If you have ever seen the Disney movie Pocahontas you might remember Grandmother Willow, the full-grown willow tree that acts as the young Native American’s mentor. Grandmother Willow is a comfort to Pocahontas, wise in the ways of the world and incredibly up to speed with the rapidly unfolding events of the small village in which they live. I was a child at the time the movie was released and my family lived in a neighborhood where I ran wild daily with my sister and four neighbor girls. One day, we happened upon a tree in a neighbor’s backyard that bared an unmistakable resemblance to the fabled Grandmother Willow. We noticed that there were various layers of underbrush surrounding the base of our new friend and naturally assumed the twigs were suffocating the tree. Thus, we began a weeklong project of clearing the sticks from the tree’s roots, throwing them in a nearby creek and repeating the process day after day. We loved that tree and truly wanted to help her.
In actuality, by clearing the underbrush we probably created a dam in the creek that more than likely produced problems for fish swimming down the current and other ecosystems in place. Yet, at the time, it was out of our genuine desire to help a tree that we caused such a ruckus and got grounded for throwing the man’s firewood in a creek. This story is the best way I can describe my earliest identification with an environmental ethic – treating plants, animals and all of nature as if they had human characteristics and felt human emotions. My ethic has grown out of these types of isolated incidences and matured in a way that I never anticipated. I have moved on from just thinking that living things have feelings and it is my place to care for them. Now, I am learning what my place in the system is and what I can realistically do to help sustain it for future generations.
I have cared for living beings on an abnormally deep level throughout my life. On several occasions, my empathy for bugs has generated confusion from those around me. My dad and uncle own an exterminating company and one afternoon while playing with my sister and cousin, I squished a bug. After doing so, I felt so guilty for hurting the little creature that I forced my playmates to hold a ceremonial burial for the tiny ant and, to avoid further upsetting me, they complied. I still think about that day especially when the family jokes about me taking over the exterminating business – I have never killed a bug since that day and I do not believe that I ever intentionally could. These stories defined my environmental ethic before I realized that it takes more than a couple beliefs to develop one.
While I could continue to hold burials for every living creature that dies, I can be more beneficial to the environment by getting involved in social justice and environmental protection organizations. Researching changes that I can make in my daily routine is something else I can do in order to lessen the pain and suffering that I have so long felt that all living beings are capable of feeling. Now I know that whether or not all living things have feelings is not worth questioning. If we go through our lives acting as if some creatures do not have emotions and later we find out that they do, our years spent neglecting them will seem brutal.
In light of what I have spoken about thus far, my environmental ethic is aligning mostly with the Judeo-Christian philosophy we discussed in class. I have always been a practicing Catholic but never thought my religious beliefs had anything to do with my environmental ethic. The Judeo-Christian environmental philosophy emphasizes the creation of all living beings by a loving God who expects humans to care for the earth and all of its inhabitants (Warner). I treat these plants, animals and humans in accordance with this belief therefore giving each living being an absolute intrinsic value. According to Keith Warner, assistant director for Education, Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, and David DeCosse, director of Campus Ethics Programs at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, intrinsic value means that the natural world “counts for its own sake” therefore having “moral status”. Intrinsic value stems from religious beliefs and, according to Warner and DeCosse, some people grant animals intrinsic value because they believe these creatures have feelings whereas others do so because of a belief that animals are created by God. In my environmental ethic’s evolution, I shifted from the former to the latter.
The gradual progression of my ethic away from passive feelings and towards action based on those emotions has come from an array of eye-opening experiences. I attended the extra credit viewing of Living Downstream which actually became a turning point for me. I realized then that caring about people, animals or plants is not enough of an effort. The documentary showed me that it is negligent to solely care about something and not act on those feelings. The social equity pillar of environmental sustainability explains this ideal; sustainability and social justice are inseparable. For the second essay in this class, I wrote about Donkey Coffee’s sustainable practices that included the coffee house’s advertising for social justice programs in the area. Basically, in my attempt to research environmental sustainability, I inadvertently came across social sustainability – further opening my eyes to just how interrelated the two issues are. The more I am learning about sustainable practices, the more I am realizing that the reach of those practices extends far beyond anything I could have imagined before. The reach goes past the plants and trees and into the hearts of people.
The first time I viewed Food, Inc. I was in a social work class, demonstrating the interchangeability of consumption patterns for environmental and human sustainability. While studying sustainability this quarter, there were times when I felt that the course material was personally targeting my feelings and behaviors and viewing this documentary was surely one of those times. As most people probably did, I felt that the producers of Food, Inc. were speaking directly to me but not solely because of how I consume chicken. The producers of the film showed footage of the horrible treatment of chickens raised for slaughter; these chickens are pumped so full of corn-based feed that they are twice as large as they naturally should be and as a result can barely walk. I felt that I was the target of this documentary because even though I have seen it before and been a witness to the mistreatment of chickens, I have not actually changed my poultry consumption habits. Despite my shortcomings in this regard, I can exercise my ability to sustain our planet and its creatures in other ways.
The problem for me is not that I have no desire to do something about the harm that is being done to the planet and its inhabitants (human and non-human); the problem is that I need to get creative about what I can do because I am currently in the lowest percentages of income and cannot afford to live sustainably myself. Therefore, the question seems to become: which is more important – living sustainably or helping others so that they may live sustainably in the future as I intend to? Often, I choose the latter. By helping others, I am in turn helping the environment and someday those people can do the same. It’s the old saying: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Only, in our circumstance, you feed him, the environment and generations to come. For instance, I have often volunteered at the local United Campus Ministries’ (UCM) free Thursday suppers. This organization has been able to provide free meals to impoverished people in the Athens area who otherwise may not be able to afford meals. UCM prepares meals solely on donations and produce grown at local vegetable gardens. The quality and sustainability of this food on the environment is exponentially greater than that of local fast-food restaurants where those who attend the suppers often dine.
People have always been my choice segment for charitable donations. I care about the environment but I have learned that a change must start with humans. Therefore I support systems and organizations such as Friends of the Earth that give disadvantaged people an opportunity to make more sustainable decisions for themselves and for their families. Friends of the Earth, according to the organization’s website, is made up of “grassroots groups in 76 countries (that) defend the environment and champion a more healthy and just world.” The group is currently focused on a variety of environmental and social problems including banishing poisonous and potentially damaging technologies from food and other products as well as defending marine ecosystems and people who live or work in the vicinity (Friends of the Earth). This type of organization is imperative in the move from idealistic fantasies about how the world should be to forming realistic solutions to the problems we are currently facing and enacting those policies.
Out of my genuine childhood desire to help Grandmother Willow I have grown into an adult capable of revolutionizing how the world’s inhabitants and resources are used, reused and replaced. As I gain more knowledge, I also gain momentum. Someday I hope that I am again asked to write a paper on the evolution of my environmental ethic. On that day, my present ethic will be just as far behind me as Grandmother Willow and the ethic I will have evolved into will hopefully be one of direct action on my part.
Friends of the Earth. Youtube.
Works Cited:
“Who We Are.” Friends of the Earth. 16 Mar. 2011.
Warner, Keith Douglass and David DeCosse. “Who, When, Where and How: The Distinctiveness of Environmental Ethics.” Santa Clara University. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics: 2010. 16 Mar. 2011.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Dear President McDavis,
I am writing in regards to an issue that has come to my attention on multiple occasions but has recently been brought into focus by an assignment I completed for my English class. For this assignment we were to research sustainability efforts on campus. After some discussion with the Office of Sustainability as well as students who work in the dining halls, I have become troubled by the misinformation students are receiving about composting practices here at the university.
Currently, the compost vessel that we have in place only composts roughly 50% of the food waste generated at the dining facilities, according to Office of Sustainability’s website. According to the same report, the annual amount of compostable food waste that comes from the dining facilities is in the ballpark of 56 tons. I am aware that we have received $1,088,571from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to be used to expand our compost facility. According to the Office of Sustainability’s website, that project should be completed sometime this year (2011) and it is believed that the site would then be able to accommodate for all 56 tons of waste, not just half of it. Initiatives to reduce food waste generated at the university’s facilities – especially at the dining halls – have been attempted during annual waste audit sessions. What bothers me about this system most is that these audits are only once a year and it seems that not much is being done to reduce food waste beyond those annual sessions.
More needs to be done to keep students informed about our compost system. Before my research, I was under the assumption that everything I put in a bin labeled “Compost” got composted. Sadly, I now know that only my compostable materials from Baker and Shively dining hall are making it that far. Now that I know that is not the case, I will be changing how I dispose of my material, where I place it and even how much food I purchase at on-campus locations to reduce my food waste since our system is not equipped to handle much.
It is my belief that many other students would follow these practices if they were informed about the situation. I propose that the university hold several educational information sessions in order to combat this problem. We cannot wait until our system can handle all of our waste. In fact, the university would not need to spend money to expand our compost site if there was not so much waste to compost. Something can and should be done about how much waste students are producing and the best place to start would be to inform them of the consequences of their wasteful habits.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Lauren Stauffenger
Currently, the compost vessel that we have in place only composts roughly 50% of the food waste generated at the dining facilities, according to Office of Sustainability’s website. According to the same report, the annual amount of compostable food waste that comes from the dining facilities is in the ballpark of 56 tons. I am aware that we have received $1,088,571from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to be used to expand our compost facility. According to the Office of Sustainability’s website, that project should be completed sometime this year (2011) and it is believed that the site would then be able to accommodate for all 56 tons of waste, not just half of it. Initiatives to reduce food waste generated at the university’s facilities – especially at the dining halls – have been attempted during annual waste audit sessions. What bothers me about this system most is that these audits are only once a year and it seems that not much is being done to reduce food waste beyond those annual sessions.
More needs to be done to keep students informed about our compost system. Before my research, I was under the assumption that everything I put in a bin labeled “Compost” got composted. Sadly, I now know that only my compostable materials from Baker and Shively dining hall are making it that far. Now that I know that is not the case, I will be changing how I dispose of my material, where I place it and even how much food I purchase at on-campus locations to reduce my food waste since our system is not equipped to handle much.
It is my belief that many other students would follow these practices if they were informed about the situation. I propose that the university hold several educational information sessions in order to combat this problem. We cannot wait until our system can handle all of our waste. In fact, the university would not need to spend money to expand our compost site if there was not so much waste to compost. Something can and should be done about how much waste students are producing and the best place to start would be to inform them of the consequences of their wasteful habits.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Lauren Stauffenger
Compost Confusion
Most Ohio University students have eaten countless meals at the on-campus dining locations. There are four sit-down dining halls and four grab-and-go locations where meal plan swipes are accepted and buffet-style meals are served. Students also have the option to eat at Baker University Center’s West 82 where food items are individually purchased with cash. The process at each of the sit-down dining halls is the same: enter, grab a tray, follow a line of hungry students where one will pass innumerable food options and load up the tray with whatever foods appeal to you at that moment. There is at least one problem with this system – most students find no reason to limit the amount of food they put on their trays.
Stephanie Marvin is an OU junior employed at Boyd Dining Hall; some of her shifts are spent with the trays students return to the kitchen when they are finished with their meals. She is responsible for disposing of the food waste and cleaning the dishes. Typically, according to Marvin, less than one-third of trays returned to the kitchen after each meal are clear of any food waste. Therefore, one could infer that students who go to the dining hall for meals are putting more food on their plates than they can eat. “The food that comes back on trays from the students goes down a garbage disposal for the most part,” says Marvin. “We throw away chicken bones and fruit peels in a trash can and I’m not really sure what is done with the food that wasn’t served at all.” Why Boyd is not composting the food waste collected in its dining hall when there are compost bins at multiple locations across campus, can be contributed to the size of OU’s compost facility.
According to OU’s Interim Sustainability Coordinator Erin Sykes, compost is only being collected at three campus locations at this time and the only dining hall where compost is being picked up is Shively. The other two locations are Baker and the Central Food Facility, which houses a bakery, test kitchen and vegetable preparation site and acts as a central food warehouse. Food waste from all other dining locations goes to a landfill. The compost system currently in place can hold 28 tons of compostable material annually, which is roughly 50 percent of the food waste generated at OU, according to the OU Office of Sustainability’s website. “We have received federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand our compost site which we anticipate will allow us to pick up from 100 percent of our dining facilities,” says Sykes. The OU Office of Sustainability was awarded $1,088,571 for this expansion that is expected to be completed sometime this year, according to its website.
In the meantime, the sustainability officials have been testing different methods of reducing the amount of food waste generated at the dining halls. Waste auditing, a practice that involves examining on-campus dining facilities’ levels of waste, is one method that Sykes and her colleagues have been using to look at the effect portion size has on food waste. Ways that they have studied this effect include holding half-portion nights, offering food samples, removing a number of trays from use and hosting an education night on the issue of food waste in sustainability.
Focusing on portion sizes seems to be a good starting point. According to Marvin, one or two “spoonfuls” constitutes a portion size at the dining halls. “I have never personally been asked to give someone a smaller portion,” she says. “I think that it is more normal for people to ask for more.” It is common to walk through an OU dining hall and see students with a tray full of food fit to feed a family of four. Sykes reports that on half-portion nights, the amount of food waste was slightly decreased. During a week of waste audits held at Nelson in 2009, the amount of food waste generated without any change to the dining hall’s operation totaled 5.54 oz./person for a Monday meal. Compare that amount with the 4.68 oz./person food waste generated on Tuesday when smaller portions were served (“Food Waste Audits”). It would seem logical that this should be a common practice and not just done on select nights in select dining halls.
There are times when one student can be seen carrying multiple trays while traversing the dining halls. The Office of Sustainability attempted to reduce food waste by reducing the number of available trays in the dining halls at mealtime. In doing so, many students were forced to carry plates of food and thus, were able to carry far less than they could with a tray. In a series of waste audits held in 2008, it was found that when comparing the amount of edible food waste after a meal when all trays were in use (5.24 oz. /person) to a meal when no trays were available for use (4.52 oz./person), it was more sustainable to force students to carry plates of food. The typical food waste amount gathered from an audit held at Nelson in 2009 was 5.54 oz./person, when compared with the “tray-less” meal’s food waste (6.02 oz./person), one can see that the tray-less meal did not help reduce food waste on that day (“Food Waste Audits”). Basically, measuring waste at tray-less meals should take place more than the usual once a year in order to definitively determine whether or not it is effective.
Another cause could be that some students do not have ample time to eat a meal between classes and while the dining hall is still open for said meal; thus, these students load up trays on the first trip through the dining line because they will not have time to go back for seconds if they’re still hungry. One solution is allowing students more grab-and-go options and has gone into effect this quarter (Winter 2011) with the opening of a grab-and-go at Jefferson, previously just a dining hall. Grab-and-go gives students the ability to get a meal at hours of the day in between mealtimes when the dining halls are closed and sets a limit on the amount of food each student can take with him/her. Whether or not the opening of another grab-and-go this winter has decreased the amount of food waste will most likely be determined after results are collected from a survey set to go out this spring.
Overflowing trays could also be caused because students are trying to eat their money’s worth of food at the dining halls. A majority of students swipe their OU identification cards to pay for meals when they enter dining halls; students never have to know just how much money each meal would cost if it were paid for in cash. Rumors circulated last academic year that if one paid in cash to go to dinner at Shively, the receipt would read $12. Whether or not that figure is correct is irrelevant because the result is the same; students were sent into frenzy and began trying to eat more food. For this reason, reducing meal plan prices would most likely lead many students to take less food.
Regardless of the many shortcomings of the amount of food waste generated at Ohio University dining locations and the trials done to overcome them, the root of the problem lies in students being misinformed. Sykes says that “an education night” was held. Sonia Marcus, OU Sustainability Coordinator at the time the 2008 waste audits were held, said at the time that education of students did not “necessarily draw action” (“Food Waste Audits”). Yet, the extent of the education was a display of signs and charts with information collected from the audits held, according to the Office of Sustainability’s website.
More education nights should be held and they should be more informational. Students need to know what exactly is going on – they need to know that the food they are putting on their trays and then choosing to discard is not being composted (unless they are eating at Shively or Baker). Right now, there are students who believe that everything they put in a bin labeled “Compost” is making it to OU’s compost site. Whether or not those students’ waste ends up there is a coin toss. Students would make more calculated decisions at on-campus dining locations if they knew the consequences of their choices to waste food.
Work's Cited
“Food Waste Audits.” Office of Sustainability. Ohio University, 2011. Web. 24 Feb.
2011.
Marvin, Stephanie. Personal Interview. 22 Feb. 2011.
Sykes, Erin. Personal Interview. 22 Feb. 2011.
“The Composting Project at Ohio University.” Ohio Sustainability. Ohio University,
2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.
("The Composting Project at Ohio University." Ohio University Sustainability website.)
Stephanie Marvin is an OU junior employed at Boyd Dining Hall; some of her shifts are spent with the trays students return to the kitchen when they are finished with their meals. She is responsible for disposing of the food waste and cleaning the dishes. Typically, according to Marvin, less than one-third of trays returned to the kitchen after each meal are clear of any food waste. Therefore, one could infer that students who go to the dining hall for meals are putting more food on their plates than they can eat. “The food that comes back on trays from the students goes down a garbage disposal for the most part,” says Marvin. “We throw away chicken bones and fruit peels in a trash can and I’m not really sure what is done with the food that wasn’t served at all.” Why Boyd is not composting the food waste collected in its dining hall when there are compost bins at multiple locations across campus, can be contributed to the size of OU’s compost facility.
According to OU’s Interim Sustainability Coordinator Erin Sykes, compost is only being collected at three campus locations at this time and the only dining hall where compost is being picked up is Shively. The other two locations are Baker and the Central Food Facility, which houses a bakery, test kitchen and vegetable preparation site and acts as a central food warehouse. Food waste from all other dining locations goes to a landfill. The compost system currently in place can hold 28 tons of compostable material annually, which is roughly 50 percent of the food waste generated at OU, according to the OU Office of Sustainability’s website. “We have received federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand our compost site which we anticipate will allow us to pick up from 100 percent of our dining facilities,” says Sykes. The OU Office of Sustainability was awarded $1,088,571 for this expansion that is expected to be completed sometime this year, according to its website.
In the meantime, the sustainability officials have been testing different methods of reducing the amount of food waste generated at the dining halls. Waste auditing, a practice that involves examining on-campus dining facilities’ levels of waste, is one method that Sykes and her colleagues have been using to look at the effect portion size has on food waste. Ways that they have studied this effect include holding half-portion nights, offering food samples, removing a number of trays from use and hosting an education night on the issue of food waste in sustainability.
Focusing on portion sizes seems to be a good starting point. According to Marvin, one or two “spoonfuls” constitutes a portion size at the dining halls. “I have never personally been asked to give someone a smaller portion,” she says. “I think that it is more normal for people to ask for more.” It is common to walk through an OU dining hall and see students with a tray full of food fit to feed a family of four. Sykes reports that on half-portion nights, the amount of food waste was slightly decreased. During a week of waste audits held at Nelson in 2009, the amount of food waste generated without any change to the dining hall’s operation totaled 5.54 oz./person for a Monday meal. Compare that amount with the 4.68 oz./person food waste generated on Tuesday when smaller portions were served (“Food Waste Audits”). It would seem logical that this should be a common practice and not just done on select nights in select dining halls.
There are times when one student can be seen carrying multiple trays while traversing the dining halls. The Office of Sustainability attempted to reduce food waste by reducing the number of available trays in the dining halls at mealtime. In doing so, many students were forced to carry plates of food and thus, were able to carry far less than they could with a tray. In a series of waste audits held in 2008, it was found that when comparing the amount of edible food waste after a meal when all trays were in use (5.24 oz. /person) to a meal when no trays were available for use (4.52 oz./person), it was more sustainable to force students to carry plates of food. The typical food waste amount gathered from an audit held at Nelson in 2009 was 5.54 oz./person, when compared with the “tray-less” meal’s food waste (6.02 oz./person), one can see that the tray-less meal did not help reduce food waste on that day (“Food Waste Audits”). Basically, measuring waste at tray-less meals should take place more than the usual once a year in order to definitively determine whether or not it is effective.
Another cause could be that some students do not have ample time to eat a meal between classes and while the dining hall is still open for said meal; thus, these students load up trays on the first trip through the dining line because they will not have time to go back for seconds if they’re still hungry. One solution is allowing students more grab-and-go options and has gone into effect this quarter (Winter 2011) with the opening of a grab-and-go at Jefferson, previously just a dining hall. Grab-and-go gives students the ability to get a meal at hours of the day in between mealtimes when the dining halls are closed and sets a limit on the amount of food each student can take with him/her. Whether or not the opening of another grab-and-go this winter has decreased the amount of food waste will most likely be determined after results are collected from a survey set to go out this spring.
Overflowing trays could also be caused because students are trying to eat their money’s worth of food at the dining halls. A majority of students swipe their OU identification cards to pay for meals when they enter dining halls; students never have to know just how much money each meal would cost if it were paid for in cash. Rumors circulated last academic year that if one paid in cash to go to dinner at Shively, the receipt would read $12. Whether or not that figure is correct is irrelevant because the result is the same; students were sent into frenzy and began trying to eat more food. For this reason, reducing meal plan prices would most likely lead many students to take less food.
Regardless of the many shortcomings of the amount of food waste generated at Ohio University dining locations and the trials done to overcome them, the root of the problem lies in students being misinformed. Sykes says that “an education night” was held. Sonia Marcus, OU Sustainability Coordinator at the time the 2008 waste audits were held, said at the time that education of students did not “necessarily draw action” (“Food Waste Audits”). Yet, the extent of the education was a display of signs and charts with information collected from the audits held, according to the Office of Sustainability’s website.
More education nights should be held and they should be more informational. Students need to know what exactly is going on – they need to know that the food they are putting on their trays and then choosing to discard is not being composted (unless they are eating at Shively or Baker). Right now, there are students who believe that everything they put in a bin labeled “Compost” is making it to OU’s compost site. Whether or not those students’ waste ends up there is a coin toss. Students would make more calculated decisions at on-campus dining locations if they knew the consequences of their choices to waste food.
Work's Cited
“Food Waste Audits.” Office of Sustainability. Ohio University, 2011. Web. 24 Feb.
2011.
Marvin, Stephanie. Personal Interview. 22 Feb. 2011.
Sykes, Erin. Personal Interview. 22 Feb. 2011.
“The Composting Project at Ohio University.” Ohio Sustainability. Ohio University,
2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.
("The Composting Project at Ohio University." Ohio University Sustainability website.)
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Compost Confusion
Most Ohio University students have eaten countless meals at the on-campus dining locations. There are four sit-down dining halls and four grab-and-go locations as well as the option to eat at Baker University Center’s West 82. The process at the each of the sit-down dining halls is the same: enter, grab a tray, follow a line of hungry students where one will pass innumerable food options and load up the tray with whatever foods appeal to you at that moment. There is at least one problem with this system – most students find no reason to limit the amount of food they put on their tray.
Stephanie Marvin is an Ohio junior employed at Boyd Dining Hall; some of her shifts are spent with the trays students return to the kitchen when they are finished with their meal, disposing of the food waste and cleaning the dishes. Typically, according to Marvin, less than one-third of trays returned to the kitchen after each meal are clear of any food waste. Therefore, one could infer that students that go to the dining hall for meals are putting more food on their plates than they can eat. “The food that comes back on trays from the students goes down a garbage disposal for the most part,” says Marvin. “We throw away chicken bones and fruit peels in a trash can and I’m not really sure what is done with the food that wasn’t served at all.” Why is Boyd not composting the food waste collected its dining hall when we have compost bins at multiple locations across campus can be contributed to the size of OU’s compost facility.
According to OU’s Interim Sustainability Coordinator Erin Sykes, compost is only being collected at three campus locations at this time and the only dining hall where compost is being picked up at is Shively. The other two locations are Baker and the Central Food Facility which houses a bakery, test kitchen and vegetable preparation site and acts as a central food warehouse. Food waste from all other dining locations goes to a landfill. The compost system currently in place can hold 28 tons of compostable material annually, which is roughly 50% of the food waste generated at OU, according to the OU Office of Sustainability’s website. “We have received federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand our compost site which we anticipate will allow us to pick up from 100% of our dining facilities,” says Sykes. The date that the Office of Sustainability plans to have the new compost site up and working was not given but, the sooner the better.
In the meantime, the sustainability officials have been trying out different methods of reducing the amount of food waste generated at the dining halls. Waste auditing is one method that Sykes and her colleagues have been using to look at the effect portion size has on food waste. Ways that they have studied this effect include half-portion nights, offering food samples, removing a number of trays from use and hosting an education night on the issue of food waste in sustainability.
Focusing on portion sizes seems to be a good starting point. According to Marvin, one or two “spoonfuls” constitutes a portion size at the dining halls. “I have never personally been asked to give someone a smaller portion,” she says. “I think that it is more normal for people to ask for more.” It is common to walk through an OU dining hall and see students with a tray full of food fit to feed a family of four. Sykes reports that on half-portion nights, the amount of food waste was slightly decreased. If that is the case, then it seems logical that this should be a common practice and not just done on select nights.
One reason that trays are being overfilled could be that the student wants to try a new food item. To combat this problem, the Office of Sustainability tried offering samples of the items offered that meal.
Another cause could be that some students do not have ample time to eat a meal between classes and while the dining hall is still open for said meal; thus, these students load up trays on the first trip through the dining line because they will not have time to go back for seconds if they’re still hungry. Multiple solutions exist for this problem; the first is allowing students more grab-and-go options and has gone into effect this quarter (Winter 2011) with the opening of a grab-and-go at Jefferson, previously just a dining hall. Grab-and-go gives students the ability to get a meal at hours of the day in between mealtimes when the dining halls are closed and sets a limit on the amount of food each student can take with him/her. Whether or not the opening of another grab-and-go this winter has decreased the amount of food waste is yet to be determined.
Overflowing trays could also be caused because students are trying to eat their money’s worth of food at the dining halls. A majority of students swipe their OU identification card to pay for a meal when they enter a dining hall; students never have to know just how much money each meal would cost if it were paid for in cash. Rumors circulated last academic year that if one paid in cash to go to dinner at Shively, the receipt would read $12. Whether or not that figure is correct is irrelevant; students were sent into frenzy and began trying to eat more food. Reducing meal plan prices would most likely lead many students to eat less food.
There are times when one student can be seen carrying multiple trays while traversing through the dining hall. The Office of Sustainability attempted to reduce food waste by reducing the number of available trays in the dining halls at mealtime. In doing so, many students were forced to carry plates of food and thus, were able to carry far less than they could with a tray. Information was not given as to whether or not this was an effective practice in reducing waste.
Regardless of the many shortcomings of the amount of food waste generated at Ohio University dining locations and the trials done to overcome them, the root of the problem lies in students being misinformed. Sykes says that “an education night” was held. More education nights should be held. Students need to know what is going on – they need to know that the food they are putting on their trays and then choosing to discard is not being composted (unless they are eating at Shively or Baker). Right now, there are students who believe that everything they put in a bin labeled “Compost” is making it to OU’s compost site. Whether or not those students’ waste ends up there is a coin toss. Students would make more calculated decisions at on-campus dining locations if they knew the consequences of their choice to waste food.
Stephanie Marvin is an Ohio junior employed at Boyd Dining Hall; some of her shifts are spent with the trays students return to the kitchen when they are finished with their meal, disposing of the food waste and cleaning the dishes. Typically, according to Marvin, less than one-third of trays returned to the kitchen after each meal are clear of any food waste. Therefore, one could infer that students that go to the dining hall for meals are putting more food on their plates than they can eat. “The food that comes back on trays from the students goes down a garbage disposal for the most part,” says Marvin. “We throw away chicken bones and fruit peels in a trash can and I’m not really sure what is done with the food that wasn’t served at all.” Why is Boyd not composting the food waste collected its dining hall when we have compost bins at multiple locations across campus can be contributed to the size of OU’s compost facility.
According to OU’s Interim Sustainability Coordinator Erin Sykes, compost is only being collected at three campus locations at this time and the only dining hall where compost is being picked up at is Shively. The other two locations are Baker and the Central Food Facility which houses a bakery, test kitchen and vegetable preparation site and acts as a central food warehouse. Food waste from all other dining locations goes to a landfill. The compost system currently in place can hold 28 tons of compostable material annually, which is roughly 50% of the food waste generated at OU, according to the OU Office of Sustainability’s website. “We have received federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand our compost site which we anticipate will allow us to pick up from 100% of our dining facilities,” says Sykes. The date that the Office of Sustainability plans to have the new compost site up and working was not given but, the sooner the better.
In the meantime, the sustainability officials have been trying out different methods of reducing the amount of food waste generated at the dining halls. Waste auditing is one method that Sykes and her colleagues have been using to look at the effect portion size has on food waste. Ways that they have studied this effect include half-portion nights, offering food samples, removing a number of trays from use and hosting an education night on the issue of food waste in sustainability.
Focusing on portion sizes seems to be a good starting point. According to Marvin, one or two “spoonfuls” constitutes a portion size at the dining halls. “I have never personally been asked to give someone a smaller portion,” she says. “I think that it is more normal for people to ask for more.” It is common to walk through an OU dining hall and see students with a tray full of food fit to feed a family of four. Sykes reports that on half-portion nights, the amount of food waste was slightly decreased. If that is the case, then it seems logical that this should be a common practice and not just done on select nights.
One reason that trays are being overfilled could be that the student wants to try a new food item. To combat this problem, the Office of Sustainability tried offering samples of the items offered that meal.
Another cause could be that some students do not have ample time to eat a meal between classes and while the dining hall is still open for said meal; thus, these students load up trays on the first trip through the dining line because they will not have time to go back for seconds if they’re still hungry. Multiple solutions exist for this problem; the first is allowing students more grab-and-go options and has gone into effect this quarter (Winter 2011) with the opening of a grab-and-go at Jefferson, previously just a dining hall. Grab-and-go gives students the ability to get a meal at hours of the day in between mealtimes when the dining halls are closed and sets a limit on the amount of food each student can take with him/her. Whether or not the opening of another grab-and-go this winter has decreased the amount of food waste is yet to be determined.
Overflowing trays could also be caused because students are trying to eat their money’s worth of food at the dining halls. A majority of students swipe their OU identification card to pay for a meal when they enter a dining hall; students never have to know just how much money each meal would cost if it were paid for in cash. Rumors circulated last academic year that if one paid in cash to go to dinner at Shively, the receipt would read $12. Whether or not that figure is correct is irrelevant; students were sent into frenzy and began trying to eat more food. Reducing meal plan prices would most likely lead many students to eat less food.
There are times when one student can be seen carrying multiple trays while traversing through the dining hall. The Office of Sustainability attempted to reduce food waste by reducing the number of available trays in the dining halls at mealtime. In doing so, many students were forced to carry plates of food and thus, were able to carry far less than they could with a tray. Information was not given as to whether or not this was an effective practice in reducing waste.
Regardless of the many shortcomings of the amount of food waste generated at Ohio University dining locations and the trials done to overcome them, the root of the problem lies in students being misinformed. Sykes says that “an education night” was held. More education nights should be held. Students need to know what is going on – they need to know that the food they are putting on their trays and then choosing to discard is not being composted (unless they are eating at Shively or Baker). Right now, there are students who believe that everything they put in a bin labeled “Compost” is making it to OU’s compost site. Whether or not those students’ waste ends up there is a coin toss. Students would make more calculated decisions at on-campus dining locations if they knew the consequences of their choice to waste food.
Friday, February 18, 2011
The World You're Entering
The United States is the world-leader in dollars spent on advertising, according to Sian Jones, researcher for the World Advertising Research Center (WARC). We spent $158.5 billion dollars in advertisements in 2008 according to Jones’ report. So much of that money is spent trying to position goods and services as personifying human characteristics, not to persuade consumers to purchase that good or service. The world of advertising is now focused on giving companies’ goods and services an aura of environmental sustainability around their brands. Enter green marketing.
Carlos Grande, editor of WARC online, defines green marketing as the “promotion of goods, services and policies that claim to mitigate the environmental damage caused by human behavior or, more rarely produce an actual environmental benefit”, defines green marketing. Originally, according to Grande, green marketing was just a part of a company’s corporate social responsibility agenda; however, it has turned into a very visible extension of a company’s brand communication and strategy. With green marketing comes the possible pitfall of green-washing.
Grande explains to us that green-washing is the practice of over-claiming the benefits that a product or service has on the environment that has become so common among corporations. A branch of green-washing is the spotlight effect which Craig Davis, an advertising professor at Ohio University, explains to be when companies do not want to tell consumers if their brand is doing something good for the environment because, while that may result in positive brand experiences from consumers, there are also many groups that are trying to catch mistakes those companies are making in that or other areas. By looking at the practices of three very different brands, we can distil the essence of their positions (messages) and decide what type of advertising would be most effective.
Starbuck’s Coffee launched a campaign with environmental undertones in which the company proclaimed “Good Coffee Can Do Good Things”. In an article written by Rowenna Davis for New Internationalist, she says, “More than any other mainstream multinational, Starbucks tries to present itself as ethically virtuous: the company knows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) sells.” The company grossed net revenue of $7.8 billion in 2006, according to Davis. That statistic alone tells us that consumers do more than desire products that adhere to social responsibility policies – they are willing to fork out the money to purchase those products. In 2007, after findings that Starbucks was not putting their money where their mouth was, so-to-speak, and their fiscal year saw a decrease. “Starbucks’ image of corporate social responsibility might have made a profit in the past,” writes Davis. “But, it’s tempting to think that an irresponsible reality could contribute to making its future bankrupt.” Starbucks was not adhering to social responsibility practices and consumers were noticing. The spotlight effect took hold and now, no matter how much good Starbucks was doing, consumers were noticing all of the bad.
Toyota, however, has been successfully avoiding having a target placed on their back by consumers who feel deceived by their advertisements. According to the company’s website, Toyota has employed an environmental action plan aimed at reducing energy usage, minimizing air emissions as well as capitalizing on recycling opportunities, among other things, in order to reach their goal of “sending zero waste to landfill”. After the launch of Toyota’s “Beyond Cars” campaign, the company seems to have gained the trust of their consumers. This campaign consists of advertisements with the tag line: “We see beyond cars. We see ways to enrich the community.” Toyota has been able to give statistics on their website that substantiate this claim; the company has 14 manufacturing plants in North America and employ roughly 41,000 here, they purchase parts, materials, goods and services from North American suppliers which total nearly $25 billion annually. That’s a lot of community involvement and the advertisements creatively showcase Toyota’s commitment to community. By being able to backup their advertising campaign, consumers feel more comfortable with the Toyota brand and associate them with having an honest position. Despite all of Toyota’s work, one flaw may be that the company has not revealed any information as to whether or not they were able to achieve their “zero waste to landfill goal”.
In my opinion, Absolut Vodka has the best strategy for simultaneously advertising their brand and their stance on environmental sustainability. The company’s campaign includes a multitude of print advertisements that have a desirable object in the shape of an Absolut bottle with a tagline on the bottom. My favorite one is a picture of a factory but, instead of emitting smoke and chemicals, the factory is blowing out bubbles; the tagline is “In an Absolut World”. By advertising in a way that shows the consumer you agree with their desires to make this world a cleaner place without making outrageous claims to be singlehandedly fixing the problem, a company’s advertisements are much more endearing and believable to the consumer.
(Works Cited same as previous post.)
Carlos Grande, editor of WARC online, defines green marketing as the “promotion of goods, services and policies that claim to mitigate the environmental damage caused by human behavior or, more rarely produce an actual environmental benefit”, defines green marketing. Originally, according to Grande, green marketing was just a part of a company’s corporate social responsibility agenda; however, it has turned into a very visible extension of a company’s brand communication and strategy. With green marketing comes the possible pitfall of green-washing.
Grande explains to us that green-washing is the practice of over-claiming the benefits that a product or service has on the environment that has become so common among corporations. A branch of green-washing is the spotlight effect which Craig Davis, an advertising professor at Ohio University, explains to be when companies do not want to tell consumers if their brand is doing something good for the environment because, while that may result in positive brand experiences from consumers, there are also many groups that are trying to catch mistakes those companies are making in that or other areas. By looking at the practices of three very different brands, we can distil the essence of their positions (messages) and decide what type of advertising would be most effective.
Starbuck’s Coffee launched a campaign with environmental undertones in which the company proclaimed “Good Coffee Can Do Good Things”. In an article written by Rowenna Davis for New Internationalist, she says, “More than any other mainstream multinational, Starbucks tries to present itself as ethically virtuous: the company knows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) sells.” The company grossed net revenue of $7.8 billion in 2006, according to Davis. That statistic alone tells us that consumers do more than desire products that adhere to social responsibility policies – they are willing to fork out the money to purchase those products. In 2007, after findings that Starbucks was not putting their money where their mouth was, so-to-speak, and their fiscal year saw a decrease. “Starbucks’ image of corporate social responsibility might have made a profit in the past,” writes Davis. “But, it’s tempting to think that an irresponsible reality could contribute to making its future bankrupt.” Starbucks was not adhering to social responsibility practices and consumers were noticing. The spotlight effect took hold and now, no matter how much good Starbucks was doing, consumers were noticing all of the bad.
Toyota, however, has been successfully avoiding having a target placed on their back by consumers who feel deceived by their advertisements. According to the company’s website, Toyota has employed an environmental action plan aimed at reducing energy usage, minimizing air emissions as well as capitalizing on recycling opportunities, among other things, in order to reach their goal of “sending zero waste to landfill”. After the launch of Toyota’s “Beyond Cars” campaign, the company seems to have gained the trust of their consumers. This campaign consists of advertisements with the tag line: “We see beyond cars. We see ways to enrich the community.” Toyota has been able to give statistics on their website that substantiate this claim; the company has 14 manufacturing plants in North America and employ roughly 41,000 here, they purchase parts, materials, goods and services from North American suppliers which total nearly $25 billion annually. That’s a lot of community involvement and the advertisements creatively showcase Toyota’s commitment to community. By being able to backup their advertising campaign, consumers feel more comfortable with the Toyota brand and associate them with having an honest position. Despite all of Toyota’s work, one flaw may be that the company has not revealed any information as to whether or not they were able to achieve their “zero waste to landfill goal”.
In my opinion, Absolut Vodka has the best strategy for simultaneously advertising their brand and their stance on environmental sustainability. The company’s campaign includes a multitude of print advertisements that have a desirable object in the shape of an Absolut bottle with a tagline on the bottom. My favorite one is a picture of a factory but, instead of emitting smoke and chemicals, the factory is blowing out bubbles; the tagline is “In an Absolut World”. By advertising in a way that shows the consumer you agree with their desires to make this world a cleaner place without making outrageous claims to be singlehandedly fixing the problem, a company’s advertisements are much more endearing and believable to the consumer.
(Works Cited same as previous post.)
Ad-Environment
The United States spends roughly three-times as much on advertising expenditures than any other country, the amount spent in 2008 was more than China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom combined, according to a recent World Advertising Research Center (WARC) article by Sian Jones. Approximately $158.5 billion was spent by the United States alone on advertising in 2008; combined with China ($57.1 billion), Japan ($41.9 billion), Germany ($28.6 billion) and the United Kingdom ($26.8 billion), these five major players account for roughly two-thirds of the global amount spent on advertising, according to the same release. All of this money is being spent to advertise goods and services but companies are beginning to advertise more than just their products.
Advertising used to be about flaunting a product and persuading consumers to “choose you”; there has been a gradual shift away from changing consumers’ decision to purchase a product towards changing the way in which consumers view that product (the position that the product holds in the consumer’s mind). In keeping with this shift, advertising agencies have begun positioning brands against their competitors as being “greener” or more “environmentally friendly”. Whether or not these brands are adhering to their environmental awareness claims is often a different story.
Green marketing has become the recent advertising trend that many companies are looking to jump on the bandwagon for. “Green marketing,” according to Carlos Grande, editor of WARC online, “is a challenge that brands are finding increasingly hard to ignore. As awareness of climate change has risen, many marketers want to show a heightened commitment to reducing their environmental impact and offer consumers greener alternatives.” Being able to boast “going green” has companies drooling at the mouth because consumers are searching for ways to feel better about their consumption habits and purchasing “environmentally friendly” products is one way to exercise this desire.
As a result of the rise in this form of environmentally conscious advertising, several companies have fallen into the trap of green-washing. According to Grande, green-washing is the action of over-claiming benefits that a product, service or company has on the environment in order to make the brand more appealing to the public. This gross exaggeration can cause companies to suffer from the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect, as described by Craig Davis, an Ohio University advertising professor, is when companies do not want to tell consumers if they are doing something good because, while that may result in positive brand experiences from consumers, there are also many groups that are trying to catch mistakes those companies are making in the realm of environmental health or other areas of company policy. An example of the spotlight effect can be found in Starbucks Coffee.
Starbucks sustainable advertisement later deemed an accurate representation of the spotlight effect. (“Starbucks.” Carolyn Wagner, Inc. 15 Feb. 2011. http://www.carolynwagnerinc.com/portfolio/advertising/csr.)
Rowenna Davis of New Internationalist researched Starbuck’s proclamation that “Good Coffee Can Do Good Things” in an article she wrote for the magazine. “More than any other mainstream multinational, Starbucks tries to present itself as ethically virtuous: the company knows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) sells,” writes Davis. And CSR sells a lot; company policies such as environmental and social activism as well as waste management fall under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility. Think about how many times consumers are told how much waste companies produce or how unfair the wages are in sweatshops across the world. How often does that change a consumers mind about purchasing the goods or services that employ such tactics? Consumers do not want products that just advertise social responsibility but the ones that can also prove it. Starbucks had 12,440 store locations spanning 37 countries grossing net revenue of $7.8 billion in 2006, according to Davis. This says something about the consumers’ desire for not only the goods Starbucks has to offer but also for the good feelings that come from supporting a company that supports the environment and other programs deemed socially responsible company practices such as the purchase of coffee at a fair wage from overseas farmers. Starbucks’ fiscal year was down in 2007, according to Davis; this could be a result of findings that the company may not be purchasing beans at a fair wage and thus, has been lying to consumers through advertisements that claim otherwise. “Starbucks’ image of corporate social responsibility might have made a profit in the past,” writes Davis. “But, it’s tempting to think that an irresponsible reality could contribute to making its future bankrupt.” Starbucks has succumbed to the pitfall of the spotlight effect. Consumers are catching on to the company’s advertisements and noticing all of the gaps left in their statements. While the company probably does a lot of good, the results are not up to par with their advertising claims thus; consumers are no longer trusting of Starbucks. Their media plan backfired.
Toyota’s print advertisement for their “Beyond Cars” campaign; claims in this ad are substantiated with statistics on the company’s website. (Y., David. “Toyota Sees Beyond Cars.”Marketing + Good. 6 Oct. 2009. 15 Feb. 2011.http://marketingplusgood.blogspot.com/2009/10/toyota-sees-beyond-cars.html.)
Some companies, however, have been able to successfully avoid having a target on their back placed there by consumers that have felt deceived by their advertisements. Toyota may be one such example. According to the company’s website, Toyota has employed an environmental action plan aimed at reducing energy usage, minimizing air emissions, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, identifying materials from renewable resources, reducing waste and water consumption as well as capitalizing on recycling opportunities in order to reach their goal – “sending zero waste to landfill”. Toyota has launched their “Beyond Cars” campaign which consists of print and online advertisements as well as television spots. Their print ads feature the outline of a car being carried by workers to the background of greenery – beautiful grass, trees and the vision of a clear blue sky. The advertisement has this written on the bottom of the image: “We see beyond cars. We see ways to enrich the community.” Under the claims, these Toyota print advertisements go on to describe how the company employs locally as well as partners with local vendors and supplies to better the community. These claims seem to be substantiated by the company’s website which quantifies their work: there are 14 Toyota manufacturing plants in North America and over 1,800 dealerships which sold more than 2.5 million vehicles in 2008. The company employs roughly 41,000 in North America and purchases parts, materials, goods and services from North American suppliers that total nearly $25 billion annually. That’s a lot of community involvement and the advertisements creatively showcase Toyota’s commitment to community. By being able to backup advertising claims, the consumer feels more comfortable with purchasing a Toyota vehicle. Yet, one Toyota flaw may be that the company is obviously not revealing any information as to whether or not they were able to achieve their goal of zero landfill waste.
Absolut Vodka’s advertising spot that suggests the company’s desire for a healthier planet without making outrageous claims. (“An Absolut, but Tragic Change in Advertising Strategy.” Ronnestam.com. 6 Nov. 2007. 15 Feb. 2011. http://www.ronnestam.com/an-absolut-but-tragic-change-in-advertising-strategy/.)
As an advertising major, I find that I stand somewhere outside the realm of what companies like Starbucks and Toyota are doing in the way of advertising their sustainable practices. Differing from Starbucks’ highly publicized (and inaccurate) environmental campaign and Toyota’s strict focus on environmental sustainability, the way that Absolut Vodka depicts its stance on environmental issues is most aligned with my feelings on the practice of advertising sustainability. The company has launched a campaign that positions Absolut as a premier brand that can be a part of everything that consumers do and feel. Basically, their print advertisements consist of a scene with an object in the shape of an Absolut bottle with a phrase at the bottom that describes the scene. My favorite is a picture of a factory but, instead of emitting smoke and chemicals, the factory is blowing out bubbles; the tagline is “In an Absolut World”. By advertising in a way that shows the consumer that you agree with their wants and desires to make this world a better, cleaner place without making any outrageous claim to be singlehandedly fixing the problem, a company’s advertisements are much more endearing and believable to the consumer.
Works Cited
Davis, Craig. Personal Interview. 14 Feb. 2011.
Davis, Rowenna. "The people vs Starbucks." New Internationalist 410 (2008): 21-23. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.
Grande, Carlos. “How to Go Green.” World Advertising Research Center 2008. 14 Feb. 2011. http://www.warc.com/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=92c4d5a2-b8ed
4f8c-bb8e-f140e238e8be.
“Greener Operations.” Toyota. 2919. Toyota Motor North America. 14 Feb. 2011.
http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/operations/green_operations.html.
Jones, Sian. “World Advertising Trends 2009.” World Advertising Research Center 2009. 14 Feb. 2011. http://www.warc.com/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=5f315bc1-af5e-44ea-a6f4-bfd59b51cb78.
“Toyota Launches New Corporate Advertising Campaign, Focusing on Company’s Commitment ‘Beyond Cars’.” Toyota USA Newsroom. 2011. Toyota. 14 Feb. 2011. http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/toyota-launches-new-corporate-103871.aspx.
Advertising used to be about flaunting a product and persuading consumers to “choose you”; there has been a gradual shift away from changing consumers’ decision to purchase a product towards changing the way in which consumers view that product (the position that the product holds in the consumer’s mind). In keeping with this shift, advertising agencies have begun positioning brands against their competitors as being “greener” or more “environmentally friendly”. Whether or not these brands are adhering to their environmental awareness claims is often a different story.
Green marketing has become the recent advertising trend that many companies are looking to jump on the bandwagon for. “Green marketing,” according to Carlos Grande, editor of WARC online, “is a challenge that brands are finding increasingly hard to ignore. As awareness of climate change has risen, many marketers want to show a heightened commitment to reducing their environmental impact and offer consumers greener alternatives.” Being able to boast “going green” has companies drooling at the mouth because consumers are searching for ways to feel better about their consumption habits and purchasing “environmentally friendly” products is one way to exercise this desire.
As a result of the rise in this form of environmentally conscious advertising, several companies have fallen into the trap of green-washing. According to Grande, green-washing is the action of over-claiming benefits that a product, service or company has on the environment in order to make the brand more appealing to the public. This gross exaggeration can cause companies to suffer from the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect, as described by Craig Davis, an Ohio University advertising professor, is when companies do not want to tell consumers if they are doing something good because, while that may result in positive brand experiences from consumers, there are also many groups that are trying to catch mistakes those companies are making in the realm of environmental health or other areas of company policy. An example of the spotlight effect can be found in Starbucks Coffee.
Starbucks sustainable advertisement later deemed an accurate representation of the spotlight effect. (“Starbucks.” Carolyn Wagner, Inc. 15 Feb. 2011. http://www.carolynwagnerinc.com/portfolio/advertising/csr.)
Rowenna Davis of New Internationalist researched Starbuck’s proclamation that “Good Coffee Can Do Good Things” in an article she wrote for the magazine. “More than any other mainstream multinational, Starbucks tries to present itself as ethically virtuous: the company knows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) sells,” writes Davis. And CSR sells a lot; company policies such as environmental and social activism as well as waste management fall under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility. Think about how many times consumers are told how much waste companies produce or how unfair the wages are in sweatshops across the world. How often does that change a consumers mind about purchasing the goods or services that employ such tactics? Consumers do not want products that just advertise social responsibility but the ones that can also prove it. Starbucks had 12,440 store locations spanning 37 countries grossing net revenue of $7.8 billion in 2006, according to Davis. This says something about the consumers’ desire for not only the goods Starbucks has to offer but also for the good feelings that come from supporting a company that supports the environment and other programs deemed socially responsible company practices such as the purchase of coffee at a fair wage from overseas farmers. Starbucks’ fiscal year was down in 2007, according to Davis; this could be a result of findings that the company may not be purchasing beans at a fair wage and thus, has been lying to consumers through advertisements that claim otherwise. “Starbucks’ image of corporate social responsibility might have made a profit in the past,” writes Davis. “But, it’s tempting to think that an irresponsible reality could contribute to making its future bankrupt.” Starbucks has succumbed to the pitfall of the spotlight effect. Consumers are catching on to the company’s advertisements and noticing all of the gaps left in their statements. While the company probably does a lot of good, the results are not up to par with their advertising claims thus; consumers are no longer trusting of Starbucks. Their media plan backfired.
Toyota’s print advertisement for their “Beyond Cars” campaign; claims in this ad are substantiated with statistics on the company’s website. (Y., David. “Toyota Sees Beyond Cars.”Marketing + Good. 6 Oct. 2009. 15 Feb. 2011.http://marketingplusgood.blogspot.com/2009/10/toyota-sees-beyond-cars.html.)
Some companies, however, have been able to successfully avoid having a target on their back placed there by consumers that have felt deceived by their advertisements. Toyota may be one such example. According to the company’s website, Toyota has employed an environmental action plan aimed at reducing energy usage, minimizing air emissions, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, identifying materials from renewable resources, reducing waste and water consumption as well as capitalizing on recycling opportunities in order to reach their goal – “sending zero waste to landfill”. Toyota has launched their “Beyond Cars” campaign which consists of print and online advertisements as well as television spots. Their print ads feature the outline of a car being carried by workers to the background of greenery – beautiful grass, trees and the vision of a clear blue sky. The advertisement has this written on the bottom of the image: “We see beyond cars. We see ways to enrich the community.” Under the claims, these Toyota print advertisements go on to describe how the company employs locally as well as partners with local vendors and supplies to better the community. These claims seem to be substantiated by the company’s website which quantifies their work: there are 14 Toyota manufacturing plants in North America and over 1,800 dealerships which sold more than 2.5 million vehicles in 2008. The company employs roughly 41,000 in North America and purchases parts, materials, goods and services from North American suppliers that total nearly $25 billion annually. That’s a lot of community involvement and the advertisements creatively showcase Toyota’s commitment to community. By being able to backup advertising claims, the consumer feels more comfortable with purchasing a Toyota vehicle. Yet, one Toyota flaw may be that the company is obviously not revealing any information as to whether or not they were able to achieve their goal of zero landfill waste.
Absolut Vodka’s advertising spot that suggests the company’s desire for a healthier planet without making outrageous claims. (“An Absolut, but Tragic Change in Advertising Strategy.” Ronnestam.com. 6 Nov. 2007. 15 Feb. 2011. http://www.ronnestam.com/an-absolut-but-tragic-change-in-advertising-strategy/.)
As an advertising major, I find that I stand somewhere outside the realm of what companies like Starbucks and Toyota are doing in the way of advertising their sustainable practices. Differing from Starbucks’ highly publicized (and inaccurate) environmental campaign and Toyota’s strict focus on environmental sustainability, the way that Absolut Vodka depicts its stance on environmental issues is most aligned with my feelings on the practice of advertising sustainability. The company has launched a campaign that positions Absolut as a premier brand that can be a part of everything that consumers do and feel. Basically, their print advertisements consist of a scene with an object in the shape of an Absolut bottle with a phrase at the bottom that describes the scene. My favorite is a picture of a factory but, instead of emitting smoke and chemicals, the factory is blowing out bubbles; the tagline is “In an Absolut World”. By advertising in a way that shows the consumer that you agree with their wants and desires to make this world a better, cleaner place without making any outrageous claim to be singlehandedly fixing the problem, a company’s advertisements are much more endearing and believable to the consumer.
Works Cited
Davis, Craig. Personal Interview. 14 Feb. 2011.
Davis, Rowenna. "The people vs Starbucks." New Internationalist 410 (2008): 21-23. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.
Grande, Carlos. “How to Go Green.” World Advertising Research Center 2008. 14 Feb. 2011. http://www.warc.com/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=92c4d5a2-b8ed
4f8c-bb8e-f140e238e8be.
“Greener Operations.” Toyota. 2919. Toyota Motor North America. 14 Feb. 2011.
http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/operations/green_operations.html.
Jones, Sian. “World Advertising Trends 2009.” World Advertising Research Center 2009. 14 Feb. 2011. http://www.warc.com/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=5f315bc1-af5e-44ea-a6f4-bfd59b51cb78.
“Toyota Launches New Corporate Advertising Campaign, Focusing on Company’s Commitment ‘Beyond Cars’.” Toyota USA Newsroom. 2011. Toyota. 14 Feb. 2011. http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/toyota-launches-new-corporate-103871.aspx.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Ad Environment - Draft 1
The United States spends roughly three-times as much on advertising than any other country and more than China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom combined in 2008, according to a recent World Advertising Research Center (WARC) article by Sian Jones. Approximately $158.5 billion was spent by the United States alone on advertising in 2008; combined with China ($57.1 billion), Japan ($41.9 billion), Germany ($28.6 billion) and the United Kingdom ($26.8 billion), these five major players account for roughly two-thirds of the global amount spent on advertising, according to the same release. All of this money is being spent to advertise goods and services but companies are beginning to advertise more than just their products.
Advertising used to be about flaunting a product and persuading consumers to “choose you”; there has been a gradual shift away from changing consumers’ decision to purchase a product and towards changing the way in which consumers view that product (the position that product holds in the consumer’s mind). In keeping with this shift, advertising agencies have begun positioning brands against their competitors as being “greener” or more “environmentally friendly”.
Green marketing has become the recent advertising trend that many companies are looking to jump on the bandwagon for. “Green marketing,” according to Carlos Grande, editor of WARC online, “is a challenge that brands are finding increasingly hard to ignore. As awareness of climate change has risen, many marketers want to show a heightened commitment to reducing their environmental impact and offer consumers greener alternatives.” Being able to boast “going green” has companies drooling at the mouth because consumers are searching for ways to feel better about their consumption habits and purchasing “environmentally friendly” products is one way to exercise this desire.
As a result of the rise in this form of environmentally conscious advertising, several companies have fallen into the trap of green-washing which can be further explained by what is known as the spotlight effect. According to Grande, green-washing is the action of over-claiming benefits that a product, service or company has on the environment in order to make the brand more appealing to the public. The spotlight effect, as described by Craig Davis, an Ohio University advertising professor, is when companies do not want to tell consumers if they are doing something good because, while that may result in positive brand experiences from consumers, there are also many groups that are trying to catch mistakes those companies are making in that or other areas. An example of the spotlight effect can be found in Starbucks Coffee.
Rowenna Davis of New Internationalist researched Starbuck’s proclamation that “Good Coffee Can Do Good Things” in an article she wrote for the magazine. “More than any other mainstream multinational, Starbucks tries to present itself as ethically virtuous: the company knows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) sells,” writes Davis. And CSR sells a lot. Think about how many times consumers are told how much waste companies produce or how unfair the wages are in sweatshops across the world. How often does that change a consumers mind about purchasing the goods or services that employ such tactics? Consumers do not want products that just advertise social responsibility but the ones that can also prove it. Starbucks had 12,440 store locations spanning 37 countries grossing net revenue of $7.8 billion in 2006, according to Davis. This says something about the consumers’ desire for not only the goods Starbucks has to offer but also for the good feelings that come from supporting a company that supports the environment and other programs deemed socially responsible company practices such as the purchase of coffee at a fair wage from overseas farmers. Starbucks’ fiscal year was down in 2007, according to Davis; this could be a result of findings that the company may not be purchasing beans at a fair wage and thus, has been lying to consumers through advertisements that claim otherwise. “Starbucks’ image of corporate social responsibility might have made a profit in the past,” writes Davis. “But, it’s tempting to think that an irresponsible reality could contribute to making its future bankrupt.” Starbucks has succumbed to the pitfall of the spotlight effect. Consumers are catching on to the company’s advertisements and noticing all of the gaps left in their statements. While the company probably does a lot of good, the results are not up to par with their advertising claims thus; consumers are no longer trusting of Starbucks. Their media plan backfired.
Some companies, however, have been able to successfully avoid having a target on their back placed there by consumers that have felt deceived by their advertisements. Toyota may be one such example. According to the company’s website, Toyota has employed an environmental action plan aimed at reducing energy usage, minimizing air emissions, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, identifying materials from renewable resources, reducing waste and water consumption as well as capitalizing on recycling opportunities in order to reach their goal – “sending zero waste to landfill”. Toyota has launched their “Beyond Cars” campaign which consists of print and online advertisements as well as television spots. Their print ads feature the outline of a car being carried by workers to the background of greenery – beautiful grass, trees and the vision of a clear blue sky. The advertisement has this written on the bottom of the image: “We see beyond cars. We see ways to enrich the community.” Under the claims, these Toyota print advertisements go on to describe how the company employs locally as well as partners with local vendors and supplies to better the community. These claims seem to be substantiated by the company’s website which quantifies their work: there are 14 Toyota manufacturing plants in North America and over 1,800 dealerships which sold more than 2.5 million vehicles in 2008. The company employs roughly 41,000 in North America and purchases parts, materials, goods and services from North American suppliers which total nearly $25 billion annually. That’s a lot of community involvement and the advertisements creatively showcase Toyota’s commitment to community. By being able to backup advertising claims, the consumer feels more comfortable with purchasing a Toyota vehicle. Yet, one Toyota flaw may be that the company is obviously not revealing any information as to whether or not they were able to achieve their goal of zero landfill waste.
As an advertising major, I find that I stand somewhere outside the realm of what companies are doing in the way of advertising their sustainable practices. The way that Absolut Vodka depicts its stance on environmental issues is most aligned with my feelings on the practice. The company has launched a campaign that positions Absolut as a premier brand that can be a part of everything that consumers do and feel. Basically, their print advertisements consist of a scene with an object in the shape of an Absolut bottle with a phrase at the bottom that describes the scene. My favorite is a picture of a factory but, instead of emitting smoke and chemicals, the factory is blowing out bubbles; the tagline is “In an Absolut World”. By advertising in a way that shows the consumer that you agree with their wants and desires to make this world a better, cleaner place without making any outrageous claim to be singlehandedly fixing the problem, a company’s advertisements are much more endearing and believable to the consumer.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Extra Credit - Living Downstream
Last night, I went to Baker for the viewing of the documentary, Living Downstream. This is a book-made-movie, written by Sandra Steingraber. The documentary was described as the "connection between environmental pollution and cancer, as well as Sandra's own struggle."
Steingarber is a biologist living with the constant threat of her bladder cancer (that struck her at age 20) returning. She has been living with cancer for 30 years and, in that time, has been able to achieve a lot of recognition for her cause. Sandra's cause is simply fighting for cancer prevention just as hard as those who are diagnosed with cancer must fight for their lives.
Sandra was able to trace what she believes to be the origin of her cancer to a pesticide that many farmers upstream of her hometown have been using on their crops, atrazine. This harmful chemical not only kills weeds, but it runs-off into the river and contaminates her town's water supply, comes down with the rain and is even in the air supply. Almost every other house in her neighborhood has someone with cancer living in it. Atrazine is still used.
After the film, there was a panel discussion in which the audience was informed that there are roughly 200,000 chemicals used on a daily basis, 120 of which have received adequate safety testing. It is unbelievable.
Watch the youtube video: Ten Americans and do something.
Steingarber is a biologist living with the constant threat of her bladder cancer (that struck her at age 20) returning. She has been living with cancer for 30 years and, in that time, has been able to achieve a lot of recognition for her cause. Sandra's cause is simply fighting for cancer prevention just as hard as those who are diagnosed with cancer must fight for their lives.
Sandra was able to trace what she believes to be the origin of her cancer to a pesticide that many farmers upstream of her hometown have been using on their crops, atrazine. This harmful chemical not only kills weeds, but it runs-off into the river and contaminates her town's water supply, comes down with the rain and is even in the air supply. Almost every other house in her neighborhood has someone with cancer living in it. Atrazine is still used.
After the film, there was a panel discussion in which the audience was informed that there are roughly 200,000 chemicals used on a daily basis, 120 of which have received adequate safety testing. It is unbelievable.
Watch the youtube video: Ten Americans and do something.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Mind and Body (Revised)
“There is strength, freedom, sustainability, and pride in being a practiced dweller in your own surroundings, knowing what you know,” opens Gary Snyder, author of the essay Cultured or Crabbed (46). Bell Hooks in her essay, Touching the Earth, echoes the strength and sustainability that Snyder refers to in his piece and both agree that it leads to health. In her piece, Hooks quotes Wendell Berry as saying that farming/working with the land defines humans as being “not too good to work without our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone” (105). The physical and emotional well being of each individual, according to Snyder and Hooks, depends on his/her deep and rooted connection with the natural world.
“Deep Ecology thinkers insist that the natural world has value in its own right, that the health of natural systems should be our first concern, and that this best serves the interests of humans as well. They are well aware that primary people everywhere are our teachers in these values,” (Snyder 47). Primary people, in this context, refer to the indigenous peoples of the land as well as those who have spent their lives working with it and living amongst nature. These are Bell Hooks’ ancestors. These are blacks that spent most of their lives in the agrarian south during the times of slavery. Hooks explains that a love of the earth translates to a love of self and the rich soil in which she played as a child was a source of life for her (104). Snyder and Hooks agree that nature is life. Life is present throughout the natural world, thus being a part of nature is synonymous with being alive.
“Living so close to nature, black folks were able to cultivate a spirit of wonder and reverence for life,” says Hooks. “Growing food to sustain life and flowers to please the soul, they were able to make a connection with the earth that was ongoing and life-affirming,” (105). Knowing that you and nature working in unison yield food, the sustenance of human life, is a healthy outlook.
According to Snyder, there are two kinds of knowing. The first kind of knowing is found in culture, where you, your family, and your community can do real work together, and refers to the things that ground you and put you in a certain place, (46). Conversely, the other kind of knowing requires one to delve completely out of his/her actual place and revert to “straying outside” for answers, (47). This second type of knowing grants freedom and allows humans to connect with the earth that feeds our bodies and souls. The way in which humans make that connection with nature is dependent upon what they do in it.
“Culture”, as explained by Snyder, comes from the Latin word “colere” which means worship or cultivate, (47). The fact alone that humans use the word cultivate when referencing working the land to yield crops hints at its religious and spiritual undertones. Hooks describes how her black ancestors felt working on the land in a passage she includes by Onnie Lee Logan, a slave who lived her life on the farms of Alabama: “We lived a happy, comfortable life to be right outa slavery times. I didn’t know nothing else but the farm so it was happy and we was happy… We couldn’t do anything else but be happy,” (105). This all changed for blacks when they moved to the North for material well-being (to earn a living in the industrialized towns); the shift away from the agrarian life-style on the farms to the harshness of the warehouses led to a deterioration in spiritual well-being, (Hooks 106). After some time in the North spent enduring such a mind and body split, many blacks returned to the South; the return “home” in search of spiritual nourishment, a sort of healing, was deeply connected to reaffirming one’s undeniable connection to nature, (Hooks 107). Working the land, according to Berry, provides humans with a way to experience a sense of personal power and well being, (107). By being capable of creating your own food and being responsible for nurturing its growth, you are able to fully enjoy its ability to give back to you, to sustain your life.
Realizing that nature is what grants humans freedom is the backbone on which human health rests, Hooks and Snyder agree. One of the most moving lines in Snyder’s essay comes when he is talking about how nature’s release makes the human feel: “Untied. Unstuck. Crazy for awhile. It breaks taboo, it verges on transgression, it teaches humility. Going out – fasting – singing alone – talking across the species boundaries – praying – giving thanks – coming back,” (47). Snyder wants us not to “become one” with nature but to hold our similarities and differences with nature in our mind, (47). He is challenging all of us to go forth into nature and lose ourselves for awhile and then come back and feel healthy and refreshed; even more challenging is Hooks’ desire for each one of us to bring nature into our everyday lives and restore the balance of the planet but changing our relationships to nature and its resources, (107). Humans have more mobility than any other creature, it seems; we are able to move about by car, by plane, by train or by foot. Allowing oneself to venture into the wilderness and experience its growth, one can become inspired – our emotional health will, in turn, nurture our physical health.
Hooks quotes Berry again when he warns humans that only through repairing the broken connections we have with nature can humans be healed and it is in that connection that we find health. Berry goes on, “And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is.” When we lose that health, according to Berry, we create diseases and dependencies that only profit big businesses and we lose sight of the “direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving,” (107). These simple facts, simple connections, can make the world of difference, not just in the fight to sustain our planet, but in the fight to sustain ourselves. Snyder and Hooks show us just how meaningful the human relationship with nature are – we did, in fact, all come from the earth. As Hooks quotes Chief Seattle as saying in 1854: “The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man – all belong to the same family,” (105). The interwoven character of human and nature’s relationship is something Snyder and Hooks’ essays both display; the two essays differ only in their approach to said claim.
Snyder’s piece mainly reflects on one’s individual journey into the wild, he talks about leaving home to “embark on a quest,” (47). Hooks spends her essay focusing on a migration of people away from, and eventually back to, the wilderness. Her ancestors were plagued with hatred in the slave-driven South yet, their move North led to the horrible misuse of the body in factories as opposed to on farms which led to the destruction of the mind and spirit, (106). Returning to the agrarian South led to a healing of the mind and body. Both authors use effective techniques that make the problem of lost-connections with nature seem like a widespread epidemic. The only way to deal with the problem, according to both writers, is to start with yourself and your individual presence in nature.
Works Cited
Hooks, Bell. “Touching the Earth.” Saving Place. Ed. Sidney I. Dobrin. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Snyder, Gary. “Cultured or Crabbed.” Saving Place. Ed. Sidney I. Dobrin. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
sad.
After watching Food Inc. for the second time, I'm pretty sure I am even more depressed.
The thing that hits me the hardest is how sad it is to see animals living in those conditions. It sucks that we are eating low-quality meat but having our eyes opened to how terribly the animals are grown is just as bad. There is only a small number of people that are benefiting from this terrible system and yet it continues to happen.
One thing that gives me hope is the small farmers that are trying to provide an alternative to this system. My friend has located a small farm in Northeast Ohio that raises chickens. This farm allows customers to come to their site and see how the chickens are raised; afterwards they can go to a different site and learn how to cut their own chicken. She said she has never tasted such delicious chicken and the feeling she gets knowing where her meat is coming from and how humanely the animal was raised is irreplaceable.
If only we spent more time and effort promoting such farming styles and farmers, the terribly managed system we have now could change.
As an advertising major, in a year or so I will be in the "real world" and will be able to adequately make consumers aware of their available options such as these small farms. I hope I can find a way to do such a thing.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
UNpleasures of eating
Wendell Berry provides readers of his essay, The Pleasures of Eating, with some great insights.
"A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes," offers Berry (235).
However, I believe this statement to be much too generalized. For instance, I personally do not find eating certain foods pleasurable in any way if I know where it comes from. Foods like meat; if I knew which cow I was eating while I bit into a cheeseburger, I would probably throw up. I consider myself a pretty compassionate person and have considered becoming vegetarian on multiple occasions for the sole reason that I feel bad for the animals that I consume. I've never been able to do it though - I just like chicken and beef too much. If I know exactly which animal my meat comes from, it becomes too personal. I would never eat my friend and that is exactly what I would feel like I was doing.
In contrast, my dad has grown a vegetable garden for many years and the taste of a home-grown tomato is unlike anything I have ever tasted. I agree with Berry that knowing where my food is coming from makes eating it more pleasurable, IF and only if we are talking about vegetables or fruits.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Mind and Body
“There is strength, freedom, sustainability, and pride in being a practiced dweller in your own surroundings, knowing what you know,” opens Gary Snyder, author of the essay Cultured or Crabbed (46). The strength and sustainability that Snyder refers to in his piece is echoed by bell hooks in her essay, Touching the Earth; and it leads to health. In her piece, hooks quotes Wendell Berry as saying that farming/working with the land defines humans as being “not too good to work without our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone” (105). The physical and emotional well-being of each individual, according to Snyder and hooks, depends on his/her deep and rooted connection with the natural world.
“Deep Ecology thinkers insist that the natural world has value in its own right, that the health of natural systems should be our first concern, and that this best serves the interests of humans as well. They are well aware that primary people everywhere are our teachers in these values,” (Snyder 47). Primary people, in this context, refer to the indigenous peoples of the land as well as those who have spent their lives working with it and living amongst nature. These are bell hooks’ ancestors. These are blacks who spent most of their lives in the agrarian south during the times of slavery. Hooks explains that a love of the earth translates to a love of self (104) and the rich soil that she played in as a child was a source of life for her. Snyder and hooks agree that nature is life. Life is present throughout the natural world, thus being a part of nature is synonymous with being alive.
“Living so close to nature, black folks were able to cultivate a spirit of wonder and reverence for life,” says hooks. “Growing food to sustain life and flowers to please the soul, they were able to make a connection with the earth that was ongoing and life-affirming,” (105). Knowing that you and nature together yield food, the sustenance of human life, is a healthy outlook, hooks explains. According to Snyder, there are two kinds of knowing. The first kind of knowing is found in culture, where you, your family, and your community can do real work together, and refers to the things that ground you and put you in a certain place, (46). Conversely, the other kind of knowing requires one to delve completely out of his/her actual place and revert to “straying outside” for answers, (47). This second type of knowing grants freedom and allows humans to connect with the earth that feeds our bodies and souls. The way in which humans make that connection with nature is dependent upon what they do in it.
“Culture”, as explained by Snyder, comes from the Latin word “colere” which means worship or cultivate, (47). The fact alone that humans use the word cultivate when referencing working the land to yield crops, hints at its religious and spiritual undertones. Hooks describes how her black ancestors felt working on the land in a passage by Onnie Lee Logan, a slave who lived her life on the farms of Alabama: “We lived a happy, comfortable life to be right outa slavery times. I didn’t know nothing else but the farm so it was happy and we was happy… We couldn’t do anything else but be happy,” (105). This all changed for blacks when they moved to the North for material well-being (to earn a living in the industrialized towns); the shift away from the agrarian life-style on the farms to the harshness of the warehouses led to a deterioration in spiritual well-being, (106). After some time in the North spent enduring such a mind and body split, many blacks returned to the South; the return “home” in search of spiritual nourishment, a sort of healing, was deeply connected to reaffirming one’s undeniable connection to nature, (107). Working the land, according to Berry, provides humans with a way to experience a sense of personal power and well-being, (107). By being capable of creating your own food and being responsible for nurturing its growth, you are able to fully enjoy its ability to give back to you, to sustain your life.
Realizing that nature is what grants humans freedom is the backbone on which human health rests, hooks and Snyder agree. One of the most moving lines in Snyder’s essay comes when he is talking about how nature’s release makes the human feel: “Untied. Unstuck. Crazy for awhile. It breaks taboo, it verges on transgression, it teaches humility. Going out – fasting – singing alone – talking across the species boundaries – praying – giving thanks – coming back,” (47). Snyder wants us not to “become one” with nature but to hold our similarities and differences with nature in our mind, (47). He is challenging all of us to go forth into nature and lose ourselves for awhile and then come back and feel healthy and refreshed; even more challenging is hooks’ desire for each one of us to bring nature into our everyday lives and restore the balance of the planet but changing our relationships to nature and its resources, (107). Humans have more mobility than any other creature, it seems; we are able to move about by car, by plane, by train or by foot. Allowing yourself to venture into the wilderness and experience its growth, we can become inspired – our emotional health will, in turn, nurture our physical health.
Hooks quotes Berry again when he warns humans that only through repairing the broken connections we have with nature can humans be healed and it is in that connection that we find health. Berry goes on, “And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is.” When we lose that health, according to Berry, we create diseases and dependencies that only profit big businesses and we lose sight of the “direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving,” (107). These simple facts, simple connections, can make the world of difference, not just in the fight to sustain our planet, but in the fight to sustain ourselves. Snyder and hooks show us just how meaningful the human relationship with nature are – we did, in fact, all come from the earth. As hooks quotes Chief Seattle as saying in 1854: “The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man – all belong to the same family,” (105). The interwoven character of human and nature’s relationship is something Snyder and hooks’ essays both display; the two essays differ only in their approach to said claim.
Snyder’s piece mainly reflects on one’s individual journey into the wild, he talks about leaving home to “embark on a quest,” (47). Hooks spends her essay focusing on a migration of people away from, and eventually back to, the wilderness. Her ancestors were plagued with hatred in the slave-driven South yet, their move North led to the horrible misuse of the body in factories as opposed to on farms which led to the destruction of the mind and spirit, (106). Returning to the agrarian South led to a healing of the mind and body. Both authors use effective techniques that make the problem of lost-connections with nature seem like a widespread epidemic. The only way to deal with the problem, according to both writers, is to start with yourself and your individual presence in nature.
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