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I would love to see a website where I could just enter two alternatives and get the greener one. I find it hard to make any decision these days. Should I buy to

I would love to see a website where I could just enter two alternatives and get the greener one. I find it hard to make any decision these days. Should I buy tomatoes in a can a paper+plastic container? Fish sauce from Thailand in a glass or plastic bottle? Should I buy a small item in a nearby shop or drive somewhere a buy bigger packs. Someone should solve it for me.

aaron695 8y ago
> greener This is not a metric. It pretty much a religious word. So it depends on what you pray to. Do you want a world where less animals die or a world where the current (realistically for a 3000+ years, man influenced anyway) environment changes least. Are mammals more important? Extinctions matter more than size of land? Deserts matter? Man made green environments count? Are your happy to kill poor (mostly black and yellow) people for this goal? I guess yes. They are not usually in the definition green, although they are mammals and their babies are cute. Often with the green religion comes the other religions like is it msg free? I wouldn't want to run the web site, people would be annoying. Gluten free this blah blah Like jopsen says just use less resources by using cheap as an adequate proxy and invest $ directly in your particular religion. It will let you be specific to your brand.
cmiller1 8y ago
This is a hard problem though, there are so many variables. For example, maybe the one that is more eco-friendly to produce is less durable and in the example of flooring which one is more green could depend on how many people a day you have walking on it and what they weigh.
- jopsen 8y ago
  Also economies of scale have an impact too. An expensive eco-friendly product might be produced in smaller numbers causing more waste through the supply chain. This is all speculation -- but products made a scale are often made with high efficiency. What surely works is when we ask big corporations to do the right thing. Or if we managed to tax environmental impact.
  - Khanhanhan 8y ago
    Many big corp products have very high margins and can afford to pay premium taxes on production or they can just charge more. Perhaps the tax income could be used for the good, but, unless such tax is a stigma and consumers can see that 20% of the price is for dirty practices and not i.e. "design", they will pay.
jopsen 8y ago
1) buy as little as possible - buy used if possible. 2) buy as cheap as possible. 3) invest your money in green initiatives. That way I don't think you'll go all wrong.
benj111 8y ago
Wouldn't you then get stuck in a local maxima? Your tomato example probably depends on the time of year, your location, the farm. And even then how are you storing it? Fridge? Cupboard? So probably not generally answerable. I know Tesco (a uk supermarket) started labelling with embodied CO2, but gave up. I do agree with you though. Even some marketing regs, so when someone claims something is greener, it actually is.

aaron695 8y ago

> greener This is not a metric. It pretty much a religious word. So it depends on what you pray to. Do you want a world where less animals die or a world where the current (realistically for a 3000+ years, man influenced anyway) environment changes least. Are mammals more important? Extinctions matter more than size of land? Deserts matter? Man made green environments count? Are your happy to kill poor (mostly black and yellow) people for this goal? I guess yes. They are not usually in the definition green, although they are mammals and their babies are cute. Often with the green religion comes the other religions like is it msg free? I wouldn't want to run the web site, people would be annoying. Gluten free this blah blah Like jopsen says just use less resources by using cheap as an adequate proxy and invest $ directly in your particular religion. It will let you be specific to your brand.

cmiller1 8y ago

This is a hard problem though, there are so many variables. For example, maybe the one that is more eco-friendly to produce is less durable and in the example of flooring which one is more green could depend on how many people a day you have walking on it and what they weigh.

jopsen 8y ago
Also economies of scale have an impact too. An expensive eco-friendly product might be produced in smaller numbers causing more waste through the supply chain. This is all speculation -- but products made a scale are often made with high efficiency. What surely works is when we ask big corporations to do the right thing. Or if we managed to tax environmental impact.
- Khanhanhan 8y ago
  Many big corp products have very high margins and can afford to pay premium taxes on production or they can just charge more. Perhaps the tax income could be used for the good, but, unless such tax is a stigma and consumers can see that 20% of the price is for dirty practices and not i.e. "design", they will pay.

jopsen 8y ago

1) buy as little as possible - buy used if possible. 2) buy as cheap as possible. 3) invest your money in green initiatives. That way I don't think you'll go all wrong.

benj111 8y ago

Wouldn't you then get stuck in a local maxima? Your tomato example probably depends on the time of year, your location, the farm. And even then how are you storing it? Fridge? Cupboard? So probably not generally answerable. I know Tesco (a uk supermarket) started labelling with embodied CO2, but gave up. I do agree with you though. Even some marketing regs, so when someone claims something is greener, it actually is.