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Wednesday, July 6, 2005 |
I've just posted the latest 'New Bottom Line' - my monthly strategic
perspectives on business and the environment - at the Natural Logic
website.
Eye of the Beholder summarizes the recent Cradle to Cradle design workshop in Silicon Valley, led by Michael Braungart and Bill McDonough of MBDC.
'We still have people talking about 'sustainability'! Nothing is
more boring. Are you proud if your marriage is 'sustainable'? We feel
guilty, and cut our hair to use less shampoo. It's guilt management and
celebrating mediocrity.'
The key, Braungart advised, is the
transformation of environmental
issues into issue of quality. 'First be effective - do the right thing;
then look for the right tools. Efficiency may be one of them, but
there's no point being more efficient at producing a harmful outcome.
Students and top management understand this,' he said. 'Middle
management hates us.'
Read the whole article here - and subscribe to monthly email delivery.)
11:30:54 PM 
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[SF Chronicle]: The good life means more greenhouse gas.
Robert Collier recounts the 'China Dream' - 'fancy car, very big house' - that's chasing the 'American Dream.' The
same economic boom that is catapulting millions of Chinese into the
middle class has made their country into the world's fastest growing
source of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
Sobering details, in a long-for-the-Chron story (from Coller, who seems
to do some of their most substantive reporting. A very different
perspective and trajectory than Portland's.
11:12:59 PM
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[GreenSupplyLine]: Gina Roos reports that Newark InOne, a leading N. American distributor of electronic components, is offering a downloadable RoHS legislation and technical manual
at its new RoHS Express web site. (Click here for the technical
manual.) It's a 22-page RoHS Legislation and Technical manual that
includes an intro to the directive and a step by step guide to
compliance (which is easy to read and understand) along with a chapter
on soldering.
The European Union's RoHS directive (Restriction on Hazardous
Substances) takes effect July 1 2006; WEEE (Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment) kicks in August 13 2005. Industry readiness - or
lack thereof, according to a soon-to-be- released survey I've just
reviewed - is cause for concern, considering that Europe represents
about a third of the electronics market.
Some companies are counting on extensions and exemptions. Some of us
are concerned about the economic impact on non-compliant companies if
the EU holds firm; these directives, the others that have followed
(like EUP and REACH) and the others yet to come were foreseeable, and
these potential impacts were avoidable.
But for that to happen, concerns -- like electronic product compliance
-- that have long been relegated to the tactical and dismissed as
driving cost need to be elevated to the strategic and understood as
driving profit.
See Risk, CFOs, and the Sustainability Business Case and It Began With a Dot: Product Regulation and Future Markets.
9:54:42 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Gil Friend.
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