The Stationers Guild

This week I attended a conference at the Javits Center National Gift Show entitled “Get Real . . . Green Verification and Certification.”  Like most responsible people (although my wife might disagree), I wish to use our planet’s resources wisely.  I had hoped that behaving “green” was as simple as plugging in a purchasing decision or behavior pattern into a carbon footprint calculator and voila:  pat yourself on the back for doing the right thing!  Little did I know how mistaken I was.

The Javits Center conference showed how difficult it is to verify “green” claims.  Three speakers from quite different backgrounds, but equally committed to the environment, shared their insights on how one might go about green verification and some of the pitfalls in this process.  I have broken down the Blog into three parts to summarize each speaker’s presentation and keep the article to manageable proportions.

Alan Honick, a documentary filmaker most of his life, traced the complexities of environmental sustainability by discussing his research on the controversy over the Northern Spotted Owl and logging in the northwest.  Clearly, there is far more to the subject than simply an endangered species.  He argues that all factors – including human – need to be taken into consideration when looking at environmental issues.  I had a chance to talk to Alan after the conference and he pointed me to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for more information on this important subject.  He believes that the FSC does an excellent job in keeping the “human economy” in sync with natural ecology.  See Mr. Horick’s fascinating 10-part video in 9 minute segments entitled “Critical Habitat”:

Despite the somber tone of this excellent video, it captures the complexities of tinkering with mother nature and the difficulties in developing sustainability models that balance environmental, economic and social needs.  Out of countless interviews with advocacy groups and scientists, Mr. Honick featured 18 special-interest advocates and 15 scientists in the video to provide a balanced presentation of the issues involved.  I was most fascinated with the role of millipede which is responsible for processing 95% of the organic matter in the forest.  As Mr. Honick correctly points out, the Northern Spotted Owl was just a side-show for a very complex problem.