Recycled toilet paper, hybrid cars, organic food—these things aren’t cheap. In fact, a lot of sustainable actions are kinda pricey. In good economic times, it’s the kind of pricey people can feel good about. But “feeling good” doesn’t pay the gas bill right now. There was a time when green was the cheapest of all the colors. During the Great Depression, our great-grandparents lived more sustainably without even realizing that’s what they were doing. So how did they make do?

They grew their food.
They kept a garden, even if it was only a little patch. If they had a fruit tree, none of it went to waste. They made compost.

They made their own stuff.
They didn’t run down to Trader Joe’s every time they needed hummus. They cooked from scratch, they baked bread, they made soup stock. They sewed.

They borrowed things.
They knocked on a neighbor’s door for a cup of sugar. They read books from the library. They wore hand-me-downs.

They fixed things.
Our great-grandmothers kept a maraca-shaped thing around the house for the sole purpose of mending holes in the toes of socks. Think about that the next time you mindlessly slap down the credit card at the Gap.

They saved everything.
Every part of the chicken or pig was cooked and eaten. They turned the months of August and September into a fully-stocked pantry that would last the year. They saved the bags from cereal boxes “just in case.” They would not scoff if they saw you rinsing out a sour cream container.

They helped each other out.
They bought eggs from the farm up the road. A daughter’s wedding was “catered” by the neighbors. There were no warehouse stores stocked with goods that spent a month crossing the Pacific in a container ship. There was a guy who whittled toys for the neighborhood kids out on his front porch.

Maybe it’s time for a little nostalgia. We’re starting into a different section of the path to sustainability, one that looks more like a dirt road than a four-lane highway. It’s a section that our great-grandparents started down 80 years ago. So perhaps we need to go backwards to go forward.

I was lucky enough to spend the weekend soaking up the sun and the tunes at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas last weekend. Austin lived up to its reputation as the ‘live music capital of the world’ and a rocking good time was had by all. But, whenever there are big events that span days of time and involve hundreds of thousands of people, I can’t help but wonder how much damage we’re doing to the environment. Nothing about the event is particularly eco-friendly, from the degradation of the grass at Zilker Park, which gets crushed for three days, to the amount of garbage produced by all those people who have to eat and drink. Plus, there’s the electricity that powers the music and don’t get me started on the number of people (myself included) who flew in from far away. But before I can get too racked with guilt at how un-green the whole thing is, I remember that I went because I love music with a passion that rivals my love of the earth. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world (literally), but can’t I have my cake and eat it too?

Fortunately, ACL had all of the usual greening efforts, such as a recycling program (free organic schwag for collecting recyclables at the show), numerous water fountains to fill your own water bottle, and an extensive shuttle system to get people in and out via bus. But, what intrigued me the most, was that the entire festival was a carbon neutral event. Rarely can something like this simply be ‘carbon neutral’ on it’s own. The idea, is that you’ve gotta do something to offset the inevitable damage. Keeping with its local-only sponsors rule, ACL teamed up with the Austin-based Green Mountain Energy to offset the global warming. With most carbon offset programs there are usually a few options for where you want your money to go. In this case, you could buy renewable energy credits from solar, wind and biomass facilities, or you could fund reforestation projects or other Voluntary Carbon Standard-approved projects. So, after I contributed my dollars to the Global ReLeaf Project in Kootenai National Forest (in my home state of Idaho) I was free to rock out with a clean conscience. Good thing, because choosing between music and the planet isn’t a choice I want to (or should have to) make.

It’s always nice to see our business promoting good while going about its perhaps less than socially or environmentally responsible business. And while some may consider outdoor advertising a necessary evil, we can at least prod the boundaries of sustainability while in the act. In this case, a company in Florida, Fuel Miami, is putting the state’s abundant sunshine to work for it while promoting its clients various goods and services in the form of solar powered bus shelters.

Fuel has donated 600 of the solar powered bus shelters to the city of Miami. By doing this, Fuel Miami claims it will help to eliminate more than 2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per solar panel, per year. The company has taken the conventional concept of outdoor advertising and transformed it into an idea that gives back to the environment, in addition to promoting their own business.

Now about those ads: subprime mortgages (WooHoo!), beer, and expensive watches. Well, that is another story.

As a health-conscious office, fresh fruit abounds as we begin our workweek, but this Monday we, and our fruit, were greeted by an onslaught of fruit flies.  As a friendly and welcoming crew, it somewhat pains me to say that these winged beasts were not a welcome addition to our team.

My poor banana took quite the beating as I attempted to kill these invaders and after smashing some, pounding my desk furiously in failed attempts to catch others, a short stint using our handheld vacuum to get them out of the air, and taking the aforementioned fresh fruit out of our office space, I was ready to give up.

But then, a solution came to me.  It was like a vision from above, except that it arrived in the form of an email from a colleague who I had likely both frightened and entertained with my earlier antics.  The link she provided not only gave us an environmentally-friendly way to drown these pests (yes I’m aware of the irony in seeking green solutions to cause death, but this link also has testimony from vegans who are comfortable using it).   Upon learning about this amazing solution, another colleague came to the rescue with her in-office lunch condiments.  So with a cone printed on 100% post-consumer content paper (template here), organic apple cider vinegar and dish soap from Method, I created a fragrant grave for these pesky beasts.

After an afternoon of being a bit sadistically entertained by their being trapped and drowning in the vinegar concoction, I am happy to report that our office is fruit fly free.  I extend my sincerest gratitude to those who supported my efforts to clear our office of these tyrants and to www.re-nest.com for having a green solution for us.

The Beijing Olympics are in full swing, and as the fever of national pride and the glory of breaking records sweeps through the world, Jonathan Barnbrook is asking designers to raise awareness about Tibet. Barnbrook, a well-known British graphic designer and typographer, has created a site called Remember Tibet with designer Pedro Inoue. The site encourages people to remember Tibet’s struggle for independence while the entire world has their eyes on the undemocratic government of China. The Olympics have brought to light many of China’s pollution problems as well as their not-so-stellar human rights record. But, instead of improving their human rights conditions as a result of being awarded the Olympics, China has actually made basic freedoms less available in its goal to create ‘stability’ and ‘harmony’ before the games.

The site was created in an effort to support the independence of Tibet through peaceful, non-violent resistance. Artists and designers are asked to contribute visual projects that raise awareness, but the site isn’t simply for people who want to express their discontent with the issue. Barnbrook says, “I don’t really want people to get hung up on the idea that this can change anything in isolation, it can’t. These works are just one tool of many which people will use to keep Tibet as a central issue in mainstream politics, as that is the only way things will change.” The creative arts have always played a role in forcing issues into the mainstream political agenda, and designers play an especially important role because we know how to put the pieces together in an effective way. It’s our job to bring visuals into the world that catch people’s eye. Why not use our skills to turn the focus towards Tibet. Thanks to the Olympics, half our job is done- the whole world is already looking that way.

www.remembertibet.org
www.barnbrook.net

There’s a mystery I’m trying to solve. It started with a swarm of people in a room, all abuzz about sustainability and its many guises. I overheard somebody talking about a particularly profound example of conspicuous conservation that seemed almost unbelievable to me, and I made a mental note to research it when I was next united with my laptop. My google skills are usually creepily good, but I was unable to track down anything definitive about this particular claim, so I remain in a state of skeptical curiosity, and am therefore reaching out into the no-doubt-vast network of sustainability-savvy folks who read this blog, in hopes that somebody somewhere will be able to provide an answer.

The mystery at hand: Are there people in Japan who put fake solar panels on their houses, just for the ecochicness of it all? Or is this just an urban legend, perhaps created by a clever Chindogu and a telephone gamey misunderstanding?

On the face of it, it just seems wrong that such a thing would exist. Yes, solar panels are so expensive that they’ve come to be seen as a luxury item in Japan, and yes, we know that people want to appear so green these days that 9 out of 10 people in the UK admit to telling little green lies to appear greener than they really are, but I simply cannot fathom the depravity of somebody who would actually go to the trouble of purchasing and installing fake solar panels. It would be like driving around in a fake Prius.

So you can see why I’m determined to find out whether these panels are real or not. If so, it would mean that conspicuous conservation has veered into new and disturbing territory. Our own research at egg has delved into the gap between green beliefs and green actions, but this data point, if true, would introduce a new category: the eco-fraud. It’s one thing for companies to greenwash, but quite another for individuals to go so far out of their way to blatantly misrepresent their energy sources. (Yes, I suppose one could make the tortured argument that fake panels will ultimately promote sales of real ones, but I’m not going there right now.)

So here’s what I found so far: a googlesearch for “fake solar panels” japan yields a paltry 28 hits. But no definitive answers. A handful of blog posts reference a now-defunct link to a TV show that apparently mentioned the fake panels. One guy thinks they’d make a great biz idea, but seems to think he came up with it. I uncovered no primary sources, no news articles, no images. So I expanded my search a bit, and learned that Japan makes 50% of the real solar panels in the world, that they’ve got big plans for solar (30% of homes by 2030), and that 80% of solar panel sales in Japan are made door-to-door. This last article was most revealing — it discussed how the panels are indeed considered a luxury item, but it had a captioned photograph of a standard-looking roof, saying Japanese prefer unobtrusive solar panals like these roof tiles. So at this point, I’m thoroughly confused.

I know that there are plenty of deeper mysteries out there, but I’m still rather curious about this one. So have at it: ask around, trawl the wayback machine, hop a carbon-offset flight to Tokyo. If you’re the first person who solves this little mystery, I’ll send you a special gift.

This will be perhaps the longest post yet of the egglog. But don’t worry, we aren’t going to start getting verbose here. It’s just that this particular post requires some storytelling.

In order to better understand consumers and their orientation towards sustainbiltiy, we frequently use the notion of a metaphorical pathway to describe the journey that people take in moving toward a more sustainable view on life, and the actions that go along with that way of thinking. Each step usually leads the traveler further down the path to the next milestone. Note: this is a conceptual framework with a hypothetical set of circumstances and milestones. Every person will have their very own unique version of the path to sustainability, with some lingering for quite a while at a certain point, and others leaping ahead in bounds.

The Path to Sustainability

Healthy
Local
Social responsibility
Environmental responsibility
Simple living
Control

First, keep these things in mind. They’re all part of sustainability.

Then, imagine a path that starts with a glimmer, a flicker, a desire for some sort of change, some sort of control over a chaotic situation. Maybe you’re trying to eat healthier, or starting to recycle, or starting to drive less, or maybe you’re just sick of the work buy consume die cycle and feeling the need for something higher, something more connected.

It often starts out with concern about me me me — my health, my kids’ health, my pocketbook, and then once you’re on the path for a bit, the systems thinking begins to kick in, and you start thinking about the deeper impact of the things you do, the impact not only on yourself and your family, but on other people in distant communities (like sweatshop workers), and the impact on nature, on animals, on the environment.

At the beginning of the path, maybe you start eating healthier, feeding your kid organic babyfood because you heard about the toxic effects of all the pesticides on human development. And maybe you read about the toxics in plastic babybottles, so you move to glass, and maybe you get rid of your old waterbottles and get some ones made of stainless steel. Maybe you start recycling because you have to, but then you start thinking about composting too, as you become aware of what you’re doing with your food waste, and the great effect of compost on your garden. Maybe you also read about the toxic effects of chemicals on your lawn and decide to let it go natural so it’s safe for your kids and pets to play on.

And continuing down the path, you realize that gas prices are insane, so you start to drive less, carpool, take the bus. You start thinking of the impact of fossil fuel consumption on the planet because you’re hearing more and more about global warming these days, and they say that by 2100 the coasts will be completely flooded and certain areas will be completely uninhabitable, so you try to minimize your fuel consumption more than ever, and you really want to buy a Prius when you get your next car.

You eat organic food all the time now, as low on the food chain as possible because you read about how badly animals are treated in factory farms, and how meat production is bad for the environment. You’d love to get solar panels for your house, maybe even a wind turbine. You use a water filter because you read about chlorine and fluoride being bad for you. You buy clothing from thrift shops sometimes, and you’re starting to shop less….

And maybe you start to collect rainwater from your roof and use if for your garden (which is by now completely chemical-free.) You won’t shop at Wal-Mart anymore, and all the coffee and chocolate you buy is fair trade. You read the labels on everything, and have stopped using toxic cleaning products in your home and toxic personal care products on your body. You shop at Whole Foods all the time, and try to get to farmers markets whenever possible. You’ve turned down the thermostat in your house, and everybody in your family has to wear more layers inside during the winter. You’ve eliminated most plastics now, and you’ve started making your own babyfood, and you’d love to get one of those cool urban chicken coops that you read about in Treehugger — fresh organic free-range eggs every morning!

In fact, you’re becoming more and more connected to things that feel more “authentic.” You’re getting into home remedies — using vinegar to clean, and taking echinacea for the flu. You’d love to learn how to can all that extra fruit you find at the farmers market. You’ve started volunteering with a local environmental group — you take the whole family out to do trash pickups every few weeks, and you’ve signed a few petitions about endangered species too. You’re really upset about the polar bears dying out because of global warming. You’d love to move out of the city and into a place that’s more connected with nature.

You start doing yoga more and more often, and you still haven’t gotten that Prius yet, but you take the bus and walk a lot, so it doesn’t really matter. You’ve done a home renovation to capture some passive solar rays, and you used all recycled materials and low VOC paint. You’ve turned most of your yard into a garden, and you use one of those old-fashioned push mowers. In fact, you seem to be doing a lot that might be considered “old-fashioned” these days. You’re unplugging as much as possible, spending more time with friends and family, simplifying your life in all sorts of ways. You consider the origins and impact of everything you put in your body now, and you also think carefully about how you spend your time and what you produce and consume. Every time you read about global warming getting worse and worse, you feel emotional and frustrated about the dire state of things and about all the progress that’s yet to be made.

You’ve finally done it. You’ve moved off the grid. You’re totally solar-powered now, you have a goat and chickens and you finally feel like you have control over your environment. You had an air purifier and a water filter when you lived in the city, but it just couldn’t compare to the feeling of purity you have now. Each of the steps you’ve been taking has given you such a sense of satisfaction, of greater connectedness to the whole, and you become more and more aware with each passing day at how far you’ve come from the mainstream. You cannot even enter a mainstream drugstore or grocery store without being acutely aware of how unsustainable most of the world still is — so many toxic products being sold, so much treating the symptoms and not the source of an illness, so much gratuitous commercialism and marketing that plays on people’s insecurities, such a glut of irrelevant parity products flooding the market. Yeah, once you’ve come this far down the path, it’s impossible to go backwards. But you really wouldn’t want to, anyhow, despite the challenges of living a considered life…..

This handy chart from Futerra, a nifty communications shop in England. It identifies how to spot, prevent and avoid greenwash for consumers, companies and agencies. Futerra’s new Greenwash Guide analyses the current state of greenwash and what’s being done about it. You can also find guidelines for companies and agencies on how to prevent greenwash, and a ‘spotters guide’ for consumers to help avoid it.

So the question we ask ourselves is how much of what we are seeing out there is bad marketing, how much is lazy marketing, and how much is deceptive marketing? Most likely, there is a fair share of marketers who have jumped on the green bandwagon and who are spinning green pitches unduly and even unjustifiably, but what about those who have something to say and rely on an agency that just doesn’t get it? They rely on the hackneyed images, colors, and ideas that are the low hanging fruit of green communications strategies and executions. For example, I recall a Toyota ad where they used #3 here with the daisy flourishing from the tailpipe for Prius. And yet, Prius has a great story to tell–technologically speaking with direct benefits to the consumer. Sometimes, it isn’t even laziness, but simply a lack of understanding of the challenges in how to reach the consumer regarding these issues. I recall seeing GE’s first Ecomagination print ads that used Audubon prints in a very clever way, but in the end, the execution served the agency’s portfolio better than it did the initiative, and so they changed to a smarter, more informationally driven look and feel that explained the environmentally friendly technologies GE has been working on.

The challenge facing communications professionals will be to tell the stories that carry information and help educate the consumer on what makes something green and why it matters to them. But it most likely will not be colored green. And it will not involve a tree.