Products & Ideas...
Innovative Ideas Sep 19, 2008
How Green is Green?
...and how can we tell?
Recently David Pogue of the New York Times wrote a great column called The Bottom Line of the Eco Balance Sheet, in which he talks about how difficult it is to accurately calculate the environmental impact of a product. As we move into the future, with all the talk about sustainability, it is critical that we as consumers and end users have a tool to qualify claims of green.
About 50 posts ago, I posted about the Pharos Project, an exciting matrix that was going to value products according to various criteria but it didn't seem to get off the ground.
Sharing my search for this holy grail, a friend recommended a blog called swissmiss by a designer named Tina Roth Eisenberg who I think shares my neighborhood if not my building. She posted about an attempt to codify what makes a product sustainable called the Designer's Field Guide to Sustainability developed by Lunar. Rather than spewing commandments, it's a beautifully crafted document that asks 4 questions:
1. What is it trying to accomplish?
2. How is it brought to life?
3. How is it used?
4. Where does it end up?
It is a working document whose authors invite contributions. I'm posting it above my desk.
Ellen
[brooklyn green] www.ehapc.wordpress.com
