Green Options

Halloween is almost here! Have you been thinking of ways to make it more green? One of the biggest drawbacks to this spooky holiday is all the candy that gets passed out. Approximately, 10 pounds of it! That’s a lot of candy for one child.

If you’re lucky your children might come home with an all natural version of sweets without the high fructose corn syrup. More than likely, their pillowcases will be brimming with candy you don’t support!

Last year, my family focused on easy ways to put a  little eco in your Halloween adventures but this year we’re going a little further. We plan to support Fair Trade and participate in Reverse Trick-Or-Treating this year- Learn how you can too!

Recently Nestle invited several high profile bloggers to their headquarters in Glendale, California. From their site:

Nestlé understands the importance of listening directly to parents. That’s why on September 30 and October 1, we’ve invited 20 Mom and Dad bloggers to our U.S. headquarters to learn firsthand the things that are important to them and their families, and to share a little about us and our brands. Check out what they are saying by following the conversation below from Twitter. Visit this page daily from September 23 through October 7, to learn more about them, their families, their busy lives, and to hear about their experiences at Nestlé. Check out their blogs, too

What’s interesting is that they picked a group of bloggers who would clearly support their mission, and they forgot about the others.

The others include women who believe that Nestle has a history of undermining breastfeeding in many countries. I’m not familiar with the controversy because breastfeeding was never a discussion in my home. For one child it worked for a good long time, and for another child medical reasons kept us from breastfeeding.

In a century of rising fresh water scarcity, a community of activists in the Great Lakes region is working to prevent private ownership of that water resource, although most mainstream conservation and environmental activists are focused elsewhere. If the activists’ concerns are valid, their battle has national as well as international implications.

The fear stems from the interaction of the North American Free Trade Agreement, other trade pacts, and the Great Lakes Compact ratified by the eight Great Lakes states and Congress last year. The definition of “product” in the Compact includes water once extracted from its natural state and location. A controversial Nestle Waters North America, Inc. bottled water operation in Michigan that is pumping hundreds of millions of gallons per year of state water heightens the concern.

The breast versus bottle fight has taken a turn, now that an evolutionary scientist has gotten involved. Most of the debate thus far has focused on the physical benefits of breastfeeding, both to mama and baby.

But what if evolution designed us so that breastfeeding is emotionally, psychologically preferable to formula-feeding?

Intriguing new research suggests that some women develop postpartum depression due to reaching for the bottle instead of pulling out the breast.

Last week, Tom Lauria, Vice President, Communications for the International Bottled Water Association commented on a post about greenwash happening over at Nestle Waters where he accused me of being an anti-corporate type that hides behind ’saving the earth’ to bash businesses because I hate capitalism. My sense is that Tom, and quite possibly others, do not think there is any valid way to criticize green claims made by companies without being anti-corporate and anti-capitalist.

What about when a Dell Exec Knocks Apple’s Green Ads? Is Dell anti-corporate and anti-capitalist because it wants to set the record straight?  Dell is currently ranked No. 25 among the Fortune 500 companies and No. 88 in the Fortune Global 500. Since its pretty hard to be anti-corporate and anti-capitalist with those stats, maybe Dell is just calling it like it is.

And as business people, why should we complain about greenwash anyhow?

First, it is not anti-corporate and anti-capitalist to set the record straight on environmental achievements versus environmental distortion.  It is every business person’s—from the entrepreneur to the VP of communications at a Fortune 500 company—job to do just that so we do not dilute real environmental achievements.

Second, Bob Pearson, VP—Communities & Conversations at Dell said it well in his blog post:

“…companies who choose to lead have an obligation to be open and transparent. We have a responsibility to engage in dialogue about the environment, whether we agree or disagree with an individual person or group. It all contributes to the greater good.”

A few weeks ago I wrote about how the greenwash continues at Nestle Waters as their CEO Kim Jeffery Whines But Still Doesn’t Walk The Walk in a recent Businessweek article. Their Director of Corporate Communications “respectfully disagrees” with the charges.

I would have written about it sooner, but I just noticed this response from Jane Lazgin, Director, Corporate Communications, Nestlé Waters North America:

We’re pleased you agree we should be talking about our Eco-Shape bottles. Like you, we think reducing the plastic content in our bottles is an important step toward a lighter environmental footprint. The Eco-Shape half-liter bottle uses 30% less plastic than the average juice, soda, or other brand of bottled water containers. And, when more than 70 percent of what we drink comes in a bottle or can, why not choose the lightest beverage package?

In a recent Businessweek article, Kim Jeffery the CEO of Nestlé Water North America, makers of Poland Spring waters, whines (yes, whines) that they are misunderstood and not given the credit they deserve.  Clearly he thinks all the charges of greenwash are unfair.

But, are they? The article tells of all the environmentally preferable things that they had done but that no one knew about.  The article then goes on to say:

Part of the reason Nestlé Waters wasn’t touting its environmental efforts, according to Jeffery, was that he and the rest of management considered such actions business as usual.

Yes! That’s the point. the “green” things Nestlé were doing were part of normal business operations, many of which saved the company lots of money. Are they good for the environment? Of course. But that’s not really what greenwashing is all about. Its about consumer marketing. This is where the real greenwashing occurs. Before I go on, I want to say that I truly applaud the industry for implementing eco-bottles. That said, it seems to be a blatant case of greenwash to position bottled water as being good for the environment. Water companies should tout eco-bottles, but they shouldn’t suggest that they are good for the environment. They should sell the water, not the the environmental friendliness of the packaging. I would like to ad, that Nestlé is not the worst offender of greenwashy bottled water ads and their ad campaigns are far less offensive than those for Fuji Water and Deer Park.

“Nasone“, the typical fountain of Rome

“Ti Voglio Bere” (”I want to drink you”) is the name of a project realized in the city of Torino to promote the use of drinking water. The similarity with the overused sentence “Ti voglio bene” (”I love you”) remind us we should appreciate more this basic element that arrives free in our houses.

Water is a public good even if the market wants to persuade us of the contrary. Water is not a drink as well as air we breathe is not a perfume. It’s a right we have to protect.

Italy is the main consumer of drinking water in the world. For us, there is no problem: not many households keep soft drinks or beer ready in the fridge, but everyone’s always got water. The only two beverages that you see on most Italian tables are water and wine.

Companies including General Electric, Nike, Nestle, DuPont “have issued a statement calling for a legally binding and mandatory cap on worldwide greenhouse gas emissions” in today’s Financial Times.

Environmentalists already have good reason to despise bottled-water companies, but local economic development folks might now have reason to question the industry too. That’s the message from opponents of a proposed Nestle water-bottling facility in McCloud, California, a small community with natural springs fed by the glaciers of Mount Shasta.

McCloud’s defenders today released an economic study that casts a skeptical light on Nestle’s predictions that the plant would [...]