Finland, unfortunately, lacks behind when it comes to trend of ecological and ethical consumption. You can see it for example from the selection of coffee that is served in various restaurants and cafeterias. In Finland it is not a common thing to be served as fair traid or organic coffee- the situation is totally different in for example Sweden or England. One thing that I am still confused about is that should I prefer organic over fair trade, or the other way around… 

This picture is from Sweden Mc Donland’s where they serve organic coffee.

From the topic of this post you might think that I am against recycling. No, I am not. Actually I am enthusiastic what it comes to recycling specially at home.  I just think that in Finland recycling for citizens is made too complex- which of couse degreases the amount of recycling.

I  recycle, even though it is not easy all the times. In my kitchen I have three litter baskets: one for mixed litter, one for energy waste and one for biowaste (which I compost). I also collect cardboard and magazines. Out of these different kind of waste recycling cardboard and magazines are the easiest. The nearest place to put out magazines (paper waste) is located only some hundred meters away. Compost I do have in my own yard (so no problem with biowaste), but energy waste is the most difficult! The amount of energy waste in my family seem to be enourmous: it consists mainly of packaging waste. There exists a shopping mall about 10 kilometers from my home that accepts all kind of waste- luckily energy waste too- but it has maximum limits of 2 small bags of waste (I have at least about 5 each time).  Another possibility to recycle energywaste is to drive even further with a “mini van” to a dump (Sorttiasema) where they sort enerey waste too. Does not sound very ecological!

In my opinion all the shops should have waste containers for various types of waste for their consumers. In Finland shops that sell domestic appliances are taking back old domestic appliances for recycling from customers. Grocery and other shops should also take care of the packaging waste by providing recycling waste bins for their customers.

Image: My way to recycle

Leasing or part time ownership is something big in the future I think. Leasing could be one good solution for decreasing material consumption from the environmental point of view.  

Of course the success of leasing depends much on the good business ideas around this theme. Everybody knows leasing cars and videos, and even construction tools, but did you know that you can also lease luxory handbags, babyclothes, books, even dogs (!) In one of the meetings I participated, one woman spoke out an excellent idea for leasing: suitcases. You only need them once and a while, and when you do not need them, they take an awfully lot of space. So who is the brilliant company who ceases this business idea ???

(My suitcase is travelling in couple of weeks to Mongolia with my dear friend.) 

Image: From aeroplane at Helsinki-Vantaa airport coming from London

Today I was having a lecture in an advertising agancy Family Inc’s 4 year birthday party. Besides of me there was another speaker, Brand Building Expert Minna Anttonen from Ben&Jerry’s, which is still a quite unknown ice cream brand in Finland even though well known for example in USA. Minna Anttonen had very interesting speak about the brand and she was the first lecturer that I have got some ice cream (very good!!)

Ben and Jerry’s is a premium ice cream brand with fine idea behind it. It does not advertise itself at least here in Finland but it is involved in many “social conscious” campaigns and through that it seeks to get good publicity. For example in last year it promised to give one euro/ sold ice cream pack to some charity. People were asked to what purpose to give the money. The mental health issues of young people got votes the most, and they donated the money to Helsinki Mission crisis phone targeted to help young people.

Ben and Jerry’s has the first fair trade ice cream for sale here in Finlad and it serves carbon neutral ice-cream. They also use green energy sources for ice cream production and are really concerned about the climate change issues- and also act based on their concerns. Doing good for the society is really one of their targets. Specially here in Finland this kind of social counsiousness of companies or brands is unique. I hope that many other companies start to follow the excellent example of Ben&Jerry’s !! One interesting question is that how does Ben&Jerry’s philosophy suit to Unilever’s one. I really hope that Unilever as a megacorporation would adapt one of its brand’s philosophy more. 

image from page: http://www.consortfrozenfoods.co.uk/index2.php

Australian Cascade brewery located in Tasmania has started to produce green beer called Cascade Green. Do not worry: the colour of the beer in still normal, but the beer is environmentally friendly, 100% carbon offset (weak signal number one). The company announces in their internet pages:“All remaining greenhouse gas emissions from Cascade Green are offset. That means, from the moment we source the hops from the lush Tasmanian wilderness, through to when you place your empty bottles in the recycling bin, every single carbon emission has been accounted for.”

Just visit the pages of the beer http://www.cascadegreen.com.au/ and see how gree beer can go (A notice: you have to be over 18 years old to get acces to the pages (2. weak signal!))