Susan Labandibar – Activist CEO

Running Tech Networks – Saving the Planet

Don’t buy green

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Want to be green?  Really green?  Then don’t buy green products.  In fact, don’t buy anything.  Be like the early New Englanders, whose maxim was:  Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

Do you really need another organic cotton T-shirt?  I don’t.  Most of my apparel is at least 25 years old.  It’s well-made, high-quality clothing.  I don’t need to replace it.  I did, however, come upon a great way to refresh my wardrobe without adding to my carbon footprint.  I went to the Garment District and found some cool vintage clothing.  When I returned home, I picked out some items I didn’t enjoy wearing and brought them back to the store, where they accept free donations.  (They also buy used clothing, by appointment only.)

Now look at the open house listings in Boston Homes.  Practically every condo listed has a new kitchen with granite countertops, or, in the case of the new condos in the North End, Carrara marble.  It seems that no one wants to buy a condo with a used kitchen.  What is wrong with Formica, anyway?  I’d rather leave Carrara marble where it belongs, on Italian mountainsides, not in the kitchens of the 104 new luxury residences of the Battery Wharf development in the North End.  Here’s a slideshow from their website of the Italian quarry where they get their marble.  I’m not sure how this fits in with their catch phrase: “Utopia Engineered.”

The same goes for the new Starwood Hotel in Lexington.  I’m thrilled to learn from their website that the building is Leed-certified and that the carpeting is “up to 100% recycled.”  But there is no mention on the site that the Starwood is a bulldoze-and-rebuild replacement for the Sheraton Lexington Hotel, which, as you can see from this photo, was a very nice hotel.

Before I begin to sound too virtuous, let me mention why I began to write this blog post.  I just heard about the March 2007 study by CNW Research of  Hummer versus Prius lifetime energy inputs. The study concluded that the Hummer used less energy!  Now, I was feeling bad about this one, because I think that my purchase of a new Toyota Prius back in 2002 was one of the best things I could have done to build eco-awareness.  Even my relatives were attracted to it because of the cool technology (although one of them called it “my kooky car.”) People are more attracted to brand-new, shiny eco-car toys than they are to such everyday eco-hero actions like rescuing usable items from the trash, having appliances repaired instead of replaced, and turning the thermostat down.

Happily, the Hummer vs Prius study has been widely debunked. Despite two years of intensive research, and the collection of 4,000 data points, CNW Research made some obvious erroneous assumptions.  For example, the average Hummer H1 is assumed to travel 379,000 miles and last for 35 years, while the average Prius is assumed to last only 109,000 miles over less than 12 years.

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Written by Susan

September 27th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

Posted in environment

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