Greenwashing Debunkers Club

Julio F. Campos Originally published in 2018 Recently  Ambev presented its product AMA, which is nothing more than bottled water with a sustainability appeal based on the proposal to donate 100% of its profit from the product sale as a Cause Marketing approach (How Cause Marketing is another way to divert attention to the real problem of consumerism and its hidden costs, as keep consumers consuming or “pretending” to aid to solve a problem created by the market itself, won’t be discussed here). What will be discussed is: a) does a company such as Ambev needs to create a new product to present itself as sustainable?; b) how sustainable it really is when it comes to water, probably the most valuable natural resource today? AMA As stated AMA is a brand of bottled water which has 100% of its profit donated to a program aimed to deliver water to isolated communities in Brazil. With a US$0.54 / 500 ml price tag, it fits within market range for bottled waters.    With a w

Que carreiras proporcionarão a melhor empregabilidade no futuro? Com o que devo escolher trabalhar? O que eu deveria estudar?  Essas questões estão ficando mais comuns diariamente à medida que as taxas de desemprego aumentam em todos os países do mundo. Embora seja uma preocupação crescente entre a população como um todo, suas causas estão suscitando preocupações em todo o planeta devido ao seu potencial de consequências sociais e econômicas desastrosas. Apesar de muitas soluções estarem sendo propostas, desde o decréscimo econômico até o menor horário de trabalho, nenhuma delas ainda abordou o principal problema por trás da falta de empregos disponíveis.  Esse problema reside na própria população, ou mais precisamente, no problema da superpopulação. Independentemente de suas causas, crescimento intrínseco da população em países subdesenvolvidos ou migração crescente para países desenvolvidos, o crescimento constante da população resulta em uma demanda crescente de trabalho que é si

(C) Rabitty Julio Campos That sounds like a typical clickbait title you may think, but in fact, the idea of fast fashion is a myth as we’ll see, but maybe not for the reasons that one may think about. Fast fashion is not new, been there since ever, but its use to define a line that can’t be crossed between sustainability and unsustainability is brand new (no pun intended). Some common characteristics are generally used to define it, such as: Cheap. Low turnaround time between collections. Trendy. Low-quality materials leading to the need for constant replacement. The use of cheap labor. All of that fits the objective of the business. Sell as much as possible, as fast as possible to profit as much as possible. At the opposite side of that line, we have the trendy (let it sink a bit) sustainable side of the industry pledging to provide fashionable products with environmental and social responsibility. Focusing on natural, high-quality material, they offer cloth

Julio F. Campos The latest trend in the fashion industry,  sustainability is on the hype and widely celebrated by fashion corporations, concerned consumers, designers and whoever wants to save the planet. However, if the electronics industry is the father of planned obsolescence, fashion is doubtless the mother, releasing season after season new collections to allow the engaged audience to keep up with the last tendencies.  Who wants to be kept out of the latest tendencies after all? Like all the other movements towards sustainability, those engaged with the fashion also follows the same set of beliefs used by the rest of business. Optimize the production process to reduce its impact, and; Recycle. So the actions are focused on the start and the end of the process. But is that all? That's the most relevant question and to answer that it is necessary to bring to the reader the statement that explains why those actions are not enough and usually are not as go

Julio F. Campos This article provides a list of four of the most important books on sustainability that one need to read to both understand the causes of our problems and the ways to solve them The Coal Question; An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal Mines; William Stanley Jevons; 1865. Concerned with the fast rates in which the coal was being consumed due to high demand by industries, Jevons approached the issue analyzing how the technological development of equipment efficiency and its consequent reduction in coal use could prevent it exhaustion or scarcity. Over a century before the definition of the eco-efficiency term in 1992, in what become known as "The Jevons' Paradox", Jevons observed that the constant increase in efficiency could if fact leads to increase in recourses use, resulting in a fast decline of resource stocks. While still trying to be disproved by the efficiency advocates, the number of

Worldpress.com / Foodtank.com Hugo Penteado Julio F. Campos The list of the ten most sustainable countries on the planet varies depending on the source researched but is basically made up of European countries, with the Nordic countries usually at the top of the list, traditionally headed by Sweden. Variations of the countries that make up the list also include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Recently, the University of Leeds study " A good life for all within planetary boundaries ", analyzing our ability to live with adequate quality of life within the limits defined by the planet pointed out that, based on the current models of growth,  of the 150 countries, only Vietnam would be close to achieving the ideal results, with levels of resource consumption within the planet's carrying capacity, although it still needs to develop its social issues. (The reader can review the status of each of these countries here ). The study concludes that the search f

Julio F. Campos Throughout human history, the careless use of natural resources has proven to result in catastrophic shifts to many civilizations. Overuse of natural resources is known to have played the major role in the collapse of ancient civilizations. Easter Island, being the most famous of them, presents the ultimate example of how the mindless use of local, limited, resources could drive the end of an entire civilization. The Mayans overpopulation and deforesting and overexploitation of local land, with a resulting drought, are another example of how the belief in the resources infinitude can lead a pungent civilization to disaster. Angkor Wat, one of the most advanced Asian ancient civilizations, with is marvelous water control systems, upon which the entire civilization relied, collapsed due to external climate events leading to floods and droughts, resulting in the end of this entire civilization. Even the great Roman empire was at the end subject to its soil

Julio F. Campos I have been quite often asked questions about pollution. What it is, it's different types, what products are considered to be pollutants, how the environment deals with it or what can we do to prevent it. Here I'll briefly answer those questions explaining what pollution from the ecological perspective is. How, why, when an ecosystem is considered polluted and what can it do about it. But first, it is necessary to bring two fundamental ecosystem structural characteristics. A) The carrying capacity Carrying capacity is the capacity of any ecosystem to sustain a number of individuals of a given species. That could the number of different species, the number of predators, the volume of human use of its resources and, as we will see, the quantity of waste that it can process through its recycling species. As such, every ecosystem has an intrinsic set of carrying capacities for its innumerous species which are derived from its complex internal inter