Green Memo: Greed in the Name of Green

Editor's Note: Green or environmental consumerism is one of the fastest-growing trends globally. It includes buying natural, organic, sustainable and locally-grown foods, for example.

Green consumers also are looking to shop at retailer's who conserve energy, offer "green" products for sale in their stores, and decrease their own carbon footprints as a business entity.

In terms of the products they buy, green consumers want goods that are 100% recyclable and made from recycled materials. Green shoppers also want energy efficient products, less packaging and other eco-friendly product attributes in the foods, grocery products, hard goods and other products they purchase.

Of course, green or environmental consumerism isn't without its challenges, conflicts and even contradictions. This also is true for grocery product manufacturers, marketers and retailers who are increasingly producing, marketing and selling "green" or sustainable products.

Like Kermit The Frog says: "It isn't easy being green."

Washington Post staff writer Monica Hesse has an article in today's addition of the publication in which she analyzes and discusses a number of aspects of green consumerism and the challenges and conflicts it poses. As our readers know, we don't often run pieces by others. However, we read Ms. Hesse's story early this morning and wanted to bring it to you, as we think it offers some interesting insights.

The article begins below. Then, to read the rest of it, just click on the link provided.

Greed In the Name Of Green
To Worshipers of Consumption: Spending Won't Save the Earth

By: Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Congregation of the church of the Holy Organic, let us buy.

Let us buy Anna Sova Luxury Organics Turkish towels, 900 grams per square meter, $58 apiece. Let us buy the eco-friendly 600-thread-count bed sheets, milled in Switzerland with U.S. cotton, $570 for queen-size.

Let us purge our closets of those sinful synthetics, purify ourselves in the flame of the soy candle at the altar of the immaculate Earth Weave rug, and let us buy, buy, buy until we are whipped into a beatific froth of free-range fulfillment.

And let us never consider the other organic option -- not buying -- because the new green consumer wants to consume, to be more celadon than emerald, in the right color family but muted, without all the hand-me-down baby clothes and out-of-date carpet.

There was a time, and it was pre-Al Gore, when buying organic meant eggs and tomatoes, Whole Foods and farmer's markets. But in the past two years, the word has seeped out of the supermarket and into the home store, into the vacation industry, into the Wal-Mart. Almost three-quarters of the U.S. population buys organic products at least occasionally; between 2005 and 2006 the sale of organic non-food items increased 26 percent, from $744 million to $938 million, according to the Organic Trade Association.

Green is the new black, carbon is the new kryptonite, blah blah blah. The privileged eco-friendly American realized long ago that SUVs were Death Stars; now we see that our gas-only Lexus is one, too. Best replace it with a 2008 LS 600 hybrid for $104,000 (it actually gets fewer miles per gallon than some traditional makes, but, see, it is a hybrid). Accessorize the interior with an organic Sherpa car seat cover for only $119.99.

Consuming until you're squeaky green. It feels so good. It looks so good. It feels so good to look so good, which is why conspicuousness is key.

These countertops are pressed paper. Have I shown you my recycled platinum engagement ring?

In the past two weeks, our inbox has runneth over with giddily organic products: There's the 100 percent Organic Solana Swaddle Wrap, designed to replace baby blankets we did not even know were evil. There's the Valentine's pitch, "Forget Red -- The color of love this season is Green!" It is advertising a water filter. There are the all-natural wasabi-covered goji berries, $30 for a snack six-pack, representing "a rare feat for wasabi."

There is the rebirth of Organic Style magazine, now only online but still as fashionable as ever, with a shopping section devoted to organic jewelry, organic pet bedding, organic garden decor, which apparently means more than "flowers" and "dirt."

Read the rest of Ms. Hesse's Washington Post piece 'Greed in the Name of Green,' here.

Editor's Addendum: Additionally, the Washington Post featured Leslie Garrette, the author of the popular book "The Virtuous Consumer" which is about the growing "green" or environmental consumer movement, in an online chat this afternoon.

Ms. Garrett discussed the challenges and conflicts people, businesses and organizations can face in trying to buy green, as well as in saving the environment. The Washington Post has a transcript of the online chat this afternoon here. The discussion offers some interesting consumer insight about green consumerism and related issues. We suggest you read Ms. Hesse's article first, then read the transcript from this afternoon's online chat over at the Washington Post.

The story by Ms. Hesse and the online discussion with Leslie Garrett are good consumer intelligence pieces for anybody in the food and grocery industry, as well as in business in general. They also should be of interest to all of us as citizens of our respective countries as well.

Note: The graphic at top is by Roger Chouinard.

Food & Kids Memo: The Content of our Character: Preventing Childhood Hunger in America; Saving Kids' Lives in the Developing World With Clean Water

The Share our Strength organization, a non-profit group dedicated to the perfect humanitarian goal of trying to make sure not one kid in America goes to sleep hungry, has launched its Great American Bake Sale promotion and fundraising effort.

The major sponsors of this year's Great American Bake Sale are C&H brand and Domino brand Sugar. Both brands, C&H and Domino, have recently moved into the organic, raw and all-natural sugar categories. The brands are marketed in supermarkets, mass merchandise stores, natural foods stores, and other retail venues.

The two sugar brands are providing financial support to the "bake off" fundraiser, as well as conducting media and in-store promotions, with monies from the promotions going to Share Our Strength, to feed hungry kids.

The Food Network television network and Family Circle magazine are the media sponsors for this worthy and important campaign being coordinated by Share Our Strength.

Food Network celebrity Sandra Lee is the spokesperson for the fundraising effort and the various events during the month of March. Ms. Lee hosts the popular Semi-Homemade cooking show on Food Network and is the author of 13 books on the topics of foods and lifestyles. The show teaches viewers how they can prepare high-quality and healthy "semi-homemade' dishes conveniently and fast.

In Sunday newspaper's throughout America today C&H and Domino brand sugar dropped full-page FSI's advertising the Great American Bake Sale, using the tagline: "Ending Childhood Hunger Can Be A Piece of Cake." The FSI's include "cents off" coupons for the sugar brands' various products at the top of the page, with the large advertisement below, including a listing of the group's website, which is http://www.greatamericanbakesale.org/.

Share Our Strength is holding events throughout the U.S. this month. Individuals and groups can go to the website and sign-up to hold bake sales and donate the proceeds to Share Our Strength to help make sure hungry kids are fed. Individuals, companies and groups also can fund a bake sale team with a donation if they don't want to hold an event themselves. Go to the website and click on the "Ways to Get Involved" link to get all the information on how you can support the group's efforts to help end childhood hunger in America.

Food and grocery industry business are participating by holding events as well. Restaurants across America are participating in the "Taste of the Nation" program, in which a percentage of profits for a certain period of time goes to feeding kids. There's also the "Great American Dine Out," which will happen in September. You can learn more about both programs on the Share Our Strength website.

Supermarkets also are getting into the act. In partnership with C&H brand and Domino brand sugar, retailers are setting-up in-store displays featuring various varieties of the sugar brand products, along with other baking ingredients and bake sale fundraiser point-of-purchase materials.

We can't think of a more important and noble effort than the goal of ending childhood hunger in America. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of kids go to sleep each night hungry in the U.S., the richest country in the world. Further, with food inflation and a stagnating economy in the U.S., more and more families are going without the food they need. Requests at food banks and food pantries have increased by at least 30% in the last year, and food needs continue to grow.

We ask our readers to donate or participate in Share Our Strength's efforts to feed kids. Doing all we can to ensure that no child go hungry if we can help it is a measure of the content of our character as people, as an industry and as a nation.

Proctor & Gamble's Pur Children's Safe Drinking Water Program

Consumer products and packaged goods giant Proctor & Gamble is launching a major international effort and promotion to literally help save the lives of children in less developed countries.

Every single day around the world, more than 4,000 children die from diseases caused by drinking unsafe water. To help end this horrible fact, Proctor & Gamble is the main corporate sponsor of the Children's Safe Drinking Water Program. [Learn all about the group's efforts here on its website.]

P&G has created a program involving its Pur Home Water Filtration System and the international safe drinking water for kids program.

The company distributed a multi-page free-standing insert (it's BrandSaver FSI) via Sunday newspapers in nearly every metropolitan U.S. city today announcing the program. For every Pur Water Filter coupon consumers redeem in March and April (another BrandSaver drop will happen next month), P&G will donate 1 liter of filtered drinking water to a child in the developing world. The goal for March and April is to be able to donate 50 million liters of safe, filtered water to developing world children.

The consumer products' and packaged goods giant also is supporting clean water for kids efforts through the program in a number of other ways. For example, it provides its Clean Water Kit, which is a portable water filtration kit that can be used by anybody anywhere, for free throughout the developing world. Using the simple kit, it takes just minutes to purify even the most seriously contaminated water. To date, the company says it has provided more than 500 million liters of pure filtered water by giving out the kits.

You can learn more about helping to save children's lives by simply helping to get them clean, pure water, something we in the developed world take for granted, here.

Instead of buying bottled water for a week or two, how about donating that amount--or more if you can afford it--to programs like this one which are working to save kids' lives. Such needless death truly challenges the content of our character as individuals, corporations and nations. We need to prevent the deaths of these 4,000 children who die each day because of a lack of clean water, and do so sooner rather than later.

You also can make an individual or corporate donation at the website here. Just click the donation link at the top of the screen. Find out more about Share Our Strength and childhood hunger in America here.