On Sustainability, Ecology, Environmental Impact, Green Business, Transparency and Choice

The Institute For The Future (IFTF) - one of my favorite sources for deep views on our future - has a post on Green Business which I totally agree with. I would like to add two intertwining trends that reinforce the two trends stated below from this post from IFTF:

1. Increasingly, companies define themselves by clear values. Corporate identity is more important for all stakeholders, especially employees and customers. These values are more authentic, practiced and embedded relative to previous similar branding and positioning claims. Ecology, sustainability and green business are a key theme right now due to Al Gore, Clinton, IPCC, Stern and many others. During the last World Economic Forum in Davos sustainability was by far the number one topic for the decision makers in the world (Evidence by this great post by Peter Schwartz on Edge.org). Its both sound economic sense as well as humanitarian/ecologically/spiritually driven.
2. Increasingly, consumers and customers use mobile devices scanning products realtime for their environmental impact by means of barcodes, RFID tags, QR codes and other tags.

"The critical thing here is the proliferation of both knowledge about the environmental impacts of goods and services, and the growth of choices in how to deal with those impacts. And all the indicators are that consumers will have more of both in the future.

Now, however, consumers are slowly getting access to more information about the energy required to produce or transport goods, and the environmental impacts of goods and services. As an article on labeling notes, just as food products are labeled with calorie and nutritional information, consumer products are beginning to bear details about their environmental impact, like the amount of greenhouse gases produced in making, transporting and selling them. The evolution of the concepts of "food miles" and "carbon footprint" don't just represent a growing general awareness of environmental impacts of agriculture, industry, and modern life in general; they also reflect an attempt to make sense of information that wasn't easily available in the past.

Where the choice used to be buy or don't buy, other options are emerging. Utilities are starting to offer access to green power, subsidies for installing solar panels, or rebates for conserving energy. Expedia offers travlers the chance to buy carbon offsets with their airline tickets (and doubtless some airline will soon claim to be greener than competitors, thanks to their modern fleet of planes, in-flight trash reduction efforts, etc.). Terrapass offers drivers the option of zeroing out their car's emissions."

Comments

[louis vuitton muffler]

Holding you in my arms and falling asleep just like holding Major J-Notturno. My breath is full of sapidity of yours. How deep your dream is as if your will never wake up again and it is called fate.
http://yuri.typepad.com/

[What is hot]

That was a good reading and informative. You obviously know your stuff!

[writing essay]

I think some researchers and institutions have pointed out that these three dimensions are not enough to reflect the complexity of contemporary society and suggest that culture could be included in this development model