Pollution | The Barefoot Spirit

Small Towns Stand Up to Big Plastic

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 06:29:08 +0000

Just imagine what it might be like to eat a credit card. Now imagine eating a credit card EVERY WEEK! According to the World Wildlife Fund, humans now ingest the equivalent amount of a credit card in microplastics each week! This happens because microplastics are now ubiquitous in our environment from the water we drink to the food we eat.

The trillion dollar plastics industry is opposed to any efforts by the Federal Government and the State Governments to stem the tide of single-use plastics by law. But two states, Maryland and Maine, recently passed laws banning the use of at least polystyrene foam food containers, generally known as Styrofoam.

Meanwhile, in the last decade, in California alone, 120 cities and counties have passed some kind of regulations on polystyrene food containers. It’s evidently harder for the industry to affect the decisions of smaller governing bodies. Sebastopol, small town just down the road from us, recently passed an ordinance prohibiting the sale or use of disposable cups, burger boxes, clamshell containers and ice chests made of expanded polystyrene. This particular type of single-use convenience food and packaging material is especially dangerous since it is brittle, breaks up easily. It is mostly air so it blows around, and degrades into microplastics that get into the soil and waterways. It is very hard to capture.

Level Playing Field

So, what’s the effect on business? Well, for one thing, the regulations will create a somewhat level playing field in terms of competition. All retailers will be held to the same rules. Here-to-fore, businesses could claim that their competition was using the cheaper polystyrene and that if they voluntarily chose compostable products, they would be at a disadvantage because of the greater cost.

Reduced Costs for Compostables

Interestingly, as the demand for the alternatives grows, as we have seen in so many other alternative industries, the costs of those alternatives goes down. Sheer volume creates efficiencies of scale that are passed down through the competitive sales process to the retailer.

New Jobs and Industries

Opportunities for compostable and reusable containers are bound to increase. In the little town down the road, for instance, customers who bring their own reusable to-go containers get a 25-cent credit. All customers have to pay a takeout charge up to 10 cents to defray the costs associated with conversion to compostable lids, cups, straws, or utensils that may be more expensive in the short run. This, in effect, subsidizes the cost of reusable containers and single-use compostables.

Out of Control

So, how did the poisoning of the wildlife, the waterways, the soil, and even ourselves ever become so competitively advantageous to the takeout food industry? Simply, the entire cost of the post-sale packaging, including the hazardous effects were dumped on the environment and the consumer, not the producers. Now we are actually eating it! And because we gave them our money for their products, the producers became so strong, they could fund giant PR campaigns and lobbying efforts to protect themselves against the full costs of their packaging. The polystyrene producers are not fighting the ordinances so much as they are trying to use the government to stifle competition. This is just plain unfair and, as we’ve seen, dangerous!

Conclusion

We are business people and we support business, but not the monopoly of any industry. We think ordinances like this are good for business and innovation. They give new businesses a chance to compete. They raise the big picture issues that have to do with the real costs to the environment and our own health for which we as consumers are being asked to pick up the tab.

As Tip O’Neill, the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives used to say, “All politics is local!” When little towns have to pass ordinances against big companies to protect the health and welfare of their citizens, wildlife, and environment, we are witnessing a failure of State and Federal Governments to protect the health and welfare of their broader constituents. It’s not OK to allow big plastic to say, “Eat our plastic!”

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.

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Stop Single-Use Plastic Pollution by Leveling the Playing Field

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 17:00:58 +0000

The European Union finally voted this week on a proposition that’s been on the table since May 2018. It’s a proposition to ban single-use plastics. How this finally happened at this highest level of European government is a testament, in our opinion, to the more intelligent use of social media.

Enlightening documentaries like David Attenborough’s BBC Blue Planet Series and vivid YouTube posts like Richard Horner’s Dive through a sea of plastics have educated and motivated average citizens to demand controls on industry. Shocking videos like Dead whale had eaten 80 plastic bags and ‘Decades’ of deep-sea plastic pollution have finally created the political climate for new laws. Videos that demonstrate how tiny plastic fragments in the ocean can end up in fish and can be passed on to humans are a serious wake-up call for even the most apathetic consumer. But, producers have yet to catch up…

So, the 21st-century environmental action process goes something like this:

Activists and scientists decry the environmental problem that commercial and industrial practices are causing. (They are discredited by accusations of having a political agenda.)
The public gets confused because the proponents create debate and uncertainty. (Most consumers don’t actually see the pollution or realize its effect on their own health.)
Actual videos of the problem finally go viral on YouTube and other social platforms. (Many consumers see it for the first time and realize it will affect their own and their children’s health.)
Pressure mounts on elected officials to do something about it. (Industry won’t control itself so people resort to pressuring the government for more controls.)
Lawmakers pass laws controlling commerce and industry. (Consumers pay more in the short run in their desire to protect their health.)

It’s unfortunate that commerce and industry couldn’t see this coming and regulate themselves to a point that many of these types of environmental catastrophes would not have taken place …and continue to mount. As business people ourselves, we hate to see more arduous government controls clumsily pushed on industry. We know that these kinds of controls will hurt business in the short run by increasing costs. But, by the same token, it’s clear that industry will not control itself without governmental intervention. This is the price industry pays for no self-control. And the fact is that these controls will ultimately help new, non-polluting packaging industries that are currently competing with unfairly “cheaper” single-use plastic producers.

The Elephant in the Room…Competition

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to discuss is competition, plain and simple. Why would a perfectly sensitive company, concerned with the health and welfare of its employees and customers, go to single-use plastics in the first place? It’s simple. It’s competition! Because industry is not yet paying the real cost of pollution, it operates on the false premise that it’s cheaper to pollute. If one producer does it, they all have to do it!

The New European Law

Governmental controls will ultimately change that – but at a steep price to industry. Industry could avoid these controls if they could agree on their own rules and regulations to level the playing field. Perhaps this move by the European Union will send a clear message to American companies that their own consumers are watching these videos and fearing for their own health as well. Perhaps this new European law will send the message that viral videos demonstrating the unhealthy effects of industrial pollution result in more government controls.

What’s interesting about the European law is that it gets very specific. It bans outright single-use plastics where there are readily available alternatives such as paper and cardboard. It also bans cigarette filters which are the #1 pollutant on our beaches. This we can tell you from personal beach cleaning experience. It also calls for 90% of all plastic drink bottles to be collected for recycling by 2025. One member of the European Parliament said that without action now there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Just imagine…

So, as much as we hate more governmental control, let’s level the playing field for business. Let’s not give polluters an unfair cost advantage that their competitors feel obligated to copy. Our lives and that of our children depend on it. So do all forms of life on the planet we call home. Producers, whether they be environmentally responsible or not, can only stay in business if end-users purchase their products. Consumers, we implore you to spend your money wisely. Check out the videos and decide for yourself!

Who We Are

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

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What is the True Cost of Overseas Outsourcing?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 18:00:16 +0000

From “shortcut-to-riches” internet marketers to Shark Tank, we hear a constant refrain, “If you want to be successful, outsource your manufacturing to a country with cheap labor costs.” If all you are concerned about is the bottom line in the short term, this may be good advice. It will certainly give you an initial advantage in the marketplace. But what about the long term and what about your responsibility to world health?

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

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

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Asia’s Ozone is Polluting Western US

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:56:02 +0000

Over the past three years, Ian Faloona of UC Davis and several other atmospheric scientists have been picking up increased readings of lung-damaging ozone from their monitoring stations along the extreme edge of the Pacific coast. The stations are over 5000 feet up and far enough to the west that they are not measuring ozone produced in the US. In fact they should be getting the cleanest air possible as they face the open ocean. This is particularly alarming since the US itself has significantly reduced emissions over the past few decades.

We can no longer think that if we clean up our own backyard that we will necessarily enjoy the health benefits of our efforts. According to the scientists, emissions from Asia take only a week to cross the Pacific and increase our baseline levels of ozone in western North America.

Local pollution regulators have already begun to argue that they should not be penalized when pollution from Asia causes local smog levels to exceed Clean Air Act standards. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has filed a first of its kind petition to be exempted from penalties imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency for violating air quality health standards. The district maintains that ozone pollution from Asia is the culprit. District representative Seyed Sadredin said, “Our residents should not be penalized for pollution that comes from elsewhere.”

Owen Cooper, an atmospheric scientist from Denver, said, “Here in Denver, our emissions have come down enormously due to cleaner cars, but our ozone pollution isn’t coming down. It’s kind of stuck.”

On top of that, the EPA is reducing the allowable ozone levels this year to 65 and 70 parts per billion. Opponents say that the districts should focus on their own sources of pollution that they can do something about, the implication being that nothing can be done about the pollution coming from Asia. According to Faloona and his assistant Andrew Post, the UC Davis monitoring station on Chews Ridge, high in the Santa Lucia Mountains ,west of any US-caused pollution, has registered concentrations of ozone as high as 80 parts per billion coming in off the Pacific.

This will become a much bigger issue as EPA fines get leveed. The 2012 $100 million fine imposed by the EPA on the San Joaquin Valley District, is made payable by an extra $12 per year in vehicle registration fees, for instance. At what point do we have to look at the bigger picture? Even as we clean up our act, we are being undermined by our neighbors albeit on the other side of the Pacific.

Maybe we should be asking, “What kind of fuels and machinery are we selling to Asia that will turn around and pollute our air and hurt our health?” Maybe the fines should be on the manufacturers of ozone producing equipment, vehicles and fuels. We can no longer act like we are not affected by the products we sell to Asia, nor, for that matter, the products we buy from Asia.

Eventually the air quality will become so bad that there will be a public outcry to hold consumer products made in Asia to the same air quality standards of manufacturing we impose on our own producers. If you import products from Asia and the ozone from that plant comes to the US, are you not culpable for the health consequences?

We live in California and we are pretty proud of our state’s reduction of ozone over the past several decades. It seems like we should begin now, before it’s out of control, to take this issue to the next and obvious level. Factory and auto exhaust from Asia is only one week away. Pollution knows no borders.

Who We Are

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

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