Hi folks! I know that this blog sometimes deals with complex issues and technical information, but I hope I don’t put anyone off with this. (In fact, please comment on this!) I’ve summarized issues (for example, palm oil) to provide a primer and help inform your reviews (and mine too). But you don’t need to have a specialized background (or a ton of time) in … Continue reading Green Stars Review Competition: Results and Repeat!
Starbucks recently announced that they are making $10 million in grants available to people with proposals for coffee cups that are compostable and recyclable. So it seems timely to do a post on this dreaded topic. Throughout development, the solution will be open source so others can benefit and innovate on the path towards the development of recyclable and compostable cups around the world. First … Continue reading The Muggle and the Big Ugly Pile of Discarded Coffee Cups
Greetings! After 17 months of something pretty close to freedom, I returned to work recently and have had less time for blogging and interacting [insert appropriate emoji to convey my precise emotional response to this. Editor: there isn’t one! System Failure! LOLZ 😛 ]. Being back at work also provides another challenge: how to find time to do things the right way ? In other … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 4: Mindfulness
Greetings, people! Is it just me or is everyone incredibly freaking busy since the year started? In any case, I’m a little late on this post to announce the winners of the last competition to write a Green Stars Review. Of course, life is not a competition and we’re all winners – just wanted to get that clear 😉 But I especially appreciate that people … Continue reading Your Turn – Competition Results, and Repeat!
In my last post, I covered two major brands of laptop – Apple and ASUS. I probably got a little overheated when discussing Apple and deviated from my normal detached scientific voice 😉 So I figured that it would be good idea to ask for your input by having a quick survey on laptop brands. Like the previous survey on Starbucks, I want to know … Continue reading Survey – What’s the Most Ethical Laptop?
My goodness, it has been a long time since the last Daily Footprint post – November! Who can even remember November in this dizzyingly accelerating society? And where were we on this epic voyage through a typical day? Last we’d heard, our protagonist with no name (Suggestions welcome! Leopold Prufrock? Kathryn Earhart?) whiled away the last hour at work by checking on his/her ethical stocks, … Continue reading Daily Footprint, #28 – Laptop
If you’re a regular on this site you probably noticed that I like to encourage you to practice ethical consumerism. I think it’s not only the best way to improve conditions on this planet of ours but can also be a surprisingly transformative practice. I find it to be transformative in a way that’s similar to the Buddhist meditation practice of metta bhavana (the development … Continue reading Your Turn!
In part 1 of this series of posts on the topic of Ethical Consumerism I mentioned the story of how Henry Ford was blocked from doing good things because of the structure of the Ford Motor Company. Well, here it is: In 1916, Henry Ford was paying workers generous wages and had cut the price of the Model T car to less than half the … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 3: The Corporation
Hi folks! Once again, it’s that time of year where we may be lucky enough to be able to slow down and reflect on life. Here’s an interesting post that introduced to me the concept of liminal space, a pause time between what was and what’s next. Liminal space is a time when your routine is interrupted, either by a major life event (death, divorce), … Continue reading R E S O L U T I O N
In the last post I argued that ethical consumerism can exist under capitalism, and that in fact it’s essential if we want to protect the world from capitalists of the ruthless kind. In this post I’m going to take a look at palm oil in order to illustrate some of the issues that ethical consumerism tackles, and hence why it is so important. Palm oil … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 2: Why is Palm Oil Bad?
The Green Stars Project 