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Cleantech Parasites

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It dawned on me today, that after buying green ecommerce store Greenhome.com 8 months ago, we put up links to the site on CleantechBlog.com, and included special coupons for all our Cleantech Blog readers and Cleantech.org members in the monthly emailings.  Here I thought people who were making a living off cleantech might *gasp* care about walking the walk and might appreciate it.

I think Greenhome.com saw a total of 3 coupon downloads out of that, and two were spam.  Worse, I’ve gotten more than that many personal comments asking why I’d clutter up the cleantech site with blog columns about green products.  On Saturdays no less, when the weekend traffic falls off 75%.  For the record we pulled those columns a few months ago

Fine save your money or buy somewhere else, but that rate is so abysmally low, it made me wonder if the entire of my audience is completely hypocritic.  And yes, it’s the web.  And yes, I DO pay attention.   I can see what pages y’all click on, and where you comment, I moderate every single one. And several times a week I read every Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIN comment, and systematically delete and block anyone I find that spams, no appeals.  When I ignore you, it’s because you’re being annoying, I mean err, “that comment does not meet our unpublished comment policy or is not conducive to the health of the CleantechBlog.com and Cleantech.org community”.

So I’m pretty sure this group likes to read and talk and b*%&h about cleantech and a greener better world.  But do you actually care?

 

Do you actually think about cleantech, green products, and energy or water use when you’re not at work?

How many of you actually have a solar system?

How many of your light bulbs are now CFLs or LEDs?

How many have done an energy audit?

What green/ecofriendly versions of a product have you actually bought?

Do you know what makes that product green?

Do you actually recycle/compost?  Do you do the minimum required, or make an extra effort? At your home?  At your office?  Do you even know?

Do you have a clue what your energy bill is?  How many kW hours you use per square foot?  How that compares to the average? – For the record, when I asked a number of people that question at the last Cleantech Forum, I got a bunch of very polite laughs.

 

Or, and please excuse the language, are you just a cleantech parasite sucking off the teat of the government subsidies in cleantech?  Warren Buffett literally eats the food from the restaurants he owns, right?  Do you even bother to turn your lights off? 😉  What’s the phrase?  Oh yeah, “the choice is yours”.

Tree Free Sneezing

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Nothing quite like the mental picture of sneezing or blowing your nose into a tree free tissue, now is there?  Except perhaps the image of blowing your sweet nose into sugar cane tissue!

Name:  Ralph Bianculli, Jr

Company/Products: Emerald Brand, Tree Free Facial Tissue

What’s your personal definition of greening?

A product made in an environmentally preferable way. Whether the raw materials are renewable/sustainable/recycled. All chemicals in our products are environmentally safe and chlorine free. A reduction in carbon footprint from a similarly equivalent product.

How did you get started in green business?

We began in 1998 with 4 SKUS of 100% recycled products. We now produce more than 60 environmentally friendly SKUS including paper made from sugarcane waste that is traditionally burned.

Why did you choose to supply Greenhome.com?

You guys have a wonderful message and a true commitment to become green. (Though I wish you would sell some more of our Tree Free products..!) (Editor’s note, Ralph, what are you waiting for?  Call us and sell us more!)

What do you and your company do in your own life and operations to walk the walk?

We recycled all around the office, use all of our green products in the office environment, limit printing per employee, and use eco-efficient distribution logistics.

What is the best greening advice you can give our customers?

Do some research on the product you’re purchasing, make sure the company is credible and that the product is truly GREEN.

What’s your personal favorite of your products that Greenhome.com carries?

Tree free facial tissue, of course!

What’s been the biggest change in the green sector since you got started?

The biggest challenge is converting customers over to green at cost neutral or less, something which we have overcome in the last few years. It’s fantastic, now consumers can spend the same amount of money and use our eco-friendly products. It’s an easy choice for them.

Do you really think green products make a big difference and why?

ABSOLUTELY! Take a look at our eco-calculator on our homepage and you’ll see!

Do you think consumers now are aware green products exist, or is there still a lot more education to do?

Consumers are much more aware. Since we launched our tree free line with the Duane Reade/Walgreens group the numbers speak for themselves , as we outsold Charmin for the first time in Duane Reade’s history. Consumers still need to be educated though. They need to know things go beyond “recycled”.

If you could invent a green product that doesn’t exist, what would it be?

It’s a secret!

Thank you for your time- we are looking forward to many more years working with you!

Our Green Executives Speak Out

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The Green Home Blog is very excited to begin profiling the owners and executives at a few of the companies making and supplying the green and ecofriendly products you’ve come to know and love from us. 

Many of our friends and suppliers have been in the green business since way before it was cool, and we thought you’d like to hear from a few of them about what they think being green means, and their vision, passion, thoughts, and advice.  So we’ve been interviewing a few of them, and we’re looking forward to sharing what they have to say.

If you’re a long time customer or supplier and you’d like to be profiled or want to share your green story, just drop us an email at marketing@greenhome.com, and share a few of your thoughts or answer the interview below.  We can’t publish everyone, but I guarantee we’ll be reading your perspective even if we don’t get it up the blog.  And if you’re a media type and would like to meet one of our suppliers and learn more about their products, just drop us a line and we’ll facilitate.

Name:

Company:

What do you or your company do?

What’s your personal definition of greening?

How did you get started in green business?

What do you and your company do in your own life and operations to walk the walk?

What is the best greening advice you can give our customers?

What’s your personal favorite of the products that Greenhome.com carries?

What’s been the biggest change in the green sector since you got started?

Do you really think green products make a big difference and why?

Do you think consumers now are aware green products exist, or is there still a lot more education to do?

If you could invent a green product that doesn’t exist, what would it be?

 

And for those of you don’t yet, join the discussion on how to be greenest on twitter and facebook, and tweet us or post your best green thoughts there as well.

www.twitter.com/greenhomey

www.facebook.com/greenhome