Today in refreshingly honest incrementalism: Amazon has launched a site called Vine.com that sells green products. But the people in charge of it aren’t promising it’s going to save the world. They know what they’re offering is a “better-than” solution, rather than a “best” solution. Josh Dorfman, the guy who runs the site, told The New York Times:
It’s a fair point that no matter how you’re going to engage in commerce, there’s going to be an environmental impact. We’re not promising to be the greenest company right away, and we’re owning up to the fact that it’s not the way we operate across the entire company.
Hey, we’re all for that. We all want to live greener, but we still buy stuff. When we’re going to buy stuff, we want it to be as planet- and human-friendly as possible. But we don’t want to be told to pat ourselves on the back, sit back, and wipe our hands of all responsibility just because we bought something made from bamboo.
Here’s what the site’s actually offering, according to Treehugger:
[G]reen products that meet standards for environmental-friendliness within any or more of these categories: they must be designed to remove toxins, energy-efficient, natural, organic, powered by renewable energy, reusable, made of sustainable materials or water-efficient.
Those are all pretty good standards! We don’t love everything Amazon does, but we’re willing to check this project out.
