|
EBay is pushing environmental friendliness thanks to poor sales. The online auction site is hoping that it can make a bit more bank if it positions itself as a 'green' shopping option. On its newly launched offshoot, "green.ebay.com, eBay makes the case that buying something used is as environmentally correct as conservation and recycling," says the New York Times. All items sold on the site have to first be deemed "preowned or sustainable" (I've talked before about what a loaded term the latter is).
EBay has employed the organization Cooler to evaluate the reduced carbon footprint of purchasing recycled items-- they’ll advertise the results in all 15 Hearst rags’ April issues-- which is not exactly green, eBay!). Still, the stats are are pretty shocking: buying a previously owned leather bag “saves as much energy as a flight from London to Paris.”
EBay isn’t alone in its commercial eco-consciousness. “There is a new designer commitment,” Suzy Menkes says of the industry’s interest in sustainable design. Menkes focuses on the extremely young bevy of designers making statements about the environment, calling out Delfina Delettrez, a jewelry designer from Rome and Brazil’s Pedro Lourenço (a self-taught 19-year-old).
By
Alisa Gould-Simon
|
Login / Signup
