"Conscious consumers in the modern marketplace rarely face an either/or proposition. Gone are the days of choosing between pleasure and principle. Gone is the sacrifice of flavour, colour and style in the name of environmental responsibility. With the likely exception of toilet paper (which it seems still cannot be made both recycled and soft), many of our everyday items can now be found in a luxurious shade of green. Savvy advocates of sustainability know that business is not the enemy of the good…"

Thus begins a great article in Business Week called "Are you Being Greenwashed?"

We read it with gusto, especially the paragraph on our hobbyhorse, dematerialization:

"Then there is another category, which... may represent the direction green consumption is headed. It's design for the elimination of excess—dematerialisation—in which user experience takes precedence over acquiring more things. Product service systems, or service designs, reconceive goods as functions and permit users to obtain access to the outcome yielded by a product without actually owning it, meaning each of us needs to consume less in order to get the same result. The concept has taken hold well in the UK—perhaps better than anywhere else in the world—where sharing of commodities such as cars, office space and power tools has become relatively commonplace."

Sarah Rich, you rock. Everybody else, go check out the whole article here.