Seventh Generation Leads in Sustainability
Posted by Kelly Smith on Tue, Jun 08, 2010
Seventh Generation is a company that produces green household and personal care products which are made using safe, plant-based ingredients. They avoid the use of toxic chemicals and continually seek other ways to improve the sustainability of their business practices. Seventh Generation is inspired by part of the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy which states, “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” It is important for Seventh Generation to think about how their business affects both our environment and the environment of future generations.
One way that Seventh Generation fulfills its sustainable business mission is consumer education. Each product package tells customers how their product compares to similar products at the grocery store in terms of its environmental impact. For example:
Did you know? If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 120-ct. virgin-fiber paper towels with our 100% recycled ones, we could save 1,000,000 trees.
Did you know? If every household in the U.S. replaced just one box of 48 oz. petroleum-based powder laundry detergent with our vegetable-based product, we could save 96,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat 5,500 U.S. homes for a year.
Indeed, doing the laundry has a big environmental impact. Ninety percent of the electricity used for washing clothes comes from heating hot water. Seventh Generation laundry products are specially designed to work well in cold water washes. They also make detergents especially designed for high efficiency washing machines (which use less water and electricity than standard machines).
The environmental impact of the laundry does not end with the washing machine. Dryers are notoriously big energy users. Energy Star, the US government certification agency for energy efficient appliances, does not even rate dryers since they consume so much energy (up to 15 percent of a household’s total electricity use). The best clothes drying option is a clothesline, and that is another thing that Seventh Generation is working to educate consumers about as part of their green business mission. For starters, consumers can easily shrink their carbon footprint by switching to cold water and a clothesline.