I’m sure you’ve noticed. Becoming a mom seems to make you the world’s biggest magnet for advice. From what to feed the kids, to how to get them to sleep, to where they should go to school - it seems like everyone has a lot of ideas, and usually conflicting ones, on what you should do and how you should do it.

You may also have noticed that remarkably little of this advice has anything to do with your impact on the planet. Much of it is routed in traditions that formed long before we calculated our carbon footprints and fretted about the recycled content of our baby wipes. If you had asked my Mom about what it meant to be a Green Mom, she would have assumed that you got too close to a dirty diaper and weren’t feeling so well.

The funny thing is that the green answers also seem to be routed in tradition. Looking back to simpler times, we’re choosing things with fewer, more natural ingredients, from around the corner not across the globe. Right now, manufacturers are struggling with how to provide the conveniences that we’ve become accustomed to, without the nasty impacts that they’re having on the planet.

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Among the greatest challenges corporations are facing in the 21st Century marketplace is how to relate their core values and products to environmental principles. Below are some of the more impactful actions being taken by major companies today as profiled in the pages of Fast Company magazine:

• Wal-Mart, which operates the second-largest hauling fleet in North America, is providing funding to the biggest truck manufacturers to develop the first heavy-duty diesel-hybrid 18-wheeler. Wal-Mart will be testing the prototypes next year.
• Timberland awards its employees who buy hybrids not only with a prime parking spot at their corporate offices but also with $3,000 toward the car’s purchase.
• Staples has re-engineered over 3,000 of its private-label products to include at least 30% post-consumer waste. Whether it’s sticky notes or shipping boxes, nearly all of the new offerings have no non-recycled alternative in the product line.
• General Mills recently redesigned the packaging of their classic Hamburger Helper to shave off 20% of the paperboard box. This amazingly has resulted in 500 fewer distribution trucks on the road each year.

What’s interesting is that each company is taking a different path towards environmental sustainability: efficient transportation, employee incentives, product design or packaging but all with the common goal of reducing their carbon footprint.
Even companies not normally known as environmental (or social) stewards are preparing to green their acts up; McDonalds is starting to build LEED-certified restaurants, Coca Cola mentions the need to tackle climate change on their website and Nike scores 82/100 for overall environmental responsibility on the green consumer watchdog website ClimateCounts.org.

The lesson? Corporations, driven by profitability are looking to environmental sustainability as a key business practice. That means now more than ever it’s important we as consumers ask tough questions of companies before engaging their services or purchasing their goods. Our choices to make informed buying decisions and only support manufacturers and retailers that are prepared to be environmentally responsible will drive all industries to change for the better. How green is that item you want to buy? How open is that store in telling you? Keep asking, I can’t wait until the day I get to bite into a locally raised, organic Big Mac!

- Jaipaul Massey-Singh

Quality plays a major role in any consumer goods organization. The traditional definition of quality as “fitness for use” takes on a new dimension in a company claiming to be “green”. Not only should the product ‘work’ but it should also meet other criteria important to our community and to the planet for sustainability. Consumers today are being bombarded by organizations claiming to be green, but we have all heard that sometimes these claims are, at best, not substantiated or, at worst, fraudulent.

Our aim at Green Cricket is to help consumers be confident about what they are purchasing and also provide information to help people make more informed buying decisions. When you purchase an item, it is at the end of its “supply chain” to you, the customer. Many things can impact the final product along the supply chain in its quality and integrity - raw materials, method of manufacture, packaging and transportation. Our aim is to be transparent and sell products that we have confidence in. We do this by scrutinizing the products and our suppliers against our Green Criteria and by keeping aware of increased understanding of environmental and health issues.

This blog is your opportunity to express your opinions and to ask questions to our ‘expert panel’ and to contribute to thoughts from other consumers.

We want to hear from you!

Ever get overwhelmed by the number of products claiming to be biodegradable, non-toxic, recycled or recyclable that you encounter on store shelves? Ever wonder how many actually are? Greenwashing is the act of misleading customers about the environmental practices of an organization or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

The reasons for a company to greenwash are numerous, not the least of which is to get consumers to purchase their product or service over another which, actually may be more environmentally responsible but also more honest in the claims it makes. Others may include convincing investors the company is an ethical place to invest their money, satisfying regulators or avoiding critics.

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