Roadkill--sustainable meat?

Have you ever eaten roadkill? I have, and it was good. But *surprise* eating roadkill can now be a political act.

When I was a boy of about 10, I was in a car driven by my father and we hit a deer. Fortunately for us, he kept control of the car and stopped.

The deer was dead next to the road, and my father wrestled the deer into a trailer he was towing and we took the deer home. We were a hunting family, so butchering the deer was no big deal, and later we ate it. It wasn't the only time, and it was just a normal part of thrifty living in Oregon.

Now I see that it's the latest thing in sustainable meat. Rebranding thrift as sustainability, sounds good to me.

Tweet

The least sustainable food on earth

What do you think is the least sustainable food on earth? Panda steaks? Spicy Condor wings?

No, food that doesn't get eaten is the worst. Even if lovingly prepared by happy workers using zero-impact methods, if food ends up in the trash then it ain't sustainable.

Where is the worst place for food waste? Restaurants, and diners are beginning to wonder about the problem. What a shame to buy and cook carefully at home, only to see pounds of food thrown away when you splurge on a dinner out.

How bad is the problem? According to a recent study it's bad and getting worse.

US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day

1400 calories per day, that's just a bit less than I eat in one day.

Food waste, the next frontier in food sustainability?

Tweet

Sustainable cat food from Mars

No, we haven't found new fisheries to exploit on the Red Planet.

Mars, Inc. is the source of sustainable cat food, see the blue fish on the package (left).

Now you can spend your pet food dollars (or euros) on a cat food that doesn't hurt the ocean.

Leaving aside the debate on the sustainability of keeping pets, if you're going to have pets then it's good to have sustainable pet food options.

I'm sure somebody will say that the fish in catfood is better delivered to hungry people, and so it's not sustainable if it's eaten by a cat when people need food. But I don't think cats get the best fish that people want.

Tweet

What's in Clorox products?

Clorox is coming clean. They're the first mainstream manufacturer of cleaning products to reveal all the ingredients in all of their products.

This means if you want to know what's in Pine-Sol before you use it in your house, you can find out. This is good green news.

Tweet

Global footprint of fishing

WWF is examining humanity's footprint on the earth.  It's not a pretty picture--we're consuming 1.5 planet's worth of renewable resources each year.  Since we only have one planet, this means we're consuming the earth's ecosystems to support people.

To borrow a financial analogy, we're spending our savings account (natural capital) rather than living off the interest (renewable resources produced each year).

However you understand it, we can't keep doing that forever.

For us ocean people, a big question is how are we doing in the ocean?  The best answer seems to be that we're using too much seafood. 

How can this be?  Isn't everything fine if we certify fisheries as being sustainable?  No.  Sustainable fishing techniques are good, but using too much is another issue.  Fisheries footprint deals with the sheer volume of fishing on a big geographic scale.  We can use sustainable fishing techniques and still be using those techniques to take too many fish out of the ocean.

In other words, the fishery-by-fishery analysis has to be supplemented by an analysis of the sum total of ocean production that we're hauling out of the ocean.  It is possible to certify every fishery on earth and still have too MUCH fishing.  There's really no way to consider our global fishery footprint in the certification of a single fishery.

To help clarify this difficult issue, there's a new analysis that shows how fishing, considered on a global scale, has expanded and intensified in the last few decades.  This supports the view that we're taking too much in most of the oceans.  And, of course, the most productive areas have been fished first and hardest.  

There is criticism of the fisheries footprint analyses that have been done.  While it's true that details may not be correct, it's an issue that we need to evaluate.

Tweet

Don't wash your jeans

How far will you go for sustainability? Levi Strauss, the jeans maker, says real jeans afficianados don't wash their jeans so sustainability is easy.

In fact, not washing jeans is a key step in greening up Levi Strauss, since washing is a major water and energy factor in the life cycle of a pair of Levis jeans. No problem, since Levi Strauss's sustainability VP says:

...true jeans lovers buy a tight pair of unwashed jeans, wear them for a while, and very occasionally -- maybe once or twice a year -- get in the bathtub wearing the jeans, let the water soak into them, then hang them to dry. That way, they mold to your body. What's more, you save water, detergent, energy and your jeans last longer by avoiding the wear and tear of wash and dry cycles.

Now since washing is in the hands of jeans wearers, Levi has some work to do. Maybe they should look at Killer Jeans' ad (above right) for inspiration.

Tweet

Tuna, tuna, and more (or less) tuna

Where's blogfish? Just back from this interesting city (top left). I attended a tuna meeting that was postponed from May to September, because the venue was burning thanks to riots. Part of the complex was pictured on fire the day the event was supposed to start, on the front page of CNN.com. If you still don't know, here's a hint (right).

It's tuna 2010 in Bangkok, where I represented WWF International and gave a presentation on "The role of ecolabels in the sustainability of tuna. Note the beautiful and ephemeral ice sculpture, I hope real tuna have a better future than these beautiful sculpted tuna.

My main point from the talk: contrary to what many people think, for me the most important role of ecolabels is showing the path to sustainability for currently unsustainable tuna fisheries. Without a clear path to green, today's unsustainable tuna fisheries can waste time and money making unhelpful changes. This can drain away commitment and make sustainable seem unreachable.

Here's the venue (right), note the giant screens that magnify the speaker's faces. Yikes, good idea to check before going onstage, don't want any unsightly bits of food in your teeth or other debris broadcast to the audience at 50 times life size.

More later on my trip and the conference, for now back to work in Europe.

Tweet

Endangered Fraser sockeye booming

Just when it seemed that Fraser River sockeye salmon were about to go down the toilet into extinction, those darn fish had the temerity to stage a comeback. Sockeye salmon numbers are up in the Fraser River this year, W-A-Y up.

If you're a science geek and you'd like to go to the source for the real numbers, go here.

What does this all mean for the sustainability of Fraser River sockeye salmon? One good year does not equal healthy salmon, but it's certainly a much better result than another bad year. In fact, one good year doesn't really change anything, these fish are still in trouble. The only big change with this year's sockeye boom is that it's hard to get people interested in the plight of Fraser River sockeye this year.

If only they had the grace to fade away uniformly...

Tweet

Supermarket empties shelves for conservation

I never thought I'd see this day...a supermarket is showing customers empty seafood shelves to demonstrate the plight of the oceans.

See the photo at top left, showing an empty tray where Loblaw used to offer skates to customers, and now they offer a message about the need to find sustainable fish to sell.

Loblaw in Canada is emptying part of their seafood trays where they used to sell fish that are in trouble. The effort is designed to send a visual message to consumers that unless conservation happens, we'll lose our ocean fish.

Most sustainability messaging on seafood is designed to be consumer-friendly, here's an example of a store taking a risk of making customers uncomfortabl, not usually a winning idea in retail.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Tweet

Would you rather have rain forests or oceans?

Fishing helps save rain forests. Did you know that? Ray Hilborn knows, and he thinks you should pay attention.

This is an example of a useful idea taken to a silly place. Let's compare the impacts of ocean fishing with land-based agriculture (a useful idea) and then set up a straw man of plowing the world's rainforests to replace all fishing.

What do we really learn from this comparison? That we should carry on with bad fishing just because other things are worse according to a certain set of assumptions and methods of comparison?

The real message is that there is fishing done wrong and fishing done right, and doing it right is better. End of silly comparisons.

Tweet

Is pole and line tuna really better?

Where are you getting your tuna?

There's a lot of buzz around tuna caught with a pole and line. Greenpeace says it's more sustainable than tuna caught using a purse seine or longline. The Seafood Choices Alliance offers some support for this fishing method in Afishianado, saying "development of well-managed pole and line tuna fisheries can represent a win-win situation."

Now entering the debate--the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation with a new report on a sustainability concern with pole and line fishing. The concern? It takes a lot of bait to catch all that tuna on hooks. What's the conclusion of the study? Catching all the baitfish could be a major sustainability problem. Agritrade raises some practical concerns, wondering how to convert all the boats, gear, and skills.

Like a lot of debates, there's probably truth on both sides. Pole and line tuna fisheries have some strong advantages, but it's probably not feasible to replace all tuna fisheries with new pole and line fishing. Unless we're going to cut way back on tuna catching and eating, we probably can't switch to all pole and line.

And then there's the governance problem. Tuna are pelagic fish, ranging across oceans. If there's overfishing in a region or for a particular species of tuna, then pole and line fishing is catching unsustainable tuna just like everyone else. Unless we fix the broken tuna governance bodies and end overfishing, there's no way to catch truly sustainable tuna with a pole and line or anything else.

Tweet

Green index for all products?

Do you want a green index on everything you buy? Something that lets you comparison shop environmental impacts like you comparison shop on price? Good for you, and prepare to shop at Wal-mart to find your dream green index.

Wal-mart is developing an index, and the first details are starting to come out. Companies will have to reveal their practices in four key areas: energy and climate, natural resources, material efficiency, and people and community. From this information, a yet-to-be-developed ranking system will allow shoppers to compare the sustainability of two similar products.

Interesting that Planet Green couldn't give Wal-mart adequate credit for this earthshaking initiative. They offer plenty of doubt and only "reluctant kudos." Get over it, Planet Green, Wal-mart is leading and they have the clout to begin making their green index a reality. Even if it's not perfect, it'll be the first index and that's a great step forward for sustainability.

Tweet

Ethically correct fish and fishing

Can a fishery be sustainable if customers waste the fish? That's the provocative question raised by scientists Daniel Pauly and Jennifer Jaquet in their critique of the Peruvian anchoveta fishery. Pauly and Jacquet say it's wasteful and wrong to use anchovies for fishmeal instead of feeding people, so it would be wrong to certify the fishery as sustainable.

For me, this stretches too far the definition of sustainable fishing. It's already difficult to find consensus around the definition of sustainable fisheries when it's just about fishing. But this messy debate gets far worse if we include issues like what happens to the fish.

Sustainability should be about not catching too many fish, limiting bycatch, and protecting habitat. We can, and do, debate the proper benchmarks for overfishing and bycatch limits. But if we get into debates about ethical uses of fish, there is no limit to the issues that someone may want to include.

Today, Pauly and Jacquet criticize feeding fish to animals not people. What's the next complaint about how fish get used? Are high-priced fish unsustainable because they're just for the privileged wealthy? Is it a problem to waste fish in processing or preparation? Is a fishery unsustainable if mercury levels in the fish are too high? Can you lose your sustainability certificate if you run a good fishery but the people who buy your fish do bad things?

Certification of fishery sustainability by the Marine Stewardship Council addresses some ethical issues. But it's a mistake to attempt to use the MSC process to address every perceived ethical problem in the seafood supply chain.

Tweet

Bright green, what is it?

It's no longer adequate to talk about green consumers or green products when talking about sustainability. The green movement is too complex to use just a single term; now we need to talk about what shade of green.

Are your customers or supporters bright green? Dark green? Light green? Or perhaps gray? How would you know, and what can the shade tell you about what they want.

Here's a key to the new shades of green that people are talking about, thanks to WorldChanging.com.

...bright green environmentalism is a belief that sustainable innovation is the best path to lasting prosperity, and that any vision of sustainability which does not offer prosperity and well-being will not succeed. In short, it's the belief that for the future to be green, it must also be bright. Bright green environmentalism is a call to use innovation, design, urban revitalization and entrepreneurial zeal to transform the systems that support our lives.

Light green environmentalists tend to emphasize lifestyle/behavioral/consumer change as key to sustainability, or at least as the best mechanism for triggering broader changes. Light greens strongly advocate change at the individual level. The thinking is that if you can get people to take small, pleasant steps (by shopping differently, or making changes around the home), they will not only make changes that can begin to make a difference in aggregate, but also begin to clamor for larger transformations. Light green environmentalism, as a call for individuals to change, has helped spread the idea that concern for sustainability is cool.

Dark greens, in contrast, tend to emphasize the need to pull back from consumerism (sometimes even from industrialization itself) and emphasize local solutions, short supply chains and direct connection to the land. They strongly advocate change at the community level. In its best incarnations, dark green thinking offers a lot of insight about bioregionalism, reinhabitation, and taking direct control over one's life and surroundings.

Grays, of course, are those who deny there's a need to do anything at all, whether as individuals or as a society.

Now that you know the language, spend some time thinking about which shade of green you are, and also your customers or supporters. Do the terms help you figure out how to focus your efforts?

Tweet

Green consumers, who are they?

Who buys green goods? People who rank sustainability above all else? No.

A survey on who buys green uncovers some green surprises. Despite prevalent myths, people who buy more-sustainable products still care about price and value. So sustainability won't sell if it's too costly.

Other interesting myths: that saving the planet is the top goal of green consumers. And here's my favorite: more information won't necessarily spur people to make greener choices.

Tweet

People vs. fish in the Caribbean

Where there are more people, big fish disappear. At least in the Caribbean.

A study of Caribbean reef fish says that "as human population density increases, presence of large-bodied fishes declines, and fish communities become dominated by a few smaller-bodied species."

Yikes, people and fish conflict, and the relationship is simple and direct. How sad. The causes of the Caribbean fish decline include habitat damage and overfishing.

Sustainability says we can reverse this trend. Let's get to work. I want to see the trend disappear as the big fish come back to reefs near people.

Tweet

Wal-mart is the green leader, again

Wal-mart has done it again, confounding critics by leading the sustainability revolution.

Next up for Wal-mart: broad sustainability information on product labels, using standardized measures of things like carbon footprint, water use, etc.

Elitists who hate Wal-mart and doubt their green credentials are just going to have to get over it. We should celebrate leadership where it exists, not where biases suggest it "ought" to be.

Tweet

Change leaders, not light bulbs

What's the best way for a person to go green? Thomas Friedman says to vote smart, it's so much better than the cult of personal action (like changing light bulbs).

OK, I think he goes too far, we should change leaders and light bulbs. But he has a good point, the "ten simple things you can do" lists do not really change the world. Useful steps like changing light bulbs do little unless they save kilowatts while also spurring all of us on bigger collective actions.

Voting right is good, but it's an empty platitude to emphasize voting as a solution since there are no electable leaders who really push true sustainability in their platforms. Instead, we can develop real campaigns for social change that put sustainability on the mainstream agenda. Like mine, of course.

Tweet

Are you buying green products?

A new survey says consumers talk a good game about buying green produts, but many of us are not putting our money behind our words.

We say we want green products, we put pressure on stores to stock green products, and we even acuse businesses of greenwashing when they make imperfect claims of sustainability. But, when it's our turn, too few of us actually buy the green products.

Why does this matter?

Stores are reluctant to stock green products if we don't really buy them. It's not enough to say we want them, stores look to see whether we're walking the walk on sustainability.

So who's dropping the ball on green products? Manufacturers? Retailers? Or consumers? The current study says we should look in the mirror to find the problem.

Tweet

Who's afraid of greenwashing?

It seems that a lot of people are afraid of greenwashing. But maybe the fear of greenwashing is overblown says Joel Makower, dubbed "the guru of green business" by the Associated Press.

Over at his Two Steps Forward blog, Joel says:

is greenwashing — "disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image" — on the rampage? I think not. Dubious marketing claims are problems that need addressing, but it's part of the growing pains of a new market. The rise of green marketing claims is a testament to how quickly being seen as green has become of importance to companies. Isn't that what all of us wanted to see happen?

Greenwashing represents the naturalizing of green as a meme. It demands scrutiny by all of us, and action against the egregious actors. But, in the end, as the saying goes, it's all good.

I agree. When businesses make green claims, it means they're seeing the value of being green. And that's a "problem" that I'm glad to have.

Tweet