Critics of sustainable certification and labeling programs often have fair points, but they miss the bigger picture. Who certifies the certifiers? Study after study is showing how green consumers are making a difference. As market shares of “green” products grow, so does debate about their true impacts.
So it’s fair to ask, is green consumerism working?
The idea that we can consume our way to sustainability as long as the label says it’s “green” has deservedly been lampooned for years. More recently, the questioning is getting more serious and soul-searching, because environmentalists themselves are often the ones doing the asking. To conclude that sustainable consumerism is “weak” or doesn’t work would be a colossal mistake.
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Fast Company is the world’s leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethonomics (ethical economics), leadership, and design. Written for, by, and about the most progressive business leaders, Fast Company and FastCompany.com inspire readers and users to think beyond traditional boundaries, lead conversations, and create the future of business.
Launched in November 1995 by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, two former Harvard Business Review editors, Fast Company magazine was founded on a single premise: A global revolution was changing business, and business was changing the world. Discarding the old rules of business, Fast Company set out to chronicle how changing companies create and compete, to highlight new business practices, and to showcase the teams and individuals who are inventing the future and reinventing business.
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Co.Labs is a fast-moving look at the creative technologists who are pushing industries into the future–and the methods, philosophies and concepts underlying their code. This site doubles as FastCompany’s in-house publishing lab, where we conduct programmatic experiments to try to move the needle on traffic and engagement, and explore novel ways of storytelling. On all its beats, Co.Labs is knowledge in action–the ultimate resource for makers and creators building software to revolutionize the way we do business.
