We’re All Hypocrites.

When I first heard about the Net Impact conference one of the reasons I questioned going was the sheer hypocrisy of flying across the continent to get there. I ultimately decided to go because I thought perhaps what I learn and what I share could potentially do more good than the bad I created by getting there. I donated my aeroplan miles to a charity, offset my emissions and there I was, at a conference full of hypocrites like me. Before beginning to understand if I was actually justified I’d like to parallel this with two major themes I encountered at the conference: trade-offs and measurement.
Companies make trade-offs all the time in order to act in accordance to their values. If product freshness is of utmost importance they could end up throwing out a large amount of their raw materials that don’t measure up. Consumers do the same thing, if it’s worth it to you to buy the more sustainable product to pay more that’s a trade-off you’re willing to make. The tough part is figuring out what exactly those trade-offs are. If I buy a vegetable because it’s local doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the more sustainable choice. You have to take more than transportation emissions into account such as efficient land use and harvesting techniques. Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm, explained that importing fruit from New Zealand in one case was actually more sustainable than growing it locally. Actually measuring these things is incredibly complicated and many judgement calls and hypotheticals must be considered along the way. Tom Todaro, CEO & Co-Founder, Targeted Growth an alternative fuel maker talked about how in investigating how his product would compare to crude oil there was a 500 page document that not even he could begin to understand.
Right now most consumers make sustainable choices when it comes to some food, transportation, energy usage and general packaging waste. We think that we’re doing good by riding our bikes and buying local fruit and vegetables but we don’t consider the impact of the shirt we’re wearing or the cellphone we use. It would be much easier to make these decisions if there were clear measurements to all products we consumed so we understood what the trade-offs were. Until that happens I would urge you to continue to question how sustainable the choices you make really are because it’s not as simple as it looks. Did my learning and sharing sustainable ideas, charity donation and carbon offsets really balance out the negative emissions it took to fly me to Michigan and back? I don’t know. But I suppose questioning it is a good first step.