ML's blog: Cause Consumption, Green Consumers and then some

When your kids outgrow their shoes, you are likely to send them to their cousins, give them to your neighbor’s kids or you may even take the time to put them on consignment up the road. When you converted your movie collection to DVDs, you may have given the local library your VHS collection (but held onto one copy of Sixteen Candles) or sold them on Craig’s List or Ebay. Who knew how green you were even if, in your eyes, you were offloading junk and making room for more!?

An online business, Zwaggle, has sprouted up and got some green love on CNET today: Going Green One Crib at a Time

Zwaggle formalizes a system families have been using for years and facilitates trading of used items via a point system (zoints) that is a bit confusing but I suspect once mastered, pretty manageable. Zwaggle offers local pick up options as well as shipping nationwide and the convenience of a printable shipping lable (with postage).  It is true, if we keep our “gently used” puzzles,blocks and kitchen sets moving from family to family we’re all greener for it. We’ll see where Zwaggle ends up but whoever is doing their PR is smart to get them spinning green at the get go.
I’ve encouraged clients in the past to really look at their business and determine what it may be doing inadvertently or overtly make the world better. Freecycle positions itself as a landfill relief group- too bad Ebay hasn’t talked that up more (even on Earthday at a minimum- they could tally how many trades are made on that day alone and create a dollar amount donation to a green .org).

Shipping begs a lot of questions. When we all started shopping from our computers we were struck by the amazing convenience of it all (Zappos wins in that category). I’m now considering the implications of “free shipping”– carbon calculation needed–If I shop from my couch and rather than take my car to the store have the folks at Amazon ship me items on a regular basis, am I doing the earth a favor? I’m not so sure. I pay that nice flat fee to be a PRIME member of Amazon- I can order as many items as I want and have them shipped 2 day mail to me or gift recipients at no charge. Amazon wins because I don’t need to reach a $ hurdle to get the shipping covered and I order more goods on more occasions. What does that mean? More labor, more boxes, more packing materials, more space taken up on airplanes and trucks with more frequency. Are the shipping companies doing a darn thing to get greener? Bio-diesel for their zillions of fleets? More pro-active measures to re-use boxes (to accept them at their storefronts)? As the holiday season approaches, (UPS is expecting 22 million deliveries on its peak day, Dec. 19. )I’m going to look into this.