Very interesting artist, doing some very thought provoking work.

Every day companies that green wash either themselves or their products are being exposed. Lets stop and really think about what “eco” actually means.

I still demand that we have to consider the entire life cycle of a product. What the product is made of (where it comes from, how the raw material was treated), how it is being processed by the company in question (power consumption, environmental policies) and what will happen to the product once it’s reached the end of it’s life (will it degrade/compost, or can it be reused or recycled).

Just because something is made from 100% does no mean it’s eco (here is a classic example of it exposed in the building material sector). The company could still be really wasteful with their power consumption or the way they conduct business. A lot of companies call their product eco now, because it sells. In the past using recycled material would have just been an inexpensive way to source raw material in order to achieve higher profits. Nowadays companies really use that as an excuse to label the product “green”. STOP IT!

There is one way to see weather a company really does care. Look for ISO 14001. What ISO 9001 is for quality control, 14001 is for the environment. A company that is ISO 14001 certified (or self declared) publicly shows it’s commitment to being as environmentally friendly as possible, and the proress of becoming even greener. IBM was the first company to globally us the system to show their efforts in doing “the good work”.

I recently put Ukoonto through the process, and I can now show the world that we do in fact care about the environment.

So look for ISO 14001. You’ll be surprised.