Published with the support of Package Design Magazine, this is a comprehensive guide to thinking outside the box to create practical, cost-effective, and eco-responsible packaging. With a broad ...
In the U.S., the FTC Green Guidelines effort is trying to harmonize terms and give meaning to words that have no measurable value other than whatever the users feel they can get away with. As we attempt to redefine the things we make and do, can a product with only one positive eco-attribute (say, some recycled content, or biodegradability) really call itself “sustainable” when it’s produced using mountain-top-mined coal energy, and then burns thousands of miles of petroleum in transportation, to be used only once?
As we go further down the path of creating a more sustainable operating space for humankind, transparency and accountability are the cornerstones for remaking everything we do.
Many eco-efforts to date have been founded upon this: If you’re not sure if it’s bad or not, then don’t do it. This is the basic idea of the Precautionary Principle. More specifically, the Precautionary Principle says that even if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm, the burden of proof for being “harmless” falls on those taking the action. The European Union has led the world in this vein by applying the Precautionary Principle, in its essence, when developing its statutory requirements on corporate responsibilities.
It all seems very logical, doesn’t it? But in many countries, the U.S. included, the burden of proof is not on the polluter or environmental offender, but on those who want to stop a harmful activity. In general terms, it’s not hard to imagine that groups who decide to take an environmental gamble would also be groups who oppose operational transparency.
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