Sound Of Sirens

“One of the hurdles to making sustainable products is figuring out what the term sustainability means for different materials and ingredients.
Jason Pearson, president and CEO of GreenBlue, a research and design institute, spoke with GreenBiz Radio about how companies are using metrics such as recyclability and renewable energy when determining the quality of products, and what efforts are underway to make cleaner supply chains.”

Again we provide you an insight into how industry treats and thinks about sustainability.

“brought to you by bp” - thank you ;)

via: ClimateBiz

Update: Take a look at the Future Supply Chain Study as well, which [...] “presents a new integrated supply chain model that takes into account sustainability parameters such as CO2 emissions reduction, reduced energy consumption, better traceability and reduced traffic congestion, as well as traditional measures like on-shelf availability, cost reduction and financial performance.”

It’s about style, it’s about status and it’s about opportunities deriving out of a ‘consumer-oriented look at the next 12-18 months’:

“Eco-friendly goods and services sporting bold, iconic markers and design, helping their eco-conscious owners show off their eco-credentials to their peers.
At the heart of ECO-ICONIC is a status shift: Many consumers are eager to flaunt their green behavior and possessions, because there are now millions of other consumers who are actually impressed by green lifestyles.”

For those of you who are not familiar with this stuff: This is called a trend-briefing. Here you find the whole thing of may/june 08: www.trendwatching.com/briefing/ Have a look where we’re heading…

People working in this field are called Consumer-Ethnographers. And sometimes I get the feeling that they look at ‘consumers’ a bit like the old ethnographers were investigating ‘the brutes’ back then…quite similar notions and quite similar blindfolds sometimes… Interesting species, these ‘consumers’, aren’t they. And if investigated properly the knowledge of their behaviour will make you rich (first and foremost) and better than the others.

Doesn’t change much, the way of perceiving and thinking, does it. I figure, burned down to the basics, again you’re at growth, competition and expansion oriented folks, manipulating, instrumentalizing and exploiting people and nature. As eco and sustainable you call the development, as ‘eco-embedded’ it would ‘have to become’ - in my book there won’t be any sustainability as long as there is an ethnographer investigating a consumer in order to…

This is nowhere near an understanding of our interconnected nature with our surroundings. This is repeating the same patterns.

But check the trendwatching site - and see for yourself how you feel about this stuff…