RELEASE OF UNEP'S NEW TV SPOT "Eco-Tips for Jeans"

Here is the video on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vYprgHH7Zrw 

Hello,

Forgive me for being a cynic about trying to change behaviour, but I believe that we send out a very powerful message with our pricing of things. When the price of washing in hot water, washing too often, using the dryer, etc. is high enough, people will change their behaviour. Until then, it's all just swimming against the current. If the environmental cost were included in the price of things by pricing the cost of energy, resources, habitat destruction, species extinction, etc. then we would make wise choices. Otherwise, our conscience says no. But the cheap price says yes. There is a famous survey that shows that people are willing to pay an additional 10% for goods and services that are environmentally friendly. The inverse of that, is that if something is more than 10% cheaper but environmentally unfriendly, people will continue to buy it. We need to put emphasis on sending consistent messaging through pricing. We need to put 'full cost accounting' into effect, and include the environmental (and social) costs of the formerly cheaper item in the price.

Norm Ruttan

iWasteNot Systems
1-800-630-7864
www.iwastenotsystems.com

Norm,

I especially like your comment on full cost accounting. Here's what I'm wanting and dreaming about. I see a day when we go shopping . . . and just like we look for food label/nutrition content today to help us choose between two different loaves of bread . . . we have a little footprint label on packages. Inside the graphic footprint, there is a number that tells us how many "carbons" were emitted to get it to us. We could start small with transportation carbons and eventually report on production carbons as well. I live in Washington State. I can picture the footprint on a banana might have a "10" versus a "1" for a Washington State apple.

Nancy Lee
www.socialmarketingservice.com

Hi Nancy,

I would go further than labels, to actually including the GHG costs in the price, in dollars and cents. This is what Carbon taxes will do when we implement them. So the situation would be that a Washington State apple grown locally and transported a short distance might be cheaper than a banana that came a long distance by ship. Costs of shipping by truck would rise dramatically, by rail would rise a bit, and by ship might be negligible. California wine shipped by truck to the east coast of the U.S. would be more expensive than French wine shipped by boat to the east coast. Roses grown in Kenya would become cheaper in Europe than roses grown in greenhouses in Holland. When the cost of GHG is reflected in the price, and reinforces the messaging, then people will begin to 'vote with their pocketbooks and purses'.

Norm Ruttan

iWasteNot Systems
www.iwastenotsystems.com
1-800-630-7864

Nancy

Here is your dream coming true! See http://www.walkerscarbonfootprint.co.uk/walkers_carbon_footprint.html for the carbon footprint of potato crisps (or chips to our American cousins) and there is a little footprint label on the packets. Not perfect but they are working at it. One thing they found was that of course some of the energy used was in drying the potato (who wants wet crisps/chips) and in going through the supply chain found that as the farmers were paid by weight they tended to increase the water content of the potatoes they grew. (And of course there is the transport energy cost of shipping the potatoes). The solution was to negotiate a different payment system for the growers which ensured them a fair price and delivered dryer potatoes to the fryers.

Frances Smith

Frances Smith
Principal Environment Officer
Environment & Sustainability Department
Directorate of Environmental Services
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Guildhall 2 High Street
Kingston upon Thames KT1 1EU
Tel: 020 8547 4758
Fax: 020 8547 5926

Fairtrade Fortnight - 25 February to 9 March Fairtrade has improved the lives of millions of people - farmers, workers, and their families - in developing countries. With over 2000 Fairtrade certified products available, it's easier than ever to include Fairtrade in your everyday shopping - When shopping think Fairtrade and help reduce poverty. Why not start during this year's Fairtrade Fortnight? To see what's happening around the borough www.kingstonfairtrade.org.uk. More information is available at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/fortnight.htm The Rose Theatre serves Fairtrade coffee.

Norm (and list),

I certainly agree that pricing goods/services according to their true cost would reduce use. But I cant get around one argument, and I hope youll offer your thoughts: how do we then justify what would essentially be taxing goods out of the hands of the poor? It seems to me that unless we simultaneously provide affordable alternatives AND education, we cannot justify true cost pricing. Such actions dont happen in a vacuum, and the de facto result of true cost pricing then becomes a class issue in which only the rich can afford to live according to certain standards. This is, of course, assuming that cheaper, lifestyle-friendly alternatives are not immediately available. Which in many, many cases they arent. So I guess my real question is, how on earth do we assure that all of these elements of behavior change true cost pricing/use tax, education, and affordable availability happen at the same time? Or is there an obvious piece Im missing?

Best,
Jess

Jess Sand
Principal
Roughstock Studios
PO Box 460010
San Francisco, CA 94146
http://www.roughstockstudios.com

Hi Jess

I think that the missing piece is not obvious, nor is it easy: we have to face what global warming actually means in our lives, the changes it will bring whether we want them or not, and what we have to do to change course, now. Until we activists get our arms around the seriousness and urgency of our frying planet (on less than 1C so far), and communicate it, the motivation to change will be the minimal steps we are currently witnessing with great frustration. Just as record gas prices have done little to alter U.S. driving habits so far, any meaningful action will be met by rage and disbelief until we develop a Manhattan project mindset. I suspect that action will include not only true-cost pricing, but also subsidies for those who need it, and rationing for everybody (not to mention a major birth control campaign).

Best,
Adam

All:

I've been tracking the CO2 equivalent labelling issue and from what I understand, Tesco (I believe third or fourth largest retailer in the world), which had big ambitions with the UK Carbon Trust of developing labels for products, is realizing how wildly complex trying to come up with a legitimate label really is, so they are now backing off. Wal-Mart in the US has worked with various suppliers to develop case studies about embedded GHG in vacuum cleaners, DVDs, milk, beer, soap and a few other essential products. They've found, for instance, that around 90% of the life cycle GHG of a bar of soap are at the consumer end, specifically the energy for the hot water used with that bar of soap. (Researchers at Vanderbilt University, by the way, note that 40% of all US GHG emissions are by consumers, making US consumers the third largest group of emitters after the entire US and all of China.) The only group I'm aware of working on labelling that includes the economic component of the equation is The Climate Conservancy, and even they are stuggling a bit to find the proper boundaries of what to measure http://www.climateconservancy.org/

Mark

My friend is developing that right now! Check out: www.carbonlabels.org They have already done the carbon label for Guayaki (the Yerba Mate company).

Cheers,
Miriam

Miriam Karell
Three Point Vision
[email protected]
415.318.9719
www.threepointvision.com
Research: http://www.partnerships4SSD.blogspot.com

In response to Jess Sands query: "I certainly agree that pricing goods/services according to their true cost would reduce use. But I can't get around one argument, and I hope you'll offer your thoughts: how do we then justify what would essentially be taxing goods out of the hands of the poor? " One method is with personal carbon credits. Each person is issued a card, much like a debit card, which would connect to their own personal carbon account. Every thing they purchase would deduct the appropriate amount from their account. With personal carbon credits the poor would benefit because they would be allocated the same share of their countries allocation as the rich. Because they live a much less carbon intensive lifestyle they would have a surplus to husband for better days or sell on as needed. A company with experience in setting up this sort of system, I believe centering around transport in London, was approached with a request about the complexity of this idea and how difficult it would be to set up. They responded with a quote and a time frame, essentially not difficult at all. Of course national allocations would have to be agreed upon first but there is a widely accepted framework already proposed as Contraction and Convergence for that see: http://www.gci.org.uk/

Cheers
Robb Worthington

[email protected]
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/

I think part of the issue with this type of labeling is getting some people to even understand what you're talking about when mentioning greenhouse gases (GHG - I had to look that acronym up b/c I wasn't familiar with it:o). We have individuals that would look at a bar of soap and see a bar of soap and not all that went into it and all that was/will be used to consume it. It's sad to say, but I think we have to "dumb it down" for more people to understand their impacts on our earth. Here in Colorado, we have a lot of people who are more conscious of the environment and their footprint in it. Nevertheless, even here we have some individuals that a.) Don't care about the beauty that surrounds them, b.) Don't understand the science behind it, or c.) Don't believe that they have an impact individually. Just my ten cents (inflation :o)

Sandy