On World Environment Day, June 5^th, the movie HOME premiered in Paris on a screen beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I recently got around to seeing the movie for myself and regret not having done it sooner.

To put it simply: HOME is an incredible film. It is far from being just another movie on the environment and sustainability. Its images, colors and soundtrack compose a rare aesthetic experience That is beautifully tied together. Glenn Close’s serene, soothing and well paced narration leads you through the challenges facing humanity. Her words invite deep reflection and engagement with the subject matter.

HOME is a true scientific tour de force in plain and comprehensible language.  It starts with the formation of the earth, explains the emergency of the current climate crisis and how important its outcome is for life on Earth. The film places human action in a long term context and deeply assesses the impact of our impacts on our planet. It does a great job discussing climate change, poverty, deforestation, water exhaustion, population growth and other issues in a fashion that is utterly bare of sensationalism. It conveys the necessary sense of urgency without inviting panic. The end of the movie focuses on projects, actions, technologies, and policies that aim to change the risky course that our current economic and industrial models have set us on.

I cannot recommend this film highly enough. You can watch it for free online at YouTube or buy the DVD.  Please help spread the word by telling your family, friends, and colleagues about the film and your thoughts about it. I guarantee it will make an impression on everyone who sees it.

The urge to simplify things seems to be inherent to human nature even though the world is full of complexities. This might explain why we usually think of about product, processes and actions as sustainable or unsustainable. Rarely do we take the time to analyze them more deeply to see their positive and negative aspects.

Rather than trying to figure out if something is 100% good or 100% bad, we should look more closely at the tradeoffs behind the decisions we make. This thought process is crucial to properly evaluating the “greenness” or sustainability of products, technologies, and processes. Human industry will always impact people and the environment, but it is the consumer’s job to make educated decisions about the products they buy and the companies they interact with.

Good companies generally strive to minimize negative impacts while enhancing positive impacts. However, this is rarely achieved across the board and tradeoffs are unavoidable in most instances. This is where we have to make sure that “perfect” is not the enemy of “good.”

Mr. José Jorge proudly showing the high quality the sisal fiber from his small farm in Brazil

For example, Merida made the decision more than 30 years to focus on natural fiber textiles. Our products are mostly made of sisal, jute, abaca, wool, and coir fibers. These are all rapidly renewable materials, and do not contribute to CO₂ emission like many petroleum based materials. In fact, the plants actually help capture CO₂ as they grow. Most of these plants, however, are cultivated in tropical regions of the world such as Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Transporting these products to the US contributes to CO₂ emissions. Increasing the demand for vegetable fiber improves the economic and social condition of local communities in poor countries where they are grown. Our trade-off:  avoid CO₂ emission from long-distance shipping versus helping local community in poor countries becoming more sustainable? Knowing that we cannot achieve both at the same time, we made our choice…

Another tradeoff we’ve been wrestling with concerns our backing material. We’d love to have a product that can be fully returned to the earth as a biodegradable nutrient. Our natural latex backing has not yet reached this stage. We need some non-toxic chemicals to guarantee the good performance. They amount to about 5-8% of the composition of the backing and there are no substitute for those components. Should we sacrifice performance for a completely biodegradable backing, or sacrifice our “cradle to cradle” goal for a higher-quality product? Lower quality product means lower sales, less demand for vegetable fibers, less local development from producing communities…

These types of tradeoffs are difficult to measure but must be considered for an informed understanding of sustainability. We believe the positive benefits of our products outweigh some of the potentially negative impacts, but we are continually striving to do better and better.

I wrote in my last post about tools like GoodGuide that help consumers making decisions and consider trade-offs. Another resource I have found helpful is the Environmental Working Group, where you great tools for assessing the impact on your health and on the environment of foods, products, energy alternatives and chemicals.

I would like to learn about what kinds of tradeoffs do you make in your daily life? What is the most important driver for you when making sustainable decisions?