Wallet Mouth

The thin green line, part 1

Most people are familiar with the concept of organic food. We may be vague on the details, but we know in a general way that for a higher price, we can buy an assurance that pesticides and other chemicals that could harm us or the environment were not used in its production. Every time we pay that premium, we vote with our wallets. 

But the effects of that choice are not as simple as supporting the producers we buy from. Our votes are also changing the marketplace. The extra money consumers are willing to spend on organic products has created a "green rush" that goes beyond food. As you have no doubt noticed, the word "organic" is popping up in other product categories as well. Perhaps you've bought an organic cotton shirt, for example, or organic shampoo. 

But hold on. I would like to pause here to ask you to think about something. 

What, exactly, does it mean to you for a shampoo to be organic? Can you think of things that you would expect to be in it—or, more important, not to be in it? 

Until as recently as 2005, the use of the word "organic" in the U.S. personal-care product area was meaningless, since no one regulated it at all. Today, no less than three certification standards are positioning themselves in the sector, each with a different set of rules and a different appeal to authority. 

This is the first in a series of posts relaying what I've been able to learn about this corner of the organic standards landscape. 

As I mentioned in a recent post, starting in 2005, personal-care products were allowed to be certified to the USDA's National Organic Program. In March, another organic certification was announced, and there's a bit of a controversy swirling around it. 

The label is called OASIS (for Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards), and it was launched by a trade association of the same name that includes big industry players such as Estee Lauder, Hain Celestial, and L'Oreal, as well as a number of smaller brands. 

The new certification is based on two principles, according to its standards (downloadable on the website): "to promote the increased use of organic raw materials to make the ingredient building blocks of Health and Beauty Products" and "to exclude chemistry that results in non-sustainable products wherever possible." In order to bear the OASIS "Organic" seal, products must contain at least 85 percent organically produced agricultural material, excluding water and salt. That percentage is slated to rise to 90 in 2010 and to 95 in 2012. 

As I mentioned in my post, OASIS is named in a lawsuit filed on April 28 by Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, which contends that the certification constitutes false advertising, since it allows for cleansing agents made from nonorganic ingredients that have been hydrogenated and/or sulfated and preserved with synthetic petrochemicals. (Disclosure: I have met and socialized with Dr. Bronner's president David Bronner and vice president Mike Bronner.) 

"The whole deal with organic is getting away from 'better living through chemistry,'" David Bronner told me. Companies that hydrogenate but want to call their products organic should "figure out some other way to extend shelf life. There are other ways. You look at your concentrations, your pH, the synergies between ingredients, your packaging. You have to think outside the box." His company's soaps, he pointed out, are self-preserving because of their concentrations. 

Bronner is the first to admit that soap, by its very nature, involves a chemical reaction (albeit an ancient one) and can therefore never hope to have an organic percentage higher than the low 80s. That's why his soaps are USDA certified only to the "Made with organic [ingredients]" level, which requires at least 70 percent organic material, rather than to the full-on "Organic" level, which requires 95 percent. However, other Dr. Bronner's products—lotions, balms, etc.—do achieve the 95 percent threshold. Bronner believes that OASIS's more permissive standard misleads consumers and waters down the meaning of the word "organic." 

Of course, that's not how OASIS sees it. For starters, OASIS co-chair Gay Timmons told me, the USDA's National Organic Program certification was designed for food, not personal-care products. When it comes to the stuff that we put in our hair and rub onto our bodies, "most people want an effect. They want personal-care products to function a certain way," she said. The implication being that such functionality is incompatible with the standards of the NOP—which, she said, "knows about farmers and livestock. Nobody there knows diddly about cosmetic chemistry." 

Again that word: chemistry. Central to OASIS's philosophy is the idea that there is good chemistry and bad chemistry, Timmons told me, referring to the "green-chemistry" principles outlined by Paul Anastas and John Warner in their book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. "Every process we use has to be something that doesn't cause environmental degradation," she said. "If it's safe for the environment, it's safe for consumers." 

But is it organic? 

To be continued...

Since when did “organic” mean “contains toxic chemical”?

Last Friday was a bad day for the natural-products industry. At the sector’s ExpoWest trade show, it was announced that a new study found a number of supposedly “natural” and “organic” body-care and cleaning products contain a nasty chemical called 1,4-dioxane (which the EPA classifies as a “probable human carcinogen”) that you won’t see on the ingredients list. (You can read the L.A. Times’ coverage of it here.)

Giovanni Organic Cosmetics, Jason (whose slogan is “Pure, Natural & Organic”), Kiss My Face, Nature’s Gate, and Seventh Generation were among the leading brands called out in the study, which was commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association.

To Seventh Generation’s credit, it has said that it intends to “completely eliminate 1,4-dioxane from all of our products.”

A couple months ago I blogged about learning that a lotion I’ve used for years contains toxins. But that was a conventional product. Wouldn’t you think that skin softeners with the words “natural” and “organic” would tend to be clean? Look at the study’s product list (pdf) and see for yourself.

Some people will probably say, Sure, this chemical isn’t ideal, but we’re talking parts per million here—how bad can that be? But as Adam Eidinger of the Organic Consumer Association pointed out to me, the EPA’s standard for safe drinking water is 3 parts per billion. “Granted, you’re not drinking these things, but you are putting them down the drain and introducing it into the environment,” he said. Not to mention absorbing their ingredients through your skin (pdf).

Here are some tips from the OCA on how to avoid 1,4-dioxane.

Stimulate the FDA on caffeine

Did you catch that recent story about how the smell of chocolate chip cookies prompts expensive splurging in women?

It turns out there are more arrows in the quiver. Another apparent consumption magnet is caffeine, and in this case the target is not only women.

The March issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter quotes Johns Hopkins caffeine expert Roland Griffiths as saying that the presence of the substance in a food and beverage “increases the probability that the product will be bought and consumed” and “builds customer loyalty.”

In recent years, caffeine has been added to comestibles with abandon—nowadays it can be found in candy, chips, hot cereal, and even beer—but it wasn't always that way. As the article points out, the Food and Drug Administration used to limit the amount of caffeine that could be added to any edible item to 48 milligrams per eight ounces. But for some reason, when Red Bull—with its 80mg per eight ounces—came to the States in 1997, the FDA didn’t raise the issue. That opened the floodgates to today’s overstimulated food shelves.

All of which is fine except for the fact that, as the story states, unlike other food additives, caffeine is “a pharmacological agent,” a drug that leads to physical dependence among regular users. The American Dietetic Association advises people not to consume more than 300mg of caffeine per day.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which publishes Nutrition Action, petitioned the FDA in 1997 to require labels on foods to which caffeine has been added listing how much of the stimulant is in each serving. In January, the article states, the agency “said that the petition 'is still active and pending and the Agency has not reached any decision yet.’”

If you’d like to encourage the FDA to require labels on jittery foods, write the agency:

FDA Dockets Management (HFA-305)—Docket No. 97P-0329
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

U.K. retailer bans child-labor cotton, tracks CO2

In another rendition of “Look how much farther ahead of us the U.K. is,” Tesco, the world’s third-largest retailer, will no longer sell items containing cotton from Uzbekistan. The reason? Forced child labor. According to this article from the Environmental Justice Foundation, tens of thousands of Uzbek children are withdrawn from school to pick the cotton that funds President Karimov’s government.

Tesco is also starting to track the carbon footprint of 30 of its private-label products, using a draft standard developed by the Carbon Trust, in an effort to provide labels that will better inform consumers about the CO2 outputs of different items.

Ah, England...

Valentine’s Day preparedness, Part 3: condoms with a conscience

Rubber can be a pretty dirty industry. I recently learned that Bridgestone Firestone’s tires come to us thanks to alleged labor exploitation on rubber plantations in Liberia (more info can be found here, here, and here).

I don’t know if most condom brands are made from unethically harvested rubber—that’s a research project for another day—but French Letter’s offerings seem particularly socially responsible: they carry the Fair Deal Trading logo (similar to fair trade) and are made from rubber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

So when Cupid’s arrow strikes this Valentine’s Day, amorous ethical consumers can make their love spread far and wide.

Amuse-bouche: The salmon of doubt

California consumers can sue over farmed salmon that’s artificially colored to make it appear wild. Link.

Valentine’s Day preparedness, Part 1: flowers whose ethics don’t stink

What could be more romantic than a dozen roses on February 14th?

Unfortunately, that bouquet starts to smell less sweet when you consider that it was most likely grown using toxic pesticides and handled by workers who probably weren’t given adequate protection against those chemicals. Oh, and those employees could easily have been children, or women illegally required to take a pregnancy test every month (and fired if they get a positive result).

The vast majority of flowers we Americans send our sweeties on Valentine’s Day are imported from Colombia and Ecuador, where it’s common for farms engage in the less-than-fragrant practices mentioned above, plus others. (For more info, check out the International Labor Rights Forum’s Fairness in Flowers campaign. While you’re there, sign the petition telling Dole to stop union-busting at flower farm Fragrancia—the link is in the third sidebar on the right.)

Only within the past couple of years have I been made aware of these ethical considerations. Many people, I think, have no idea. And the biggest U.S. company in the cut-flower industry, FTD, isn’t helping.

If you visit FTD.com, you’ll see that it does have an  “Eco-Friendly” product category. But it looks like nothing more than greenwashing to me. Emblazoned across the webpage is a logo that features a recycling logo and the words “Go Green Living,” along with this meaningless copy:

In an effort to embrace the ever-changing needs of our consumer and our society, FTD proudly presents “Go Green Living.” A movement that is making us aware of the way we have and continue to effect our planet, we recognize the need for natural, fresh, sustainable or organic products to be made available to our customers. Send these stunning bouquets, gourmet treats and gorgeous gifts to not only delight your recipient, but make a statement about the importance of protecting the beautiful earth we inhabit.

I called FTD to ask what, if anything, the Go Green Living designation means. Under what conditions are Go Green flowers grown? Are there publicly available standards I can read? Is this a certification program?

“They are certified sustainable,” the customer-service rep I spoke with said.

“By whom?” I asked.

“Um... [keyboard sounds] It doesn’t say by who,” she replied. “I believe Go Green is a service provided by FTD.”

“But you guys are the ones selling the flowers,” I pointed out. “Of course you’re going to say they’re sustainable.” For a certification system to have any teeth, I added, it has to be operated by an independent party.

The sad thing is that North America does have a highly regarded certification system for sustainable flowers, and I’m sure that FTD’s executives know this. It’s called VeriFlora. Its website discusses its criteria (which span environmental and social responsibility categories), and it’s managed by Scientific Certification Systems, a certification company that specializes in audits across a number of industries.

According to an interesting article on ethical flowers in the new issue of Plenty magazine, about 30 percent of the stems sold by Canada’s largest floral distributor, Sierra Flower Trading, are VeriFlora-certified. Why is FTD lagging?

I told the customer-service rep that I and countless other consumers would love to see FTD offer VeriFlora bouquets. She promised she’d put a recommendation into the company’s system. While you’re at it, tell them to get rid of that Go Green Living nonsense, I added.

So where is a conscious consumer to go for flowers? Here are some options:

Organic Bouquet (the flower arm of eco-boutique Organic Style) has some VeriFlora offerings; a search on the term yielded 43 results.

Even more selection might be found at California Organic Flowers, which sells stems grown in the Golden State that are certified as organic by both the USDA and the more stringent California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF).

Diamond Organics’ floral offerings are also mostly from California, and a company rep told me the flowers are definitely USDA-certified and probably also CCOF-certified organic.

Meanwhile, Flowerbud.com has 22 VeriFlora bouquets, though strangely it doesn’t trumpet that fact very loudly.

Lastly, mainstream 1800flowers.com sells one lonely fair-trade rose bouquet, certified by TransFair USA.

Amuse-bouche: common-sense nutritional labels

Positive developments are afoot in the food-labeling world (link). They’re mere baby steps, since only select grocers (most of them in the Midwest and East Coast) will feature this new info, and the system won’t take effect for at least six months, but progress is progress, and innovations like this have the potential to spur wider consumer demand.

Absence makes the Mouth grow louder

Miss me? I haven’t been neglecting you, I’ve just been away. It’s always refreshing to leave the States for a little while and rinse off all that America über Alles. This time it was Venice, where Mr. Wallet Mouth and I just had a romantic getaway to celebrate our last days as a twosome. (In less than three months, we will have another Mouth to feed.)

The city of canals has always been a tourists’ mecca, so I didn’t really expect any mind-altering shifts in perspective. Nonetheless, between our many helpings of gelato (baby needs calcium!) and during our meanders through countless piazzas and ever-narrower streets, a few blog-worthy moments surfaced.

One was encountering this graffito. (OK, I feel slightly self-conscious whipping out the rarely used singular form of “graffiti,” but hey, that’s what it was.) Anyway, it warmed my heart to see that some kindred spirit out there shares my obsession and outrage over the opaqueness of corporate parentage. It almost made me want to add a footnote (pun intended) suggesting No Sweat sneakers as an alternative.

Later, we happened upon this store—sadly, after it had closed for the day. Apparently everything it sells is fair trade, made by artisans all over the world (and there were some neat things inside; my eye was caught by a pair of Mongolian-made slippers with elvish upward-curving pointy tips). The fact that all the wares are fair trade is remarkable by itself, but what really struck me were shop’s appearance—nice, spacious, and emanating a Real Store vibe—and its location: right by the Rialto Bridge, one of the more touristy parts of Venice. It would be the equivalent of having a fair-trade shop in Fishermans Wharf, which I find hard to imagine.

Finally, look at the vegetarian and vegan check boxes on this canister of Pringles. Why don’t we have those on American Pringles? (At least I think we don’t; it’s been a long time since I’ve bought them.)

No doubt because Europe is kilometers ahead of us on the food-labeling front...

(And yes, sigh, I know Pringles are not good for baby. But Mr. Wallet Mouth claims he simply could not resist their Pringley goodness while on vacation!)

Fair-labor assurances boost sales in retail experiment

A recent article in Slate discusses an intriguing experiment that suggests businesses can increase profits by offering products labeled as having been produced in a socially conscious manner.

More testing is needed, since the trial took place in a New York City store with a progressive reputation and customers who tend to be wealthier than average. But the proposition that there is a quantifiable unmet consumer demand for fairly made products is exciting.

My minor but nagging question—were the items the researchers labeled as fair-labor in the experiment actually produced under fair and safe conditions?—gets an affirmative answer in the research paper itself (pdf). Also notable there is the list of retailers that declined to participate in the experiment for fear of drawing attention to the issue of labor standards: Abercrombie and Fitch, Adidas, American Eagle, Eastern Mountain Sports, Free People, Gap, the Harvard / MIT Coop, J. Crew, Marshall’s, Nike, Patagonia, Target, Timberland, Urban Outfitters, and Wal-Mart.