Thanks for the info on an interesting new business.

Curious though about your comment at the end; "...overt material consumption that caused them in the first place. However, if you do have to make a purchase, it doesn’t hurt to see it have beneficial side effects".

Doesn't a shift toward "consious consumption" through efforts such as this help to harness and direct one of the most powerful contributors to sustainable development?

Denying that consumption is a key factor to be considered under the lense of sustainable development seems counter to your overall point of view...

Thanks for the comments BB. It's weird that you should ask that. I just last night proposed as the topic for a evening discussion by the Society for Responsible Design: "sustainable consumption — can it exist?"


It's also the conundrum at the heart of TreeHugger itself. It is greener to sew buttons back on a shirt or repair a tear, rather than go buy a new one, even if it be fair traded, organic bamboo, dyed in lovely non-toxic shades. The simple act of buying another shirt, no matter how seemingly eco-benign, sets in train a whole array of actions which have a detrimental impact on the health of our planet. Greenhouse gas emiting trucks carried the bamboo to the plant. Water is used in processing the bamboo. Staff may drive fossil fuel powered cars to the factory, where it is sewn, and later other staff to the shop where it's sold. And so on and on. But if you just selected a button from jar of salvaged ones and fixed the shirt much less of these impacts would occur.


We need to understand we are are not removed from nature, but are intrinsically bound to it. 'What we do to the planet we do to ourselves.' In Nature there is no 'consumption', only contribution. Every action is a vital link in a chain or web. Human consumption is linear, not circular. It is not adding value to the chain, rather it is diminishing it. We buy stuff, use it and landfill it. We 'consume.' (expend; use up; waste; squander; destroy totally; ravage !)


Where will the Sony stereo end up, that was purchased via the EcoMiles website? In landfill. So we could ask: which is the more more conscious action: to buy a stereo we don't really need, and have a miniscule % of our purchase be directed to a development program, or to not buy that stereo and then send the money we saved to the same development? Which is the contribution of greater value to people and to the planet?


If being 'conscious' is the act of being awake, then initiatives such as EcoMiles, and indeed TreeHugger itself, are but the blinking eyelids of humankind. Tiny steps that need to occur before we truly open our eyes, and become fully aware, of both the questions, and the answers. Projects like EcoMiles (and TH) are not the solution, but they are certainly an improvement on the problem.


Thanks for your enquiring mind, and thoughtfully posed questions. I hope my response clarifies my stance.