Green Cotton

Food, fashion and fun were all on the agenda at last week’s Boston GreenFest, held from August 19-21. Featuring eco-minded exhibitors from all over New England, the family-friendly event took over Boston’s City Hall Plaza. Organic food vendors, green design companies, and plenty of local businesses were on hand to both showcase their wares and generate eco-awareness.

The event kicked off on Thursday morning with a green business breakfast and green jobs forum (featuring former Governor Michael Dukakis). Other highlights included 50/50 raffle (wherein the winner received half the winnings while the other half went to the Foundation for a Green Future, Inc.) and continuous performances held on the City Hall Plaza’s main stage. The concerts, dance performances, stunt work, fashion shows, yoga and workout bootcamp dominated the stage all weekend long. Thursday also featured the One Gallon Challenge, a “race” to see how far the latest fuel-efficient, eco-friendly cars could travel with one gallon of gas… from 110 miles away in Northampton, MA.

Friday’s highlights included the Eco-Runway, featuring Nancy’s Gone Green! Eco Boutique of Framingham, MA. Festival goers could also enjoy another night of performances and shop in the Eco Bazaar. They could also sample organic “world cuisine” in the Eco Cafe, including North Indian dishes from Mela Restaurant, Korean cuisine from Choi Food, Mexican treats from Cha-Cha-Cha, and coffee from Dean’s Bean, a fair-trade, organic company and a Green Cotton favorite! Saturday saw still more exhibitors, concerts and another staging of the Eco-Runway.

New Englanders are fortunate to be able to enjoy large green festivals like this, and the Boston GreenFest is sandwiched between two other major eco-conscious events: April’s Down2Earth and October’s Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. Plenty of healthy, organic food, along with fashion designers and green companies, will descend on VegFest next month, so if you missed GreenFest, be sure to check it out!

Green Cotton was happy to receive a gift from a local eco-friendly vendor that will be reviewed (and raved over!) here on this blog… stay tuned later this week to find out what it is!

Images from: http://www.bostongreenfest.org/index1.html

http://www.bostongreenfest.org/onegalchal.html

http://www.bostongreenfest.org/fashiontent.html

From April 10-12, the third annual Down 2 Earth Sustainable Living Expo (d2e) took over the Hynes Convention Center, filling it with an indoor garden, solar panels, organic fashion, gourmet coffee and chocolate and fun for everyone, from the eco-novice to the eco-expert. For those just getting into the idea of green living, the event showed just how easy it can be, showcasing some fabulous, innovative companies whose principles and practices are truly down to earth. For Boston area eco-conscious consumers, this was the place to be.

Serving as both an educational forum for sustainability and a green goods marketplace, this year’s d2e boasted a number of eco-minded exhibitors. Paino Organics, Larabar, Clif Bar, Cascadian Farm, Taza Chocolate, Glee Gum and more sampled yummy organic treats, from granola to salsa and vegan mayonnaise. Equal Exchange, Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee, Mocha Joes and Honest Tea provided the much-needed caffeine fix.

Ideologie and We Add Up were both selling innovative organic cotton tees with a message. Earth Elegance Jewelry and Acero Studio showcased compelling pieces that make the green life that much more beautiful. Blissfully Organic, Nat and Victoria Solutions and Amazon Beauty by Liz showed that it’s a snap to green your beauty routine. The Holistic Moms Network, along with kid’s fashion by JOJO, chic totes from Go GaGa Bags, silk baby slings by Sakura Blook, cleanup by Bum Boosa Bamboo Baby Products, and reusable (and insanely cute) snack bags from snackTAXI and ReSnackIt, all helped make life a little easier for the earth-conscious mom on the go. Boston’s own Greenologist community, which will deliver fresh farmer’s market produce to your doorstep, even handed out complimentary reusable grocery totes.

If the fun, food and freebies weren’t enough, the event also featured eco-savvy demonstrations, cooking demos, videos and notable guest speakers. Keynote speakers included Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University, a climate scientist who advised Al Gore on An Inconvenient Truth, and actress Mayim Bialik, celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network.

Green Cotton attended on Sunday and was present for Bialik’s speech. Bialik shared a touching and relatable insight into her Hollywood eco-lifestyle, describing how she was a “weird” kid who liked to recycle, went vegetarian as a teenager, and now raises her children vegan (without any paper towels!), and even makes her own household cleaners and shampoo.

One topic of particular interest was the “greening” of Hollywood. Bialik is one celebrity who has been “eco” for the long haul, and recalled going to events with Ed Begley Jr., who drove (and probably still drives) a vegetable oil-powered car. Bialik may have labeled her early interest in the environment as “weird,” but of Begley’s innovative, if slightly eccentric, lifestyle, she quipped, “Who’s laughing now?”

Of green living, Bialik reminded the crowd, “This is not a lifestyle for rich people; this is not an elitist thing…not because it’s hip and trendy… We congregate around celebrity, [but] it is important to realize that there are those of us who are green like you.”

And if anyone entered the convention center feeling not quite green enough, we are sure the many vendors and presentations like Bialik’s helped them learn an eco trick or two. We know we did. Green Cotton had a blast exploring the booths and chatting with each vendor (and meeting Bialik, who, as it turns out, is a Jute & Jackfruit fan). While there was not a fashion runway show this year, we hope that eco-fashion designers and boutiques continue to showcase their wonderful (organic, sustainable, fair trade) wares, and that New Englanders continue to show their support and passion for all things green. Next year, we hope to see you there!

By Erin Dale

Photosource: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Today, the New York Times reported that the H&M on 34th Street in New York has regularly (at times daily) disposed of brand new apparel in trash bags, purposefully slashed or otherwise destroyed to make them un-wearable. To think that a major retailer such as H&M could get away with such waste in the middle of an economic recession (not to mention frigid winter) when thousands of the cities homeless, unemployed and otherwise struggling people would happily make good use of that clothing is hard to digest.

For reasons unknown (H&M was unavailable for comment in the article – despite numerous attempts– other than to say that the question needed to be answered by headquarters), H&M appears to be regularly dumping new clothes and yielding them permanently un-wearable behind certain stores.

In speculating a rationale behind this irresponsible behavior, the only thought that comes to mind is that the retailer is afraid give brand new clothes (not selling fast enough) to a charity or other group for fear that potential customers would start shopping at Goodwill rather than at their store? Or are they simply being lazy? Wouldn’t they be able to take a tax deduction if they donated them somewhere?

Beyond the rationale for dumping though, a key question is why is there a need to dump clothes in the first place? The last time I was in an H&M, I was struck by how many garments seemed to be cheaply made with no apparent sustainability elements, and also how items seemed to be priced strikingly low. Having researched garment production inputs here at Green Cotton, the prices did not seem to possibly reflect the true cost of production….Yet, with so many garments to chose from at once and many with few redeeming attributes, it is not surprising that the store has unsellable wares on a daily basis…At the same time, that in no way excuses their disposal, nor any reason to continue with such a production model.

Considering all the water, land, petroleum, chemicals, time, human resources and other resources that are typically used to make a single garment, it is troubling to think that at the end of a production lifecycle, a producer (or retailer) could decide to render the product useless. When this happens, the whole process becomes an entire waste of the planet’s precious resources. Not only is this irresponsible environmental stewardship, but it is also, a reflection of poor planning and bad decision-making.

Corporations today, especially those that are in the manufacturing industries, are in important stewardship positions for our planet. They are on the front lines, working in countries all around the world, extracting the earth’s resources, employing people, building factories, manufacturing goods, and it is their responsibility to ensure we have a planet with viable, healthy resources for generations to come. Corporation’s need to make the right/best choices possible in terms of resource-use, energy-use, environmental stewardship and human capital investments.

We as customers on the other hand, are subject to the choices available to us in the marketplace. Our duty is to make the best choices, given the information available to us. Along these lines, we have the power to choose which companies and products we want to support (through our purchases). However, as we are not on the front lines, and do not see all that is being extracted, grown, disposed of, and made, we are at a disadvantage in terms of genuine stewardship. We are often not privy to key pieces of information and are left in relatively naive positions to trust (or not trust) what our corporate partners are doing to steward our finite resources.

That is why, in cases like this one, we (as consumers) can play an important role in encouraging change. We can take steps to ensure that companies like H&M continue to move faster and more effectively toward sustainability. Some things we can do NOW to foster change:

1)   Do not buy from retailers who you know are blatantly wasteful and/or are manufacturing their clothes in ways that damage the environment or the people who made them. If you love a particular company that you know is being wasteful, then write the CEO a letter and say how mad you are. Write that you will not tolerate this kind of behavior or will leave for another competitor.

2)   Do diligence on the retailers you buy from. Ask about their commitment to the environment and to human resources? Are you able to easily find this information? If not, probably these are not very important issues to the company. Be wary of retailers patting themselves on the back for small successes while missing the big picture (eg dumping new clothes in the dumpster regularly).

3)   Ask questions. If you are not sure about your favorite retailer or designer, write the CEO a letter. Ask them what they are doing about sustainability and the environment and tell them this matters to you.

4)   Take a look at the pioneers. Certain retailers we know are doing tremendous work when it comes to sustainability. For example Patagonia, Indigenous Designs, Timberland and many smaller emerging eco-designers. Find out exactly what these leaders are doing and then benchmark that against your favorite company. By looking at some of the pioneers, you will be able to more easily tease apart the “genuine” from the “green-washing” next time you read a sustainability claim.