How to choose which is better....
I do a lot of work that entails researching and qualifying green, sustainable businesses. Often, I am asked what criteria I use to do this: I don't have a magical checklist that outlines a,b, and c a business needs to do to be sustainable. Instead, I have to listen to the different elements they incorporate into their models and decide whether or not they are substantially better than industry standards. Depending on the industry and location, the criteria changes (because of what is available). So really, it is up to me to decide and weigh the efforts they are making...which is where I run into a problem!
How do you decide which is better? Let me give you an example....New Belgium Brewery in Ft. Collins Colorado is quite possibly the leader in sustainable brewers (and corporations). Years ago, they were wind powered, giving employees a bike after 1 year, and pioneering water conserving methods of brewing. Not to mention their HVAC system at their brewery is very impressive, all trucks for distribution are biodiesel and they are active in the local community. Hands down, they are hott stuff. Now a days, though, in the Boulder/Denver/Ft. Collins area, other businesses are on their tails and their identity of a wind-powered facility is no longer anything special and is becomign an industry standard. So here is hte other half of the story....what about the actual BEER? Their ingredients are domestic, but not locally grown and they only have one organic beer. So the actual products they are putting into the hands of the consumers aren't super green, even though the facility and methods of distribution are green.
All that being said, what about a brewery that is wind-powered (nothing too special) and has 3 organic beers and purchase their hops locally, have a water conserving method of brewing (not as supreme as New Belgium's). So which is more important? The organic, local ingredients or the greenness of the building? Is it the embodied energy it takes to transport the ingredients more/less important than the high efficiency HVAC system used to power the facility?
I just don't know! Local conventional vs. organic? Do you throw-out your incandescent light bulbs (that haven't burnt out yet) and replace them with CFLs?--if you throw them away, aren't you just contributing to the waste? Shouldn't goods be used for the life of their good rather than demanding the generation of a new good which also requires energy, material, etc.? Here's a big one....if you don't have that much money, is it okay to shop at the local Safeway (which offers organic goods) or do you have to shop at Whole Foods which is still a HUGE corporation and (quite honestly), I don't agree with their business model and how they have gone about aquiring Wild Oats (which is a local, Boulder-based grocery store--however they have gone national, so are they still "local"?) Ah, so many dilemmas.
That is the thing about going green. No product or company or person is perfect. There are so many elements to going green: I don't know of a single thing that is perfect. Think about all the things it would entail to be green--marketing material printed by a green company (which uses hybrid vehicles for distribution, electronic work orders, etc.) , the compostable cutlery is printed by a green business....etc. You see how it really is a community movement and needs support from every industry? That is why it is important to pick and choose your battles. There might be a restaurant that is zero-waste (awesome) and wind-powered, but their food is not organic or local. So which is more important to you--zero waste or organic?
Always remember that there are so many aspects of being green--so you have to pick adn choose your battles and the things that are most important to you.
