

"It is a voluntary scheme designed to encourage businesses to market products and services that are kinder to the environment and for European consumers - including public and private purchasers - to easily identify them. You can find the Flower throughout the European Union as well as in Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. The European Eco-label is part of a broader strategy aimed at promoting sustainable consumption and production."

Everything from tourism to detergents, business owners and companies can now compete within the green market. With this tool, green attributes pertaining to these private companies, businesses, and practices…may be more easily compared by consumers.

turtle, NO!: Image courtesy of The AgeWhat would it take for you to revolt against every accepting a plastic bag from a store again? A sea animal choking on one? A landfill in 2500 filled with decomposed matter, and plastic? A a shortage of oil? Having to choose between the deodorant container or the bag to take it home in…? Well, two women in Colorado desire to make this choice obvious and easy for you.

Green Endeavors is a Boulder, Colorado-based non-profit run by two women, Doreen Molk and Carly Gralak, who hope to make an impact on environmental awareness. The co-founders are working free of commission to provide a reusable bag to as many shoppers as possible. Their goal is to remove the requirement of making the choice between paper or plastic. To them the third option, neither, needs to be an obvious and widespread option. Doreen explains, “Every time a shopper chooses paper or plastic they have to make the wrong choice, but are not even offered the right one. We just want so make sure that people know of the third option!"

If we all changed the habitual declaration of our paper or plastic preference to cloth or “I brought my own," we would collectively save 4 billion dollars and 14 million trees from the industry of shopping bag production. The cofounders of Green Endeavors are not out to make a profit from this practice; they simply want to give every household the opportunity to make responsible choices. The way their organization works at the present: send an email with your order for cloth bags to greenendeavors@gmail.com. Each bag costs a wee $2.50. (That is a pretty darn good deal compared to the $800 fashion shopping bag.) You can also check out their site for upcoming events where the two of them will personally (and happily) sell you a bag.

Scientists debate over how long a single plastic bag will take to decompose but let's just put it this way- if you swallowed a supermarket plastic bag at birth, it would still be the most solid material remaining in your coffin after your body breaks down. That doesn’t seem right…or fair. Polyethylene, the most common shopping bag material, is a man-made polymer that microorganisms simply don’t recognize as food; therefore, nothing wants to break it down, so it sits in our landfill (or body) indefinitely. Paper bags will break down, but they are still disposable. The responsible option is to opt for the cloth bag that can be used over and over and over and over…

So on this date of 7 ELEVEN, when you go into that convenience store, don’t let your soda get packaged in a small polyethylene bag that will outlive the complex composition known as your body. Stuff it in your purse, in your pocket, or your Green Endeavors shopping tote (and recycle the bottle, too!).

Green Endeavors
Slate: Will My Plastic Bag Still Be Here in 2057?
Kicking the Habit: Plastic Bags
Tip o' the Day: Paper or Plastic? Bring Your Own!

Unplug it Mr. Independent: image courtesy or unplugart.comEvery object on this earth has an embodied energy. What is accounted for in the embodied energy is the whole energy life cycle of the object: the energy captured in the raw materials, and mostly all the energy required for the processes associated with it. Included in this calculation is the energy required to dispose of or decompose it. A tomato, for example, has a low embodied energy compared to that of a set of silverware, or a Lazy-Boy chair. Lets take an apple for example. Although they are grown in all 50 states, the average apple travels 1,555 miles to get to Chicago’s central market. Due to transportation costs, it seems this food has a higher embodied energy than necessary.

We Americans consume a lot of energy. Many of our appliances, such as our toothbrush, razor, and clocks, have become unnecessarily electrical, all consuming energy from the electric grid daily. If your energy bill has become morbidly obese, you are not alone. The average American family produces 15,000 pounds of carbon emissions each year. Imagine the damage we do just one single hot holiday! So, aside from supporting local and alternative power generation, here are a few fun things to do today to eat, drink, and celebrate your way to electrical independence today.

1. Go around your house and unplug all of the unused appliances, all those hidden clocks and battery packs on your coffee maker and chargers are constantly sucking our electricity.

2. Go to the lake and allow the kids (or yourself) to go swimming and wash up for the day rather than taking a shower.

3. Drink a local beer or wine. At least the transportation energy is lower than those coming from Australia or Sicily. If the average American mean travels 1500 miles to get from farm to plate, at least you can do your duty with recreational consumption. I mean with your liquid bread.

4. Eat raw. Keep the oven off and the house cooler. Make a batch of Gazpacho (with seaweeds for protein) and a raw chocolate mouse for dessert. Try it, its surprisingly spectacular!!

5. For you electricity independent lovers, check out the aphrodisiac qualities of raw foods and have some fun.

6. Sun brew tea. It takes a few hours but it keeps the stove off and gets you that vital caffeine. You can even try coffee in a filter sealed up on top. Or put your press pot out in the sun for a couple hours before you press it.

7. Play outdoors, where little electrical energy is required in order for you to expend your own. Stay clear of the shopping mall, the movie theatre, and, dare I say it, maybe even the bar. Instead, pack a picnic, go for a walk in the park, on the beach, or out in town, go for a swim at the lake, or play a game- you can even make one up! An added bonus: being outdoors is downright good for your health.

8. Ride a bike or walk if you need to get somewhere. If you can’t get there by foot or pedal, reconsider whether you really need to go or not! If you do, go to the park and ride and utilize as much public or unplugged transportation as possible

9. Build a bonfire instead of retreating into your lit up home tonight for cocktails and celebration. Gather around a bonfire and burn some old scrap wood.

10. Sweep up at the end of the day rather than turning on your vacuum.

Without further ado, I will let you get creative with your unplugged adventures today and I hope the residual of each engaging and enchanting option carries through to tomorrow.

Pile of Plastic Silverware

Americans alone use and dispose of enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times. Lets break this down, mathematically first (then we can physically break down the paper and plastics). If the circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles (a bit longer than measured at the poles), and there are 365 days in the year, then we dispose of 20,467.027 miles of disposable paper and plastic to go ware each day! That is about enough distance to stretch from the coast of Gabon (the westernmost country in Africa on the equator) all the way around the world to the eastern mouth of the Amazon in South America, every day!!!

If this startles you, consult your daily schedule and you will be surprised with how many disposable items we throw out daily. Here is a scenario for you: a gentleman goes out to lunch during his workday. He orders a sandwich and a side salad, with a fountain beverage. He orders it “to go” so he can sit in the park and eat in a more pleasant space. The food service worker wraps his sandwich in paper, puts it in a plastic bag, puts his salad that is in a plastic container in the plastic bag along with a prepackaged plastic silverware set equipped with paper packages of salt and pepper, and a paper napkin. He sits and enjoys his meal, and ends up throwing out more than half the volume of what he consumed.

An easy solution to ease the impact of disposables is to bring your own silverware to eat with and a bag to put your items in. I want to introduce you to a little product called to-go-ware. The company was started by Stephanie Bernstein who had an epiphany over a cup of ice cream “for here” that was dished in a paper cup with a plastic spoon. She decided to design a small package of utensils (spoon, fork, knife, chopsticks) made of bamboo that one can bring along with them daily. The utensils are kept in a cloth pouch (which serves as your napkin) that wraps up into a small long sleeve. You carry it around with you every day to avoid the result of our convenience culture.

The tragic thing about food service that is different than purchasing clothing, is that you cant really give back a disposable good once it has been given to you. In other words you can’t lick the ice cream off the spoon once they’ve stuck it in your cup and say, “thanks, but I brought my own! Can you reuse this?” It is certainly worth a try in order to stimulate a consideration, but it does not entirely meet food code. So, although to-go-ware is partially effective and a great product, we need to begin even deeper and earlier in the service-to-customer relationship. We need to be more proactive and make sure we tell our server to please leave out as many disposables as entirely possible.

I lived in New York City for the summer of 2003 and I used to go get iced coffee a few mornings of the week around the block. I remember being so startled upon receiving my simple small iced coffee because I also received the added value (waste) of 3 napkins, a straw, and a paper bag that they put my full (yet soon to be empty) disposable plastic cup in. I had to stop going there because they would neglect to meet my request of “no napkins or straw or lid or bag please”. It was the full package deal or nothing. This was when I really began to realize how many little things we throw out every day that often times are never even used. Our consumer driven convenience culture is in part supported by the service industry. Convenience is no longer a conscious decision to leverage; convenience is an assumed desire.

So, to prove the service industry otherwise make sure you request no-few disposables. Try this next time: When you call in you’re “to go” order for family dinner pizza, ask for no disposable silverware, no cups for the soda, and no plates with the pizza. And upon pickup bring your own tray or plate to take the pizza home on as opposed to taking it home in a large cardboard box. Of course there will have to be sacrifices, but like every change, once we get used to them, it no longer seems difficult or different.

To-Go-Ware
Tip o' the Day: Bring Your Own Coffee Mug

Image courtesy of To-Go Ware