Posts Tagged ‘Just the Facts’

The Ethical Corporation Awards

March 31st, 2011
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We’ve been shortlisted for 2 awards from the Ethical Corporation Awards!

The one I am most excited is the ‘Authentic Communications Category’ for our ‘Let’s Be Clear’ campaign calling for the end of greenwash and the beginning of ‘Just the Facts’.

We developed a guide explaining the Just the Facts approach.

Then a nice brochure  showing that it’s possible to have a nice sustainability brochure without polar bears or wind turbines  - view this brochure here.

We then launched our commitment to have all our products with EPDs before 2012 .

and this blog to “Cut The Fluff”.

And of course the most important thing: launching new products with more recycled content.

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My Mum Won’t Choose Based on EPDs but That’s Not the Point

February 10th, 2011
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This is a response to the comment from Monex on my sustainability predictions for 2011 who is skeptical about consumers making choices based on environmental facts

I am also very skeptical about my mom and 95% of my mates going to the supermarket and choosing products based on environmental information.

They barely look at the nutritional facts, which at least it influences you more directly!

But the purpose of full transparency is not that all consumers all the time will choose right products. It’s much wider and much more transformational.

1. If companies were exposed to publish this information, they will reduce the impact of products. They will be forced to set targets and show progress. This is what happened with sustainability reporting.
2. The retailers would be able to edit choice and nudge suppliers to improve their impact of their products
3. Perhaps only 5% of consumers would care but perhaps enough to change things. Look at organic…
4. The government would have full visibility of product impacts and could enact regulation and levies / discounts for bad or green products (based on proper LCA info)
5. NGOs would have full data so they could pick some bad product categories and put pressure for improvement

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Green PR and Advertising in Moscow

February 8th, 2011
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This Thursday I will be speaking about Green PR and advertising in Moscow.

Yes, Russian companies have woken up to the marvels of green marketing and I will be talking about EPD and our just the facts approach.

The event is organised by the Russian Green Building Council.
Find out more about this event here


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Anti Greenwash guide from the French Government

January 31st, 2011
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The French government has published a report that re-inforces the key messages of our Just the Facts guide

The guide explains what the exact meanings of the generally abused claims such as ‘durable’, ‘bio’, ‘naturel’, ‘responsable’, ‘sans substance x’ or ‘biodegradable’, the terms we discussed in our guide.

It’s great to see governments tackling this issue and providing direction to confused consumers and corporate buyers. Hopefully more governments adopt our anti greenwash and just the facts approach.

See the full report here and for other informative documents see here

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Just The Facts Guide

January 31st, 2011
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Just The Facts Guide
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Nokia publishes an ultra-summarised environmental product declaration for their products

January 10th, 2011
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Full Product Transparency is here today, beyond the building sector.

Well, not fully in the sense of the whole EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) following a product category rule but certainly a transparency move that not many companies are following yet.

In the following website, you can download an eco-profile for all Nokia’s products and accessories.

For example for the popular high end N95, you get this.

Hopefully the rest of the electronic industry follows and agree product category rules and start publishing proper EPDs for all products.

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Consumer product big multinationals getting there. Next step should be full product transparency.

January 7th, 2011
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It’s such a nice surprise to see big consumer product multinationals embracing LCA as a day by day management tool.

Henkel uses a LCA approach and have created a system to rate their own products.

They call it Sustainability#Master. See their presentation here

Unilever has recently committed to halve their environmental impacts of the products measured in full life cycle. See their presentation here

I think the next step for both consumer product companies and retailers should be full product transparency.

They should agree on product category rules and then calculate the impacts according to these product category rules rather than their own systems.

That would allow for  comparability. Then, the next step should be publish Environmental Product Decelerations (EPDs) according to the agreed product category rules.

This is what has happened in the floor industry and our commitment to publish EPDs covering all our products. I believe that next big competition in sustainability will be re-designing products and services to dramatically reduce their impacts.

This will be fuelled by transparent, comparable EPDs.

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What makes a hotel green?

August 18th, 2010
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I find it so frustrating when I am staying in a hotel and the only sign of sustainability is their note on reducing the amount of washing by reusing the towels.  Unfortunately, this kind of singular and obvious thinking with regards sustainability is not unique to the hotel industry.  Many companies are only doing that ‘one very obvious thing’.

The response on Treehugger by Pablo Paster to the question “What makes a hotel green?” last week had me thinking about this topic more. This is what I would like to see one day in a hotel:

1. a welcome note which explains what their carbon footprint is per m2 and per occupant and their target to significantly reduce it. This would include the things they have done so far to decrease the footprint with explanations for each initiative and the impact in overall carbon metrics. For example:

  • Improved Insulation
  • More efficient air conditioning solutions
  • More efficient lighting solutions
  • Water saving features
  • Increased use of recycled content in ceilings, furniture, carpet, etc

The proposed Song Jiang Hotel, China

I think it would be very effective to have hotels name all of their initiatives on paper otherwise they would tend to do only the most visible things even if the impact is small. By writing it on paper it would also reassure cynical clients like me!  A real ‘Just the Facts’ approach that would eventually generate competition within the industry.

2. they should also do some visible but meaningful things as well such as:

  • avoid having the TV on with the welcome screen when the customer enters the room.
  • all electrics and lighting should automatically switch on/off with the room key
  • improve the speed of the hot water kicking in so as to reduce the use of water
  • install more water efficient showers and taps

What are your thoughts on this?

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Carbon reporting down to the second: gimmick or transparency?

August 9th, 2010
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defraEarlier this week, the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra to you and me) joined the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Home Office in publishing real-time energy consumption data online. If you go to this page on their web site   you can see a graph spiking up and down showing energy units used per hour and use over the past 24 hours at its main London headquarters building. It is also clever enough to disclose the energy cost per hour and carbon emissions.

Whether this is simply a gimmick or real progress towards full transparency – I think it is certainly a good start. The government has committed to cutting carbon emissions across all central departments by 10% by next May, so it will be interesting to what Defra does next (and which departments follow suit). It has already promised that as more data is collected, it will publish results for different time periods (use per week, month and year).

So, Defra is definitely making a move in the right direction, but it needs to look at more than just energy consumption. Real carbon transparency will depend on reporting total carbon emissions during the whole life cycle of a building – including the energy used to produce building materials and furniture (and carpet!). Also, it’s not just carbon emissions that have a negative impact on the environment. Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, government departments will also report on waste production and water usage in a similar way.

In my opinion, the best way for the Government (or any organisation for that matter) to get reliable and validated information on its full environmental impact, including carbon emissions is to use Environmental Product Declarations  and continue to provide just the facts.

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The most high tech green buildings

July 13th, 2010
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Milwaukee Art Museum

What is coming in green building technology? This is the part that I like: insulation that adjusts to outside temperatures, a building that changes to shade itself and tracking stems of occupancy or indoor air quality.

See this article on the subject at Forbes.com

What I don’t like: most of the green case studies are still focused on a good story, a new technique or a gimmick. When talking of a green building we should be talking of hard parameters like kg CO2 per occupant per year, kg CO2 per sqm, etc.  JUST THE FACTS…

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