bemoreeco

It began in 2004 with 2 guys sitting in a 250 square foot office in Newcastle developing websites for Traidcraft and other fair trade organisations. Next thing you know (it sometimes seems it happened that fast), we’re in a 25,000 square foot warehouse with 40 staff selling 5,000 products to over 100,000 customers.

Ethical Superstore recently joined forces with Natural Collection, can you tell us a bit more about this?

Natural Collection was looking for a new warehouse and Ethical Superstore still had plenty of space, so after meeting at the Green Awards last year we started talking about how we could work together.  As we got to know each other, we soon realised there was so much more we could do together if we merged the businesses.  If all goes according to plan, the Ethical Superstore and Natural Collection online shops will be re-launched with all orders being sent from our (slightly fuller) warehouse in Gateshead in June. 

What makes the Ethical Superstore a great place to work?The Ethical Superstore team – good, friendly, hard working people.  And all the Fairtrade coffee I can drink.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Turning the ideas of social business into reality.

Who do you most admire in the green industry?

The person who leads the world to a global climate change agreement.  In the meantime, all the millions who are campaigning for one.

If you could change one thing in the green industry what would it be? 

More innovation of high quality products and services.

How do you feel about the term greenwash?

As part of the solution to the greenwash problem, the development of an independent carbon labelling system would be a useful tool to help consumers make “eco product” purchasing decisions, similar to what the traffic light system is achieving for food.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in the industry today?

Be fanatical about service excellence and quality.  Just because you’ve got a good cause doesn’t mean you can get away with providing an average service. 

What is your vision for an eco Britain ?

I dream about a return to village life.  My first choice would be a farm in Buttermere in the Lake District where I’d also work as a park ranger!

What is the most important piece of information you have ever been told?

Actions speak louder than words.

If you were prime minister for the day, what one thing would you do?

Well given any major decisions could be overturned the next day, perhaps I’d have more impact if I asked everyone who reports to the prime minister that exact same question “If you were prime minister for the day, what one thing would you do?”  Then I’d post their answers on Twitter and the video footage on Youtube.

How do you feel about Obama’s green policies?

I voted for him, but as I said above, actions speak louder than words, so we shall see.

MoreEco Members can earn 8 MoreEco points for every £ they spend at Ethical Superstore. Also for every 10 points  earned  MoreEco will offset 1kg fo carbon for free.

Join today and receive FREE 500 start up points.

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1. Fluffy language - Words or terms with no clear meaning, eg “eco-friendly”.
2. Green products v dirty company - Such as efficient light bulbs made in a polluting factory.
3. Suggestive pictures - Images that indicate a (unjustified) green impact, eg flowers blooming from an exhaust pipe.
4. Irrelevant claims - Emphasising one tiny green attribute when everything else is ungreen.
5. Best in class? - Declaring you are slightly greener than the rest, even if the rest are pretty terrible.
6. Just not credible - “Eco-friendly” cigarettes, anyone? “Greening” a potentially dangerous item doesn’t make it safe.
7. Gobbledygook - Jargon and information that only a scientist could check or understand.
8. Imaginary friends - A “label” that looks like third-party endorsement… except it’s made up.
9. No proof - It could be right, but where’s the evidence?
10. Outright lying- Totally fabricated claims or data.

While Disney is taking the well-worn path to corporate environmentalism, its business model still depends on enticing visitors to fly halfway round the world to shake hands with Mickey Mouse and ride a rollercoaster or two.

Recently Barbie has been accused of it, Shell and BP deny claims that they do it but it seems like all and sundry are jumping on the green bandwagon to sell their products.

“Green washing,” is the combination of the words green and whitewashing. This term was created by environmentalist Jay Westerveld who coined the phrase when examining the ‘so called’ environmental towel policy at hotels around the world. Today, it is becoming ingrained into modern language as global warming remains top of the planet’s agenda. The term describes efforts, mostly in business, to create the impression that a company is implementing practices meant to improve the environment when it is not really doing so.

Bemoreeco.com is constantly being sent products to review from green companies so we always do a green wash check to see if a product can live up to it’s so called environmental credentials:

• How many air miles has it done?
• Where, how and what has it been made of?
• Is it packaged in an environmentally friendly way?  (I can’t name all the times when we have been sent items in bubble wrap or copious amounts of unnecessary packaging!)

 
Back in December 2007, environmental marketing firm TerraChoice released a study called “The Six Sins of Green washing” which found that more than 99% of 1,018 common consumer products randomly surveyed were guilty of green washing. Out of a total of 1,753 environmental claims made, with some products having more than one, only one was found not guilty of making a false or misleading green marketing claim.

A good example of a company doing it right is Ribena, with all their bottles made from recycled plastic and the juice itself being produced under ethical conditions in the UK. Marketing Manager for Ribena, Rachel Harris states, “We are committed to making the supply chain for Ribena as environmentally friendly as possible, from the way we grow our blackcurrants to the packaging in which the products are wrapped.” Ribena’s cap- and label are not recyclable but they are honest about this and state this is something they are looking at.

Here at Bemoreeco.com we feel that packaging for products should contain recycling information so people can make informed choices when it comes to purchasing. Check out this great example of clear and concise recycling information on this OWL wireless electricity monitor. 

In part two of this article, we question whether some energy services are as green as they state they are!