Do UK businesses positively look for eco-friendly supplies or is that a myth?

[Eco - Robert]

I've never been on a business forum before, so please excuse me if I get things wrong. I'm trying to do some marketing research, that's all! I'm trying to get a feel for how important businesses generally, regard the climate emergency. How far up, or low down the priority list, is sourcing eco-friendly and or ethical supplies for your business?

For example when looking for something, anything from office supplies, stationary to vans and cars. When doing an initial google search, do you include any words like, sustainable, ethical, eco-friendly, low carbon, British only or similar?

Or, truthfully, is it unimportant? Perhaps price is the only factor, or if we hadn''t got all these other inflationary pressures, you might take some action to mitigate against the climate emergency.

It's interesting either way, isn't it?

 

[IanSuth]

Personally, if the prices/quality are near similar I would look at source/provenance as a deciding factor but i place little monetary value on it.

However my ex colleague was Mr Green, he wouldn't allow us to have Xmas cards that weren't FSC approved and tried to get teabags for the kitchen that had no plastic in.

So there you go - I think how far up a business's priority list it is depends upon the personal proclivities of the decision maker for that budget.

As an aside though I did tie him in moral knots asking him if he was happy with Orangutan instead of Cow dieing for his Xmas pudding when he announced he was having a vegan xmas pudding and I explained vegetable suet generally uses Palm Oil - and that is my issue with a lot of "eco", it depends how you look at it as to how green it actually is.

I tend to just try and waste as little as possible and buy things that will last/are reusable rather than hunting for things with eco or green labels

 

[Paul Norman]

I do look at this.

But I do it in a fairly big picture way. For example, with stationery items, rather than worry about eco friendly stuff I have cut down my stationery purchases to almost zero. Likewise, with diesel - my useage is less than a quarter of what it was.


It is certainly on the list of things to take into account.

But do I search for 'eco friendly biros?' No. Unlikely, I would say.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I had precisely this conversation with a supplier of sustainable shop fittings this morning - he came out with the expression 'green noise'

In a nutshell, consumers like the idea of being eco-friendly, but are very limited in how much extra they will pay or how much effort/concession they will make in order to achieve it.

The margin they will pay is proportionate to the level of personal contact

 

[Eco - Robert]

Personally, if the prices/quality are near similar I would look at source/provenance as a deciding factor but i place little monetary value on it.

However my ex colleague was Mr Green, he wouldn't allow us to have Xmas cards that weren't FSC approved and tried to get teabags for the kitchen that had no plastic in.

So there you go - I think how far up a business's priority list it is depends upon the personal proclivities of the decision maker for that budget.

As an aside though I did tie him in moral knots asking him if he was happy with Orangutan instead of Cow dieing for his Xmas pudding when he announced he was having a vegan xmas pudding and I explained vegetable suet generally uses Palm Oil - and that is my issue with a lot of "eco", it depends how you look at it as to how green it actually is.

I tend to just try and waste as little as possible and buy things that will last/are reusable rather than hunting for things with eco or green labels

Yes Ian, you're wise to look closely at the detail before accepting all the Eco labels.

 

[Eco - Robert]

I do look at this.

But I do it in a fairly big picture way. For example, with stationery items, rather than worry about eco friendly stuff I have cut down my stationery purchases to almost zero. Likewise, with diesel - my useage is less than a quarter of what it was.


It is certainly on the list of things to take into account.

But do I search for 'eco friendly biros?' No. Unlikely, I would say.

Thank you Paul, interesting.

 

[Eco - Robert]

I had precisely this conversation with a supplier of sustainable shop fittings this morning - he came out with the expression 'green noise'

In a nutshell, consumers like the idea of being eco-friendly, but are very limited in how much extra they will pay or how much effort/concession they will make in order to achieve it.

The margin they will pay is proportionate to the level of personal contact

I see, so as long as it costs nothing extra, you might do it to make the customers feel a little more comfortable. Fair enough.

 

[Fagin2021]

To my mind it's counter-productive.

By selling Mr & Mrs Joe Public 'eco-friendly' products you encourage them to think they've done their bit for climate change.

"Darling, just off down the bottle bank. Someone's got to save the polar bears."

If you want to make a difference, use less and cut out waste.

And don't have children. (I'm looking at you Greta).

 

[fisicx]

I'm with @Paul Norman and @Fagin2021 - rather than look for Eco-friendly or green products the best solution is to use less stuff.

Green-wash is bigger than being Eco-friendly. BP planting trees to offset oil-refining is the sort of tosh spouted as being green.

 

[UKSBD]

I'm a bit cynical about it all

Rather than buying from a company who says they have balanced their carbon footprint by planting a tree in the middle of nowhere, I prefer to buy from the most convenient place I can and plant a tree in my own back garden.

 

[simon field]

Another cynic here. Many businesses will have *something* they do, or can do, to offset some carbon.

Trouble is, supply chains are often very long, especially when you strip them right down to raw materials, and the processing of.
They often come from countries who frankly don’t give a damn, or can’t afford to give a damn about their effect on the environment.

As above, buy less crap, use less crap.

 

[Eco - Robert]

To my mind it's counter-productive.

By selling Mr & Mrs Joe Public 'eco-friendly' products you encourage them to think they've done their bit for climate change.

"Darling, just off down the bottle bank. Someone's got to save the polar bears."

If you want to make a difference, use less and cut out waste.

And don't have children. (I'm looking at you Greta).

I don't disagree with you, the world is over populated, can't argue with that. But are you making an assumption that everything marketed as eco-friendly is green wash? Use less and cut out waste is also sound advice.

I'm grateful to everyone on this feed, the distrust of the phrase 'eco-friendly' is very real isn't it. So, I work with British grown wood. I'm getting the impression that by marketing it to businesses as eco-friendly, I'm shooting myself in the foot. You're not interested. If I change tack and point out that 'natural' is the fashion trend, people seemingly choose to wear cotton, linen and wool. Those in the know would say you're more with it if you dress in natural materials. We're told cars sell better if they look naturally like cats, new houses often now have some wooden cladding to make them just a tiny bit natural and sheep's wool is undoubtedly one of the better insulation materials (we're not talking about eco-friendly). Shop fitters often use wooden boarding to make businesses look fashionable, they put floor boards down over concrete. So if your business doesn't have an air of natural to greet your clients, are you a little behind the times? A bit out of date?

Would you consider natural if it meant your business looked more relevant to today's fashion trends?

 

[fisicx]

I work with British grown wood....

Great. But what is that wood used for? Does it end up as expensive furniture in high end stores sold to people driving range rovers? If this is the case it's the opposite of eco-friendly or green.

New houses may use wood cladding but are they 5 bed luxury house built on green field sites. If they were small wood framed houses on brownfield sites then you have a better claim to being natural and green.

 

[Eco - Robert]

I'm a bit cynical about it all

Rather than buying from a company who says they have balanced their carbon footprint by planting a tree in the middle of nowhere, I prefer to buy from the most convenient place I can and plant a tree in my own back garden.

Well, you're right there, but I can't help thinking people are judging the subject by the standards of very large business. Car manufacturers surely can't be truly green under any circumstances. So do we just give up because marketing gurus have manipulated the truth. As you say, planting a tree somewhere in a foreign land that probably will not be managed to maturity anyway, isn't going to help. But does that mean you're not going to bother to buy goods and services that can demonstrate less environmental impact?

 

[Eco - Robert]

Great. But what is that wood used for? Does it end up as expensive furniture in high end stores sold to people driving range rovers? If this is the case it's the opposite of eco-friendly or green.

New houses may use wood cladding but are they 5 bed luxury house built on green field sites. If they were small wood framed houses on brownfield sites then you have a better claim to being natural and green.

Again you've a good point here. I'm not defending house building, merely wondering if there is an angle to the use of wood that will make you consider using it?

But to answer your question I make somethings that you would say are elitist, garden sculpture for example. But I mainly make wooden signage, commercial and domestic. Toilet signs, car park signs, footpaths as well as exclusive house signs. I don't know what your business is, but if you needed a sign for your company name, would you consider a natural wooden (fit for purpose) quite trendy sign, or would you look at a plastic or aluminium one for no reason other than you don't trust eco-friendly?

I'm not trying to argue with any of you, it is just interesting that generally, on this feed, you just don't believe there's any point in considering eco-friendly or natural. This is very useful to me and thank you again for your time and trouble. I'll give further thought to marketing now.

 

[fisicx]

...if you needed a sign for your company name, would you consider a natural wooden (fit for purpose) quite trendy sign, or would you look at a plastic or aluminium one for no reason other than you don't trust eco-friendly?

A wood sign needs painting or varnishing and regular maintenance to keep is in good condition. Can you put the sign through a screenprinter or some other machine to apply a transfer or film? Is the price comparable to a plastic or aluminium sign?

What other type of wood is ther other than natural? Is the production of wooden sheet more green than a sheet of aluminium (all the way from extraction of raw material to pinished product)?

 

[simon field]

I would have thought that rather than cutting down trees to make things, using shredded/pulped/granulated plastics, tyres etc would be a better move?

 

[Eco - Robert]

A wood sign needs painting or varnishing and regular maintenance to keep is in good condition. Can you put the sign through a screenprinter or some other machine to apply a transfer or film? Is the price comparable to a plastic or aluminium sign?

What other type of wood is ther other than natural? Is the production of wooden sheet more green than a sheet of aluminium (all the way from extraction of raw material to pinished product)?

Well, I can see you would be a hard nut to crack, but yes wood needs maintenance, not all that regular though. Heresy to put a film over it. I doubt it would be more expensive. And natural wood means it has not been processed into a sheet material. I wood say that a wooden board from a properly managed system as we have in the UK is way way more more green than aluminium. In fact do you really believe it would be otherwise?

Simon mentioned the re-use of materials, again good idea but expensive. That's an interesting point, would you be prepared to spend more on a recycled sign, but not less on a new wooden one? By the way, commercial plantations need to be managed, they're cyclical and harvesting wood is as important as planting.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I would have thought that rather than cutting down trees to make things, using shredded/pulped/granulated plastics, tyres etc would be a better move?

The company I was talking to yesterday are using olive pips!

 

[Mark T Jones]

@Eco - Robert - in business/marketing terms an important point here is to keep your business out of any of the wider Eco debates & to remain focused on your own brand of eco-awareness. You're not there to change perceptions, your job is to cater for the market who believe in your Eco credentials.

Off brand, banter about the whole thing as freely as you like!

 

[The Byre]

For example when looking for something, anything from office supplies, stationary to vans and cars. When doing an initial google search, do you include any words like, sustainable, ethical, eco-friendly, low carbon, British only or similar?

No - there's no point!

Or, truthfully, is it unimportant? Perhaps price is the only factor, or if we hadn''t got all these other inflationary pressures, you might take some action to mitigate against the climate emergency.

It's very important - but I for one am tired of being lied to.

In 1980, I together with many others, founded the German Green Party. We were completely ignored and the very important book 'The Limits to Growth' was also ignored and condemned as being unrealistic nonsense. "Limits? What limits?"

Well, now society everywhere is flapping and panicking because they are now discovering that there really are limits. No kidding Holmes! Well, suck it up!

So now politicians and industry is green-washing everything, but still doing nothing. It starts with planting trees instead of planting food. It continues with heat pumps - that use electricity! How about the mad policy of putting cladding on the outside of houses where it does the least good?

We are told to take Diesel fumes belching public transport like the completely empty Diesel train I saw yesterday and Diesel smoking busses.

But the biggest joke of all is electric cars. They waste energy at every step. By the time the oil/gas/coal has actually been burnt to turn it into electricity, been sent down a wire, converted to domestic voltage, put into a battery, taken out of the battery and turned into kinetic energy, the efficiency is well below 20%. That is less than half of a clean Diesel car even if you include the energy cost of refining the Diesel.

In the DRC (Congo) about 4,000 children die every year crawling down makeshift mines to gather cobalt. 2,000 officially and at least as many again where the parents get paid off to keep quiet. And that's just one of the components and just one country! Now multiply that by all the other things that go into an EV so that Captain Middle-Class Smug can feel morally superior.

And why are we doing this and why are the politicians and industry lying through their teeth?

Because a 16-year-old schoolgirl is bleating about things she only half understands and because Derrick glued his face to the M25.

 

[Eco - Robert]

@Eco - Robert - in business/marketing terms an important point here is to keep your business out of any of the wider Eco debates & to remain focused on your own brand of eco-awareness. You're not there to change perceptions, your job is to cater for the market who believe in your Eco credentials.

Off brand, banter about the whole thing as freely as you like!

Thank you Mark, your advice is sound too. I thought my original question wasn't all that controversial - got that wrong too!
Robert

 

[Eco - Robert]

No - there's no point!

It's very important - but I for one am tired of being lied to.

In 1980, I together with many others, founded the German Green Party. We were completely ignored and the very important book 'The Limits to Growth' was also ignored and condemned as being unrealistic nonsense. "Limits? What limits?"

Well, now society everywhere is flapping and panicking because they are now discovering that there really are limits. No kidding Holmes! Well, suck it up!

So now politicians and industry is green-washing everything, but still doing nothing. It starts with planting trees instead of planting food. It continues with heat pumps - that use electricity! How about the mad policy of putting cladding on the outside of houses where it does the least good?

We are told to take Diesel fumes belching public transport like the completely empty Diesel train I saw yesterday and Diesel smoking busses.

But the biggest joke of all is electric cars. They waste energy at every step. By the time the oil/gas/coal has actually been burnt to turn it into electricity, been sent down a wire, converted to domestic voltage, put into a battery, taken out of the battery and turned into kinetic energy, the efficiency is well below 20%. That is less than half of a clean Diesel car even if you include the energy cost of refining the Diesel.

In the DRC (Congo) about 4,000 children die every year crawling down makeshift mines to gather cobalt. 2,000 officially and at least as many again where the parents get paid off to keep quiet. And that's just one of the components and just one country! Now multiply that by all the other things that go into an EV so that Captain Middle-Class Smug can feel morally superior.

And why are we doing this and why are the politicians and industry lying through their teeth?

Because a 16-year-old schoolgirl is bleating about things she only half understands and because Derrick glued his face to the M25.

I can see, unlike me, you're an expert and I'm grateful you took the time to write your post. I'll read your book.

 

[Eco - Robert]

Shall we stop now? Or does anyone want to continue?

Thanks again to everybody involved.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Thank you Mark, your advice is sound too. I thought my original question wasn't all that controversial - got that wrong too!
Robert

It's always interesting where a forum debate can take you.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Shall we stop now? Or does anyone want to continue?

Thanks again to everybody involved.

I reckon it can run and run for as long as you want it to.

 

[DazRave]

But the biggest joke of all is electric cars. They waste energy at every step. By the time the oil/gas/coal has actually been burnt to turn it into electricity, been sent down a wire, converted to domestic voltage, put into a battery, taken out of the battery and turned into kinetic energy, the efficiency is well below 20%. That is less than half of a clean Diesel car even if you include the energy cost of refining the Diesel.

What are your thoughts, if any, on bio-fuel?

As a motorsport and F1 fan for many years, it's been great to hear they have placed their focus on going down this route rather than switching to electric completely similar (or the same as) Formula-E.

I hear the negatives are mainly around the water required still but I see this as the future. Especially since a lot of infrastructures could be easily converted to bio-fuel and people who live on crowded streets can't run power to their cars can still just go and fill up.

 

[Eco - Robert]

OK, I guess we'd better keep going. I know nothing about motorsport or electric cars other than to me, if you don't have your existing car scrapped, no matter its value, you're simply adding to the problem.

 

[IanSuth]

We are told to take Diesel fumes belching public transport like the completely empty Diesel train I saw yesterday and Diesel smoking busses.

Yesterday early evening myself and a daughter got a train from Reading to Plymouth - it was a FGW via Westbury and as far as I know it was diesel the whole route

As we left Westbury i went for a walk down the 4 carriages i could get to (the 2 power units were randomly in the centre so I couldn't walk full length) there was 1 first class and 7 standard class passengers including us. Plus 2 guards/train managers/stewards

How on earth did that make sense for the £ let alone the planet (us 2 paid £86 return so an average of £21.50 for that 200mile+ journey )

 

[IanSuth]

OK, I guess we'd better keep going. I know nothing about motorsport or electric cars other than to me, if you don't have your existing car scrapped, no matter its value, you're simply adding to the problem.

Rubbish

If I take my 2005 Skoda Octavia 1.9 diesel estate which does just under 60mpg on long journeys (long term average 56mpg over last 65k miles) and bin it I have to buy at least 1 EV (as close as I could get would be an MG EV Estate and they are a lot smaller internally)

That means I have just added to the mining of Lithium/Cobalt etc, the shipping of it all, the production of the batteries and the smelting of the metal for the body, the shipping of all that to the assembler, the assembly and then the delivery to the showroom, the lighting of the showroom etc etc.

Now when someone will show me an actual breakdown of how many miles I will have to drive in the EV rather than the Skoda to cover that production cost (in CO2 equivalent) I will do the maths on whether it makes sense

 

[NickGrogan]

I wood say that a wooden board from a properly managed system as we have in the UK is way way more more green than aluminium. In fact do you really believe it would be otherwise?

What is the lifespan of a wooden sign?
What is the lifespan of an aluminium sign?
How many times can a wood sign be recycled?
What about aluminium?

 

[japancool]

They should ban all short-haul flights as well. There is absolutely no reason anyone needs to fly from Leeds to London (unless the train drivers are on strike...). Save air miles for where we really need them.

Also, it'll stop the riff-raff heading to Majorca or Minorca from crowding airports.

 

[Eco - Robert]

Hello Nick,

If the wooden sign is inside your reception area, then it could last as long as the aluminium one. If it's outside in all weathers, then a wooden one will last say 15 years. I'm guessing most companies would renew a sign like this more often than 15 years what ever it's made from. But you're right in that you are unlikely to be able to reuse the wooden sign. But, your aluminium recycling will produce carbon, I would guess (because I don't know) that carbon is likely to be more than making a new wooden sign.

 

[japancool]

Hello Nick,

If the wooden sign is inside your reception area, then it could last as long as the aluminium one. If it's outside in all weathers, then a wooden one will last say 15 years. I'm guessing most companies would renew a sign like this more often than 15 years what ever it's made from. But you're right in that you are unlikely to be able to reuse the wooden sign. But, your aluminium recycling will produce carbon, I would guess (because I don't know) that carbon is likely to be more than making a new wooden sign.

How would wooden signs be disposed of?

 

[Eco - Robert]

Well, you could compost it, if you want to go the whole mile. Or if you have a log burner at home, you could burn it for heat instead of putting that electric heat source pump on.

 

[The Byre]

What are your thoughts, if any, on bio-fuel?

About the same as planting trees to harvest the subsidies.

Germany has gone down this route in a big way, so field after field is now covered in maize - not because it is more efficient than just using regular petrol, but because it harvests massive subsidies. And this is maize that is destined for becoming ethanol so the farmers can use much more chemicals such as biocides and fertiliser. The result is predictably a biological desert.

So the taxpayer is funding the death of the soil and the death of real farming. Vegetables that used to be grown locally and bought at farmers' markets are now imported from Spain and North Africa.

At the same time, new Dutch and German rules about farming are causing farmers ever-higher costs when producing food and many are losing their livelihoods as cheap imports push prices down. Desperate farmers are now protesting everywhere and it is spreading.

Last year, farming inputs rose by 22% - prices did not! Farming tenancies are tantamount to impossible to obtain. When a tenancy comes onto the market here in the UK, you can expect at least 100 applicants and each one will file a complete business plan over many pages just to stand a chance of a one-in-a-hundred success. Buying and equipping a viable farm will cost you millions and rich people are buying them up and planting trees to garner subsidies and avoid death duties.

Biofuels are just one part of a huge septic tank of mistakes made by idiot politicians everywhere as they harvest votes with misguided, virtue-signaling schemes in their clawing, grasping narcissism-fueled desperation to cling to power.

But why? Because a 16-year-old schoolgirl is bleating about things she only half understands and because Derrick glued his face to the M25.

 

[IanSuth]

What is the lifespan of a wooden sign?
What is the lifespan of an aluminium sign?
How many times can a wood sign be recycled?
What about aluminium?

Aluminium is one of the best things to recycle, due to the massive amounts of electricity needed to extract aluminium from Bauxite by electrolysis it is actually far more efficient and cheaper to get it from recycling than refine from scratch. I learnt that from OLevel Geography in the 80's

 

[japancool]

Biofuels are just one part of a huge septic tank of mistakes made by idiot politicians everywhere as they harvest votes with misguided, virtue-signaling schemes in their clawing, grasping narcissism-fueled desperation to cling to power.

Algae fuels sound good. Although some whale fanciers will moan about it.

 

[Eco - Robert]

Again I bow to your obvious superior knowledge The Byre or is it Daz?. So, is your conclusion that we're all damned anyway, so why bother. Or just try and do one's own bit based on the knowledge shared by people like your good self, and hope for the best.

 

[Fagin2021]

Leaving aside the morality of growing crops to feed cars whilst much of the world starves...

Agent Smith in the film 'The Matrix'...

“I´d like to share a revelation that I´ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realized that you’re not actually mammals.

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.