E-Commerce is Green

The Green Side of Online Shopping - WSJ

Data was gathered from Buy.com and used by a study by Carnegie Mellon. The study found for buy.com which outsources everything (they are virtual and just do the web stuff), that compared to the energy needed by a consumer to drive to a store, it took less to have it delivered.

This makes me feel better with my two E-Commerce sites :-)

www.childbook.com - Learning Chinese Materials for kids
www.elitedresses.com - Girl's Dresses at affordable prices

How Green Is My Orange?

How Green Is My Orange? from the NY Times. Pepsi did a study, interesting. And of course since it's interactive dependent on transportation distance, one number does not quite capture it.

Green - who actually acts green?

Hassles, negative feedback affect green actions from the San Jose Mercury News.

Great Quote:

"people not defining themselves as green doing green things, and others that said they were green and drove SUVs and had big houses," she said.

This is also so true in the "Green" industry. I like Walmart's comment where they are not being green for the sake of being green, but because it makes economical sense "we are not green".

My opinion, it's called making everything more efficient which is common sense, which is unfortunately not that common.

Green Marketing is a big Gray...

Great article from SF Chronicle - Green product seals are gray area

The article discusses how many of the seals used in marketing are meaningless.

My favorite part of the article was the examples of green claims that are questionable...

• Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars are labeled as "100% natural" - but there is no government standard for what the word "natural" means except for meat and poultry. The list of ingredients in these granola bars is practically identical to a rival brand of granola bars that don't call themselves "natural."
• Jennie-O Turkey Store ground turkey is billed as "all natural." The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that natural poultry can't have artificial ingredients or added color. However, it's legal for "natural" turkey to have been raised on a diet that included hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified corn.
• Gillette shaving gel has a "no CFCs" label. That's factually accurate but irrelevant, since CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons, which damage the ozone layer) have been banned in the United States for nearly 30 years.

It seems there is no definition of what Natural means. The term that was not used in the article is green wash.

Greed in the Name of Green

Greed In the Name Of Green from the Washington Post. Marketing is about getting people to buy your product, so if you can make some type of Green claim or change your product at minimal cost to be more eco-friendly to increase sales, it makes sense. The article shows some of the more absurd products that are out there. The challenge as consumers is how to make a sensible decision balancing being green, while managing the pocketbook.