By: Ian Barr
Met up with my old roommate last night – a hipster-art guy with a flare for socially conscious design. He’s been monitoring the appetite for sustainable furniture in Europe and is anticipating demand for it in Canada over the next few years. It’s a fascinating concept:
According to Value Created Resources, producers of this type of furniture must be “responsible for the production cycle from raw material acquisition through to manufacture, end use and final disposal.” In fact, “more than 28 countries, primarily in Europe, have already passed product ‘take-back’ laws that assign the responsibility for the disposal of end-of-life products and packaging to the manufacturer.”
You’d have to be living under a rock if you haven’t noticed the abundance of corporate environmental initiatives, particularly in the tech space. Which makes me wonder: how many communicators behind these announcements are packaging up their stories with the bigger picture in mind for media? Here are some initiatives that have caught my eye on a micro and macro level…
- A quirky grassroots concept, brought to my attention by Blaine Kendall. This Toronto-based initiative called Envyro Bubble was started as a means to get chewing gum off the sidewalks. The biodegradable bag stores more than 1,000 pieces of gum and, when filled, is replaced and sent off for recycling into fertilizer. I predict this little initiative will generate bigger buzz than it already has. Here’s the UK version.
- By way of my colleague Brendan Hodgson, the Honda Racing F1 Team has launched a major initiative for the 2007 Formula 1 season. Its F1 car will feature a huge image of the earth in place of advertising and sponsor logos to help raise awareness of the environmental issues facing the planet (I wonder how much gas and tires an F1 car goes through in a year and what they’re doing to combat that?)
- From Clean Break, a Bell Canada initiative, in conjuction with our client HP and CapGemini, to produce a residential energy management system. (Full Article)
- To counterbalance the client plug, here’s a Q&A about Dell’s 'effort' to produce a carbon neutral PC (what do you think about his argument?)
Ian Barr is an Account Director with H&K Toronto’s Technology Communications Practice. He’s been with the company for over 5 years.