Environment

Eco marketing: What price green consumerism?

Remember the innocent days of the 1980s ethical consumer movement? New Age entrepreneurs rode the green wave into the hearts and malls of the world. The promise? Buying pricey ice-cream or hair rinse made with Brazil nuts (or the stocks of the companies that made those products) would make the world a better place. That myth crashed. Consumers, it turned out, were not willing to buy idealism in a bottle if it came at a premium. Two decades later, green marketing remains with us, more intense than ever. Is green yet more than a fad? The Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability annual survey estimates that 13-19% of American adults are dedicated green buyers Ð a $290bn market. The US-based Cone Communications estimates that 70% of American consumers consider the environmental impact of their purchasing. The UK and Europe show similar numbers. According to marketing experts, however, these figures are wildly overstated, reflecting attitudes, not buying patterns. “Buying green products presents people with a social dilemma: they have to be willing to pay premium prices – not for their own direct benefit, but for the greater good,” says professor Shruti Gupta of Penn State University, a world expert in ethical behaviour. ‘While people love to voice their idealism to survey companies, the cold facts are they almost always put their self-interest first.” Take Elizabeth Romanaux, a consultant from New Jersey interviewed by the American Association of Retired People for a magazine piece about green buying. She considers herself environmentally conscious. She recycles. She composts. But she won’t pay a premium for an eco-friendly hotel room or cleaning products. “It isn’t that I can’t afford them,” she told AARP Magazine. “It just goes against my grain to pay more.” “Consumers will buy pricier green products,” Gupta says, “but only if they are […]

Strong policy PIC Seetharam Kallidaikurichi

Strong policy, corporate approach key to solving Asia’s water problems

Asia’s developing countries need to delink water management and politics – Professor Kallidaikurichi, Singapore’s Institute of Water Policy. Photo: Singapore International Water Week. Strong policy, corporate approach key to solving Asia’s water problems By Jenny Marusiak Asia’s governments need to set good water policies, and then let the utilities do their jobs. A corporate approach, separate from politics, creates the stable business environments necessary for private sector investment in safe and clean water for Asian cities. This is the view of Professor Seetharam Kallidaikurichi, director of the Institute of Water Policy at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, who spoke at the Singapore International Water Week. In an interview with Eco-Business, Professor Kallidaikurchi said governments need to create the policy frameworks that enable private firms to bring the needed technology. The firms need to know they can safely invest in it and that the contracts will allow them to reap the profits for a period of time, he added. Professor Kallidaikurchi noted this approach of using long term contracts to create stable business environments is similar to the way pharmaceutical and telecommunications companies invest in technology in developing countries. His presentation on sustainable urban water management on Monday kicked off the inaugural Southeast Asia Water Ministers Forum, an international gathering of water ministers and experts at the Pan Pacific Hotel. Professor Kallidaikurichi said all cities can achieve sustainable water management systems and that it was expensive not to have such systems in place. He noted the high costs of bottled water and healthcare associated with unsafe water, in addition to the loss of revenue from stolen or leaked water. There are two ways Asia’s cities can encourage innovation in sanitation and water treatment, he said. “One would be for the government to set up a platform for […]

Environmentalism Lost and Found

Mainstream environmentalism is preoccupied with giant technofixes – from windfarms to ‘sustainable consumption’ – and pays almost no attention to the underlying cultural reasons why our civilisation is destroying the planet. Somewhere along the way of observing and experiencing the degradation of the planet, environmentalism morphed from being a project designed to protect the wider natural world from destruction by human industry, into a project that exists to protect the lifestyles of middle-class consumers in as ‘sustainable’ way as possible. We are kidding ourselves that we will not have to radically change our ways; if oil, food and commodity prices keep on rising, then localisation will happen, if not for economic rather than simply sentimental reasons. The effects of the 2008 collapse are still playing themselves out, but globalisation is already in retreat. In ten years time, the world will look very different. By acting now, rather than waiting for systems to fail catastrophically and force our hands, the long-term future for renewal can be extremely bright. Ridiculously high land property prices and entrenched land ownership patters are major obstacles preventing an intelligent use of our countryside today, but as a greater majority of the world’s population migrates towards urban living, cities must regenerate and reinvent themselves. But the exciting thing about cities is their dynamism and agility in adapting and renewing themselves, absorbing new ideas and becoming more enjoyable places to live and work. The new element in the mix is climate change, and so all development must now embrace social, economic and environmental sustainability. Consumers have traditionally expected governments to take the lead in protecting the environment, but now they are looking more to the corporate world to take action, rather than individuals with political influence. Increasingly, Asians want economic growth but believe it should be achieved through […]

Ben & Jerry’s – A bumpy road for social mission pioneers

By Brad Edmondson Ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s was one of the first companies to promote corporate citisenship and sustainability. But the journey has not been easy, as a new book explains. US ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s was established in the late 1970s. Over the next decade, it developed an ambitious three-part mission: making the world’s best ice cream; supporting progressive causes; and sharing the company’s success with all stakeholders: employees, suppliers, distributors and customers. Founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, friends since childhood, set up the company, managed it as it grew and then eventually, reluctantly, sold it to Unilever in 2000. In extracts from his new book Ice Cream Social: the struggle for the soul of Ben & Jerry’s, Brad Edmondson outlines how Ben and Jerry’s was an early adopter of progressive company social and environmental policies, and why. From the start, it was important for Ben & Jerry’s that working conditions for employees improved as financial conditions improved. Surveys taken in 1997 and 1998 showed that employees saw the social mission as a critical part of the company’s success. Every employee was awarded both company stock and stock options in 1998, too. As far as linked prosperity goes, Ben & Jerry’s was walking the talk. In 1997, the board’s social mission committee asked every department head to set social mission goals for the following year. They were ready to take things to a new level. Co-founder Ben Cohen and other board members wanted to integrate the social mission horizontally by adding it to policies in every department, from manufacturing to human resources, operations, waste disposal, franchise operations, philanthropy and finance. They also wanted to integrate the mission vertically by adding social metrics at every stage of the supply chain. This sometimes meant re-engineering […]

If we want food to remain cheap we need to stop putting it in our cars

-Timothy A. Wise Coverage of the US drought and the run-up in corn, soybean, and wheat prices has been extensive and welcome. It has also been prone to the repetition of falsehoods and the perpetuation of myths about the causes of the food crisis – and the solutions. A recent Guardian article, “The era of cheap food may be over,” is a case in point. Specifically, it perpetuates the myth that the main driver of food price increases is demand for meat in fast-growing developing countries. This effectively downplays the full impact of biofuels and ignores two problems underlying price volatility: financial speculation and the lack of publicly held food reserves. Give Larry Elliott credit for posing the issue in terms of the difficult policy choices the world faces. He’s certainly right to pose the challenge. “The current assumption seems to be that the world can have a rising population, ever-higher per capita meat consumption, devote less land to food production to help hit climate change targets and eschew the advances in science that might increase yields” he writes. “This is the stuff of fantasy.” It sure is, but so his framing of the problem. First of all, the trend toward meat-based western diets is certainly worth resisting, for health and environmental reasons. But it’s been pretty clearly shown that rising demand for meat-based protein, particularly in India and China, is not the main cause of recent price increases. An FAO study documented conclusively that cereals demand rose more slowly since 2000 than it had in previous decades. So demand in India and China may have grown, but it did not create a “demand shock” that precipitated more recent price surges. What is the demand shock that has occurred since 2000? The dramatic expansion of biofuels production, under a range […]

Five reasons communications around fracking have gone wrong

-Charlotte Webster, CCgroup Fracking is facing a major backlash from the public – so in terms of communications, what’s gone wrong? The public at large can’t make the call that with fracking we’ll be drinking high quality water, experiencing the peaceful countryside we value, seeing lower gas bills and witnessing sustained, green, economic growth, says Charlotte. I’m just back from a week surfing in Portugal. It was glorious, as always. Having grown up by the sea I learned to sail at ten, started racing dinghies at 13, collected multiple bumps and bruises, lived on a boat on the Thames in London and, it’s safe to say, I feel at home in the water. Ok, some of us are real water babies, others less so. A friend of mine simply won’t go near the sea for fear of waves. She’s in her thirties but still terrified by its power. Fair enough. Not ideal when it’s your holiday buddy on a surf trip, but hey. You can see what’s coming here. Quite simply, water plays a vital role in our lives – for surfers and non surfers alike. It’s arguably the world’s most precious resource and something we interact with daily. Mineral water providers have long been extolling the virtues of the ‘purest’ water, in a continual game of one-upmanship. One can even buy the ultimate in purity shipped over from Fuji. I just also happen to find it peaceful to be near and in, most of us do. The human body is 60% water so, fundamentally, when we protect it weÕre protecting over half of our own selves, our physicality. So, as the pressure on our natural resources grows, the content of our food and water systems becomes increasingly questioned, is it any wonder we hold water in such high regard? […]

A Right to Informed Choice

By Filipa Hope The current government has granted permits for much of Hawkes Bay to be mined by overseas Oil & Gas Companies maybe even your property! Without information I don’t think we really have any freedom of choice in this serious threat to our community. Without information we are like puppets played by those most able to manipulate public opinion. I joined Don’t Frack the Bay 2 years ago after watching the movie Gaslands and learning this was planned for Hawkes Bay. I have never been politically active yet now I find myself organising public information meetings Our approach is not to try and convince anyone of anything except that this is one issue everyone wants to learn more about because it affects all of us and also our children. We hope to raise questions in peoples minds and motivate them to seek out their own answers and questions and opinions. We have several speakers at each meeting and I am usually one of them. We speak from experience and/or own investigations. In June 2012 the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, released an interim report on Fracking. Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing. – An unconventional method of oil and gas extraction which comes with many risks. This activity has been going on for 30 years in Taranaki. This is the first and only New Zealand investigation into some of the risks and as such is a critically important document for information. I present some of the concerns and questions raised in this report at our meetings and do my best to represent only what the report says without adding my own opinions. We are all waiting for the final PCE report which will have the Commissioners formal recommendations to goverment. It was due out before […]

A first for South Africa. An apartment…

South Africa’s first formal container housing development has reached completion in Johannesburg’s Windsor East suburb north of the city with residents flocking to apply for occupation. The controversial project, involving the use of defunct freight shipping containers as housing units, initially had residents up in arms when first mooted several months ago. The project took four-and-a-half months to complete from start to finish, ending up with a three-storey development which would probably have taken ten to 12 months to build using conventional methods, says architect Kobus Coetzee. Coetzee explains the project was not without its challenges: “You deal with tight spaces and have to make it liveable and really nice. How do you prevent sharp corners after you cut steel? We had to figure that out.” He adds: “It comprised steel containers with polystyrene and mesh, which had to be fixed with galvanised straps drilled into the containers through the polystyrene and the mesh. And then it was plastered conventionally.” Maintenance, he says, is a cinch with a touch of paint needed from time to time. The project cost R8m according to container housing brainchild from Citiq Properties, Arthur Blake and its CEO, Paul Lapham. That included landscaping, paving, boundary walls, the recreational rooftop and heat pumps. Blake says without the trimmings the structure itself would probably have cost half of its bricks and mortar equivalent. Lapham says the genesis of the project was: “How do we get good homes to people at an affordable price? Building conventionally doesn’t let you do it. Container housing has been touted internationally as a cheaper alternative, by 20% to 30%.” He says: “This is a triumph of design and building. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Coetzee says the company has been approached by people from Nigeria, the Congo, Gabon and Zambia […]

The power under the ocean

Japan is known to be a country with few natural energy resources. Her current energy self-sufficiency rate is only 4%, although it is normally closer to 20% if nuclear power stations, currently almost all off-line, are included. Japan depends on oil for more than 50% of the energy supply, importing about 90% of it from the Middle East with all the political and security risks to stability of supply involved. Under these circumstances, Japan has been expanding her horizons in the search for sources of energy. Through marine research, the seabed around Japan has started to show the first glimmers of being an unopened treasure chest of potential energy. Methane hydrate, otherwise known as ‘Burning Ice’, is the only energy resource mined in Japan apart from coal. Experimental drilling off the Atumi peninsula ran from February to March this year as part of a national research project. According to the published results, the volume of methane hydrate deposits is estimated to be the equivalent 90 to 100 years of Japan’s natural gas consumption. There are substantial reserves of methane hydrate between 100 to 300 meters from the seabed in the sea off Niigata and around the East Nankai Trough. Developing this field would be the world’s first trial of offshore production of methane hydrate. Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) research organisation under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has led this project, supported by the deep-sea scientific drilling vessel ‘Chikyu’, operated by Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) under Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. There are still a lot of issues to be resolved before industrial production can begin, such reduction of mining costs, but the Government has high expectations. The Chikyu research vessel has made a number of other significant […]

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