Why do "Green" products cost so much?

[goldwave84]

Hi all
Just wondering, who do they cost so much? From detergent to face cream, the green choice is just so much more expensive. Is it because of cost of these materials are just higher?

Ash

[aj]

the reasons vary. from production costs, labor costs, to materials. green production means less waste, fewer corners cut just to make a buck.

also, a number of green businesses are small businesses and more local businesses. whenever this is the case, their production costs are higher. when you're not buying crazy large amounts of things, you will be charged more per item. more for shipping, and, ironically, you'll pay more taxes. more money for benefits. more money per fill-in-the-blank.

unfortunately, business is not as friendly for small as it is for big.

also, if a large corporation has multiple locations, they split all kinds of costs-- from operating a website to their image and labeling.

buying in bulk saves. even for companies.

[jcoffman]

And then the flip side of the coin is that the green movement has some pretty good steam behind it right now, and the greedy will capitalize all they can...

[goldwave84]

Guess that's a decent trade off...

[jcoffman]

Its really probably not as bad as I made it sound. I think 99.99% of all "green" stores are probably barely making enough money to scrape by. Which is unfortunate.

Its the other big boxs that sell cheaply made products claiming to be green when they really are not. I know that some of the big boxes are trying to fix things, but its just slow and all about the money to them. We just have to be patient with them yet demand that they do it...

The WalMart discussion goes deeper into that problem.

[mikebeavis]

The two biggest reasons that green costs more are economies of scale and the lack of hidden costs.

Economies of scale refers to the principle that you can do things cheaper when you're making 100,000 widgets instead of 62 widgets. There are cost-saving things and specialized labor/machines that can really cut down on production costs. Efficiency improves over time with large numbers. Since green isn't yet mainstream, many of those cost-cutting advantages haven't been adopted by the manufacturers.

Hidden costs are things that a company doesn't pay for when it makes its product - usually things like pollution, contributions to landfills, etc. These things happen but it's "free" to let them happen, and costs money to keep them from happening. People who manufacture truly green products likely have a social conscience and will capture some of these hidden costs by using non-polluting energy or implementing a system-wide reuse/recycle campaign. It costs money and that is passed on as part of the product's cost.

In many cases a "green" manufacturer may choose to produce a product by paying the workers a living wage, as opposed to the near-slavery conditions many Asians working in manufacturing environments endure, just to keep Wal-Mart's prices "always low" (and just about any other major retailer you can think of, these days). Sadly this human cost (poor overall health and happiness, exposure to toxic chemicals, lost limbs, low birthweight, malnutrition, early death) is also a major hidden cost - the manufacturer isn't paying to keep people safe and happy in those sweatshops, carefully hidden in a journalist-unfriendly nation on the other side of the globe.

[Ian Gordon]

Mike is right on the money, but there's ways to hit back.

Green companies could learn a lot from the Toyota Production System and the concept of Economies of Scope.

If it's related to food or primary resource creation ie. biological materials like algae for cosmetics, biochar for soil remediation then there's a lot of scope to do things very cheaply in the ZERI systems. You just cant afford to put all your eggs in the one basket, that sets you up as market victim and forces you to raise prices to meet subsistence.

Grow a basket of things instead of the one thing and you'll find that certain combinations produce outcomes greater than the sum of their parts. That's where you start to claw back some advantage. Take advantage of every green subsidy out there. Get the greenies behind you. Get community imbedded. Dig in. Educate, enlighten.

I was profoundly affected when I listened to Naomi Klein talk about the neo-con, free market agenda. She said the right wing think tanks need all their money to promote what they believe in because their views are profoundly unpopular. In contrast if you're a green your values and your beliefs sell themselves. Keeping the world viable for children is a goal everyone can buy into. It has a left-wing socialist agnostic green like myself corresponding with a right wing conservative god-fearing survivalist Jim Rawlings (The world's most popular Survivalist blogger). That's what these corporate free market poisoning vultures are up against.

I'm going to start up green companies in the future but I'll start by getting my outgoings down as close to zero as I can. When you're starting out the old adage of a dollar saved is a dollar earned is probably a good way to start.

Mind you I'm going to have a piece of land more than large enough to support me and mine with abundant water resources.

I'll develop smart systems so that many of my competitors will never be able to be as lean as I am.

That should bring the cost of many green products down.

There's all sorts of little handy hints, such as if you grow organic brussel sprouts in boxes with oyster mushrooms the sprouts yield goes up 100% and you get a load of mushrooms as well. Same soil-two crops, one enhanced well above normal.

There's ways and means to make green cheaper, but I figure the businesses have to be green down to their bootstraps, reducing waste in their premises, entering into industrial ecology arrangements with other green businesses or even non-green businesses (and by doing so make them greener).

Trying to compete with mass production on its terms is a losing proposition in my opinion.

I found that out when I researched why small Korean farmers were getting screwed. My conclusion was the small acreage farms were trying to use large acreage industrial farming techniques. Trying to get economy of scale out of a farm that a US combine harvester wouldn't fit inside.

Want cheaper green products? Green the entire system as much as you are able to.

[spring]

Why do "Green" products cost so much?

"Green" products may be more expensive, but green way of living is generally not.

Start here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6656656736

Buy only what you really need, and try to keep it simple.
Information is the key, and we are being misinformed and manipulated every second of our existence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHJHGOE8MIs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactur ... _the_Media

Try these:

http://www.bakingsodabook.co.uk/
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-washing-soda.htm
http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthings ... xworks.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com
http://www.ewg.org/tools
http://www.organicconsumers.org/
http://www.ucsusa.org/
http://www.healthycar.org/home.php

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/index.html
http://www.nutritiondata.com/
http://www.backwoodshome.com/article_index.html#fg

http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/greenpages/
http://www.thegreenguide.com/products/
http://www.ecomall.com/


And remember:

'Live Simply So Others Can Simply Live'

[aj]

Ian, tell me more! What are you doing now? What kind of green start ups are you interested? Sorry if you've explained this a hundred times, I'm a newB.

I totally agree with you. Business is not just business. People think there are these set rules and not as much room for creativity, but one can have a non-traditional business plan. It's just harder and more fluid. You have to be able to use opportunities that arise and find other resources when they're not presented. It makes it a bit hard to budget, but it's easier for smaller companies. But yes, the small should play their own game, not try to compete with the giants.

However, it takes a little more time that way. Yes, green can sell just by telling people who you are, what you do, what your values are. No manipulating necessary, but you have to rely on word of mouth and direct contact a little more because that's where honesty builds more trust. Because we're lied to so much, it's hard to believe someone in business has values.

Also, I know a lot of people are still hung up on name and brand recognition. If they've heard of it, they trust it more, even if the way the heard it was indirect marketing that could be a complete lie.

Are there any good books out there pertaining to green business? maybe you should write one Ian.

[inkabinkaboo182]

With some green products, like sustainably raised (do not read organic) food, you're paying for quality. You're paying for stuff that won't poison you, stuff that's more nutritious, etc.

[Ian Gordon]

Thanks AJ, I won't be able to write about this until I get some practical experience at actually doing it with my own hands. For the moment everything I write is pure analysis, which just isn't good enough.

As to start ups..

Roof gardening business.

I can't do this in Tokyo because the system here won't allow me to. There's also the problem of what happens in an earthquake when you have several tons of wet earth and plant material on the roof.

The benefits of a rooftop gardening system are too numerous to mention. It's a win-win-win-win... proposition. An environmental business expert here in Tokyo told me "Great idea, won't get off the ground here, try Singapore."

Integrated Community Development

In Australia, small towns are dying. Australia is incredibly urbanized and getting more so every year. The same thing was happening in Sweden. Then small towns started following the Natural Step program and a lot of those towns revived. That's a business right there probably a very good co-op. The lesson I took from it is that a community wide move to environmentally friendly systems increases amenity, land values, generates additional resources, and gets people thinking about environmentally friendly businesses.

In the US there's a massive Kudzu problem. It's called the plant that ate the south. This is strange to me because Kudzu is a nitrogen fixing, very nutritious plant. It's really hard to kill but, here's the thing, overgrazing will do it. Matching invasive plant control (that farmers and local governments will pay for) to organic food production (that consumers will pay for) is a sadly overlooked business opportunity. Look up Kudzu on Wikipedia and you'll see it's a truly multipurpose plant.

Green businesses to my mind come from the looking at environmental problems and finding a solution to it. The massive hog manure lagoons in the Southern states of the USA are simply crying out for biodigester businesses running alongside them. First there's the methane and the organic liquid fertilizer. Then there's a solid that encourages the growth of water plants that fish can then feed upon them. So many polluting businesses are polluting simply because people don't exploit that waste as a resource.

Large outdoor events are always plagued with toilet problems. The toilets stink to high heaven, there's never enough of them and intensive processing the blue chemical gunk in the bowl. But, it's not waste, it's a resource. A lot of pollution in our waterways arises from the fact that it's not treated as a resource to be utilized but rather as a waste to be processed.

The creatively minded will be able to think up thousands of small green business ideas by simply following the waste while thinking resource.

Organic processing of these resources brings it back to the land, which when all is said and done, is what the economy is founded on whatever economists and wall street bankers think.

[Sibaire]

Many green products are expensive, but you don't really need to implement these products to help the environment. Simple things such as cutting down on electricity consumption can help as well. I wrote this article not long ago about Ten easy ways to reduce your carbon emissions

[jcoffman]

Welcome to Treehugger Sibaire. Nice article. You dont see number 9 mentioned very much. Good point!

[tierrapeople]

Nice article, Sibaire.

green products do in general cost more - I remember a debate we had in college about whether proselytizing green shoppers weren't a bit elitist...

That said, I love shopping at farmer's markets. (I grew up in Madison - their farmer's market is amazing!) Local produce can be extremely cheap! And there are lots of green products you can make yourself by purchasing inexpensive, organic foods and combining them with essential oils and other ingredients. A quick web search can get you some easy recipes. Or check out a book on making masques, mouthwashes, cremes and other products at your library.

Green products don't have to be expensive - you just need some time and research to make your own.
~Marie

[SoCalSolar]

Great article Sibaire - I just reduced my screen brightness before this post. Awsome suggestion!

...and Welcome to TH!