Monthly Archives: April 2014

When I think about sustainability, I instantly think of LUSH. LUSH sells bath and body products that are handmade with fresh ingredients. They source ethically and only from suppliers that do not test on animals. What I like about the organisation, and what I think makes them so successful, is that they are green at their core. When LUSH Director of Brand Communications Brandi Hall spoke at Chasing Sustainability in 2013, she mentioned that the company does not have a sustainability department because the whole organisation is sustainable. Their whole business model of fresh, handmade cosmetics automatically requires them to be green.

I feel like LUSH has taken the “good first, green second” concept to another level. I would argue that their products work so well because they are green, ie. made with fresh, natural ingredients. It’s refreshing to be able to pronounce everything on the ingredients label, especially for body and cosmetic products. In this way, LUSH is transparent about the ingredients they use. In fact, in some of their products, you can actually see slices of orange or kiwi seeds in their soaps. To me, this increases their credibility significantly. Consumers know exactly what is going into LUSH products. Apps like Good Guide and Think Dirty are helpful resources for determining which products are “clean”, but consumers are still relying on the apps to tell them which ingredients are safe and which ones are harmful.

I think this highlights LUSH’s success as an organisation. By being transparent and thus, credible, they can focus on promoting how well their products work rather than how green they are. This is a perfect example of “sustainability marketing” that is, simply, “marketing”.

The Sustainable Destinations Alliance for the Americas (SDAA) recently launched to support Caribbean and Latin America cities in their sustainability efforts. The SDAA is made up of the Organisation of American States Caribbean Tourism Organisation, NGO Sustainable Travel International, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and the US government. The SDAA is currently offering support to 7 cities in the region but hopes to expand to 30 destinations in the next few years. Working together with the alliance, these cities will hopefully be better equipped to evaluate, prioritise, and implement sustainability practices.

I think in general, alliances and partnerships are a great way for organisations with similar goals to collaborate and come up with solutions together. It makes sense that Royal Caribbean Cruises joined the SDAA because the health of the Caribbean and Latin America is directly related to its business model. Its profit structure cannot be sustainable unless the major tourism destinations in the region are sustainable as well. I think it’s great that private organisations are able to work with NGOs and governments to come up with solutions. Interestingly, some Caribbean countries are already embracing sustainability. Aruba, for example, is developing clean energy initiatives and aims to be energy-independent by 2020.

Perhaps the SDAA will be less useful for countries like Aruba who are already proactive about sustainability. However, many countries in the region may not place as much importance on sustainability or lack the infrastructure to do so. These countries will be the ones that benefit the most from the SDAA. It is too early to say how effective the SDAA will be but I think its formation is definitely a step in the right direction.

SEA-TAC Airport, managed by the Port of Seattle, has partnered with Alaska Airlines and Western Washington Clean Cities to convert all their vehicles from diesel to electric power. They are installing nearly 600 electric charging stations to facilitate this. This project is supposed to save the airport $2.8 million in fuel costs & reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10,000 tons.

As part of the partnership, Alaska Airlines has agreed to use 204 electric vehicles in its ground operations. As of now, it is the only airline in the program but more are scheduled to join later in the year.

I did not realize that the Port of Seattle seems to have many sustainability projects that have already been implemented or are still in development. For example, they have a fleet of compressed natural gas (CNG) buses to transport travelers between the airport terminal to the LEED-certified rental car facility. In addition, all taxis that serve the airport must be CNG taxis or have fuel-efficient engines. They have an outline of 25-year environmental goals related to pollutants, energy, wildlife, noise, and recycling.

I think this project is interesting because when people think of sustainability, we tend to think of the environmental cost of flying the planes, but we often forget about the airport operations themselves. It seems that the Port of Seattle is fairly committed to sustainability as not all of their green initiatives are economically driven. Converting vehicles to electric power will save fuel costs, but restoring wildlife habitat or requiring taxis to be fuel-efficient does not have any direct economic advantage. It will be interesting to see if other airports will follow SEA-TAC’s green example.

We all need to eat, but what factors do we consider when buying groceries?  One point of differentiation that produce growers have honed in on is sustainability.

Interestingly, the terms “organic” and “local” food have become synonymous with “sustainable” food for many people.

Buying local sounds great and is a feel-good purchase, however, it is not always a simple case of local = better.  According to the CFIA, food can be labeled “local” as long as it is produced within the same province, or within 50km of a neighbouring province. That means in BC, food labeled as “local” could have been grown anywhere from a rooftop garden in downtown Vancouver, to the Okanagan, to western Alberta, to, theoretically, southern Yukon. Food grown just over the US border, however, would not be considered “local”.

From a marketing perspective, the ambiguity of current labeling standards in Canada make green washing easy. Many consumers do not bother looking beyond the “local” label and take the claim at face value. Even if consumers were interested in the source of the produce, how would they trace its origins? These circumstances make it easy for organisation to make sustainability claims without following through on them. It also poses challenges for organisations that legitimately source locally. How do they establish credibility?

Food labeled as “local” only tells consumers where it was sourced, not whether it is grown organically or via fair labour practices. I wonder how much consumers care about whether food is local and sustainable vs. just looking for a feel-good purchase.

In Johannesburg, South Africa, Citiq has re-purposed empty grain silos and shipping containers into university dorms. The silos were scheduled to be demolished until Citiq purchased the property and added shipping containers to make the 14-story building. In South Africa, student housing is in short supply; only 5% of university students live in official university housing. This development fills the void and helps students attain convenient and affordable housing while they are in school.

The composition of the building itself is green in that it repurposes existing silos rather than using new materials. The accommodations also include various energy-efficient components, including heat pumps and low-flow showerheads. While these two elements make the dorms less environmentally impactful than the typical building, Citiq notes that the design was made from a cost perspective, not a green one.

I think this is a great example of how sustainable ventures can often come from a desire to save money, rather than wanting to save the planet. Citiq was able to cut costs by tweaking an existing structure and reusing empty shipping containers, rather than purchasing new materials. Features like low-flow showerheads and heat pumps use less energy and thus, save on energy costs. Even though the environmental benefits were more of an afterthought and almost an unintended by-product of the project, it still sounds like a win-win-win situation to me where the developer, South African students, and the environment all benefit.

A similar building model is being used in northern Saskatchewan and Alberta to house the influx of workers in the area. The company responsible for repurposing shipping containers into living space, 3twenty Modular, even built an apartment complex for a Canadian airforce base in Alberta and is looking into housing for remote First Nations reserves.

These two examples are innovative and sustainable solutions to housing shortage and affordability problems. It could be particularly useful in remote areas or regions with an influx of temporary workers. In the case of 3twenty Modular, I think it was the right decision to market their product as durable, portable, and functional, rather than sustainable. It goes to show that organisations can be sustainable without marketing themselves as such.