Green News for the week 7.21.08

Trouble for the “fresh scent” industry.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on a University of Washington study claiming that scented fabric sheets, plug-in fresheners, and other scented detergents expose consumers and the environment to dangerous chemicals not always listed in the ingredients. Yet industry reps dispute the study as “misleading.”

Also:

The Dark Knight is called out for anti-green shooting methods, according to Plenty

British global warming film rebukes notion that climate change is dangerous, the NY Times

League of Conservation Voters presidential candidate Barack Obama

It’s not just greenwashing that is exasperating green consumers. Yesterday’s New York Times the issue of green noise, which it defines as “static caused by urgent, sometimes vexing or even contradictory information played at too high a volume for too long.” The confusing and conflicting messages around buying green have left consumers grappling with dizzying questions like, “Are organic salads shipped from across the country better than lettuce salads from a local industrial farm?,” the Times reports.

Sure, the green industry has some contradictions embedded into its operations and it’s not easy to quantify which eco-choices are better than others. But is there a PR opportunity amid all this confusion? Would like to hear your thoughts.

GREEN NEWS FOR THE WEEK OF 02.18.08

The beef industry was faced with its largest recall in the United States after undercover video showed workers abusing cattle, prompting officials to recall 143 million pounds of meat. Now the beef industry and animal rights groups are sparring about the scandal in the media, according to the .

Also:

The Associated Press reports, “the acting chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission lashed out Monday at the toy industry for a lack of safety controls that led to a string of highly publicized recalls.”

The Hartford Courant reports on the challenge of drawing young people to some sects of the green movement. The article says, “Fearful of a loss of relevance, concerned they might lose influence in shaping state policy, long-established groups like the Connecticut Audubon, the Connecticut chapter of the Sierra Club and the Connecticut Forest & Park Association are now reaching out to attract younger members, employees and board members.”

Read more »

WASHINGTON, DC: Edward J. Markey (D-MA), chairman, Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will serve as morning keynote PRWeek’s Target Green conference, on October 3^rd in Washington, DC.

Beth Lowery, VP energy, environment, and safety policy, General Motors is the afternoon keynote.

Remarks from the 16^th-term congressman and GM’s “chief environmental officer” will highlight the day-long event, which also features speakers from Procter & Gamble; Gap, Inc.; Discovery Communications; Treehugger.com; Canon; the US Green Building Council; AMD, Clear Channel; and the Environmental Protection Agency. To register, click here. To read more about the conference, click here.

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Animal rights groups are asserting that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving a car, touting evidence from various scientific studies including a November report issued by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Groups are parading the message in PR and ad campaigns, and going it alone due to a failed to recruit environmentalist big boys such as Al Gore, according to The New York Times.

[PETA] plans to send billboard-toting trucks to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver when Mr. Gore lectures there on Oct. 2. The billboards will feature a cartoon image of Mr. Gore eating a drumstick next to the tagline: “Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming.”

The group will also dispatch a Hummer, to a White House-sponsored climate forum, displaying a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming.

Budget-starved (no pun intended) groups such as Vegan Outreach are spending for the cause. The group will run ads and links to its Web page on 10 blogs.

Environmentalists deem the effort unrealistic.

“We’ll encourage companies to make more efficient S.U.V.’s, and we’ll encourage consumers to buy them,” [Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club] said, “but we do not find lecturing people about personal consumption choices to be effective.”

Animal rights groups may realize that using environmentalists’ refusal to get involved provides effective publicity. However, we’ll have to wait and see what the groups display on billboards if/when they cut their losses on the environmental recruitment effort.

Received an e-mail today from Sustainable Table, a “a consumer program founded to celebrate the sustainable food movement, educate individuals on food-related issues, and builds community through sustainable food.”

S’ Table is about to embark on an “eat well” tour of America.

Kicking off in Hollywood on August 2nd, we’ll travel across the United States, stopping in towns in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Missouri, Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.  We’ll visit family farms, farmers markets, and restaurants that serve locally-sourced, sustainable food.  On some stops, we’ll be hosted by local groups who’ll help us bring together area residents for barbecues and events that will include local food, great conversation, and local music.

Two clean tech bubbles? C-Net blog

Ten ways to reduce one’s food miles EcoStreet blog 

Green food a big draw at National Restaurant Association conference (QSR)

We’re still getting all of those presentations up here. They all should be up by the end of the day.

But I wanted to call your attention to proprietary research from Cohn & Wolfe, a sponsor of the conference.

If you would like to get this research, e-mail

This is the last backwards-thinking post for Target Green. Onto the new!

The food panel included Ted Smyth, chief administrative officer and SVP, corporate and government affairs, Heinz; and Steve Bryant, president, Seattle, Publicis Consultants and founder, Nutrition Marketing Research Institute.

One of the interesting things Smyth said was that analysts typically ranked Heinz high with regards to corporate social responsibility, but customer knowledge of their efforts were low.

A soundbyte from Bryant:

When you present consumers with healthy products, they’re suspicious about taste.

We asked Bob Schettino at BuzzLogic to do some data diving to on specific areas of interest to the green/clean tech community. Each week, he will crunch the numbers and update the list that determines, per BuzzLogic’s metrics, what the most influential blog or post, at that time, is in a particular category. This post will go up every Friday.

Carbon emissions

Reason Magazine
Clean technology

Eco Finance blog
Corporate Social Responsibility

HuffPo

Green policy

Inhabitat.com
Green washing

TreeHugger

Sustainable living

EcoSherpa