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How about carbon point regulation on durable goods?
Posted by ShoppingGolightly • 3/07/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: carbon points, green economy, shopping golightly, the thrifty chicks, thrift shopping
Stephen Lacey of Renewable Energy World took valuable time to converse with Shopping Golightly of The Thrifty Chicks during Lacey's weekly podcast, Inside Renewable Energy, the World’s #1 Renewable Energy Podcast. (Golightly comes in at about 11 minutes and 20 seconds into the podcast.)
More importantly Lacey spoke with Golightly about the energy savings in thrift shopping and the lack of US regulation on what defines a product as “Green,” similar to the situation in a few years back when faced with the need to formally define what is Organic.
We are honored Lacey picked up our message that thrift shopping has a significant energy savings and hope this is integrated into the national dialog on energy conservation. We also hope that there will be more education brought to light on how consumers can reduce their carbon footprints through daily shopping behavior.
In Golightly’s dream world, just as the FDA regulates food, there would be a carbon cost value assigned to durable goods to help consumers make educated choices. Given the knowledge and the choice, would you, as a consumer buy a pair of jeans that had a high carbon cost or a low carbon cost? We are purchasing products today without that knowledge. Isn’t this something consumers should know?
We need sum honest edge-yoo-muh-kay-shun! Cuz we sure ain't got none now!
User Comments
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Green washing is a major problem right now. With every manufacturing group jumping onto the Green bandwagon, we absolutely need more standards as to what is actually green versus the hype.
I am a LEED AP which means that I am accredited by the US Green Building Council as a Green professional. In architecture, interior design and construction, we run into companies that try to green wash their products all the time. Considering that the construction industry is the second largest consumer of virgin resources, getting truthful information about recycled resources has never been more important.
The same can be said about consumer goods. People need to know the difference between industrial recycling and post-consumer recycling. They also need to know that buying a Chinese made product means a cost in global shipping. -
I think it high time that the retail market get tapped to step up to the cause. They have been HUGE contributors to this mess mixing up our needs with Thneeds as done in The Lorax. And they have convinced us to spend so much money that we needed to turn to credit and now our credit is maxed out. This is my point that was published in the opinion section of The Christian Science Monitor "Green Shopping; Don't Say Ewww to Thrift Stores." This ran online on March 1st and in print on March 2nd.
The way I look at it, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss was designated as a book about ecology. But ever since it's publication we missed the economic view, DON'T let retailers TELL you what you what you NEED. And DON'T allow retailers to mix up their THNEEDS with your NEEDS.
Massive amounts of energy are wasted on the retail market. And no one is addressing this.
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