Like steroid-pumping weightlifters at an academic dinner party, the traditional auto show muscle car stars are looking more than a little out of place. At least that’s the report from the 2009 Canadian International Auto Show. This is the kind of event where auto makers roll out their flashiest new ...
The ultimate recession-proof claim: “Our products actually won’t poison you!”
One by one, news stories are surfacing that are waking consumers up to the fragility of the globalized manufacturing chain. In China, melamine-tainted milk was responsible for six babies dying and some 300,000 cases of kidney infection. In Canada, the federal government recently placed on its list of toxic substances ...
Where does green turn in a downturn?
It seems like just yesterday we were ushering in a brave new era of environmental awareness and positive behavior change. New fair-trade organic free-range recyclable products were launching daily. Hybrid cars graced Hollywood’s red carpets. The US elected a President who can actually find Global Warming on a map. Then ...
Take your statistics out and shoot them.
We’ve all seen the stats. Millions of tonnes of CO2 here, billions of plastic bottles there. Pretty soon it’s all just a sea of number soup. Until you see the work of Seattle photographer Chris Jordan. The image above, for instance, looks like a forest of conduits or ductwork – ...
How green is your media?
You’ve printed your brochure on 100% post-consumer recycled stock. Your factory buys energy from a renewable supplier. Your fleet runs on biodiesel sourced from oil that was only used to fry organic, locally-grown potatoes. Now it’s time to do your media plan. This is no time to hang up your ...
Can we save recycling with marketing?
The global financial meltdown has hit the green movement hard, right here in our back yard. Everything that goes into your blue box for recycling is sold to mills, usually offshore, who process it and sell it to the factories that make the cheap consumer goods we love. This works ...
Sustainable Minds and the Green Mafia
I have to come clean, dear Green Briefs Readers. There is someone else – that I write for, that is. SustainableMinds.com is a Massachusetts company that integrates product design, life cycle assessment and environmental systems design into a web-based software and information suite that answers the questions: “What is sustainable ...
Remember: War is not green.
I was down at the Cenotaph today, at Victory Square in downtown Vancouver, explaining to the 8-year old on my shoulders why we were watching at a sea of umbrellas in the cold November rain. As my mind grappled with imagining the sheer horror of the individuals involved in the ...
How green will America’s first black President be?
Well it’s all over but the handoff. A planet collectively sighs with relief, and can now laugh a little less nervously at SNL’s Sarah Palin skits. But with the economy disassembling itself, the environment has not been the stuff of big speeches in this election. So how will Obama’s ‘Change’ ...
Green people need branding, too.
Green marketing isn’t just about products and services. People working to further the cause of sustainability become their own brands, and need to communicate their values, objectives and personality as effectively as any bricks and mortar company. Earlier this year, I was introduced to Adriane Carr, former leader of the ...