PHILLIPS ANTI-REUSE CAMPAIGN

 Environment, Sustainability  No Responses »
Aug 222010
 

My Phillips razor is 15 years old and still perfectly working. When I bought it the only thing I asked for is that I wanted a machine that works and lasts, for this I paid some extra money which has been largely paid off by not having to buy a new razor.

Yet, is this a good business for Phillips? There is a big problem for those companies who design things that last and can be repaired: the problem is that they risk selling less than those companies who design products to break and can’t be repaired. This is kafkian but this is how it is.

This is the reason that explains why when I go to buy the new shaving heads for my razor they charge me 42€. Yes, 42€!!! It is obvious that three shaving heads don’t cost 42€ but instead Phillips is charging me for not changing my razor. It would only cost me twice as much to get a new razor so why should I stick to my old one which happens to be working perfectly?

On the top of that; in how many places in Barcelona you think you can renew shaving heads for Phillips razors? Only in 1 place especialised in Phillips repairing!!! On the other hand you can guess that Phillips is selling its products in 100s of retailers and shopping malls but they only sell the renewed shaving heads in one place. Wouldn’t I be better off just buying a new razor in the shop next to my place and save all this headache? That’s what the companies would like!

This is just one of the examples I run into my everyday life when trying to be sustainable. In this case Phillips, which is not better or worst than any other company producing electric appliances, has only copied the same system it uses to sell printers –sell them cheap and charge the ink very expensive- to razors. Indeed they would be stupid if they wouldn’t because they could not compete with the other companies that would continue to cheat in their prices and their products. It is a perfectly designed unsustainable system.

As far as the market rewards building obsolescence in products companies such as Phillips can continue to proclaim their love for green economy and whatever other greenwashing statements. The truth is that they are just another brick in the wall of insustainability.

 Posted by admin at 18:59  Tagged with: , , ,

The Story of Cosmetics

 Environment, Europe english, Sustainability  No Responses »
Aug 122010
 

Another great contribution from Annie Leonard to help us understand the other side of “stuff”:

Yet another fantastic contradiction of our times: the fantastic creams and cosmetics that are supposed to make us look better in fact they are harming us… having said that; if we live in a world of coffee without cafeine, beer without alcohol, meat without fat, etc… wouldn’t if make sense to also consume cosmetics without toxics?

From an European perspective we can be proud that the European Union has been in the vanguard of safeguarding the consumers with the succesful REACH legislation. It also served as a wake-up call for the industry lobbies that since then have geared up and haven’t allowed the EU to score high in any other environmental legislation (IPPC, WFD, Renewables, etc…).

However, the fact that in Europe the companies are forced to state the ingredients of the cosmetics doesn’t mean that we are safe. It’s been years since I stopped using soaps and creams from the famous brands (except for suncream) and went back to authentic soaps that were used since the middle ages and the truth is that I can’t be happier with the results. But that´s another story… :-)

 Posted by admin at 11:33  Tagged with: , ,

Linking climate change with social change – The experience of the Green revolution in the US

 Environment, Political campaining, Sustainability  No Responses »
Feb 132010
 
The Green revolution in the US
During this last week in Northern California I had the chance to check the pulse not only of the civil society groups but also of the political scene in the US and the most relevant thing I found is how the green movement is really kicking-off with a strong political agenda, very often linking green demands with social justice.
In Europe very often we dissociate green politics from social justice because this allows everybody to be green and trendy –even Barroso from the wheel of his SUV promotes green economy-. This is interesting. The ecological crisis, to a certain extend caused by a concrete economic model of production and consumption, is happening and the mainstream parties tend to see it as a mere technological reshuffling to convert the business as usual into a green business as usual.
There is another approach to the issue of climate change that because of the higher social equality in Europe I haven’t seen in the old continent and that is the social justice approach to climate change and the green economy. Using a politically neutral approach to the current crisis allows to apply technological changes without questioning who profited from the appropriation and exploitation of resources during last centuries. A social justice approach to the current crisis wants to link the problem of climate change to its social causes and impacts, namely; how those who suffer the most from failing states or failing ecosystems are those who profit the less from the economic progress.
Europeans tend to ignore or oversee this point. This is strategically good because it avoids social unrest and allows a civilised response. However this is a problem when dealing with the rest of the world because they have a different take on it. For instance during the Copenhagen summit the developing countries insisted in having Europeans (and north-americans) pay the ecological debt.
In the US, a highly fragmented society in racial, social and economic terms, more and more green movements are linking the green revolution with social demands. After all it is low-wage workers who work in the most polluting industries or live next to a hazardous waste incinerator. Since they are the ones who suffer the most from the wealth that the upper-middle class American families accumulate, it should not surprise anyone that this kind of local movements are growing strong. The reason why it is highly interesting to listen to them is because of the take they have on the green economy i.e.: they promote the real green solutions and do not hesitate bashing the greenwashing from the industry and the political stablishment about using nuclear power or burning waste to fight climate change.
The green revolution has to be linked with a social agenda that allows to decarbonise the economy whilst creating sustainable jobs and social equality. A lots of red-neck Americans call them green-communists. I think that their demands, albeit sometimes too populist, make a lot more sense than the greenwashing with which the industry and in consequence the European and national governments bomb us with everyday. Even what is considered to be quality media promote this greenwashing.
Below a video from Van Jones, one of the leaders of this movement in Oakland, California, founder of “Green for all” and former responsible for Green Jobs for the Obama government –before being target of the neo-cons who ousted him from Washington-. A good example to understand what is going on outside the old continent.

During this last week in Northern California I had the chance to check the pulse not only of the civil society groups but also of the political scene in the US and the most relevant thing I found is how the green movement is really kicking-off with a strong political agenda, very often linking green demands with social justice.

In Europe very often we dissociate green politics from social justice because this allows everybody to be green and trendy –even Barroso from the wheel of his SUV promotes green economy-. This is interesting. The ecological crisis, to a certain extend caused by a concrete economic model of production and consumption, is happening and the mainstream parties tend to see it as a mere technological reshuffling to convert the business as usual into a green business as usual.

There is another approach to the issue of climate change that because of the higher social equality in Europe I haven’t seen in the old continent and that is the social justice approach to climate change and the green economy. Using a politically neutral approach to the current crisis allows to apply technological changes without questioning who profited from the appropriation and exploitation of resources during last centuries. A social justice approach to the current crisis wants to link the problem of climate change to its social causes and impacts, namely; how those who suffer the most from failing states or failing ecosystems are those who profit the less from the economic progress.

Europeans tend to ignore or oversee this point. This is strategically good because it avoids social unrest and allows a civilised response. However this is a problem when dealing with the rest of the world because they have a different take on it. For instance during the Copenhagen summit the developing countries insisted in having Europeans (and north-americans) pay the ecological debt.

In the US, a highly fragmented society in racial, social and economic terms, more and more green movements are linking the green revolution with social demands. After all it is low-wage workers who work in the most polluting industries or live next to a hazardous waste incinerator. Since they are the ones who suffer the most from the wealth that the upper-middle class American families accumulate, it should not surprise anyone that this kind of local movements are growing strong. The reason why it is highly interesting to listen to them is because of the take they have on the green economy i.e.: they promote the real green solutions and do not hesitate bashing the greenwashing from the industry and the political stablishment about using nuclear power or burning waste to fight climate change.

The green revolution has to be linked with a social agenda that allows to decarbonise the economy whilst creating sustainable jobs and social equality. A lots of red-neck Americans call them green-communists. I think that their demands, albeit sometimes too populist, make a lot more sense than the greenwashing with which the industry and in consequence the European and national governments bomb us with everyday. Even what is considered to be quality media promote this greenwashing.

Below a video from Van Jones, one of the leaders of this movement in Oakland, California, founder of “Green for all” and former responsible for Green Jobs for the Obama government –before being target of the neo-cons who ousted him from Washington-. A good example to understand what is going on outside the old continent.

 Posted by admin at 8:52  Tagged with: , , ,

The most sustainable shopping in my life

 Brussels, Environment, Sustainability  2 Responses »
Jan 252010
 
The most sustainable shopping of my life
I never thought I would be writing about such a “simple” thing as going shopping but the experience I had this last weekend really deserves it.
My experience these days is that eating sustainable food has become a fulltime job and it is not cheap. If you go to a local market in Brussels it is possible to buy seasonal products and if you try even harder you can even find out where the products come from (but you are quite likely to go back with a good amount of one-use packaging).
During this last weekend that I spent in Tuscany I went to the most sustainable shop I’ve ever seen. In the shop Effecorta 80% of the products come from 70km around the Capannori municipality (aiming to get to 95%), many of them biological. But this is just the top of the iceberg; the shop adheres to the principle of Zero Waste and it doesn’t use any plastic bag or any non-reusable package. This is not only true for the tomatoes but also for soap, milk products, cosmetic creams, beer, wines, beans, rice, spices, salt, sugar… you name it! Everything they sell is in refillable, re-usable or/and biodegradable packaging.
This system:
- allows every buyer to buy according to its needs which minimises the waste eventually produced by normal packaged stuff and responsible for lots of food to be wasted (8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year), http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/about_food_waste
- saves us from having to check the source and composition of the products because you know they are all local and in most of the cases biological (time saving),
- contributes to minimise the waste generation at home (no waste packaging and a lot less food wasted).
Believe it or not because of what I explain above you end up spending (and buying) less than in a normal supermarket, even if you buy bio!
This initiative was started by 6 idealists from Tuscany in August 2009 and it has already achieved economic stability and from all the products, the sales of the biological products are increasing by a 20%.
A lot of people questioned in the beginning the quality of natural biological refillable soaps and others. For this reason the entrepreneurs gave to normal people (not the already convinced greeny) different soaps to try and in the end the customers decided to stay with the locally produced biological soap with the refillable packaging for pure practical and quality reasons. The customers of the shop are all kinds of people; the main aim being that this shop should be a normal shop of the future and not something strange thought for already aware people. I could see with my eyes that they are succeeding.
Personally, from all the amazing products I tried it surprised me a fantastic local beer, a really authentic wine (without sulfites!) and above all the fact of being in a shop without marketing; a shop where you see, smell and touch what you buy and not end up deciding according to the nice face on the packaging or anything except what matters. This reduces the bill because you get less distracted and you buy only what you need. How twisted can this society be when I can be surprised of being able to see what I buy?
Anyway, back to my cloudy Brussels now I can’t stop from wishing to have one day one of these shops close to my place. I know that there are other sustainable options in Brussels such as:
- the consumers cooperatives that I highly appreciate and value
- and  http://www.reason2.be/ which offers online shopping of seasonal food and even meat with free delivery. It is not a shop as such but a delivery service of mostly organic and local products.
Unfortunately people with jobs like mine can’t use either of these two options because they require a commitment and regularity that I just can’t guarantee with a job that obliges me to travel constantly. Plus they only provide vegetables, fruits and a little more whilst Effecorta offers almost everything you need at home.
If the world is to be sustainable one day Effecorta is the shop of the future.
http://www.effecorta.it/

JM Simon

I never thought I would be writing about such a “simple” thing as going shopping but the experience I had this last weekend really deserves it.

My experience these days is that eating sustainable food has become a fulltime job and it is not cheap. If you go to a local market in Brussels it is possible to buy seasonal products and if you try even harder you can even find out where the products come from (but you are quite likely to go back with a good amount of plastic bags and other kinds of packaging).

During this last weekend that I spent in Tuscany I went to the most sustainable shop I’ve ever seen. In the shop Effecorta 80% of the products come from 70km around the Capannori municipality (aiming to get to 95%), many of them biological. fotos EffecortaBut this is just the top of the iceberg; the shop adheres to the principle of Zero Waste and it doesn’t use any plastic bag or any non-reusable package. This is not only true for the tomatoes but also for soap, milk products, cosmetic creams, beer, wines, beans, rice, spices, salt, sugar… you name it! Everything they sell is in refillable, re-usable or/and biodegradable packaging.

This system:

- allows every buyer to buy according to its needs which minimises the waste eventually produced by normal packaged stuff and responsible for lots of food to be wasted (8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year),

- saves us from having to check the source and composition of the products because you know they are all local and in most of the cases biological (time saving),

- contributes to minimise the waste generation at home (no waste packaging and a lot less food wasted).

Believe it or not because of what I explain above you end up spending (and buying) less than in a normal supermarket, even if you buy bio!

This initiative was started by 6 idealists from Tuscany in August 2009 and it has already achieved economic stability and from all the products, the sales of the biological products are increasing by a 20%.

A lot of people questioned in the beginning the quality of natural biological refillable soaps and others. For this reason the entrepreneurs gave to normal people (not the already convinced greeny) different soaps to try and in the end the customers decided to stay with the locally produced biological soap with the refillable packaging for pure practical and quality reasons. The customers of the shop are all kinds of people; the main aim being that this shop should be a normal shop of the future and not something strange thought for already aware people. I could see with my eyes that they are succeeding.

Personally, from all the amazing products I tried it surprised me a fantastic local beer, a really authentic wine (without sulfites!) and above all the fact of being in a shop without marketing; a shop where you see, smell and touch what you buy and not end up deciding according to the nice face on the packaging or anything except what matters. This reduces the bill because you get less distracted and you buy only what you need. How twisted can this society be when I can be surprised of being able to see what I buy?

Anyway, back to my cloudy Brussels now I can’t stop from wishing to have one day one of these shops close to my place. I know that there are other sustainable options in Brussels such as:

- the consumers cooperatives that I highly appreciate and value

- and reason2.be which offers online shopping of seasonal food and even meat with free delivery. It is not a shop as such but a delivery service of mostly organic and local products.

Unfortunately people with jobs like mine can’t use either of these two options because they require a commitment and regularity that I just can’t guarantee with a job that obliges me to travel constantly. Plus they only provide vegetables, fruits and a little more whilst Effecorta offers almost everything you need at home.

If the world is to be sustainable one day Effecorta is the shop of the future.

foto effecorta 2

 Posted by admin at 11:00  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
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