The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: 16th century engraving by Dutch artist Martin Heemskerck (Public Domain)We need a forum devoted to green product and service reviews. Seriously, we do. We really do. There has been some corporate leadership interested in taking a genuine approach to social responsibility and environmental sustainability. This is a significant step in the right direction. I hope companies take the pursuit of sustainability to heart. As citizens, consumers, investors and human beings we should applaud those that achieve environmentally meaningful changes to traditional processes, products and services. And we do.
But consistently, political messages such as George Bush's State of the Union Address, fail to give companies the direction needed to effectively change the nature of products, services and business itself, as has been duly noted. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper is just as flat when it comes to responding to the climate change crisis; withdrawing from Kyoto and canceling energy efficiency programs introduced by the opposition only to revive altered versions as his own.
As consumers there is a need, now more than ever for us to engage in reasoned and factual discussion examining just how green, eco-friendly, sustainable, natural, organic, ethical, or fairly traded products, services or companies that present themselves to be so --are. Voting with dollars can be persuasive.
So we should set out to do our small part to achieve this goal; to review and discuss how products and services stand up to quality measures, we as consumers, hold dear: The things we expect, want, need or may ultimately decide we are better off without. So, in the spirit of encouraging and applauding true sustainable change in the business world and holding companies accountable let's build the promised marketplace so the earth may flourish.
