Yes! Magazine, the bearer of good news, says “the seeds of a new, more local, and more durable economy are taking root.” Local food, local business, independent bookstores & coffeehouses, and more. It’s a trend, says the mag.
How do they know?
Here’s a sure sign: “Many massive, globe-spanning corporations are now trying to figure out how they can be ‘local’ too.” Who’s using the word local in their marketing and branding these days? Oh, Hellman’s Mayonnaise (owned by Unilever), Fritos, Winn-Dixon (one of the largest supermarket chains in the U.S.), and even Starbucks!
Clearly, local is good.
Despite the co-opting by corporations, going local is an idea whose time has come again. Want to join the party? Here are Yes! magazine’s 31 Ways to Jump Start the Local Economy to get you started.
Have fun!
From Gradient Magazine
Over at Fast Company’s Co.Design site, there is a piece written by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen, two Danish designers, about how Over-Innovation Makes U.S. Firms Suck At Sustainability
They praise America’s “relentless pursuit of the Next Big Thing, its inherent optimism, and its go-getter attitude,” and say, “Only in America could brand innovators like Google, Nike, and Starbucks emerge.”
BUT
“The U.S. is by far the biggest environmental sinner, no matter how environmental impact is measured.”
Like they say, we suck at sustainability. So, why can’t we, in all our creative genius, do better at this?
According to the Danes, it has to do with this — Being good at sustainability requires the opposite of what Americans have cultivated and are so good at.
Finding sustainable solutions isn’t about discovering new, ever-more disruptive ideas. It requires the opposite, something very un-American: standardization, slowness, and centralization.
In a nutshell:
- Standardization: “American brands will lose the sustainability battle unless they learn to give up individuality for standards.”
- Slowness: “To become sustainable, companies need to take their time and extend their products’ life cycle.”
- Centralization: Don’t make more stuff, “add extra value to what you already produce.”
Great ideas, all. Maybe you have some too? Read their piece and tell them what you think.
"Rug" made of soil topped with a traditional Hungarian pattern in salt, Edina Tokodi of Mosstika. (Image: Natalie Holmes, New Scientist)
New Scientist reviews an art exhibition at the NeuroTitan gallery in Berlin called Permaculture, which features works like the above pictured beautiful “rug” by Edina Tokodi of the art collective Mosstika.
In the show, atists explore their concern “with issues of sustainability in their own practice and of our world.”
As New Scientist says:
Of course, sustainability itself is a complex term, and although these artists address it in different ways, they all acknowledge that curbing consumerism is key, a message evident not only in their practices but also the messages of their work.
I think the sustainable art movement (beginning in the 1960s?) — with its practice of using recycled or natural materials to make a point about stuff or the earth — is exciting because it brings together art, science and existence, often in a very low-key way.
Image from brandmediastrategy.com
They are the next generation. They are creating a new reality right now. Moving us into the future.
Hopeful signs abound. Here’s one. A blog post on [3Bl]ooming Honcho (yeah, I don’t quite get it myself0 on Sustainable Business Oregon by Associate Editor Mason Walker.
It’s a conversation with Graeme Byrd, business development and collaboration manager at FMYI [for my innovation], a collaboration software company with a sustainability commitment. Here are some of his thoughts about the Milennials:
It is important to engage young people because we are no longer a part of the “me generation.” When I think of the me generation, I think of Madonna’s “Material Girl” and consumerism/consumption. That model is not sustainable. We can no longer consume and pollute at the same rate — both as individuals and businesses. I believe, we must be a “we generation” committed to using business for the greater good and engaging others around these beliefs.
I like this idea, and young people I’ve met definitely fit this bill. I heart young people.
He also said: “I recommend circling one’s self with other like-minded individuals — it is much easier when you have ideas to share with them.”
I like this too. It sounds fun.
His definition of “sustainable business?”
Biz is committed to a greater good by creating value for customers while striving to meet #3BL including community health + social justice.
(under 140 characters)
BTW if you don’t already know, 3BL means triple bottom line: (a measurement of organizational performance based on human, natural and monetary capital)
More about milennials comes from Holy Kaw:
New Pew research will embark on several in-depth looks at the latest generation to come of age, the Millennials. Among the most interesting initial findings:
• They are starting out as the most politically progressive age group in modern history. In the 2008 election, Millennials voted for Barack Obama over John McCain by 66%-32%, while adults ages 30 and over split their votes 50%-49%. In the four decades since the development of Election Day exit polling, this is the largest gap ever seen in a presidential election between the votes of those under and over age 30.
• They are the first generation in human history who regard behaviors like tweeting and texting, along with websites like Facebook, YouTube, Google and Wikipedia, not as astonishing innovations of the digital era, but as everyday parts of their social lives and their search for understanding.
Oh, and did you know that the generation born after June 23, 1988 are called Generation Hot, a phrase coined by Mark Hertsgaard at Grist, referring to two billion young people, “all of whom have grown up under global warming and are fated to spend the rest of their lives confronting its mounting impacts.”
Ahh, to be young and carefree…
Consumed Trailer from slackjaw on Vimeo.
Some people (ahem) view consumption negatively.
But in this new documentary, according to an article on Greenconduct.com, the filmmakers draw attention to the idea that as a species we consume as part of “a very natural human urge to experience, and to grow, and to learn, and to play out dreams and aspirations.”
It’s normal. It’s part of our survival mechanism. Plus, it attracts mates.
But, as one of the film’s interviewees says, our need to consume has turned into a mental illness. I haven’t seen the film but apparently, it has to do with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Greenconduct.com says the film makes the point that taken to extremes, consumerism becomes an increasingly complex and stressful process that has social and environmental consequences that jeopardise our own and other species’ survival.
As if that weren’t enough, “in the search for esteem, status or prestige via consumption, we seem to lose sight of the love/belonging segment of Maslow’s pyramid and our chances of moving onto to some form of self-actualization appear increasingly remote.”
In other words, we’re alienated. From other people, animals, plants, the planet and from ourselves.
But, at least we have cool shoes.
WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT
Solitaire Townsend writes a letter to Gucci in the Guardian last week wishing the fashion leader a happy 90th birthday and asking whether a designer brand can be sustainable.
Gucci sells the most aspirational lifestyle on earth. So, says Townsend, a transformative business model for Gucci wouldn’t just transform its brand, it would transform consumerism. “Gucci could teach the world that without sustainability, fashion is doomed; and without desirability, sustainability is impotent. Gucci can make sustainable consumption desirable.”
Is that possible? According to Townsend, the global middle class is expected to triple by 2030, becoming a new market worth $5tn. Natural resource consumption will rise to 170% of the Earth’s bio-capacity. Given these statistics, it better be.
In her missive, she quotes Aron Cramer of Business for Social Responsibility who says: “The need to develop new consumption patterns is the mother of all innovation challenges.”
Indeed. Desire fuels consumption. Advertisement-fueled conspicuous consumption further fans the flames of status anxiety leading to more desire. And so on.
Gucci is king of this hill. I can’t imagine the luxury brand suggesting we stop buying its bags and steamer trunks. But if not that, what would constitute sustainable consumption? Recycled leather and fabric?
Perhaps the company could take your old Gucci and make it new Gucci for a fee. A fresh business model, not creating anew but remaking and refining the past. Slightly better for not using some new materials perhaps but it still means using energy and resources.
So what is Gucci to do?
Things change. That’s just a fact. You get an idea that you think is fixed and reality steps in and changes it. Sometimes more than once.
Like, for instance, I got a bee in my bonnet about consumption and became acutely aware of how much I (we) consume in my regular life and got all fired up about needing to live low on the hog, which, let’s be honest, I do already compared to many people. (note: I’m only talking about my peer group, not most people in the world, which for sure, I live higher on the hog than. )
In my fanaticism, I started going down the “how low can I go” path. And realized, well, not that far.
My life is not set-up to live low on the hog. I have running water. I drive a car. I buy food from the store which involves packaging and too many plastic bags to count (Yes, I bring my own bags. I live in Berkeley. But I still use the little plastic produce bags. I’ll think more about that. Or not.) My house has heat. I have a washer dryer. I use electricity. The list goes on.
Corey says, “It’s our infrastructure. It’s set up for us to use resources.” She’s right on that.
Then Marc came back from Nicaragua and showed me photos of how people he stayed with live out in the country; in corrugated metal shacks with cement block stoves that they build fires in and cook over so that the all the walls and all surfaces get covered in dark smoky resin.
No running water. No electricity. No gas range. No Natural Grocery store around the corner (Hmm, maybe no corners) The floors are dirt and everyone lives together in one or two rooms, including small animals.
I’ve been in places like this traveling before but this time, it struck me. Hmmm…do I really WANT to live low on the hog? Most people do because they don’t have a choice. Would I choose to live a lifestyle like that?
Well… I do love camping…
But honestly? Maybe temporarily. And only because it’s temporary.
So perhaps the lifestyle I’m talking about is what this guy I met at a Techliminal work group called “middle of the hog.”
For the moment, that will work.
These deer don’t know about our diminishing resources.
They don’t know that we’re facing peak oil, a water crisis and a global food shortage.
They just like the sun and eating grass.
Now, I wouldn’t really want to trade in my life for the life of a deer (I don’t know why. Probably fear of the unknown.) but sometimes when I’m just looking at them, I do think, what a nice life.
I know they’re affected by climate change just the same as us but they don’t know. It’s partly the knowing but it’s also the constant information stream, and in the end, what do we really know?
One morning not too long ago, I was going about my business, washing my face. I had the spigot on, water running as usual when all of a sudden, I was struck by the thought of how much water was just being wasted, going down the drain.
Running water, I thought.
I had thought about it before, of course. But only in terms of leaky faucets and low-flow shower heads, never in a conceptual way.
Then I thought, if I were living in the Civil War era, I’d be pouring water from a beautiful rose-patterned china pitcher into a matching basin (If I were rich. I’m not sure what that pitcher would be made of if I were poor.) And I’d probably be washing my whole body with that one pitcherful of water.
How hubristic running water is. It’s as if we have built our plumbing infrastructure on the notion that there is an unending stream of water that will flow on and on forever. But that’s not so.
They say the great wars of the 21st century will be fought over water.
Here in California we have a water crisis pending, we all know. Just like we know the big one is coming.
Billy says, You and me, we’ll never feel water scarcity in our lifetime. That’ll be for the next generation. Then he says, And you know the rich people will always have water.
He’s right, of course.
Later he tells me, Just know you have a right to live your life and be happy.
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