Month: February 2017

Most products and services that we consumers choose to purchase, come with some sort of appealing generic green label such as “organic”, “biodegradable” and “no added fats”, that allow the consumer to take no time at all to evaluate the purchase. Up to now this has been a something, looked at skeptically by skeptics and optimistically by optimists, but what about Eco-tourism? Is Eco-tourism also just a generic green label put on a service to make the decision to choose that service just one bit easier for the consumer?

Eco-tourism is roughly defined as the responsible travel to natural areas, that conserves the environment, sustains the livelihoods of local people and promotes interpretation and education of one’s surroundings. Essentially, Eco-tourism is suppose to be something that benefits all and has no negative effect on anyone or anything. When looking at the bigger picture however, many more unsustainable factors tie into the ecotourism process on a whole.

How do tourists reach the natural area with conserving the environment? Unless the area is in your back yard, you would have to drive, bus or fly to that place, which certainly doesn’t play off well on the environment.

How many tourists ACTUALLY go about every decision in order to follow the best behaviour and practice to conserve nature? climbing on tree’s, rock’s, breaking plants and littering are all unconscious but often occurring problems in Eco-tourism. No one can monitor who is playing by the rules, and and everyone believes they are.

Eco-tourism may not be inherently bad, but the more people decide that the environmentally conscious lifestyle is one they want to live, the more they become dependent on it. The more consumers want something, the more it gets used to the extent of no return.

When does the benefit of education outweigh the impacts that it has on the things we are educating about? In a way, Zoos, Aquariums and Botanical Gardens, promote the ideas of Eco-tourism but in an enclosed and monitored manner. What if our wildlife and natural areas that are so intriguing to Eco-tourists, soon become enclosed and controlled and monitored due to excessive consumer desire and difficulties in regulation.

Eco-tourism has good intentions, but ultimately there will always be a line that is crossed that takes away the labels credibility.

 

Fashion is a huge part of our society. Every person wears clothes, some spend thousands on a single garment, and some find their career paths in the ever changing trends. Something that I didn’t know until recently, is that most clothing isn’t recyclable. This took me by surprise, as wool and cotton is from natural sources. However, before being fully manufactured and put into consumers closets, producers weave nylon or polyester fibres into the clothes to make them more dense, stretchy and cheaper. The issue with this is, that once these materials are combined, they are no longer recyclable.

We are currently living in the era of Fast Fashion, where trends go in and out faster than most people even realize. With that, clothes become outdated faster and consumers have a ridiculously fast clothing turnover.

We’ve spoken about Patagonia almost regularly when thinking about fashion and the environment, but there are many more companies that have been endeavouring into the sustainable fashion industry. Patagonia obviously surrounds itself with using the most ethical materials and advertising that consumers should only purchase what they need, not what they want. But what about other companies? What do they promote?

Reformation is a clothing brand from the USA, that put sustainability at the top of their priority list. Their clothes are delicate, feminine and recycled. They provide customers with free shipping labels and boxes to send their used clothes to Reformation for recycling purposes. An average of 30 kilograms of clothing is discarded per person per year in the US, making this recycling program so much more viable. Additionally, the brand sources it’s fabrics locally when possible, or follows the highest environmental and ethical standard when sourcing from suppliers. The company is a certified B Corp, allowing them to combine the power of their business with sustainable practices. 100% of their electricity is generated through wind power, and their light comes from Energy-Star rated LED lighting. On a regular basis, Reformation invests profits back into the environment, by offsetting the water and waste created from the clothing manufacturing, and reinvests in clean water projects or tree planting.

What I wanted to share, is that there are many more companies that endeavour in sustainable practices. Some companies, such as adidas are now starting to incorporate waste management and fabric recycling into some segments of their business. Reformation however, has sustainability right at the heart of their business. Join the Reformation.

https://www.thereformation.com/

 

 

Carbon Engineering is a new start-up from Calgary, with a Pilot Plant located right next to us, in Squamish. The reason this company caught my eye was through its significant funding from Bill Gates, as well as the general business they are attempting to normalize and develop into consumers lives. What Carbon Engineering does, is take the Carbon from the atmosphere and create a synthetic fuel from it.

The mechanism works similar to wet scrubbers, which use a sticking solution and large fans, to push the carbon dioxide contaminated air through the device and allow the carbon to stick to the solution which is then later cleaned and separated while the carbon is remanufactured into synthetic fuel carbon pellets.

The thing that caught my attention the most about this company, is that they have absolutely no restriction to where the scrubbing facilities can be located to be fully efficient. These machine farms can be placed on completely unfruitful land with no other uses. This allows the company to maximize space and not harm the environment in setting up facilities.

With brand new start ups, especially in the technology and clean energy sector there is always some sort of problem. For Carbon Engineering I would say that the biggest problem they face, is the issue of demand. As aforementioned, they have started making synthetic fuel, which simply uses the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere and remanufactures it into carbon fuel. This project is not about extracting the carbon necessarily, but to make use of the carbon that is already present, and diminish the amount added on a daily basis. There is currently no demand for this type of fuel, as to accommodate it, people would need to make drastic lifestyle and purchasing changes. Car manufacturers would need to change their technologies, people would have to go elsewhere to buy fuel and Carbon Engineering in general would need greater funding and promise to expand to a level where consumers and businesses deem it worthwhile.

Availability and accessibility are always key components to the shift in consumer behaviour, which is something that Carbon Engineering has potential to adopt. I am looking forward to see more of what this company and other companies come up with in the future of clean energy solutions.

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