Unless you’ve been sleeping in a Styrofoam bed, you’ve no doubt noticed ecomania taking a global hold on everything from how we travel to how we dress, to how we wash our faces. With so much concern for our environment, as well as a desire to not be wasteful in these uncertain economic times, look for more brands to jump on the green bandwagon as consumers continue to challenge companies to not only provide goods and services, but also to do good while doing it.
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Archive for the ‘Rightsizing’ Category
Trend for 2012: Branded Ecomania
| Tags: Coca-Cola, Gillette, green, Hilton, mindful consumption, New Consumer, Nike, packaging, Pepsi, Sustainability, waste 
Post a Comment | in Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate/Brand Leadership, Eco-Consciousness, Marketing, New Consumer, Responsibility, Rightsizing, Sustainability, Travel, Uncategorized
WWF: Change the Way You Think
The World Wildlife Fund has put together a series of videos to get people thinking about personal and global consumption–and how to make it more sustainable. Here’s one about your morning latte. Did you know it took 200 liters of water to create it? Nope, we didn’t either…
You’ll find additional videos in the series here.
New Consumer Sighting: 999bottle
Ever wonder how much good you’re doing–and money you’re saving–with that reusable water bottle? Aftefact’s Fernd Van Engelen did, and he’s come up with the 999bottle–a concept bottle that lets the user keep track of how many times it’s refilled. An app interprets the number and presents it in a visual way (e.g., at 147 bottles, you’ve saved $326 and seven gallons of oil by replacing a stack of plastic bottles that would run 15 stories high). Social media is also integrated into the concept, with groups of friends able to visualize their collective contribution.
Read more about it on Artefact.
In the Spotlight: Jon Bon Jovi’s Soul Kitchen
Celebrities and charities have long been linked–but until fairly recently it was rare for a celebrity’s involvement to extend beyond writing checks and/or flashing those pearly whites for the camera at gala events. The new breed of celebrity activist is much more hands-on–witness Brad Pitt and his efforts with the Make It Right Foundation, dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, or Ed Norton and his work with Crowdrise.
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New Consumer Sighting: Conscious Rides
Euro RSCG Worldwide’s just released The Big Little Book of Nexts cites a number of companies taking a more responsible approach to transportation. Take a look:
Mobius One is a no-frills SUV designed for safe, affordable travel in Africa. It’s an attempt to mobilize a population that struggles daily to access distant supplies and services, including clean drinking water, healthcare facilities, and jobs.
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Make the Dangerous Choice to Dissent
Work harder, feel emptier, buy more, grow poorer…work harder. Sound familiar? That’s the conventional wisdom of the omnipresent church of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, now. The problem is that the conventional wisdom isn’t just wrong. If we want real human prosperity, the ability to live a live that not merely glitters, but that matters — well, then it was never right.
That’s the nightmare whirling noiselessly within the dilapidated American dream. And while the dream’s being furiously exported around the globe — and while the world might be seduced, despite lingering suspicion, by it — you and I know, by now, better: the paradigm that was supposed to lead us to the promised land has instead led us to this land of broken promises.
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Thrift Store 2.0: Just Give It All Away
A great post by Beth Buczynski on Shareable.net:
Most of us are familiar with how a store works: goods are offered at a pre-determined price. When a need arises, you cough up the money and take the item home. When it breaks or becomes obsolete you either toss it in the trash or donate it to your local thrift store.
Thrift stores resell these goods for a much lower price, but they still operate within the constructs of a financial system that alienates those who “have not.”
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9/17/11: Are You Taking the $5 Challenge?
Tomorrow, friends and neighbors all over the U.S. will be gathering together to take the $5 Challenge–an effort to get people to share what they do in their kitchens and with their families to cook fresh, healthy food on a budget. The aim is to find out what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change in order to make good food affordable and available for everyone.
One of the most important ingredients at these tables is the conversation that takes place. To get the conversation started, members of the Slow Food staff answered the question, “Why are you taking the $5 challenge?” Click below to watch the video.
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| Tags: $5 Challenge, slow food, Slow Food USA Post a Comment | in Collaboration, Community, New Consumer, Rightsizing, Uncategorized, Value
Can America Transition to a Plenitude Economy?
This fun animation provides a vision of what a post-hyperconsumption society could look like, with people working fewer hours and pursuing new skills, homesteading, and small-scale enterprises that can help reduce the overall size and impact of the consumer economy. Narrated by economist and best-selling author Juliet Schor (julietschor.org).
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Introducing the New Monastics
One of the most striking findings that came out of our New Consumer study is how many people were seeing an upside to the economic downturn. A majority of consumers surveyed around the world (and nearly two-thirds of leading-edge Prosumers) said the economic recession served to remind people of what is really important in life and that that’s a good thing. Around a third of Prosumers felt that the economic downturn would actually end up being a good thing for themselves and their families.
Now we see the emergence of a new group of people who are taking the lessons of mindful consumption and the move away from hyperaccumulation to heart–living in a way that emphasizes simplicity and values over trips to the mall. Writing in USA Today, Bob Smietana describes these “new monastics” thusly:
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