Grain fed meat is not healthful... I wonder about grain fed milk. Oh wait, milk isn't healthful at all.

Milk not healthful? Er, how does it feel to have your pants so utterly on fire?

d, there's been some research indicating that the acids in milkfat do more damage than the calcium prevents. You can find that in nations where more milk is consumed, there's a much higher incidence of osteoporosis.

Josh A., could you link to a study or real data indicating that milk isn't healthful?

d, could you link to data indicating that milk *is* healthful - that isn't funded by the milk industry?

Don't see how a supply chain article ends up as a discussion on the health benefits or not of milk.

Any way Organic milk is better than normal milk but isolating any health effect is pretty much impossible when we all drive cars and live in cities. Not that I don't love my car and city.
Simply a matter of personal belief in the end.

Supply chains are a different matter. We hold the first Licence X0001 from the Soil Association to produce Organic leather. We have a defined and detailed supply chain but we let the customer see it all, through the use of the Web and software developed by a company called Historic futures. Our customers can therefore have real freedom of choice in their purchase and consequently support systems they approve of and avoid systems that they do not want to support. They are able to visit the farm where the animals are reared both physically or virtually to see the environmental benefit of the Organic system for themselves. They can also know the impact of the chemicals (actually trees and flowers) we use as well as knowing the name of every worker, and their company telephone number, who participated in the process of making their goods.

To us a little label saying that a product is or is not Organic/ethical misses the point, particularly when self certification is allowed under EU law.

In the Garden of Edun (Rogan's label with Bono)the marketing man is still king and detail on what certification system is used and what controls exist and what is the real benefit is is lost. This is a shame as, probably, all is well in that particular state of Denmark and it would be good to know the standards used. Basically its the same for all current eco brands.

Opening up the supply chains is the precusor of real freedom of choice and essentially the moment (even though I am not religious myself) when the meek inherit the earth or at least have the ability to shape it with their purchasing power.

People always ask if we are afraid of being copied, but we have our own designer and basically we think its pretty unlikely anyone will be able to produce a better product. If they genuinely do produce a better product, openly, then we would be the first to offer congratulations, best wishes and good luck because we know how difficult it is to get this far. Either way the planet wins and competition over the best environmental or most compassionate solution should be a whole lot of fun in the commerce of the future we want.

The experience of an in depth investigation of any industry may well reveal similar stories of symbiosis as the article. My experience is that we simply aren't doing things in a logical or economic manner anymore and by reversing the impact of our products and making them beneficial we have found many other lost and potentially profitable products.

I believe that the re-unification of divided cost centres (such as meat and skin or meat and wool in our case, cotton and cotton seed in the example) will eventually lead to open and whollistic pro-environment, pro-labour (small l) and pro-compassionate land husbandry farming systems that are far more profitable in every sense of the word than the current pro-pollution, pro-out of date and un-democratic labour law and pro-cruelty, systems that dominate fashion production. The only grounds for these systems is immediate short terms cheapness.

We think these products simply aren't stylish and the designs are clearly flawed as they do not command sufficient value to support proper systems which are respectful and reflect the customers own values.

Cheap and nasty fashion is therefore completely un-sustainable when allied to an aspirational brand image, in an information based world, and we think the change heralded by Edun, Howies, People Tree, Katherine E Hamnett and the like can't come soon enough.

Thanks for mentioning us Greg. Yes indeed, we are making a difference. We're doing full traceability on organic cotton for the organic exchange, hoping to do more on other products ranging from Vanilla to Sheeps wool, from cork to cheese and leather all within a short time span. Take a look at us - http://www.historicfutures.com

Cheers

Simon