Thanks to everyone who helped make last Thursday’s Green Chic event a success! (Our wonderful panelists, everyone who came, Joie De Vivre hotels, and – especially – Sarah Miller and Jeremy Ideus for organizing). Check out the pics and a few quick takeaways below…
Seventy people showed up for our monthly gathering, Sustainable Consumption/”Green Chic”, on Thursday, February 25th at the Galleria Park Hotel of the Joie de Vivre group (downtown). Paul Frentsos, the hotel’s GM, opened the floor by telling us just how difficult it was to convert from a conventional, modern hotel to a Green Certified, yet also modern hotel. Turning into a Green hotel meant huge sacrifice for the hopes of a larger benefit and becoming part of a cultural shift. Sacrifice was the theme of the evening. Do words like fair trade, all natural and organic mean higher prices? Yes. Does it mean paying more for a product that doesn’t smell good, looks like it came from a head shop and is badly designed? No.
Okay, then what do we do? We buy smarter. Here is what our panelists had to say:
Owner of Eco Citizen – an upscale fair trade and organic boutique for men and women – Joslin Van Arsdale stated that we need to buy one really nice shirt that is well designed and doesn’t use slave labor instead of buying three that we consider disposable. Lenore Espanola of Lenore Collection, a handbag line made of recycled print materials, pointed out the frustrations of dealing with overseas workers when there is a gap between what is accepted as fashionable in less developed areas of the world and what is considered “chic” in the United States. Miki and Tzeira Sofer of Pomega 5, an all natural skincare line, noted that all natural doesn’t mean early expiration, ineffective or unpleasant to use, quite the opposite in fact. Do they cost a little more than what you would buy at the mall? Really, it’s about the same. So what about Christie Matheson, the author of the book Green Chic for which this panel discussion was designed? What kind of advice does she give? This is a different kind of revolution. People don’t have to look frumpy when saving trees as they did in the ‘60’s. You don’t have to be out-dated when saving the world, green is the new black!
Lesson learned. Buy less, buy better and don’t sacrifice!
After the panel, the group headed down to Midi bar to get to know our panelists a bit better. Some got a few free samples from Pomega 5 and Lenore Collection brought a few sample bags to show off. If you missed this month’s event and are interested in checking out what the panelists have to offer, check out their websites:
Eco Citizen: www.ecocitizenonline.com
Pomega 5: www.pomega5.com
Lenore Collection: www.lenorecollection.com
Green Chic: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-9781402210822-1
Joie de Vivre Galleria Park: http://jdvhotels.com/hotels/galleria_park/
- Additional takeaways:
- The press still doesn’t understand sustainability and “green” – and that lack of understanding comes through in their reporting. This is why a lot of people think green is still a fad.
- When you run your own business, “reality punches you in the face” and you have to let go of some of your ideals. Pomega 5 wanted to recycle all of their glass containers – but the economics just didn’t work out. Shipping glass is just too expensive. Also, Pomega 5 can’t source from the USA… the soil here is too dirty. They get ingredients from France, Germany, or Switzerland.
- Sustainability is never simple and straightforward. As a retailer, it’s 3x more labor intensive to ask all of the right questions… but all you can do is your best.
- If you start a green business – if you don’t do it with love, you better not do it.
- Sustainability still usually costs more… getting people to understand why and educating them about environmentally friendly products is challenging.
- Frustrating moment:
- The discussion of the Wal-Mart sustainability index: The audience and the panelists were not very well informed about Wal-Mart’s efforts. 1) The sustainability index is not a real thing right now… it’s in the works. 2) Wal-Mart is not doing it alone… they are helping to organize The Sustainability Consortium to “work collaboratively to build a scientific foundation that drives innovation to improve consumer product sustainability.”
2 Comments
Thanks Adam for remarking on the index. This is something that I am interested in learning more about as I do think that once big companies jump on the Green bandwagon to fill consumer demand for better designed, fairly acquired goods with low environmental impact, that there will be a cultural shift. The word “green” may even disappear as all that falls under the “green” umbrella becomes the norm. Let’s hope…
As much as many of us snub WalMart and consider these efforts as superficial, it may take a large corporation to get things started, culturally speaking. We have to remember that much of the US is not San Francisco. Although they are taking their baby steps towards fair trade and other “green” movements, those efforts, however small, make a huge impact on the communities that they effect at home and abroad. At minimum, even at say, a token level, they bring some kind of awareness to those who live across the country and frequent places like WalMart. It will be interesting to see what results from the index.
Sarah Miller
I was on the panel and brought up the Wal-Mart issue. I feel that the last part of your report is innacurate, incomplete. The discussion about Wal-Mart came up at the very end of the talk as a side topic. The concern from myself was that there is a trust issue from the ethical/green community towards Wal-Mart spearheading a sustainability consortium, since it is not a company known for its’s human rights and fair trade policies. It is also NOT a company that practices transparency, is associated with anti-Union practices and green washing. Most sustainable companies try to follow the Triple Bottom line philosophy which takes into account People, Planet and Profit. Yet, Wal-Mart does not address the People part of this equation. Based on the above, I do not trust that a company as large and powerful as Wal-Mart is capable of setting sustainability standards (even while working collaboratively) without taking into it’s private interests which have a history of being anything but sustainable.
The following article raises some valid questions: http://www.newrules.org/retail/article/walmart-takes-greenwashing-new-level