Curituba: Making DIfferent Urban Design Decisions

One of my favorite shows, Frontline, has an exceptional story on one of my favorite examples of sustainable urban planning, Curitiba, Brazil:

"Far from an idyllic utopia, Curitiba faces the same problems that metropolises around the world do, including overcrowding, poverty, pollution and limited public funding. What's different about Curitiba is that its planners have come up with some creative and inexpensive ways to go about solving universal problems for cities. They've invested in an extensive bus system that operates for less than a tenth of what a subway costs to operate; developed recycling programs that clean up the environment and also address poverty; attracted new industry while expanding green spaces; and used preserved historical areas to revitalize neighborhoods and grow tourism. Curitiba has a radical approach to city planning, unique not only within Brazil but also globally. I traveled to Curitiba to discover what other cities might learn from this model and to see whether this experiment in urban design will last." [Read the full story]

Public Policy Belongs to the Public

From Pro Bono Junkie's Blog:

"The rise in nonprofits should be a canary in the coal mine for society, telling us that we need to have the courage to demand better public policy to ensure the sustainability of our way of life.

Our local, state and federal governments are not effectively meeting the needs of society. Fortunately, we are a country of entrepreneurial and compassionate people who see the walls of the mine collapsing and are willing to throw themselves against the wall to prevent its fall." [Full post]

The Girl Effect

How to Create a DIY Art Gallery

The Budget Gallery is a "temporary art show in co-opted public spaces" that are curated, promoted and executed with the intention of making fine art accessible to the general public. Stay Free/Anti-Advertising Agency man Steve Lambert has now created a wiki for staging your own DIY Budget Gallery.

Now hop to it!

Carrotmob: Harnessing Consumer Power so Everybody Wins

What happens when hundreds of people agree to give a single business their business in exchange for an environmental commitment? Watch and find out:

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

This really is the perfect example of how the strength of individuals can benefit business and the environment. It bridges the typically hostile gap between activists and Big Corpo. It appeals to the everyday shopper. It has the potential to make real change. And they've even got a business plan (okay, not yet). If you're an angel investor looking for the next perfect project, this might be it.

Tell Your Neighbors About the Spray!

I'm going to ask that you indulge my "politics" as I get loud for a bit - I'm just really not okay with getting sprayed with chemicals!

So, for those of you who live in California and want to spread the word, please help yourself to this poster. Download a PDF of either version by clicking on the image. Then take it your local copy shop and start passing them out to friends, neighbors and especially local businesses.





The petition continues to grow, with over 22,000 people refusing to be sprayed. Let's keep it growing!

California Plans to Use Citizens as Guinea Pigs: Why Every U.S. Resident Should Care

Beginning this summer, airplanes will fly 500-800 feet over California, spraying hundreds of thousands of California residents with an untested pesticide called CheckMate. This will start one night in June, and will happen again three nights a month for nine whole months. None of us will know which nights our towns are being sprayed, and none of us will be able to stop it. Your children will wake up the following morning, head to the park, breathe in the air, play on the jungle gym, and you will have no idea if their little hands are coated in the CheckMate pesticide. You might even be walking home from the BART station one evening, and hear that low-flying plane hum over you as it drops its load.



This ain't no horror story - it's actually going to happen. The State's Department of Food and Agriculture is initiating the largest aerial pesticide spray in the history of the United States because it's afraid the light brown apple moth will take over our plants.

• Never mind that the evidence suggests that this moth has been with us for decades causing no harm whatsoever (and has, in fact, been controlled by natural predators).
• Never mind that scientists across the globe have dealt with this moth before, and advised California that widespread spraying will do no good.
• Never mind that the State's previous spraying last year resulted in well over 600 reported ill health effects.
• Never mind that a man named Stewart Resnick, an agribusiness man whose farming company happens to own the manufacturer of CheckMate (the pesticide to be sprayed on us) has made generous political contributions to our State's officials.
• And never, ever mind that 19,000 citizens and counting have said out loud that they do not want to be sprayed.
  

And why should anyone who lives outside of California care? One simple reason: we are the nation's guinea pigs. The USDA recently announced plans to survey all 50 U.S. states to see if the light brown apple moth can be found anywhere else. If they do, you can bet that state officials where you live will look to California as an example for how to deal with it. Even though California's approach won't work.

So what can we do? Do we sit back and inhale the fumes? Do we let agribusiness dump pesticides literally on our heads? Close our eyes and hope we don't get sick? This is not a joke, and this is not the State's choice to make for us.

Join the tens of thousands of other residents who refuse to be sprayed! You don't have to become an activist, and you don't have to give up your valuable time. Just pick and choose from the following easy steps, and make your voice heard.

1. Sign the petition to stop the spray.
2. Learn the facts about their plans.
3. Write an email to Gov. Schwarzenegger, who currently supports the spray.
4. Write an email to Sen. Migden, who's filed legislation to delay the spray.
5. Send an email to everyone you know telling them about the spray (or linking to this blog post).
6. Write a letter to your legislators voicing your opinion.
7. Attend the meetings on 4/15 and 4/16 to add your voice.
8. Flyer your block, neighborhood or town to inform your community.
9. Send out a MySpace, FaceBook or other social networking bulletin about this.
10. Blog about the spray, or simply link to this post.
    

Get loud. Get angry. This is your air, and your body. Don't let them f--- with it.

The Accidental Politics of Graphic Design

"'What does it mean,' he asked the other day, after sifting through his work, 'to live a meaningful life?'"

"...His portfolio would soon start filling up with routine projects: the cover of the department's phone directory, photo manipulations showing what freeways would look like with new carpool lanes. Then, in the 1980s, pedestrians started getting killed on California interstates with alarming regularity."

From "The Artist Behind the Iconic 'Running Immigrants' Image," LA Times.

Headline Hilarity, or Giving the Vag the Respect It Deserves

The SF Chron is often accused of being a rag, and headlines like this one don't help dispel such a reputation. The play on words shown below is, while hilarious, a little too much personal info for my taste. Nothing's funnier than a nice play on words, but please mind the images you conjure up!



I also feel the need to point out that such a headline seems to reinforce the lack of respect given this particular body part. The headline manages to completely ignore the actual point of the article: Eve Ensler's visit to the Bay Area in support of V-Day, a campaign to stop violence against women. The sad truth, too, is that a headline about an anti-violence campaign is likely to draw in far fewer readers than the cheap joke that ran.

Bill McKibben on Slowing Global Warming and Moving Toward a Sustainable Economy

Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and other books, and one of the earliest reporters on global warming, spoke about the movement to slow global warming the other night in an on-stage interview. I found it odd that the conversation wasn't more in-depth considering the audience (imagine a roomful of rich, white San Francisco liberals - kind of preaching to the choir, hmm?), there were a number of points worth mentioning. I'm just going to quicky sketch out some of these below.



The Challenge of Making the Complex Simple
One of the most difficult aspects of communicating about global warming - and sustainability in general - is that it's such a complex, intertwining subject. Everything feeds into everything else, is connected to everything else in more ways than one, impacts and is impacted by everything else. In a world increasingly desperate for easy answers - just push this button - we're faced with laying bare complex issues and attempting to navigate toward not-so-intuitive answers.

Add to that the fact that this isn't exactly a sexy issue and we're faced with quite the uphill battle. As McKibben said, it's a bit like "going to the doctor and being told you have high cholesterol and have to cut the fat out of your diet." No one wants to do it, and those who do are "rewarded" with not being sick. Logically that may be a big, juicy carrot but at the end of the day we're still stuck munching carrots instead of french fries.

The Challenge of a Brand New Movement
The environmental movement has experienced a lot of changes over the decades, and now that the science is finally in (yes, it is), it's been somewhat vindicated. But this shift means that the movement now needs to go beyond merely proving that global warming exists and, instead, tackle the solution. The solution, of course, is massive economic change. I say "of course" as though this is obvious, and it is to those who have done any deeper reading on the subject outside of, say, USA Today. But McKibben points out that the environmental movement, while solid at education etc., isn't necessarily well-equipped to deal with changing the world's economic system.



It seems to me that the movement itself is a little too insular for that. Once derided for its moral overtones and scolding approach, I'm not sure it's really capable of stepping outside that sense of morality. Changing the global economic structure - regulation of the corporate world, public investment in R&D, global manufacturing and transport, you name it - requires the buy-in of so many differing entities that using a moral imperative to drive this change would seem implausible. But maybe that's exactly what we need - a global recognition, from inside the economic paradigm, that our current global economy is simply not meeting the social responsibilities long promised by unchecked markets.

And what of those markets? When McKibben was asked, "How do you minimize growth [McKibben's approach to stopping global warming] without replacing capitalism?" he replied by stressing the need for more focus on local economies. The idea is that a network of strong local economies provides a safety net of sorts for a stronger global economy. "How can I make it bigger?" is the wrong question, says McKibben. We're craving that smaller, local, community connection that the bulk of us [city-dwellers] have essentially missed out on as urbanization and technology has run rampant. But I'm getting on a tangent.

The Challenge of India and China
Although the U.S. is the primary global consumer, this may well change sooner than we realize (or will be ready for). Developing countries have, for the first time in perhaps the world's history, huge leverage in the growth of their own economies. To power the vast populations of China and India, cheap energy is needed. Right now, cheap energy means coal, which is simply too dirty. If these countries rely on coal - as they are currently doing - we'll be powerless to stop global warming. McKibben points to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in 2009 as an key potential turning point. He's of the mind that the only way to succeed in combating global warming is to convince China and India to abandon coal. Good luck with that.

Marking Collective Success
In spite of all the challenges that lie ahead of us, McKibben was careful to point out that as a society, we are actually making great strides towards effective change. He cited not just the mainstream adoption of the subject, but also the increasing number of creative solutions that are cropping up both locally and abroad. In an effort to harness this momentum and maximize it, he's started 350.org,* which asks you and I to put our heads together to come up with new solutions. As he writes on the organization's website:

"What we need most right now are your ideas for how to take the number 350 and drive it home: in art, in music, in political demonstrations, in any other way you can imagine. We will connect actions all around the world and make them add up to more than the sum of their parts–but we don’t have all the ideas and all the inspiration. We need yours."

And that really is what it all boils down to: each and every one of us needs to make a simple decision. Will I work towards change, or will I continue with more of the same? No need to read more into it than that—as a single human being, you don't have to solve the world's problems nor remove yourself from the life you love. But as a group of individuals working towards change, the momentum becomes unstoppable.


*350 parts per million is the maximum safe level of carbon dioxide we can have in the atmosphere. It's McKibben's benchmark for a halt to global warming.

Pro Bono Possibilities

Can you imagine giving away 50% of your products for free? Even though Roughstock donates both cash and services to qualified organizations at the rate of about 10% of our billed revenue, apparently we pale in comparison to design kings Pentagram. According to The Taproot Foundation's recent newsletter, Pentagram "reports that 50% of their clients are nonprofits who they serve pro bono." That's half their client base!

Of course, they have the heavy-duty resources to dedicate to such projects. You can also look at it as an investment in public relations and branding. Nevertheless, that's a huge commitment that speaks volumes about the company.

San Francisco Green Business Resources

When I decided to get certified by the city of San Francisco as a Green Business, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would I have to invest in expensive changes, or sacrifice business productivity for the sake of environmental savings? It turns out that the process was fairly straightforward and the required changes and commitments were easy to implement. Not only that, but the program's coordinators were always ready with resources and ideas.

If you're a San Francisco business owner who's interested in making operational improvements to reduce your environmental impact, you're in luck. The city has some fantastic programs and resources to guide you through the process. The list that follows is segregated into appropriate categories to help you find what you need, fast.


Certification Programs

San Francisco Green Business Program
Aimed at helping companies further their commitment to the environment, this multi-agency program certifies businesses and provides help along the way.

Grants, Loans and Tax Credits

San Francisco Mini-Grants
SF Department of the Environment gives away free money for environmental business projects (quick turnaround grants from $1,000 to $10,000) on a first-come-first-served basis.

San Francisco City Grant Programs
While not environment-specific, San Francisco offers plenty of free money for businesses looking to expand operations, implement new programs, or simply grow.

San Francisco City Loan Programs
While not free money, loans can help get your business where it needs to go.

San Francisco Enterprise Zone Tax Credit
This program offers tax breaks to employers operating within designated Enterprise Zones, and/or hiring from Enterprise Zones.

Participatory Programs

SF Approved Green Purchasing Program
An extensive collection of resources for implementing your own sustainable purchasing policy (you might also want to read my article, "How to Find Green Vendors")

San Francisco Commuter Checks
Looking for a way to provide additional benefits to keep your employees happy while serving the environment? These tax-free public transportation vouchers help encourage employees to reduce car use.

Sunset Scavenger Business Recycling and Composting
It's free to recycle and compost your waste in SF! This site provides all the info you need to start reducing your landfill waste. Your compost even helps grow local wine! This program is especially great for restaurants that produce high levels of food waste.

Neighborhood Revitalization Programs
San Francisco operates revitalization programs in many neighborhoods, working with local businesses to provide opportunities, business support and funding.

Tips, Guidelines, and Additional Resources

SFPUC's Environmental Resource Guides for Businesses
A collection of prevention tips and guidelines for various industries.

Small Business, Green Business
The SF Small Business Commission's list of green business resources and a few additional programs.

The above links should give you plenty of food for thought. As you can see there are tons of resources at your disposal, and most are easy to act on. I hope you'll join me and the hundreds of other local businesses who've decided to incorporate sustainability into our bottom line! And in the interest of pooling our collective intelligence, I'd love to hear your own success stories, challenges, or other resources you've found helpful.

Sustainability Is Like Teenage Sex

From Joel Makower's opening comments at Compostmodern, as reported by GDUSA:

"Sustainability is like teenage sex. Everybody says they're doing it but no one really is. And those who are doing it aren't doing it very well."

Drunk Driving Campaign

Nice environmental installation from Jupiter Drawing Room for Arrive Alive South Africa. These appeared in nightclub restroom stalls:



[Via Osocio]

How Word Choice Influences Behavior: The Hotel Towel Example

If you ever need to influence people's behavior, you might consider Dr. Robert Cialdini's approach. Cialdini has conducted numerous studies exploring how different types of messaging impacts the public's actual behavior. One such study focuses on those cards in your hotel bathrrom urgng you to reuse your towels. As it turns out, how those cards are worded makes a big difference in whether or not guests pay attention:

"In this series of experiments, Dr. Cialdini and his colleagues created four cards asking guests to reuse their towels. Three cards contained a pro-environment message, while the fourth informed guests that the majority of hotel guests reuse towels when asked. In rooms with the fourth card, towels were reused 34 percent more frequently." [from the Inside Influence Report [note: link broken, try the home page, emphasis added]

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this research:

1. Word choice matters...a lot;
2. People are more likely to act (or not act) based on what they think others are doing (or not doing);
3. It is possible to realize dramatic behavior change with very low investment.
   

So the next time you're trying to get someone to do something, think carefully about how you deliver your message.

Great Resource! Information Design for Advocates and Activists

If you think charts and graphs are sexy like I do, download this booklet immediately. And if you think charts and graphs are evil necessities that you must use in the execution of your social justice campaign, public messaging plan, marketing strategy or whatever you need to call it, download this booklet immediately.


Click above image to download the PDF booklet.

"Visualizing Information: An Introduction to Information Design is a booklet...designed to introduce advocacy organizations to basic principles and techniques of information design. It’s full of examples of interesting design from groups around the world in a variety of media and forms. It has tips, excercises, and even recommended Free Software packages to help polish up your graphics."

For only 25 free pages of text and graphics, this little publication packs a wallop. It's good to see something along the lines of Edward Tufte become a bit more approachable and digestible. Big ups to John Emerson and his contributors for sharing their skills.

Social Justice is a Numbers Game

If it weren't for teachers, this country would be seriously screwed.

"Radical Math Teachers are educators who work to integrate issues of economic and social justice into our math classes, and we seek to inspire and support other educators to do the same.

We believe that math literacy is a civil right, and that our nation's failure to provide students, especially low-income youth of color, with a high-quality math education, is a terrible injustice...

We encourage our students to ask the question: 'What are the problems that my community is facing, and how can I use math to understand and help solve them?'"

[via Social Design Notes]

iPod Ransom Note Proves There Are Chinks in the Armor

Think Apple controls the world? You might have reason to believe so, given the ubiquity of the iPod and those little white earbuds. But you'd be wrong.

A little girl who recently received an iPod purchased at a local Wal*Mart got a ransom note, instead:

"Reclaim your mind from the media's shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage, go to your nearest Apple store."

This little act of rebellion seems to be taking shopdropping (a.k.a. droplifting) to a new level. Whereas shopdropping involves sneaking customized "merchandise" (usually, some form of art) onto store shelves to make a statement about consumerism and value, this incident actually replaces an item outright (otherwise known as theft).

So, just what is the value of awakening one's loving-kindness (along with the ransom note was Pema Chodron's Awakening Loving-Kindness, a Buddhist self-help book)? Is it worth exchanging for an iPod? Is there a lesson to be learned here other than "it's bad to make someone buy a philosophical text when they thought they were buying electronics"?

Of course there is: the supply chain cannot be trusted. Someone, somewhere, switched out the iPod with a diatribe against capitalism; so what did they do with the iPod?

[news story via Boing Boing]

Does the Media Elect Our Leaders, Or Do We?

Who determines whether a presidential candidate is electable or not? According to a short but bittersweet article from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), the answer turns out to be the media outlets that cover the campaigns. FAIR uses USA Today as an example, citing a recent article in which John Edwards apparently does not exist in the presidential campaigns. The problem, FAIR argues, is that Edwards is the only Democratic candidate who consistently holds his own against the two supposed front-runners, Clinton and Obama:

"Missing from USA Today's polling about electability was John Edwards--even though aside from Clinton and Obama, Edwards is the only Democratic candidate who consistently polls in double digits. And when other polls have included Edwards in questions about electability, Edwards generally does better than the other two, sometimes by wide margins. In a CNN survey of December 6–9, Edwards beat Romney by 11 points more than Clinton and 9 points more than Obama. He beat Huckabee by 15 points more than Clinton and 10 points more than Obama. Clinton lost to McCain in this polling by 2 points while Obama and McCain were tied, but Edwards beat him by 6. There's not as much of a difference with Giuliani, but Edwards still did 3 points better than Clinton and 2 points better than Obama."

Whatever your political leanings, it should frighten and disturb you that your choices are being narrowed before you even know about them. Edwards is a viable Democratic candidate (to my mind, he happens to be the only one who doesn't sound like he's constantly blowing smoke up America's collective ass), but you'd never know it to watch the news or read a major metropolitan newspaper.

Sad, that. America deserves better; we should demand better.

Donating to charity? Make sure they're legit...

If you're considering donating to charity—whether anonymously, in your own name, or as a gift in another's name—you may want to make sure they're legitimate first.

The American Institute of Philanthropy's Charity Watch rates hundreds of charities, so give them a visit before donating to make sure your money is going where it's supposed to.

Orwell and Fascism Come to America

At the risk of sounding like a screaming conspiracy theorist...

Held at the New York Public Library, Here We Go Again: Orwell Comes to America was a recent conference focusing on propaganda in today's America—right here, right now—and how it hogties our public freedoms.

I tried to view the webcasts, in which some great academic minds debate what might be the most important issues of our contemporary society, but I couldn't get the video to work properly (I'm on a Mac, and I believe they use Windows Media Player or whatnot). Maybe you'll have better luck.

Another riveting lecture (no, seriously), is Naomi Wolf's discussion of American fascism and our current administration's echoes of previous dictatorships. It's quite well-reasoned and frighteningly enlightening. Instead of watching the latest episode of Lost or 24, watch this:

Are Cries Over "Eco-Fatigue" a Big Yawn?

Ahem. I just received the following email from the company that inspired my post below:

"We hope you enjoyed the very special trend briefing we sent you yesterday. If you didn't, then please pour yourself a strong cup of coffee and take another close look. It's a SPOOF. Fake. Not to be taken at face value. Even most of the sites we referred to are, well, ours—and entirely fictitious.

We thought it would be fun, just for once, to mock overzealous marketers, crass consumerism and—above all—ourselves. :-) So please don't ditch your pet, stay in ugly hotels, pollute the earth, paint your walls turquoise or start marketing to unborn babies, OK?..."

So, take my criticism of the trendwatching.com report referenced below with a large grain of salt. Dammit.



Sustainable innovation is really rolling now, and the naysayers are already crying foul. A particularly short-sighted trendwatching.com report describes consumers' growing impatience with green marketing as a cry for "authenticity."



Trend watchers, style dictators and pop culture aficionados all insist that sustainability is nothing more than a passing fad, and as such can and should be summarily dismissed. By falling into the sustainability trap, these critics complain, companies "bend over and take the fun out of robust, honest products."

This is where trendwatching.com (and the consumers they supposedly mirror), show a remarkable and unforgivable short-sightedness. Who says that sustainable products can't be "robust" and "honest," and hell, even sexy? Since when did "robust" and "honest" come to mean destructive? When companies charge a lot of money for their "insights" into consumerism, it behooves them to dig a little deeper and ask the less obvious questions.

What the trendwatching.com report fails to really identify is the underlying cause of "eco-fatigue." Consumers aren't sick of having eco-options at all; in fact, every day they're buying more "green" products and asking (no, demanding) more from their vendors. What consumers are fed up with is disingenuous marketing tactics that attempt to paint every new product and service with a greener paintbrush. They're also sick of being treated as though being informed is somehow a bad thing (which is itself a side-effect of the Bush Administration's insistence that we all just sit down and shut up).

One of the most telling lines in the report describes the eco-fatigued as being "treated like unruly infants by Al Gore and his ilk." The irony of such a knee-jerk, inaccurate depiction of this market segment just highlights the laziness of the writers/researchers. Have they really been listening to what Gore and "his ilk" are actually saying? I think, rather, they've been putting their hands over their ears, squinching their eyes real tight, and singing "Mary had a little lamb" so as not to actually have to listen to a viewpoint that might make them really think. People, it's okay to think.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with wanting to buy stuff, or have fun. Sure, there are pious, preaching "greenies" trying to shake their finger at the big, wasting consumerists. But who really gives a shit? The idea is to build consumer interest so that business must take notice. Because business and government (which are pretty much the same thing in this country), will never act in the best interest of the people unless the people demand it.

And so we talk to the people. Gore tries to light a fire, to educate. The beauty of our freedom here is that we're constitutionally granted the right to pursue happiness. But that doesn't mean we're granted the right to ignore the consequences. Because we can play head-in-the-sand all we want, but mother nature's going to catch up with us eventually.

If the eco-fatigued, those in favor of bald-faced consumerism, really want to keep consuming without thought, than more power to them. But those folks better remember that if we want to consume without limits, we all need to find a way to keep us in the stuff. Because stuff will run out, unless we start making sustainable stuff. So shut up already about green products being somehow less fun. 'Cause it ain't gonna be too much fun when your favorite nightclub starts charging $24 for a beer because the brewery is facing a shortage of hops and water.

After all, I want my beer to be cheap and delicious as much as the next girl. And if sustainability is the only way to ensure that it stays that way, quit yer whining and get sustainable. Let's try to have our beer and drink it, too.


Further Reading:
Fads, Frames and the Environment
Businesses Prep for Green Fad to Fade

Unmarketable: Read This Interview

From Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity:

"...those of us that actually are dedicated to ethical, sustainable, and autonomous cultural production—is really tiny, and kinda lonely, and we’re rapidly running out of beer. And all we can do when we run into each other is sigh deeply."

Read the whole interview with her on Murketing; it's worth it.

Sustainability vs. Luxury: Are They Really At Odds?

Whatever you personal feelings about Al Gore, he must be doing something right (you don’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, after all, for failing miserably). Thanks in no small part to Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, the American public’s awareness of environmental concerns has grown considerably in recent years. This increased awareness brings with it a fascinating process of learning, questioning, justifying, arguing and, sometimes, changing. Since our industrial revolution, America has been a society of consumers, embracing values of luxury and carefree (careless?) spending. With the advent of the climate crisis, this consumerism is being challenged. But is luxury truly anathema to sustainability? Must we really choose between consumption and abstinence?

Ask the average citizen what it takes to be sustainable, or green, and you’ll likely hear something along the lines of, “Give up the fun stuff.” This model is perpetuated by the environmental movement itself, whose primary motto is “reduce, reuse, recycle,” implying we must reduce our indulgences before anything can be done to save us. Charlotte McGuinn Freeman, of the Living Small blog recently summed up this pervasive attitude rather bluntly in a recent entry for The Ethicurian: “I hate to be the one to point it out, but luxury and sustainability are contradictory values.” Clearly, this belief runs deep, regardless of which side of the fence you shop on.

Is it true, though?

Is it possible to live in extravagance without damaging the environment? Is it possible to thoughtlessly consume without essentially shitting your waste all over the place? Right now, the answer is no. Thanks to an unchecked economic system that has never once factored environmental resources into the cost of doing business, we now have a world of goods made from toxins, that produce toxins, and end up as toxins in landfill.

Just imagine if companies— the building blocks of our current economy—assigned a real dollar value to the cost of natural resources. I’m not even talking about the expense of strip mining, for example, with all its OSHA regulations and heavy machinery. I’m talking about costs like the lost productivity of worker-drones who don’t have access to sunlight and fresh air, or the long-term cost of depleting oil reserves without a sufficient energy source to replace them. These are real costs to businesses of all sizes, but when was the last time you took a hard look at the “waste disposal” line item on your P&L?

The truth is that the products we make and sell and buy are damaging us even as they make our lives easier in the short term. Pesticides that help us produce more food faster actually leach into water sources, for example, then leach into the fish swimming in those water sources, then leach into those of us who eat that fish. Or, on a simpler level, take your latest purchase at OfficeMax: how much of what you just paid for is actually for plastic packaging that you sent to a landfill as soon as it passed through your business’ doors?

It’s not doomsday yet, though.

As I write this, R&D departments throughout the world are racing to find new, better alternatives. At one time, recycled paper was a crappy alternative to virgin pulp paper but thanks to technological development, we now have gorgeous, affordable recycled paper options at our disposal. The Prius is another, if imperfect, example. A process once hidden from the public’s gaze is now snowballing into the limelight. Companies are recognizing that the up-front R&D costs generally pale in comparison to the ROI to be seen down the road. And we small businesses get to piggyback on their innovation.

What they’re working on is really incredible, and incredibly sexy. Cars that run on air (they exist!); treatment plants that clean wastewater using the gas from their own processes (okay, that last one's not so sexy, but it's really cool). These advances have already been made, and now it’s a matter of applying our technological capabilities to their mass production so they become the norm and not the exception. Quickly. And that happens through publicity (cue Al Gore) and the build-up of demand.

It’s a beautiful cycle, isn’t it? And it’s why I believe that luxury and sustainability are not contradictory values in and of themselves. With our current production framework, no, of course they can’t coexist. But our current framework is changing. If regenerative products become the norm—products that add to the health of our environment rather than detract from it—it could conceivably mean that carefree consumption can actually be an environmentally friendly action.

One has to happen first for the other to be true, of course. But the change is happening. So as we continue to demand that the end-user change their habits, we need to also demand—even more strenuously—that the producers change theirs.

Free Recycled Packaging Rubber Stamp Art (Updated)

If you're a retailer who ships your products in reused or recycled packaging, then this one's for you. A fellow member of the Co-op America Business Network recently asked about rubber stamp art that they could use to inform their customers about their packaging materials.

I whipped up this template you can use to get your own custom rubber stamp made for this purpose.

The following artwork should be acceptable for most stamp makers (the line widths in this image should meet minimum requirements of 2 mm), but if your stamp maker feels the line thickness is not big enough, contact me and I'll see what I can do. Also, note which file format your printer requires and select the appropriate one (if neither will work for you, again let me know and I'll see what I can do).

Instructions for 300 dpi jpeg:
1. Click on the image below (it'll open in a new window).
2. Right-click (PC) or control-click (Mac) on the larger image and choose "Save Image As."
3. Send image to your local rubber stamp maker via ftp or email.
4. Stamp away!


Instructions for 600 dpi tiff:
1. Click on the image below (it should start downloading to your default downloads folder immediately).
2. Send image to your local rubber stamp maker via ftp or email.
3. Stamp away!


If you do end up using this to create a stamp, please consider emailing me a photo of the finished stamp in action!

Fine Print
© 2007 Roughstock Studios. You may not alter or sell this artwork, nor anything made using this artwork, without express permission and compensation. Artwork may be distributed free of charge but must include this "Fine Print" section, and must include a link to www.roughstockstudios.com. I and Roughstock Studios cannot accept responsibility for any printing/production issues that may arise from the use of this artwork.

Lights Out!

Tomorrow evening is Lights Out San Francisco, a group effort to reduce energy consumption by turning your lights off for one hour. The organizers expect to save about 15% of the energy typically consumed on a San Francisco Saturday night.



If I was still bartending, I'd be hosting a Lights Out Party for this thing. Imagine a roomful of revelers, a crapload of candles, and no lights! Sounds pretty sexy to me. Then again, you don't need a party to light a few candles and enjoy the non-electrified mood lighting...

All ya gotta do is turn off your non-essential lights on Saturday, October 20 (tomorrow!), from 8:00-9:00 pm. You can also sign the pledge if you're feeling really proactive.

PARK(ing) Day 2007 Is Tomorrow!

Grab some sod, a tree or two, and a bench and start feeding the meter.