Ethical Consumerism

A study by WRAP of 2,138 UK households suggests that Britons dump £9bn of avoidable waste each year - a high percentage of which was food. 60% of dumped food is untouched and and at least £1bn worth of food wasted in the UK is still “in date”. Some key findings:

• Bakery goods made up 19%, by weight, of all avoidable food waste. Vegetables contributed 18%.
• Meat and fish also made up a large proportion - 18% - of the total money wasted on food.
• 5,500 whole chickens were thrown away each day in the UK.
• “Mixed foods” like ready meals made up 21% of the total cost of waste, with 440,000 thrown away each day.
• The two most significantly wasted foods were potatoes and bread.
• 1.3m unopened yoghurt pots are disposed every day

WRAP’S Report

[viaBBC NEWS]

Gothamist points to an article that looks at how cityslickers who are turning their city into farmland. We wrote about Hipster Farmers who were leaving the city to set up farms, but the Times looks at the growth of allotments and the redevelopment of vacant lots into arable land:

John Ameroso, a Cornell Cooperative Extension agent who has worked with local farmers and gardeners for 32 years, said that when he first suggested urban farm stands in the early 1990s, city environmental officials dismissed the idea. “ ‘Oh, you could never grow enough stuff with the urban markets,’ ” he said he was told. ‘ “That can’t be done. You have to have farmers.’ ”

But local officials have come around.

Holly Leicht, an associate assistant commissioner at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, helped provide two half-acre parcels of city land last year. One became Hands and Hearts and the other is in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The Red Hook farm began in 2003 when the Parks Department gave the youth group Added Value permission to use an abandoned three-acre asphalt ball field. The group started with two raised beds, built a hoop house where it could start seeds, then laid down an acre of compost two feet deep on top of the asphalt. Last year the young farmers sold more than $25,000 in goods.

Urban agriculture has been an even larger undertaking in other cities, particularly those with weaker real estate markets and a declining population.

NY Times

Within the sustainability arena, energy use and carbon emissions have been in the spotlight for a long time, however the next big trend to hit the agenda is an increasing focus on water. Already most companies’ CSR reports will have a section pointing to their policies or stance on water issues, but in the future you will rarely be able to open your newspaper without seeing some reference to water matters.

So far, water has not been quantified in the same way as carbon, or indeed received anywhere near the same amount of media attention as CO2, but the prediction is that you will soon see people measuring their ‘hydro’ footprint and thinking about the environmental impact of water use. Some investors have even suggested that water will eventually be commoditised and traded as a futures contract in the same way as oil or sugar.

The United Nations estimates that a worrying 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water and that by 2050 that figure will double to more than two billion. Countries like China are already facing an imminent water crisis. The country has long suffered from alternating periods of severe flooding and drought, which combined with high pollution levels and unrealistic policies on water management, means that demand significantly outweighs supply and they simply don’t have the resources to cope.

The water issue should provide a whole new world of opportunities for technology firms and investors. The problem is that water-saving initiatives are expensive to implement, in everything from the treatment of contaminated water supplies to efficient irrigation methods. For consumers, it may also be costly if the added financial burden has to be passed on. However the cost of not taking action will be much higher if we wait until further down the line.
Read the rest of this entry »

The article in the New York Times on the environmental cost of shipping groceries highlights another trend when it comes to food. The article suggests that efficient transportation and disparity of costs around the world fuel a trend where food produced locally is shipped or flown around the world to get processed before being returned. The paper says:

Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale… The economics are compelling. For example, Norwegian cod costs a manufacturer $1.36 a pound to process in Europe, but only 23 cents a pound in Asia. The ability to transport food cheaply has given rise to new and booming businesses.

NY Times

The New York Times recently ran a lengthy piece entitled Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World that covered the different angles around the debate of local and global food. One of the striking stats that the paper highlighted was that Britain imports 95% of its fruit and over half of its vegetables - and this contributed to the fact that a quarter of UK truck traffic carried food. As we read this, we came across a disappointing remark from Tesco which reflected their lack of commitment to environmental matters. In it a spokesman for the retailer explains that it’s not their job to lead change - only react to consumer demand:

Britain, with its short growing season and powerful supermarket chains, imports 95 percent of its fruit and more than half of its vegetables. Food accounts for 25 percent of truck shipments in Britain, according to the British environmental agency, DEFRA.

Mr. Datson of Tesco acknowledged that there were environmental consequences to the increased distances food travels, but he said his company was merely responding to consumer appetites. “The offer and range has been growing because our customers want things like snap peas year round,” Mr. Datson said. “We don’t see our job as consumer choice editing.”

The thing is, that the chief influencer of food consumption across the world has been the retail sector, and while the internet begins to provide new information sources they will continue to play an important part in developing ‘choice’. Isn’t this a shrug of the shoulders from Tesco and a ‘Environment? Not our job, mate’?

NY Times

Related PSFK Articles
Not Enough: Starbucks
Not Enough: BMW

When a publisher and brand consultant came by to the PSFK offices the other day, he compared the Olympics in China with the 1936 ‘Nazi’ Olympics in Berlin and that brands that associate themselves with the Olympics may get seriously stung.

It’s a theme we explored when we criticized a blog’s coverage of Nike Olympic footwear and it’s one that the Economist looks at in details in its April 26 issue. In the article, the magazine wonders if the development of the image of the event as the “genocide Olympics” by human-rights activists threatens to lay waste to the $1 billion of sponsorship:

By branding the Beijing games the “genocide Olympics”, after the Chinese government turned a blind eye to the Sudanese government’s atrocities in Darfur, human-rights activists are threatening to lay waste to the $1 billion or so that sponsors have paid—and turn what they hoped would be an association with a joyous celebration of sport into a tricky exercise in reputational damage limitation…

To be fair, Coca-Cola is doing some good things in Darfur, from providing immediate relief on the ground to meeting other “stakeholders” to try to figure out solutions to the crisis. But is this enough to buy Coca-Cola the right to remain silent in public about China?… According to Arvind Ganesan, director of HRW’s business and human rights programme, the Olympic sponsors’ “silence on abuses in the run-up to the Beijing games makes their claims to support human rights especially disingenuous.”

It is tempting to dismiss this as yet another example of the old divide between political activists who favour protest and business realists who favour “constructive engagement”, which has cropped up dozens of times—not least during the debate over sanctions against apartheid South Africa…

Yet in many ways the battle over the Olympics paints a false picture of the current relationship between business and human-rights activists. What is striking today is how often activists, big firms and governments are now in agreement about the importance of human rights, and are working together to advance them.

Economist

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Target’s new 60 piece eco-collection will first go on sale at Barneys locations in New York and Los Angeles. Barneys New York will host the first sale event from May 9th - 11th. The collection will then go on sale at Barneys LA May 16-18. Target commissioned the line from noted eco-fashion designer Rogan Gregory. Gregory already designs more upscale lines for Barneys and Bloomingdales. Target’s buying power allowed Gregory to sell his collection for less and still use interesting and dynamic fabrics.

Target has the resources that enabled us to innovate, he says. A mill would say we couldn’t order a certain fabric unless we could promise certain volume. Target leveraged its volume to get what it wanted.

Target looks to use the debut events at Barneys to generate buzz. The line will begin to appear in Target stores at the end of May.

WSJ Online

For Brooklynite Scott Ballum that’s a question he’s decided to take a hard look at and to share his findings online. The Consume®econnection Project is Scott’s year-long effort to make some personal connection with someone along the production chain of everything he consumes.

The plan at the outset is to spend the next year, my 30th as it happens, hyper conscious of every consumer purchase I make. For every transaction, there must be a personal connection with someone along the production chain. Whether its the designer, factory worker, chef, farmer, or maybe even trucker, being aware of the lives touched by every product I buy will certainly enlighten me, probably surprise me, possibly shame me, and absolutely provide me with some good stories.

Scott admitted to dedicating more effort to discovering goods created somewhere near Brooklyn. But two months into the project and he’s already drove twenty-nine hours to Loretto, Kentucky to visit the Maker’s Mark Distillery. Ducking away from a tour, Scott met Jude who works as a barrel-roller.

Given that all of the Maker’s Mark Bourbon in the world is distilled in Loretto, and that Jude is one of only eighteen people who move these barrels, there’s a high likelihood that much of the Maker’s I’ve consumed in bars or at home, and will continue to consume, was aged in barrels he’s rolled.

He hopes to make more distant connections as the project progresses. He hasn’t ruled out buying something made in China at some point.

Good Magazine: Consume®econnection Project

URBN Hotel is one of a slew of new boutique, designer hotels that have popped up in Shanghai over the past year. These boutique hotels typically offer personalized tours of the city, tai qi, cooking and Mandarin classes, along with a luxurious room experience.

Opened in December of 2007, URBN separates itself from the pack as it is China’s first carbon neutral hotel. In addition to implementing energy savings and recycling throughout the hotel, URBN offsets their carbon footprint by purchasing credits “to neutralize its footprint by investing in “green” energy development and emission reduction projects in China. Hotel guests can also choose to purchase carbon credits from the program to offset their flights.”

Last weekend, URBN held a small eco-fair for small companies and organizations to promote and sell their services and goods. While we could not find any literature mentioning the carbon neutral initiative in the the ultra-hip lobby, we hope they are staying true to their promise.

URBN Hotel