What does it mean to be ‘green’?
Victoria Biggs of Langley, BC writes:
Is there criteria for “green”? What does it mean? Does it mean that an item is “sustainable” or biodegradeable or chemical free or local or what? I have a furniture consignment store and our mission is to provide high end furniture and household décor for people in keeping with a reusing, reselling, recycling or redoing mandate. However, I would like to really go “green” in that we carry “green” products.
I am developing a criteria that would pertain to our store, but am unable to source out really any kind of existing criteria to build upon. My vision is to only carry products that are: recycled, resold, redone, or made from recycled material, sustainable material, biodegradeable, natural and local products.
Any suggestions or resources that you are aware of that might be of assistance to me?
Asking questions is one of the most important thing we as consumers can do - where did this come from? why all this packaging? what are your company’s environmental policies? - even if what we are doing is buying is stock for our businesses. We have the power to invoke tremendous change with the choices we make as individuals every day.
We did a newsletter feature a few months back on how to spot the greenwashers: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/newsletters/Feb2008_business/page5.asp. Sharing information and experiences in forums such as this is a powerful tool. Readers, what do you look for when making purchases? What counts as ‘green’ to you?
July 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
“Readers, what do you look for when making purchases? What counts as ‘green’ to you?”
I’ve been searching for a place to add my two cents in these forums..
Green to me is this “new” line of cleaning supplies I recently found. It’s called BioSource and I found it at my local Homehardware store. I’m so excited about it because it’s made in Nova Scotia! The product is biodegradable, it works great(really it does), it’s concentrated(smaller packaging), it’s packed in recyclable bottles and it’s all Canadian(supporting local business, less transport.costs)!! I personally like the dishwashing liquid and the multi-purpose cleaner, they make me feel like I’m using a safer all the way around product even if it is store bought..
There’s lots of products out there now, and now we get to be picky about what really qualifies as GREEN! I can see companies that hear us consumers, listening and providing us with the kind of products we are asking for. I think this is great! It would be nice if we could post our own reviews on these kind of products for all to see.
January 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
gxeonms