Nau Update:

Nau has been acquired by Horny Toad who will attempt to resurrect the business model in a new and improved fashion. Be on the lookout for a newly updated site in October, along with a new season of clothes. Here’s what they have to say:

In October we’ll launch a new nau.com featuring new fall product. We’ll also initiate a new set of partnerships with a select group of retailers who will carry Nau clothing in their stores. Through the new website and our retail partners, we’re looking forward to making it even easier for you to find and try out the great designs in our Fall line.

Wishing them all the best in their new incarnation, and looking forward to seeing the new model bring the superior ideals of the old Nau to the fore.

Nau, Beverly Center which only opened last month.

Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s the true cost of doing business with a triple bottom line. Could it be the fact that we say we want sustainable choices, but when it comes down to it, we don’t want to pay for it…or perhaps it is a little of all of those things? Nonetheless, a great idea just shut its doors. Nau was a clothing company ahead of its time:

• Fair wages - bylaws prohibited any Nau executive from earning more than 12 times what the lowest-paid U.S. worker earned.

• Corporate responsibility - their charitable giving program dedicated 5 percent of each sale to charity.

• Innovative distribution via webfront stores - 10% off any purchase if one elected to have the item shipped for free instead of carrying it out of the store. This policy allowed Nau to stock and ship (and ship back) fewer items, creating more energy-efficient stores.

• Fashion forward design - truly sustainable fabrics and design practices from great designers with premium sportswear pedigrees…

• Shall I go on?

The bottom line is that Nau could not find its next round of venture funding to support a longer run, which says the model was still unproven, and therefore; great try, but not a home run. So it is with a sigh that we say goodbye to Nau, and what we expect may have influence on a longer-term success story. But in the short run, Nau leaves without the opportunity to prove itself sustainable.

2 Comments »

Happy Earth Day, 2008, the year that talk of sustainability spreads to new heights. Everywhere we look, we see the effects - CitiBank is offering a contest to win a brand new hybrid or green kitchen makeover. Green blogs are proliferating at an unprecedented rate: Technorati has 37,869 blogs about green, 6933 blogs about environment.

Even Disney is getting into the mix with their version of green messaging.

Mickey’s new word is “Environmentality”!

All of this is positive, right? At the same time, concerns arise over the ability of the green, cultural zeitgeist to hold the momentum. Can the “First World” truly become global in our ability to spread the green? The odds are working in our favor, as even the largest players are converting their awareness to what consumers expect, and transparency is big on the list. Greenwashing is now a word to add to the vernacular. So where do we take it from here? We’ve been a little quiet here on the Root Concepts blog…we are working on some ideas around these issues, and look forward to sharing with our readers very soon. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts. How are you taking it to the next level? Whom do you admire in the landscape of the new sustainables, and whom should we encourage to examine their motives and methods?

2 Comments »

Amidst a thousand spam messages was this comment by a new reader of the Root blog. We found it compelling enough to reply to in a post. Whether you agree or not, please let us hear from you…and now, Tod in a response to our post on Burt’s Bees being bought by Clorox for close to 1 billion dollars.

“A sad day, I suppose. However, this reminds me of the fundamental question that must be asked of all ‘green’ products:
Are they necessary? That is, do we NEED lip balm or is it something we simply enjoy? If the latter, then there’s nothing truly sustainable about creating superfluous products.

Yes, this is the hard line, and I’m not advocating a relinquishment of all luxury products. Instead, I’m pointing out that the purchase of Burt’s, while troubling in that a ‘local hero’ has been removed from the scene, is really more smoke and mirrors than actual loss. Whether’s it’s Clorox or Bob and Nancy Granola, products are products and it’s our insatiable lust for them (no, my lips really do get dry - I hear the protests!) that has pushed us past the point of no return.

Ben and Jerry’s. Burt’s. Prius. –> all absolute non-essentials. What difference does it make that all three are owned by major polluters?

Oh, this is NOT a rhetorical question. What, exactly, is the difference?”

Root: What is the difference? I do use lip balm on a daily basis, many times a day…do I want a healthier choice? Yes. Will it be Burt’s now that Clorox owns them, not likely. Was it before? Yes, amoung other healthy choices. So for me, Clorox’s purchase does make a difference. But what about the deeper questions Tod is bringing up? The complicit nature of being first world human beings says to me, yes, this is not a rhetorical question. What is the difference? I believe it is more and more each individual’s responsibility to ask these questions as we belly up to the check out desk. And the first question to ask, is: Do I really need this?  The second:  Where is this coming from?

6 Comments »

Pimpin’ the G life

In a year when every major magazine has featured a green issue, and the world’s pop star elite gathered for Live Earth around the globe, those who have made it their life’s mission to acquire the celebrity zeitgeist are bound to take notice.

Just as the flower power days of the 1960’s, when it became fashionable to talk about revolution, the “man”, and fighting the power, we can now fast forward to 2007 to those re-dressed archetypes speaking refrains like: sustainability, organic and carbon footprint. How many of you have had an experience in the past year where you knew the person you were speaking with had no knowledge whatsoever regarding “green” issues, nonetheless, spouted greenthink slogans they think you want to hear?

But hey why be uptight, can’t hedonism and ecological activism mix? The revolution must not be devoid of pleasure.

But if this is an age crying out for authenticity, the only genuine article parlayed by Paris Hilton and Ron Jeremy et. al. is the art of the “put on”.

If they really wanted to work for change, shouldn’t they work within their realms of influence - develop an ecocondom, make a home permaculture video, or at least follow the example of this young, idealistic and very sex positive couple in giving to the green porn cause?

Instead they pose like a Jeff Koons tableaux of Hollywood glitterati struggling for tenancy in the garden of Eden, sculpted in green plaster of Paris that ages in real time.

It is precisely the aging part that gives one pause. If our celebrity-obsessed culture cannot accept the maturing of human flesh, how can it live in harmony with nature’s cyclical acceptance of decay and rebirth?

The Diesel clothing company’s campaign, “global warming ready” exemplifies this irony.

What is the message behind these images of the thin, mostly white and homogeneously beautiful in nonchalant repose amidst a flooded, world in crisis? What were the memos that must have been flying around ad-strategy boardrooms and marcom sticky pads? “Buyer persona - young, aspirationally affluent, environmentally “aware”, but loves the thought of rockin’ in an 07 Hummer limo. So why don’t we create an “aspirational” tableaux of a post-apocalypse that can be, well…. glamorous?”

cool…?

Are we flashing the ultimate cynical sign, a kind of “bling uber alles”?

We say nah. Make friends with reality. It is coming, and without a stylist in tow.

The signs do seem to read that a “tipping point” has been reached. The “Green” label will become something else, all the eco terms will fall away to be more about being a conscious and awake human being, whose green/eco status will be based simply on their actions.

The issues will still be there, in spades.

Keep it real.

No Comments »

“Lake Michigan is like a giant bathtub with a really, really slow drain and a dripping faucet, so the toxics build up over time,” said Emily Green, director of the Great Lakes program for the Sierra Club.

Despite this knowledge, an Indiana refinery of the global petroleum giant, BP, has been given a permit to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan. The permit overrides an existing limit of 1.3 ounces per year on mercury discharges into the Great Lakes. BP will be allowed to continue their practice of dumping 3 pounds of mercury through surface water discharges as it has been since 2002, according to the Toxics Release Inventory, an EPA datebase on pollution emissions. The permit, which accompanies the plant’s $3.8 billion expansion, gives BP until at least 2012 to meet the federal standard.

“With one permit, this company and this state are undoing years of work to keep pollution out of our Great Lakes,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., co-sponsor of a resolution overwhelmingly approved by the House last week that condemned BP’s plans.

This lack of corporate responsibility brings to mind the mercury poisoning of the Japanese fishing village of Minamata in the 1950’s. The outcome was tragic as the town was poisoned by mercury from industrial pollution created by the town’s main employer, the Chisso Corporation. The plight became known as Minamata Disease for its devastating effects on the entire population., and was famously documented by Life photographer Eugene Smith who, with his wife, Aileen, lived in Minamata for many years.

It seems neither pervasive environmental awareness, nor the regulations designed to “protect” our resources are strong enough to deter the circumnavigation of this knowledge. It is disturbing to recall the images of a time only a few decades previous, but perhaps in the end, a picture is worth a thousand words.

7 Comments »

As we become more aware of the opportunities to make greener choices, it is important to remember that the first step towards sustainability is not just consuming green products, but reducing our consumption altogether.

The 3 Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - only go so far in creating sustainable thinking. Anticipating what this catch phrase actually means is a preliminary step in working daily towards sustainability. What we might consider is thinking about our usage in general, while creating strategies to accomplish the 3 Rs. Waste management experts refer to this as Re-Think.

An article at Inhabitat called our attention to the Dutch studio Volksware Meterware Shop that breathes new life into rejected goods, emphasizing the degree to which consumption of brands and products by consumers creates opportunities to recreate. Two of their many projects illustrate the point in a fascinating way.

Discarded tables are assembled to form a seemingly infinitely long table. When a customer requests a “new” table, a piece is cut to individual specs, and each section takes on a new image as an original table.

In another example of Volksware’s re-thinking, the effects of the oversupply and mass production of fashion and clothing products is brought into question, at the same time offering a new use for existing goods in a by-the-meter carpet (see image above).

Artists working with this thinking, show us that creating something new does not always mean creating a bigger footprint. By reusing source material, they actually reduce the need for new production, and recycle ideas to create new materials and products.

In essence, re-thinking green.

No Comments »

In these days of green posturing and the political correctness that the word, sustainability conjures, comes this unabashed article on the usefulness of some of the new ecochic products proliferating. Evan and Freda Eisenberg bring an east coast sensibility to their review, and in the process remind us that true sustainability is about buying less, and thinking about what we really need.

No Comments »