Ken Musgrave, over at FastCompany.com, recently tossed out the idea that
consumers are in need of a ‘green unit’ to measure just how environmentally
conscious a manufacturer truly is. In the article entitled “Why We Need a
Globally-Recognized Unit of ‘Green’”
Musgrave refers to those
manufacturers that feign sustainability as ‘greenwashers.’ They
would be the ones slapping ineffective solar panels on obscure devices or
working a minute amount of bamboo into a product to convey a sense of
environmental conscience. It’s a pet peeve of mine and we’re seeing it more
and more these days as companies scramble to convey the politically correct
impression of a sustainable market. To rectify this heinous trend Musgrave
proposes a ‘green unit’ to measure the actual attention to sustainability of
the product. Ideally such a unit, printed on the side of packaging, would
function in the same way miles per gallon betrays fuel efficiency. You can call
the new Ford F150 the ‘most fuel efficient pickup ever’ but the mpg will reveal
just how efficient that is.
The trouble, however, is how one measures
sustainability. The scope could range from simply grading the materials
contained in the product to monitoring the power consumption of the factories
and docking points for workers who don’t commute. You could even then expand
the scope, taking a factories geographical location into account and computing
the environmental impact on the basis of longitude and latitude. But then of
course you’re getting into political issues. Ideally consumers would buy the
‘greenest’ products but I think one could make the case that if we’re going to
be environmentally sound we should do the same on the humanitarian front as
well. After all, North America has been clothed in the fruits of underpayed labour for ages. Or
how about we consolidate the whole thing into an ‘ethical unit’ and adopt the
scales of justice as the symbol. Five scales and you’re in the moral clear.
Sarcasm aside, being environmentally sound
is an ethical issue and as consumers it’s our responsibility to educate
ourselves on what is moral and immoral. If companies see consumers making
informed choices they will, invariably, adjust accordingly. And if we pressure
them to disclose their practices, be it on their treatment of employees or their
environmental sustainability, then we just might get the answers we’re looking
for. But those answers cannot be reduced to a few checkmarks or bamboo icons on
the side of some package. By that logic the most environmentally heinous of
companies could also be the manufacturer of the ‘greenest’ product. Buy a
sustainable lamp, fund illegitimate oil refineries.
No, the greatest combatant to environmental
recklessness is not some five-star grading scale. It’s an informed consumer.
