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A solar-powered iPad?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Donna SalmonsToday’s guest post is from Donna Salmons, a freelance writer and social media consultant. Donna lives in Tennessee and strives to reduce her carbon footprint and teach her son how to be environmentally aware and respectful of his environment: They use only CFL bulbs in their home, buy locally produced goods and services, and use reusable bags for grocery shopping, among other things. Donna is also a bit of a geek; she enjoys writing about technology and gadgets at TestFreaks, a global website that provides product information and reviews of hundreds of products (computers, cameras, home appliances, TVs) to consumers.

Chances are, if you haven’t been living in a cave during 2010, you know something about the  iPad. A finger-friendly tablet from t Apple that runs iOS, the iPad builds upon the smaller mobile devices, like the iPod and iPhone, that have made Apple such a phenomenal  success in recent years.

Two key differences set the iPad apart. The first is its size. The iPhone and iPod Touch, with which it shares operating system and a library of applications, have only a 3.5 inch screen. The iPad has a 9.7 inch screen, which means that full-page documents, as well as entire books, are easily readable.

Suddenly a thin tablet with a touch screen, coupled with an impressive run time, becomes a real alternative to the pad and paper. Mass tablets of the past were simply not up to that task.

The second difference is this: I buy an iPad today. Being a big fan of tablets, I have followed their development, and I am even a long time user of the venerable TC1100 tablet. But the actual designs before the iPad were best used with a stylus, and definitely not designed for fingertip operation. Badly wanting a simple tablet designed for human hands, I have watched and anticipated so many, only to see them disappear into the vaporware ethers. The iPad is real.

Competition Is Good

Any other tablet that comes on the scene is going to be play catchup. That’s good, of course. Competition will force Apple, and others, to add features,  improve design, deliver greater capability or lower prices–or all of the above. This is where solar power could come into play.

Consider, as an example, another great technology upstart that once sent ripples through our lives. That  life-changing product? The lowly calculator.

When the calculator first came out, it was large, heavy, and required a lot of juice. You know, like laptops used to be. And over time, technology and innovation morphed the calculator from an expensive indispensable tool of the highest caliber to one that is cheap but gets the job done. In fact, a lot of checkbooks and notepads ship with a calculator mounted right to it–for free! And what is powering these inexpensive calculators? Solar energy.

Solar power has turned the calculator into a  tool that is always handy, and with power to spare.

Empowering the iPad

If solar power made the calculator as handy as a notepad, what could we expect to replace the notepad itself? The iPad and other soon-to-be-real tablets should be able to do the job rather well, so long as they are easy to use and always powered to go.

All we need to do is add a source of renewable energy that could keep the iPad always-on. Is it just a pipe dream to think that an iPad could sustain abd power itself, without the need for a charge? Maybe not.

Apple is always busy developing its next product; patents are part of that process. Patent Application number 20100079387, published April 2010 (which encompasses Fig. 10, left),  may reveal what the company has in mind. The application, entitled “Integrated Touch Sensor and Solar Assembly”, details the mechanics of just such a device. And does Apple have a device that would work well with a nice big screen to act as combination human interface / solar collector? Why yes they do, and it’s called an iPad.

The signs indicate that notoriously-secretive Apple is working on solar powered devices. For all we know they already have prototypes. While I sincerely doubt that we will see such a product in 2010 (or 2011), I would not be surprised to see it on the market soon after that. Just in time to leapfrog the competition once again.

By the time the solar power system is ready for market, chances are that the rest of the device will have been made cheap enough to make it practical for millions more users.

After all, the mechanical hard drive has already been replaced, and the circuit board in an iPad is small, saving room for the battery. Everything seems to be lining up for the product to be possible. The world needs a real alternative to the tree consuming notepads. We can’t have a solar-powered iPad soon enough.

Note from Marc: For more technical detail on the patent, see this post at Patently Apple.

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Running with a conscience: food and drink

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Melissa Schweisguth photo credit: TIME

This is third guest post on eco-friendly running from Melissa Schweisguth. (Here’s the first, on clothing and shoes, and the second, about racing, training and tech.) I’m featuring Melissa’s post because running and the environment are two of my passions, and she’s done a beautiful job of marrying the two.

Melissa is a 36-year-old fellow sustainability professional and writer who also enjoys running. She puts me to shame, and not just because she clocked an impressive 3:11:07 in the Eugene (Oregon) Marathon this year. Melissa hasn’t thrown anything into a landfill since 2006, which earned her notice in Time magazine (due to non-consumerism and creative reuse.). She thrives on an organic, whole foods, locally-based and almost exclusively vegan diet, (as does famed ultra runner Scott Jurek). She’s been working on improving her running footprint to avoid trampling people or planet and has written three blogposts on running “au naturel” for her blog, Living Acoustically, which she’s kindly agreed to let me share here.  I don’t expect most runners to be as “green” as Melissa, but my hope is that she’ll inspire you, whether you run or not, as she has inspired me to make a change or two in your lives. When she isn’t running, Melissa works a freelance writer and consultant on sustainability issues and media relations, and as director of membership and development for the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association.

Here’s my last post about my efforts to maximize and improve running performance while honoring a guiding principle that defines sustainability for me: “live simply so that others may simply live.”

As noted…This is being shared for informational purposes only and not intended to be preachy or judgmental, as neither is my style. We all have different backgrounds and resource demands in our lives, and I’m the first to admit there are many things I can improve!

Food

I grew up eating home-cooked whole food, much of it homegrown organic, and eat exclusively organic whole foods sourced as locally as possible now, and fuel my runs the same way. When I trained for and ran my first race, a marathon, in 2000, so-called energy bars, gels, etc. were emerging and unknown to me. Oatmeal with nuts and raisins worked well enough for me to train for and finish that marathon in 3:39:30.

Clif bars greeted me at the finish line and I had two jobs that routed free samples my way so I started to eat them periodically before long runs and longer races (with the trusty oatmeal) and later added Clif Shots/Bloks/Moons moons for some long runs and races. After deciding to save my trash for a year and realizing the wrappers made up quite a bit of my waste, I made a tote bag from the wrappers, returned to just oatmeal and started making my own energy gels (rice syrup, honey, molasses, cacao powder, salt –provides key electrolytes: sodium, potassium, magnesium, with an initial kick and sustained energy from sweeteners with different glucose/fructose ratios).

All ingredients are from my food co-op’s bulk section, except rice syrup (jar), making for 100% organic shots with no packaging waste for 20 cents each versus $1 or more for packaged ones. I mix with water and put in plastic bottles (#2), not ideal but haven’t found a workable metal one yet. They’re simple to make, flavors can be customized, no need to take water separately and squeeze bottle is easier, faster and cleaner to deal with than packets. For caffeine, add instant coffee or eat coffee beans or chocolate-covered coffee beans.

After running a marathon (3:11:07), a trail 50k (4:53) and some shorter races (10-mi 1:04:30; hilly 6 mi 38:22) fueled by these, generally improving (NB: times listed for context, not self-promotion), I can say they work as well or better than store-bought. People have different needs and preferences. Check sweetener composition (gel recipes, too) and nutritional data to find what works best.

For solid food on runs, there are lots of energy bar recipes online and many long-distance runners eat real food for training/racing and share info online. (Scott Jurek’s a good one to follow: blog, twitter.) Pitted dates stuffed with cacao nibs and nuts are an energizing snack, and a cheaper, no-waste version of a Clif Nectar or Lara bar.

Beyond my anecdotes, there’s plenty of evidence that no-frills sustenance suffices. Before special ‘performance enhancing’ products existed, elite runners performed incredibly well with real food, honey, water, salt tablets and the like. Today, the Tarahumara, made famous in the book ‘Born to Run,’ still stay fueled with cornmeal and water and hold their own against technically-fortified elites. The book birthed a growing barefoot running movement, but didn’t ignite an all-out embrace of what one might call “organic” or “au natural” running. Curious, since the Tarahumara don’t rely on any of today’s must-have synthetic, miracle-laden “food,” drinks and gear.

For those not inclined to make gels, organic products such as GloryBee’s Liquid Gold and Clif Shots and Blocks are good options. Liquid Gold is 100% organic and comes in a #5 plastic reusable bottle that can be recycled in some localities. (Thisgel recipe looks close to Liquid Gold. Regular molasses works, just use more to get the potassium level you want and reduce honey accordingly. I found this too sweet and energy was less sustained than rice syrup.) Clif Shot is 90% organic and Bloks are 95% organic, with packaging that generally isn’t recyclable locally, though they have a recycling program for bar wrappers.

Water + Drink

I never got into bottled water and drink unfiltered tap water since local supplies have good testing reports (free, public info – check them and save the cost and waste of filters). For pre- and post-race water, I bring my own filled, reusable metal bottles since some races have only bottled water. I used to run with a reusable plastic water bottle but switched to stainless steel for my larger sizes to avoid toxins that leach from plastic and eliminate petroleum-based materials. I still use plastic bottles (#2) for smaller sizes and should get metal replacements. No need for a special ‘hydration pack’ – these fit in an old money belt/waist pack, shorts pockets or pockets I sewed on my running top. For those who like handheld bottles, ponytail holders, large produce rubber bands or a loop of elastic work with less weight than a special bottle holder.

During races, I used to keep cups from aid stations and compost them but that was clunky so I started carrying my own collapsible cup. This doesn’t slow me down any more than taking a single-use cup.

I don’t use sports drinks but for those so inclined, organic powdered mixes like Clif Bar’s electrolyte drink mix are a good option, choosing the bulk canister versus packets.

All for now…happy trails!

Note from Marc: Happy trails to you, too, Melissa! Thanks so much for sharing.

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Running with a conscience: racing, training and tech

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Melissa Schweisguth photo credit: TIME/Bob Pennell

This is second of three guest posts on eco-friendly running from Melissa Schweisguth. (Here’s the first, on clothing and shoes. Tomorrow she’ll write about food and drink.) I’m featuring Melissa’s post because running and the environment are two of my passions, and she’s done a beautiful job of marrying the two.

Melissa is a 36-year-old fellow sustainability professional and writer who also enjoys running. She puts me to shame, and not just because she clocked an impressive 3:11:07 in the Eugene (Oregon) Marathon this year. Melissa hasn’t thrown anything into a landfill since 2006, which earned her notice in Time magazine (due to non-consumerism and creative reuse.). She thrives on an organic, whole foods, locally-based and almost exclusively vegan diet, (as does famed ultra runner Scott Jurek). She’s been working on improving her running footprint to avoid trampling people or planet and has written three blogposts on running “au naturel” for her blog, Living Acoustically, which she’s kindly agreed to let me share here.  I don’t expect most runners to be as “green” as Melissa, but my hope is that she’ll inspire you, whether you run or not, as she has inspired me to make a change or two in your lives. When she isn’t running, Melissa works a freelance writer and consultant on socially responsible business and media relations, and as director of membership and development for the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association.

This is the second post about my efforts to maximize and improve running performance while honoring a guiding principle that defines sustainability to me: “live simply so that others may simply live.” As noted…This is being shared for informational purposes only and not intended to be preachy or judgmental, as neither is my style. We all have different backgrounds and resource demands in our lives, and I’m the first to admit there are many things I can improve!

Racing

When choosing races, my inclination is to stay as local (for simplicity and cost rather than environmental reasons), where I can bike or jog to the starting line. (I also start runs from home or bike to a park 1 mile away.) When travel is involved, carpooling is a good solution, and of course public transit, where available. I volunteer to help set up and handle recycling at local race, and have started to share tips for making races greener, from the Runners World/Nature’s Path Green Team.

Races usually involve freebies, t-shirts, race numbers and medals. I generally decline the bag and swag, being stuff I wouldn’t use anyway and small sample sizes with a lot of packaging waste.

If shirts are optional, I decline to get one. Otherwise, I give it to my dad to wear in the garden or volunteering for Meals on Wheels to share new stories with his clients. Old shirts can easily be made into reusable tote bags. Cut off the sleeves and sew up the bottom and sides. Sew the sleeves together on the diagonals, sew across the bottom and attach inside the neckline to make a pocket (and no waste). Make handles with two old shoelaces, strung inside the neckline on alternating sides (for a drawstring closure). You can also just zig zag the cut arm holes instead of sewing them fully closed to make handles, but the bag will have less capacity.

Race numbers can be recycled through some mail-back programs, but you can also make a cool bag and other things out of them. Awards can be donated to organizations that reuse them give for awards and encouragement. Check out Medals4Mettle, ask local trophy shops if they know of programs in your area or give them to someone who’s inspired you. I used to give mine to my Grandma, a champion and inspiration for me.

Training + Tech

Enhanced watches, garmins, iPod +, iPhones with GPS, heart rate monitors and other tech items are favorite runner toys. Call me a Luddite but I just use the stopwatch on my geriatric sports watch for timing and take 10 seconds to measure my heart rate if so inclined.

For regular runs, I just settle into a pace that feels challenging yet maintainable for the conditions. For intervals, tempo runs, etc., I run on a bike path with quarter-mile markers to gauge speed (The McMillan Pace Calculator is a good tool to pick a pace). My parents were math teachers and I listened to Multiplication Rock a lot as kid, so mentally calculating my pace and progress against goal time is second nature, and it helps pass time.

My body is pretty good at hitting a steady, challenging training speed and finding a good race pace, which I attribute to years of piano, speed training and a bit of great coaching from runner friends Ralph & Lois (Brommer, “PA Hall of Famer“) Duquette (who got me into speed training initially, another natural performance enhancer).

I used to depend more on my watch for pacing but after my battery died at the beginning of a marathon with no one calling time at the mile markers, I found myself challenged to maintain a goal pace I knew I was capable of based on training and realized the need to focus on being able to ‘feel’ my pace better. Greg McMillan has a great article on calibrating ‘inner GPS.’

iPod…don’t have one but wouldn’t run with one for safety reasons. Best to be able to hear the rejuvenating and wise symphony trails offer, as well as bigger wildlife, mountain bikers, cars, etc. sharing various terrain.

Till next time…Happy trails, and may we tread lightly!

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Running with a conscience

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Melissa Schweisguth photo credit: TIME

Two of my passions are running and the environment. I do my best to marry them: I’ve recycled my old running shoes. I currently run in Vibram FiveFinger “barefoot” shoes, which are light weight and last a long time. I mix my own Gatorade from a 3 lb. 3 oz. can of powder, which saves plastic bottles. But I also use high tech equipment (Garmin GPS, Monster headphones, iPod shuffle), own dozens of T-shirts from races that are stuffed in a closet and drive 2-3 miles most days just to get to the place where I start my run. Over the years I’ve flown to marathons in Chicago, San Diego, Big Sur and Athens, Greece.

Melissa Schweisguth is a 36-year-old fellow sustainability professional and writer who also enjoys running. She puts me to shame, and not just because she clocked an impressive 3:11:07 in the Eugene (Oregon) Marathon this year. Melissa hasn’t thrown anything into a landfill since 2006, which earned her notice in Time magazine (due to non-consumerism and creative reuse.). She thrives on an organic, whole foods, locally-based and almost exclusively vegan diet, (as does famed ultra runner Scott Jurek). She’s been working on improving her running footprint to avoid trampling people or planet and has written three blogposts on running “au naturel” for her blog, Living Acoustically, which she’s kindly agreed to let me share here.  I don’t expect most runners to be as “green” as Melissa, but my hope is that she’ll inspire you, whether you run or not, as she has inspired me to make a change or two in your lives. When she isn’t running, Melissa works a freelance writer and consultant on sustainability issues and media relations, and as director of membership and development for the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association. Here’s her first post, about clothing and shoes:

Sometimes we need new, ready-made things, but, more often, we can reuse, buy used, or make something easily, and get a better, cheaper, more healthful product. It’s easy to forget this since marketers are skilled at wooing us, we’re encouraged to seek upward mobility and novelty, and our culture has devalued making things ourselves: gardening, basic cooking and the like.

While running, I’ve sought to maximize and improve performance while honoring a guiding principle that defines sustainability to me: “live simply so that others may simply live.” (Or, following this blog’s theme, unplug from consumerism and run acoustically.) Below are examples of things I do, some long term and some more recent changes. This is being shared for informational purposes only; it’s not intended to be preachy or judgmental, as that’s not my style. We all have different backgrounds and resource demands in our lives, and I’m the first to admit there are many things I can improve!

Clothing

When I started running, “technical” fabrics and performance-optimizing clothing weren’t on the market. I wore basic clothing and never really bought into the marketing around newfangled stuff. More apparel uses fabrics marketed as environmentally friendly, such as organic cotton, wool, bamboo, hemp and recycled poly, which are great if new things are needed. However, the most sustainable choices are items we have or can get used, which also saves money. I’ve found great shorts, tops and running tights at thrift stores and yard sales. Last fall, arm sleeves made of bamboo grabbed my interest but I made my own from old kids’ leggings (super easy) and a tank top (a bit more work). Old nylons and wool socks also do the job with no sewing required. Retired apparel can be donated if still in good shape or used to stuff pillows, stuffed animals, etc.

Running bras and socks I prefer new, so I look for durable, responsibly made products, sourced and manufactured as close as possible. Patagonia’s recycled poly bra has held up (no pun intended) for more than two years and thousands of miles. I hand wash it in shower water and air dry it (like the rest of my running clothes), which probably helps. For socks, I look for recycled poly and organic natural fibers. “Eco-friendly” materials aren’t guaranteed to be grown, harvested or manufactured with good labor or environmental practices. Bamboo may be grown on deforested rainforest and processed with harsh chemicals, for examples, and sweatshops are a reality in the U.S. and abroad. More businesses are sharing supplier information (check websites) so it’s easier to size up options. Companies that aren’t transparent lose the race with me.

Shoes

While some may say barefoot running is the most environmentally friendly way to go go go, I like wearing shoes and think they’re generally better new. This is one of the more challenging areas since options are limited and those don’t fit every foot or situation.

For road running, Brooks’ Green Silence is marketed as the greenest option on the market, with 60% recycled content, biodegradable components, less materials, and other positive attributes. Brooks has several environmental initiatives and a great supplier responsibility program. Check out an article I wrote on the shoe and company here.

My preferred terrain is mountain trail. Brooks’ Cascadia is a great, durable trail shoe with recycled content and a biodegradable midsole, though a bit heavy for me. I like the New Balance 100, which is light and thus saves on materials but otherwise not distinct in terms of sustainability. New Balance retains some US manufacturing presence and has good environmental practices. They also sponsor ultrarunner Kyle Skaggs, who’s an organic farmer, which gets big points from me.

Old shoes are great for walking and hiking after their life in the fast lane ends. They can also be donated for reuse or recycled, and many stores and races collect them for such programs. I started planting things in them to extend their useful life and try to close the loop on my end.

Note from Marc: Melissa gives new meaning to the words shoe tree…

Tomorrow: Racing, training and technology

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Ancient wisdom on sustainability

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Today’s guest post comes from Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md.

Fred is my rabbi, and he’s a great guy; he was “green” before green was cool. In 19990, during his  junior year at Brandeis, Fred set off on a 3,300-mile walk from Los Angeles to New York as part of a project called the Global Walk for a Livable World. Today, he serves on the national boards of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) and as Chair of Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light. Fred believes, as I do, that clergy of all faiths can and should play a greater role when it comes to teaching people about the environment, and the impact of their consumption.

This is a letter that Fred wrote last spring in the Adat Shalom newsletter under the headline “You Can’t Take It With You”:

Recently, while wrapping up the Book of Leviticus, we read Parashat Behar. This Torah portion is basically one chapter, Lev. 25 — and it’s at the very top of my list of favorite biblical passages. Behar outlines the every-seven-year Sabbatical (Shmita) during which the fields lie fallow, and the every-fiftieth-year Jubilee (Yovel) when debts are forgiven, slaves are freed, and land is returned to its original owner. It’s the Jewish source for the notion that “you can’t take it with you”.

Leaving aside the scholarly debate over how thoroughly these teachings were practiced and enforced during Temple times, as a values statement there are many vital messages for us today in this teaching, from the political to the personal. Four short examples:

Economic: What a great balancing act the Yovel/Jubilee is, between unrealistic communism and unbridled capitalism! The Torah is way ahead of modern society in suggesting a middle way — a way that preserves people’s personal incentive to work hard and get ahead (and thus advance society as a whole), while recognizing that imbalances accrue across the generations and becoming self-replicating after a time. Be capitalist for a whole generation, but every fifty years level the playing  field. The implications of this value system for our household economics are enormous, since Judaism teaches that you can’t take it with you — and oughtn’t leave it all for the few lucky enough to be
your heirs, either. [MG: This suggests that the authors of the Torah would agree with former Treausury Secy. Robert Rubin, union leader Richard Trumka, hedge fund guru Julian Robertson and heiress Abigail Disney that we should restore the estate tax.)

Ecological: In our chapter we are commanded: “you shall not sell the land beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are strangers and sojourners with Me.” This is the consciousness that the world so desperately needs now — the land is not ours, and our land use decisions need to take a Higher Power into account.

Plus a bonus:  Would you believe a plug for sustainable agriculture, as in letting your  fields lie fallow every so often to re-fix nitrogen into the soil and to prevent erosion? It’s right there in the Torah! You can’t take it with you — but you can leave a lot of damage behind you if you’re not careful.

Energetic: As the land needs a rest every seventh year, so does the farmer, plantation owner and migrant fruit-picker alike, the Torah goes out of its way to remind us. And so do we. Why has ‘sabbatical’ been retained only in academia and religion, when everyone needs and deserves a chance to step back from their day-to-day work, and to recharge their batteries?
Shabbaton/sabbatical is a value for us all. You can’t take it with you – but while you’re here you can refocus periodically on what really matters, and recharge so that you do it better going forward.

Emotional/spiritual: As in macro-economics, so in the inner realm — the Jubilee reminds us that the goal of life is not to accrue ‘stuff’ and stocks and savings, but wisdom and friendship and meaning. I had occasion to offer a eulogy during the week of parashat Behar for a lawyer who happened to work on estate issues, but more importantly was a beloved dad and grandfather, husband and friend. And this was the upshot: you can’t take it with you. Important as his work was, the Torah reminds us that all of life is one big estate-planning exercise. All ‘things’ depreciate; it’s only a matter of time before we give it all back, one way or another. But a life well-lived is of enduring value, and the love and goodwill generated in that lifetime does in fact continue beyond our numbered days.

You can’t take it with you — but you can leave a legacy of love.

The decision is ours to make, with every priority we set and every bit of time we allocate. Remember, every minute of every day — we don’t take it with us, but we do make a difference.

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Sustainability and your brain

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Yesterday was my last full day before taking off on vacation. It was a busy day, as usual. I wrapped up a story for FORTUNE, hosted a webinar for Greenbiz, wrote a blogpost, pushed through my email, which now arrives at a rate of 100-200 a day, and ran a couple of errands.

In between, by coincidence–or perhaps not–I stumbled across a couple of NPR interviews. Diane Rehm talked with Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School about his new book, Relaxation Revolution, and Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviewed Matt Richtel of The New York Times about his excellent series of stories, called Your Brain on Computers, which explores how digital media is changing our lives, our culture and, yes, our brains. The interviews were so compelling, and so timely, that I listened to both programs, in full, this morning. (They’re available on iTunes.)

Both were, in a way, about the same thing: how stressing the brain affects health. And while many things are more stressful than being “always on,” facing  tight deadlines and being nagged by that feeling that you haven’t checked your email, oh, in the last 45 minutes,  most of us will never go to war or perform surgery, so these are the of stresses that touch us every day. They can literally be deadly–Richtel won a Pulitzer Prize this year for his terrific series of stories, Driven to Distraction, about the risks of talking and texting behind the wheel. (One of my very top pet peeves is people who talk on the phone while driving.) (more…)

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Sustainable consumption: Opportunity or oxymoron?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Imagine that you’re the chief sustainability officer of a FORTUNE 500 company. During a meeting with your CEO, you say: “We need to talk to consumers about using less.”

Improbable? Sure.

Impossible? Perhaps not.

An important conversation to start? Absolutely.

So, at least, says Aron Cramer, the CEO of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a nonprofit association of companies, whose mission is to promote a just and sustainable world.

“The American model of consumption cannot be extended to the entire world, and won’t be, because the planet simply can’t support it,” Aron told me, when we spoke by phone the other day. Yet billions of people around the world want to improve their standard of living. Figuring out how they can enjoy a better life, without destroying the environment, “is the mother of all innovation challenges,” Aron says,

Last month, BSR published a 26-page report called The New Frontier in Sustainability: The Business Opportunity in Tackling Sustainable Consumption [PDF, free download). It’s an attempt to get business leaders to think about what sustainable consumption might look like.

The topic “has been the third rail of sustainability politics,” Aron told me, but he added, with his usual optimism, that “more companies are ready to have this discussion.”

If nothing else, the report makes clear the urgency of the issue. Citing a WWF report [PDF], it says:

By recent estimates, our global footprint now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 percent, and if our current demands continue, by 2030 we will need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles.

And yet:

…countless people have insufficient access to basic needs like food, clean water, and adequate shelter, and they also lack access to the resources they need to improve their lives. In 2006, the 1.2 billion people in the OECD countries had an average annual income per capita of US$30,580, while the 5.4 billion people in the rest of the world earned an average of US$3,130. Of those, 19 percent suffer from hunger, 28 percent are drinking polluted water, and 29 percent are illiterate.7 More than 2 billion people continue to rely on less than US$2 per day to meet their needs.

The question is, what business opportunities, if any,  await companies that figure out how to give poor and middle class people what they want in a sustainable way? (more…)

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Posted in CSR, Consumption, Environment, Leadership, NGOs, Religion, Sustainability | 10 Comments »

The industrialization of fishing

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

I’m just back from a week at the Delaware shore where we ate lots of fish, as we always do at the beach. This is more of an emotional than a logical decision–crabs are about the only locally caught seafood–but the beach towns have plenty of seafood restaurants and fish markets, perhaps a relic from the day when the local catch was more plentiful. The fact is, fish markets in Bethany Beach look pretty much like markets everywhere; they are as likely to sell salmon farmed in Chile or “previously frozen” tuna as they are to offer anything caught nearby.

This is no accident, as I learned during my vacation from reading Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food (Penguin, $25.95) by Paul Greenberg. No, it’s not exactly beach reading, but Four Fish is carefully-reported, well-written, insightful and surprisingly entertaining. A lifelong fisherman who writes for the Sunday Times magazine, Greenberg chronicles the history of four of the most popular fish on western menus–salmon, cod, sea bass and tuna–and explores the daunting question of whether fish, whether caught in the wild or farmed, can provide healthy protein in large quantities for the billions of people who enjoy seafood. How, in other words, can we catch or farm fish in a sustainable way, one that doesn’t deplete the supply or pollute the oceans? (more…)

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Posted in Consumption, Environment, Food, Sustainability | 5 Comments »

Sustainable Smucker’s: It’s all in the family

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

In 1897, a farmer in Orrville, Ohio, named Jerome Monroe Smucker began selling stoneware crocks of apple butter from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. He signed the lid of each one, to vouch for its quality.

The J.M. Smucker Co. still sells apple butter with the family name on the label. It also sells Smucker jams and jellies, Jif peanut butter, Folger’s coffee, Crisco shortening, Pillsbury cake mixes, Eagle condensed milk, Hungry Jack pancakes and R.W. Knudsen juices — 2,100 products in all, which brought in $4.6 billion last year.

This is noteworthy but hardly unprecedented. Some of America’s biggest companies took root in the 19th century as family businesses selling a single product—DuPont with gunpowder in 1802, Procter & Gamble with candles in 1837, General Electric with the electric lamp in 1892.

What makes Smucker unique is that, more than a century later, it remains a family-run business. Still headquartered in rural Orrville (population: 8367), the company has had five chief executives, all named Smucker—J.M. (1897-1947), his son Willard (1948-1960), his son Paul (1961-1987) and, since then, Paul’s sons Timothy and Richard Smucker, who currently share the job of  CEO.

Fifth-generation cousins Mark Smucker and Paul Smucker Wagstaff are being groomed to succeed them. “We would like that, but it’s not a fait accompli,” Richard Smucker, the boys’ uncle and their boss, told me when I visited the Smucker Co. last month.

I’ve got a story about J.M. Smucker in the current (Aug. 16) issue of FORTUNE; it’s one of a series of profiles of FORTUNE 500 companies that I’m writing for the magazine. While working on the story, it struck me that the Smucker offers a interesting and little-known case study in sustainability: Why has this company, which for most of its life has focused on the prosaic business of making jellies and jams, lasted for 113 years? (more…)

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Posted in CSR, Consumption, Food, Investing, Sustainability, Workplace | 3 Comments »

How “green” are those hiking boots?

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

In a world where it’s so hot or dry that no one wants to hike, bike, run or climb, outdoorsy companies like Nike, Patagonia, REI and Timberland will be in deep trouble.

So it makes sense—and it’s certainly about time—for the companies that sell outdoor apparel and equipment to come up with common standards to measure the environmental impact of their products.

This week, an industry group called the Outdoor Industry Alliance announced that its members have spent several years doing just that. The companies unveiled “a ground breaking environmental assessment tool” that they call an Eco Index, saying:

It provides companies throughout the supply chain a way to benchmark and measure their environmental footprint, allowing them to identify areas for improvement and make informed sourcing and product life cycle decisions.

It sounds good, doesn’t it? The trouble is, the group says it will take a long time for the industry to develop and agree on standards that are simple, reliable and meaningful enough to present them to consumers. In fact, there’s no commitment to turn the index into a shopper-friendly tool, the industry says:

The current focus of the index is to be an internal/supply chain facing tool and not a consumer-facing label. This focus could be revisited in future years.

That’s disappointing. It’s particularly disappointing because one company—Timberland—has demonstrated that it’s possible to measure and report on the impact of its products. As it happens, Timberland today (Aug. 3) convened a conference call to talk about its own Green Index and how it fits into the new industry-wide initiative.

Jeffrey SwartzJeff Swartz, the CEO of Timberland and a leader of the corporate-responsibility movement, said he wants to play nicely with competitors and other retailers, as the industry tries to settle on common metrics. “We can’t afford a Betamax-VHS debate,” he said. “Harmonization is an imperative.”

At the same time, Swartz made clear that he’s frustrated by the slow pace of the industry initiative.

(more…)

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Posted in Business Ethics, CSR, Consumption, Environment, Sustainability, Transparency | 1 Comment »

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