It’s not just the labor that is cheaper; it’s the overall health standards that are less stringent than here in the United States. Our pollution standards are pretty strict and expensive to comply with because we don’t want to have manufacturing negatively affect our health. Some Americans believe that it’s OK to buy products manufactured overseas, where they are subject to lower environmental standards, because we live so far away they can’t possibly affect our health here.  This thinking leaves the door is wide open for questionable overseas manufacturing. But will that door always be open?

Consider what happens when the data begins to be front page news – that our oceans, air and climate are hurting our health as a result of where and how our cheap products are being manufactured. Los Angeles already reports several days a year when they exceed pollution standards, not because of violations in LA but because of pollution that came over the Pacific Ocean from Asia!

Consumer demand for cheap prices is driving this situation today, but sooner or later the true cost of “cheap” manufacturing will be too expensive to support or ignore. We already know it’s unsustainable, which is why we have such relatively high standards in our own country.

Soon “cheap” manufacturing will be unattractive to the consumer. In these days of increasing transparency, consumer groups, health advocates and environmental groups will be exposing the true costs of cheap manufacturing.

New entrepreneurs have to make a choice. Do you want to be part of the past, where you bet that no one would ever refuse to buy your product, no matter where or how it was made, as long as the price was cheap? Or do you want to be part of the future where you realize that world health will eventually trump price and give your environmentally- friendly manufactured products an edge in an increasingly educated and sensitive market?

Millennials who are inheriting this planet are beginning to realize how their decisions today will influence their future. Change is already happening. They know that the quality of their lives will be dependent on factors like pollution standards, water reclamation standards, and protection of the oxygen-producing rainforests. They know they are voting with their purchases every day – and that vote is more profound than anything they can get done at the polls.

Thanks to the proliferation of information, mass changes in attitude will occur at an ever-accelerating rate. Buyers are becoming very concerned about manufacturing processes and their implications to world health. This will be further accelerated by super storms, super droughts, famines, and pestilence. The choices buyers make will become more a matter of survival.

The world of business has cleaned up its act before. We saw the end of widespread use of lead, asbestos, and ozone-destroying additives once it became clear they were hurting our health.

Now is the time for all new entrepreneurs to reject the way things have been done in the past and market clean and healthy products. Beat the rush. Be a leader. Give the emerging consumers what they really want – a sustainable world to live in.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post What is the True Cost of Overseas Outsourcing? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

What impressed us was the number of young people who pitched in. As bag after bag of trash showed up to be sorted it became clear that the beach trash here in Australia was the same as we‘ve seen on the west coast and east coast of the US and Canada, it’s the same we’ve seen in Chile and Greece, Honduras and Costa Rica. The brand names change but the materials are much the same. In order of quantities, they are: cigarette butts, Styrofoam, single-use plastic containers, and broken glass. There are several other categories, but these continue to be the majority of the pollution. We’re sure the polluters thought they were throwing their trash “away,” but there is no “away.” It’s all still here on the planet.

The Manly Beach cleanup was high profile. The trash was dumped into a large tarp which was sifted through by volunteers who sorted the debris into 5 gallon buckets, each filled with a particular type of trash. Thousands of people walk by keen on enjoying this sunny first day of spring on this otherwise pristine beach not far from downtown Sydney. One by one, they stopped and marveled at the interpretive signs supplied by The Surfrider Foundation, volunteers of all ages collecting and sorting garbage, and the sheer mass of the debris. Was this all picked up from their beach? It was. The sobering reality was hitting home. Many of the passersby grabbed a bag and joined in the cleanup.

For us as Americans, it was heartening to know that people the world over are starting to take notice of this increasingly dangerous international problem – and doing something about it. The volunteers were enthusiastic, felt like they were making a difference, and had a great time! It was their beach and they took ownership. And isn’t that the real message here: “Take ownership.” You wouldn’t want to trash your own home, so why trash your own planet. What we throw away doesn’t go away it. It comes right back.

One cigarette butt pollutes tens of liters of water, kills birds, and take centuries to decompose. And they are making millions more every day. Never mind the health consequences of smoking – what about using our beaches for ash trays. As Bonnie and others feel compelled to say,” Keep your butts off the beach!”

Foam and single-use plastics decompose in the presence of sunlight and then are eaten by fish. Those fish are eaten by larger fish that wind up being eaten by us! The plastics we discard wind up in our own bodies! So there is no real “away.”

The kids who witnessed and participated in the Manly Beach cleanup are learning these important lessons at an early age. Their experience will change their own behavior and encourage them to create and support a credible, monetarily-driven recycling program. The planet deserves to be treated with respect rather than as a receptacle for our discards.

We salute the Manly Beach Chapter of the International Surfrider Foundation and all the other Chapters who are taking action and making a difference in this man made blight of our time. They are living up to their euphemistic motto: “To Protect and Surf!”

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post The Surfrider Foundation Australia Cleans Manly Beach appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.