Yes it’s true. A customer complained after wanting to purchase ‘Boy Stuff’ for her daughter for Christmas. Welcome to the power of social media in the twenty first century. Marks & Spencer, the mega retailer, totaling $16.3 billion in revenue in 2013, has some mega news, and it all started through Twitter.

After a call out from a customer who wanted to purchase a marble run for her daughter as a Christmas present, she was halted by a marketing label that read ‘Boy Stuff.’ She called out Marks & Spencer via Twitter, and the company quickly responded that they would be canceling gender specific marketing for toys by spring 2014. Toys have a long history of being geared towards a specific gender, but for Marks & Spencer that is all about to change.

The company said in a statement: “’Boy’s Stuff’ will be rebranded to use a simple graphic logo, whilst the ‘Little Miss Arty’ range will become Poppy and Blue – which will use character based branding.”

As the first major UK retailer to be carbon neutral, Marks & Spencer is no stranger to innovative initiatives. During an internal assessment of the company, they found aerodynamics of transportation trucks can account for 50 percent of fuel consumption. The company responded by redesigning their vehicles for lower ‘drag’ and more fuel efficiency. The redesign rather serendipitously increased the truck’s carrying capacity by 16 percent, allowing more merchandise to be shipped by one truck than the previous designs.

In September 2012, Marks & Spencer released the ‘most sustainable suit ever,’ made from reclaimed material and GOTS certified wool. The suit claimed to be the first intricate garment made entirely from sustainable material, and was another large step forward from the company’s innovative initiatives.

Other big projects have included their Shwopping events, a collaboration with London College and Oxfam, which encourages a customer to give one article of clothing for each one purchased.

By now, corporations know, acknowledge, and act on the importance of providing options that keep sustainability at the forefront. And by sustainability I am not simply referring to environmental sustainability but, as important, social sustainability–which can truly be translated to responsibility.

From inside intel I know some of the largest corporations are taking steps towards more responsible practices, and listening to consumers, as is shown through the Marks & Spencer case. But most companies aren’t bringing information on their initiatives out to the public because they are in the midst of deep research around best marketing strategies–probably similar to why Marks & Spencer kept their gender neutral plans under wraps until the Twitter incident.

Whether a large corporation can actually be sustainable is another debate, for another time, but what is important to mention now is their efforts towards a better way of business–a triple bottom line approach, for people, planet and profits–should not be ignored.

What do non-segregated toys have to do with sustainability? A lot. The efforts of Marks & Spencer are exactly what is needed from a billion dollar multi-national corporation to try and sustain themselves in the local maker market of the twenty first century.

See Also:

7 Clues To Tell Your Garment Is Really Sustainable: Eco Fashion Dissected 

Will The Fashion Industry Ever Attain Sustainability?

Fostering a Responsible Fashion Industry: The Sustainable Apparel Coalition

image: geir tonnessen

The post A Customer Tweets and Marks & Spencer is Now Marketing ‘Gender Neutral Toys’ appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnGreen marketers want us to believe in their products while hiding their dirty laundry.

To listen to the marketers, it’s a brave new green world of products out there. But greenwash is greenwash and Burmese teak is bad news no matter how you slice it. A gas hog SUV is still a planetary parasite even with a hybrid emblem. And some of the so-called sustainable successes are merely bad ideas passed off as alternative chic.

We pulled a handful of products for you to take a closer look at.

Curtain Call

Many are pondering the utility of the Energy Curtain,the solar-powered alternative to the window blind. It is designed to store energy all day to switch off lights at night. But since it has to be drawn all day to charge up, you have to turn on lights inside to get the electric glow when it goes dark. Maybe it’s best to use natural light during the day, and as little power as possible at night.

Less Packaging, Higher Price

Touted for 24% less packaging and more concentrated powder for smaller scoops, the new Ultra Tide simply doesn’t do the trick, according to users who say it’s the same chemically enhanced powder as the old one except they shrunk the box and raised the price. Boxes that are bite-sized are great, but it’s still the same harsh formula for fighting stains. In other words, it gets under your skin in a bad way.

Green Thumbs Down

For those desperately in need of seeing green in their cubicle, the USB powered Mini Greenhouse from DreamCheeky has arrived, letting you grow your own marigolds with the artificial soil and seeds provided. Fresh, faux or freaky? As Mainstreet points out, the so-called good green system calls for a PC with Intel Pentium 4 operating at 2.4 gigahertz or faster, at least 128 megabytes of RAM, a Windows compatible soundcard, a CD-ROM drive, plus a specific type of display adapter capable of Microsoft Windows XP. Yes, installed on your Windows PC, you can monitor nature at work (sans the sunlight). Really?

It’s A Wash

The Swiffer Vac mopping system may appeal to us slobs who are looking for a quick clean-up in our dirty nests, but the non biodegradable, plastic cleaning mop isn’t actually greener than the old tools, despite claims of saving gallons of hot water. Instead of the precious water, this nifty gadget uses single-use chemically-soaked cleaning wipes destined for the landfill heap. We love all the green (color) branding that tries to distract you into thinking Swiffer is really eco-friendly.

Teaked Off

You hear the floor or trays are teak and you are certain that means eco-friendly – from certified plantations, right? But when it comes to Burmese teak, logs yielding as much as $25,000 are stolen from ravaged forests and shipped to Japan, the U.S and Europe and turned into nice patio furniture. Over 24.7 million cubic feet of teak is taken from the Myanmar’s forests by Thai companies helping to finance the Burmese military government’s long border war against ethnic insurgents. While many floor companies are shunning the teak, you can still harvest it online through many sources.

Images: Torely; Cushnie et Ochs‘; DreamCheeky; Procter &  Gamble; Chevrolet; Procter & Gamble; Perpetual Kid; Teakworks4U, redwood1

Editor’s note: The Beige Report is an open EcoSalon team column showcasing the most ridiculous in green design and marketing greenwash. Buyer beware.

The post The Beige Report: Greenwashing Makes Us Feel Dirty appeared first on EcoSalon.

With billion of products on the market claiming to be organic or eco-friendly, shopping for sustainable products can be a hit-or-miss affair. GoodGuide, a free app for the iPhone, wants to be your shopping buddy and help you get your hands on products and do more than just pay lip service to environmental responsibility.

Next time you’re in the cosmetic aisle and can’t figure out the safest lipstick brand to buy, whip out your iPhone, fire up the GoodGuide app, and snap a picture of the barcode. You’ll get instant detailed info on the lipstick’s effect on health, the planet, and whether it’s produced in a socially responsible manner.

GoodGuide doesn’t just limit information to cosmetics – categories include Food, Household Cleaners, Personal Care, and Toys. In fact, there are more than 65,000 products in the app’s database, with more being added with every update.

GoodGuide is an incredibly handy app to have in your purse while shopping. Indeed, I’m disappointed that I couldn’t find similar ones for BlackBerry and Android mobile devices – if they exist, let me know in the comments. This is exactly the kind of information that’s great to have on the fly, especially if you encounter an unfamiliar or new product on the store shelf.

Until manufacturers put this kind of information on their packaging voluntarily, GoodGuide is a terrific way to figure out if the products your buying are in line with your goals for environmentally sustainable living.

The post Find Green Products While Shopping with the GoodGuide App appeared first on EcoSalon.