Advertise Your Sustainability
Advertise Your Sustainability
Advertise your Sustainability - Photo credit: Charles Moore
By Dan Michels, Boulder, Colorado
There
a number of American companies that specialize in custom made woodwork
and furniture. Many also claim to use sustainable and eco-friendly
production practices. Businesses that actually do operate sustainably
and use only local American materials should advertise this fact openly
and proudly, but they should also supply evidence on their websites and
in their literature. For example, a Vermont-based woodworking company
explicitly states its social and environmental missions such as its
“Plant a Billion Trees” and “Save the Tiger” campaigns, as well as its
support of other environmentally oriented companies and causes such as
the Rainforest Alliance, The Ocean Conservancy, and the Nature
Conservancy. Their furniture is 100% American made and they pride
themselves in the environmentally sensitive way they practice their
business. The information and details are easy to find on their website.
In
a time of economic uncertainty and recession, supporting local,
American businesses has become all the more important. Outsourcing has
understandably become a divisive and important political hot button.
Opportunities to implement local labor and materials in order to create
jobs and lower transportation costs are as important to the timber and
furniture industries as any others. According to the the Vermont-based
company, “Sourcing hardwoods locally grown and harvested provides
incomes to tree farmers, loggers, sawmill operators, transportation
companies, and numerous other regional service industries. In a time
where many products’ sources are unknown or imported, it is nice to know
we all have the option to support small domestic economies.”
A
woodworking company in Minnesota who claims to make “fine custom wood
products,” professes to be an “eco-friendly business”. However, they
have no information on their website supporting this claim, not once
revealing the source of their wood. If this company is indeed
eco-friendly, highlighting the claim should be a top priority for their
marketing and advertising departments. Information supporting this claim
should be readily available to every customer.
Transparency
is becoming more and more important with the environmentally-minded
community. Providing this sort of information will only help a business
and is becoming highly sought after by consumers. Diane Sawyer of ABC
World News recently produced a series called “Made in America – Where Do
Your Goods Come From?” where she explores this issue. You might just be
surprised, many of the products you think are American-made, are not.
Companies
should overtly state the benefits of buying locally American made
products and must reinforce this message with cold, hard facts about
their production practices. Robin Wade Furniture does just this. They
pride themselves in custom woodwork and place sustainability and
eco-friendly business practices as a foundation for their mission. All
this information is proudly made readily available and is easy for
consumers to access - the way it should be.
Advertise Your Sustainability
