Some of you may know that in my professional (non-blogging) life, I've spent a lot of time in the business of toys. We often feature lovely and expensive wooden toys, but I also dig a well-designed shiny plastic bit of awesomeness. Whatever you think about that kind of mass-market, plastic-producing, made-in-China industry, you have to recognize that a huge percentage of toys are made this way, and not everyone is going to be inclined to buy green. Plus, someday your kid may fall in love with My Little Pony, and you'll find that the lovely set of wooden blocks doesn't capture her imagination quite as completely as three little pastel plastic ponies with brushable hair.
For me, one of the biggest scandals in toy sustainability has been that the marketing requirements (real, or perceived?) push small products into oversized plastic packaging. This always bothered me, because the kid gets so little value from a throw-away package. WalMart started pushing on this a few years ago, awarding "points" for a tighter package-product ratio and more responsible materials. Now Hasbro is stepping up with a real set of changes. Among the goals:
- 15% improvement in product-to-packaging ratio across the board.
- Eliminating all PVC (the material most commonly used in plastic blisters) in packaging by 2013.
- Eliminating all wire ties. In 2011, Hasbro replaced all their wire ties with paper or bamboo rattan. This showed up in a couple of our Christmas presents, and the paper ties are charming.
- Increasing the recycled content of the paper stock from 75% (2011) to 90% (2015).
I'm always excited to hear one of the big players decides to make a real difference. As my five-year-old would say "clap it up for Hasbro." Nice work!
Images from RainMama's Flickr Site (top) and Hasbro (bottom). Via Greener Package.
The always thoughtful and sustainably-minded geniuses who run Patagonia have just put the future ahead of profits in an especially creative and brilliant way. (Did I get enough superlatives in there?) This is something that most green-minded designers wrestle with. My work is designing stuff, and I like things, but the truth is, reducing consumption is probably the biggest change we can make. Patagonia clothing is made to be super durable, and often outlasts any one person's desire to own it.
So they've partnered with eBay's green team:
"Keeping existing, perfectly functioning products in use, rather than in the back of a closet, reduces the demand on our air, water and land to create new ones. Each American throws away about 65 pounds of clothing and textiles per year, according to the EPA. And demand for textiles, like polyester, made from petroleum has almost doubled in the last 15 years. So using clothes that already exist, and selling what you’re no longer using, is a simple yet powerful act...."
The Common Threads Initiative is an eBay storefront where you can buy and sell gently used Patagonia branded gear. This is one more example of the company making it easier to keep their products out of the landfill.
Images from Patagonia and current (as of post time) eBay listings. Via ecouterre.
I just spent a couple of days working on colors for a project, and I had all those little Pantone chips spread across my desk. I wasn't picking yellows, but Dole was. Check this...
"Speaking of fruit, you may think a banana is just a banana, but it's not. Dole and other banana growers have turned the creation of a banana into a science, in part to manipulate perceptions of freshness. In fact, they've issued a banana guide to greengrocers, illustrating the various color stages a banana can attain during its life cycle. Each color represents the sales potential for the banana in question. For example, sales records show that bananas with Pantone color 13-0858 (otherwise known as Vibrant Yellow) are less likely to sell than bananas with Pantone color 12-0752 (also called Buttercup), which is one grade warmer, visually, and seems to imply a riper, fresher fruit. Companies like Dole have analyzed the sales effects of all varieties of color and, as a result, plant their crops under conditions most ideal to creating the right 'color.' And as for apples? Believe it or not, my research found that while it may look fresh, the average apple you see in the supermarket is actually 14 months old."
Read more of Martin Lindstrom's article here: Fast Company
Banana image from Flickr user Design-Dog (aka Ian Ransley). Via Fast Company.
It’s Earth Day, so the internet is brimming with green articles to read and eco-products to buy. I’m going to give you something instead:
See this article on CNET, all about Greenpeace’s efforts to pressure the computer industry to green-up the power sources for their big server farms. On the Greenpeace scale, Yahoo scores the highest, in part because their data centers are located where there’s abundant hydropower. Google does OK, as the company invests in wind and solar power to offset their carbon footprint. Apple does poorly. You can read all the details on CNET.
So what? So here’s my big marketing idea for all those companies pushing cloud computing:
“Your cloud, powered by the sun.”
I’ll even let you have that for free if you make it real. You can trademark it and run with it.
Chart from Greenpeace. Via CNET.
