Sustainability: The Buzzword of Today

Sustainability, as a buzzword, is on an upward trend. Hence, why we’re seeing it everywhere. Say, you’re scrolling through Instagram and come across an advertisement for “sustainable” toilet paper. Or, you’re on the lookout for a new face wash and every single one has “sustainable” slapped across the label.

Introducing "LOHAS" Customers

Enter: “LOHAS” customers. These are the folks like us trying to live Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability – i.e., those that don’t want the sustainability yucks in the products we use and consume. The Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) released a study in 2010 explaining that this customer segment makes up roughly 25% of U.S. shoppers, and more than $290 billion in sales… and these numbers have continued to grow over the past decade.

The Reality of "Sustainable" Products

So, brands are throwing themselves at the opportunity to secure those sweet, sweet “LOHAS” dollars… the question is, are they actually creating “sustainable” products? Heck, do sustainable products even exist?

What Does “Sustainable” Even Mean?

What does “sustainable” even mean? Let’s start with our definition of “sustainable”. It’s worth mentioning that there is a lot of disagreement over the definition of “sustainability,” which makes it even more difficult to define… and more difficult to identify. Even the Cambridge dictionary and the Merriam-Webster dictionary slightly differ in their definitions of what “sustainability” is. Here at Finch, for something to be “sustainable”, it must balance how it meets human needs with its ability to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, without degrading the natural environment.

The Reality of Fully Sustainable Products

So, fully sustainable products (ones that completely fulfill that definition) don’t actually exist…yet. We will tell you, however, that some products are more sustainable than others. We like to think of this as a spectrum, rather than a threshold which a product has passed. This can mean that the way that they were produced or manufactured required less energy or created less waste, for example, than what is conventionally sold on the market. Or, the materials or ingredients they contain have less of a negative impact on ecosystems when they’re eventually washed down the drain or disposed of.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

This technique is called a life cycle assessment, which is an approach that assesses the environmental impacts associated with a product, from when it’s first created to when it’s finally disposed of. Let’s talk about the possible life cycles that people assess for products:

• Cradle to Grave: An assessment that includes all the stages of a life cycle from when raw materials are extracted to when the product – or its components – end up in landfill, are recycled, or are composted.
• Cradle to Gate: An assessment of a product that evaluates only the raw material extraction, production, manufacturing, packaging, and transportation processes.
• Cradle to Cradle: An assessment that acknowledges that at the end-of-life stage (or when the consumer is “done” with the product), the product is recycled or reused instead of being disposed of.

Sustainability Paradox and Indigenous Methods

Occasionally, in our attempts to buy things that are “better for the planet”, we may end up causing new, unintended damage elsewhere. So, while LCAs are incredibly helpful tools, and one of the best assessments we have so far, they’re not perfect and don’t include every pillar of what we would like to consider as part of “sustainable products”.

Will There Ever Be a Totally Sustainable Product?

At the end of the day, if there are ever any truly sustainable products, it all comes back to how we’re defining sustainability. With current methods of production – including all five of those stages of a life cycle assessment – it’s effectively impossible to have a product be 100% sustainable. However, there are some very, very cool advancements being made that minimize the harmful impacts that products can create on people and the planet.