Obviously, you’re going to ask me – so what IS Fresh Start?While I am sure you’ll check their site, basically let me tell you that Fresh Start takes the business of recycling one step further, and brings the recycled stuff to charities. Moreover, one element that really impressed me was that they look for local charities within the communities where their clients are located.

Founded in 2004 by Vancouver native Thomas Goodall, Fresh Start Recycling & Disposal Ltd. is committed to reducing clutter in your life while minimizing our impact on the environment by reducing the amount of material that goes straight to the landfill.[Fresh Start Recycling website]

Let me give you an example. Currently, my friends Ianiv and Arieanna Schweber are in the North Shore area, and are currently renovating their house. Their floor has to be fully torn apart and they need to install new flooring. They’ll probably also need to remove and recycle stuff. The obvious choice of company to do this? Fresh Start, of course!

By demonstrating that recycling can be still a successful business model AND that you can incorporate elements of corporate social responsibility (CSR), therefore enhancing how and where the product is delivered and the ethical/social aspects of recycling within local communities, I think Fresh Start is indeed off to a very fresh start, and a successful one!

Even smarter, Fresh Start maintains a relationship with customers, vendors, potential clients. How? By using one of the most innovative forms of communication – Web 2.0! Yes, sir! Fresh Start has a BLOG. I can’t help but feel really excited about this, because I am always a firm believer that you can meld social media with sustainability, and as you can see, Fresh Start is doing it!

In addition, of course, I should highlight the fact that their office is in Mount Pleasant, very close to my house, as a matter of fact!

Kudos to Fresh Start as well, because they were the first corporate sponsors of my Blogathon 2008. While I am raving about them in this post (and very legitimately, as I do believe in their positive intentions), they did NOT sponsor this post, so this is in NO way paid advertisement. They DID, however, sponsor a forthcoming post that will describe in more detail the whole concept of Recycle, Reuse, Reduce (3Rs), and for their contribution to the BC Cancer Agency and my Blogathon, I am very, very grateful!

Related posts:

1. Earth Weekend Vancouver Aquarium and Fresh Start Recycling
2. Closing the cycle through recycling
3. London Drugs and the styrofoam disposal

Darren Barefoot is helping IKEA Canada spread the word about IKEA’s most recent initiative: The IKEA Way. What is this? In a nutshell,

The IKEA Way is our promise. We promise that we’re working towards having an overall positive impact on people and the environment. In other words, we’re going to be nice to people and nice to the planet. Sounds ambitious for a global company? It shouldn’t. We believe it’s just part of smart business, but more than that — it’s the right thing to do. [The IKEA Way - What We Do]

In the academic literature I have frequently come across the concept of “GreenWashing”. In non-enviro-geek terms, greenwashing refers to the deployment of a series of strategies and tactics that will make your company “look” green but it does not mean that you will indeed be undertaking measures to reduce your company’s environmental impact.

While doing a little research for this post, I came across a really neat article on TreeHugger titled “Greenhushing doesn’t help anyone“. So what is greenhushing? Pretty much the opposite of greenwashing: when a company doesn’t want to promote its environmentally-conscious efforts for fear that they will be taken as greenwashing.

As Stiffelman points out, greenhushing may just be as bad as greenwashing. Why not promote your efforts if you are actually a company that is trying to better its environment? That’s one of my own personal pet peeves. If you have it, flaunt it! The whole concept of eco-labelling is predicated on this idea – my products are more environmentally-friendly, thus merit eco-labels (be it SeaChoice, Forest Stewardship Council, Environmental Choice or any of the other ecolabels floating around).

The IKEA Way seems to me like a good initiative (I have been perusing the website and offered some feedback on how the website and the overall initiative can be strengthened). Of course, there is work to be done, but at least, these are some steps towards better environmental performance. And besides, who doesn’t like IKEA furniture? I do…

Moreover, this looks like a perfect mesh of Web 2.0 and environment. This is the direction where my own work is going to go, I can see that. I like to harness the power of Web 2.0 to effect social change and sustainability. Hat tips to Darren for pointing me out to the IKEA Way.

Related posts:

1. Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ’08
2. Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ’08
3. Media Democracy Day Vancouver 09