Some new green products
On Friday night I went with some friends to the Sustainable Home Show at the convention centre. There were mostly the same exhibitors we saw last year, with a few new products and services. As always, the WA government’s Sustainable Energy Development Office booth was good, with free thermometers, magnets and compasses to give away.
The new product that caught my attention was an LED bulb to replace halogen lights. As you might already know, halogen bulbs aren’t that great for the environment: they’re low voltage, but that’s not the same as low-energy, and they waste most of that energy in heat instead of light. But compact fluorescents aren’t always a good replacement for them, as they don’t respond to dimmer switches as well, and have larger bulbs. This is where Bright Green come in - they offer LED bulbs that look and perform similarly to halogens, only much more efficiently. They are supposed to last at least 30 years!
I would love to see a larger show next year. The equivalent sustainability shows in Melbourne and Sydney seem to be much more varied than we get here.
In other product news, I also saw on the weekend that Target now has a GreenSource organic label, with t-shirts and jeans for men and women made from organic cotton. GreenSource is a US company with an established organic process. Each product has a number on it’s tag, which you can enter in their website to track where and how the cotton for that product was made. Each step of the production process is covered: growing, spinning, manufacturing and design. Target also has brochures explaining the process, and giving other tips on how to reduce the environmental impact of your clothes (washing, drying, recycling).
I didn’t buy anything from the range, because I didn’t like the women’s shirts on offer and don’t need new jeans at the moment (my organic cotton ones from Just Jeans are still going strong!). But the guys shirts were more appealing: I wanted to buy Dave the one that says “I (heart) tree-hugger chicks”. I didn’t see if there was anything for kids in the range. But I hope it’s a success and they continue it - having an open and accountable certification process is really something now that marketers have caught on to the possibilities of greenwash!
If you’ve bought either of these products, please give us a mini-review in the comments!
August 25th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I bought the target jeans, they are comfortable and excellent. I just checked the greensource website to “track my garment” as they advertised I can.
The cotton claims it is organic, thru ECOCERT and as it carries a USDA certification, I’m going to choose to believe it tho I’m unsure how stringent the US laws are considering most of their normal agriculture is now GE.
That aside it claims to be certifide also by WRAP , who I’ve never heard of , apperently a group that certifies fair treatment of workers.
I’m concerned this may be a massive greenwash so if WRAP and ECOCERT are legit bodies I’d love to hear back, write to
chickenonyourhead@hotmail.com
It’d be great if this is legit and a big credit to Target.
But if it’s not, something needs to be done as most target consumers wouldn’t look up the certification as i had done and those that do would buy it. It looks very official. But are these companies just owned by target? is ECOCERT owned by target?
Let’s find out….
Cheers
Grillz