I happened upon an article from Newsweek today subtitled Buying green and changing our personal behavior won't save the planet whose link I clicked only because I was offended and wanted to see what the author had in mind. I've always felt that buying organic foods and trying to choose the most eco-friendly way to do something were like voting with my dollars. Money talks and eventually companies will listen.
They have, but unfortunately, some companies are all too crafty about the way they listen. Apart from the EPA's EnergyStar program, our society lacks a standard for "green". Almost any company can interpret 'eco-friendliness' in any way they want and exploit the lack of definition to declare its products to be environmentally superior. I think this is what the author of the article above is trying to get at. Without standards and regulations, we can be like a large herd of sheep - changing direction whenever the Border Collie of Marketing tells us something else is "more green".
I've been inspired to look into what some organizations are doing to fix this problem, but it's a tough pool to wade through, so instead of swimming through miles of legal documents, I'm interested in hearing what you know about the topic. Email me at ecokidblog@gmail.com or post a comment if you know of a good organization or standard that seems to be catching on.
The EPA has some standards for setting standards that some groups/products are using. There are several organizations like The Green Seal that have taken it upon themselves to create independent standards and labels. ISO 14000 is a global standard for processes that businesses can follow. Also, of course, the European Union seems to be light-years ahead of us in terms of setting standards.
Most companies also have their own standards for environmental activities. Here are IBM's (who I work for!) environmental policies and initiatives: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/environment/policy/. I think they do a pretty good job for a massive, worldwide organization, but they have a long way to go. Imagine if we had tough standards that all companies/products had to follow? Assuming most companies could be innovative enough to meet those standards without massive layoffs, I can only imagine how quickly we could clean up our act.
So the moral for me is don't stop your individual green activities, but in parallel see if you can influence and spread standards/laws that will enforce that more people follow sound environmental practices!
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