Blue is the way to integrate green

Thursday, April 10, 2008 (SF Chronicle)
Open Forum: Blue is the way to integrate green ideals
Adam Werbach

After spending most of my life as a full-time environmentalist, I declaredin 2004 that environmentalism was dead, unable to effectively work at thescale of the problems we faced. Since that time, I've been on a journeyacross the planet to find the next stage of ideas that can help catalyze anew movement to build the world we want. As I've traveled, my field ofvision has expanded. I've come to see that you can eat locally, co-op grown, organic heirloomtomatoes and still be a bad person. Eating those tomatoes is only onesmall way to take care of yourself, your community and the planet. Thosetomatoes are an entrance point, not an end. While I'll always be someonewith green ideals, it's clear that we need a new mass movement - not justfor professionals or experts or people who can explain photosynthesis andlifecycle analysis. We need a movement for people who care about spendingmore quality time with their family and also about climate change, forpeople who want to lose a little weight as well as bike to work, and forpeople who really need to save some money. When you travel to countries that have been green for decades, such asSwitzerland, there's already a color for this movement - it's blue. Ipropose that we begin to adopt this blue movement here. Don't worry, youcan still be green, but blue is a way to integrate your green ideals intoyour broader ideals. We still can't get where we need to go withoutpolitical change, but it's time to get serious about bringing our idealsto the way we live and the way we shop. Consider this: For the first time in human history there are twice as manypeople who are overweight than are hungry on the planet. The way we live,and the way we shop, are killing us. The average American woman spends an hour a day shopping. She is an expertat finding the right value for herself and her family, and increasinglyshe's looking to make a difference when she does. To date, the only socialchange movement that speaks to her says one thing: Stop. Stop shopping,start making your own household chemicals, rendering fat into soap, andhanging your clothes out on a laundry line. While these are noble ends,everything that we've learned about behavior change is that it happenssmall step by small step, so it's unlikely that a mom will switch fromCheez Whiz to tofu. Our battle is not between the organic carrot and theregular carrot, the battle is between the carrot and the Twinkie. There's a sense of green fatigue infecting many people, largely becauseit's being promoted as a panacea in ways that it doesn't deliver. "OrganicAmerican Spirit Cigarettes" still cause lung cancer and low-birth-weightbabies. Those cigarettes may be better for the "environment," but thissort of FOCUS obfuscates the fact that smoking kills a lot more peoplethan pesticides, and that we need to care about both the smoker and thefarmer. Organic is simply one step toward being blue even though it's thegold-standard for being green. While this movement will have many faces, it will use a platform that is adaily practice for most of us - shopping. While political activism is atbest a biannual pursuit, shopping is a regular activity for most people onthe planet, and if trends continue, for virtually everyone. Now before youattack me for sounding like President Bush who seemed to say after 9/11,"We can shop our way out of it," let me be clear. I'm not calling for youto get off the farm and into the mall. Engaging people as consumers, aspeople who shop, allows us the possibility of building a billion-personmovement. People don't need to join a listserv or pay a membership fee tojoin. They won't get a newsletter or a membership card that they need tostuff into their wallet. And no wall calendars. But how do we bring ouraspirations for the world into what we buy? This is the billion-personquestion. Every product you buy should be a gateway to a personal sustainabilitypractice. The first step is developing your own personal practices. Thesecond step is asking the stores where you shop to start carrying productsthat support your practice. And the third step is sharing your practicewith you friends. It all starts with you. 21st century award INFORUM's award is given to visionaries who are shaping the future. Recentrecipients include YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, KingAbdullah II of Jordan, Microsoft executive Paul Rutter, and tonight, AdamWerbach. INFORUM is a division of the Commonwealth Club. For text of Werbach's speech, go to www. saatchis.com/birthofblue For more information, go to http://www.commonwealthclub.org/ orgrist.org/birthofblue
Adam Werbach is the global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S and formerly servedas the national president of the Sierra Club. ----------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle