Last week the Unites States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it was proposing a new voluntary Bio-Preferred consumer product label which has the potential to be showcased on nearly 15,000 qualifying products in over 200 categories. The label will showcase those products that meet the requirements of a Biobased product and the USDA expects that most of these will “have a more benign effect on the environment, be biodegradable, and have lower disposal and cleanup costs than the fossil energy based products they will replace”. (more…)

The average consumer doesn’t think about the external packaging on a product, but from a business perspective the packaging is extremely important because that’s what tells the story about the item on the inside. Subliminally, when consumers purchase a product they are, many times buying the images on the external package. Some consumers will tell you they purchased product “x” because it’s better than product “y”. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. In the cases where it’s not, the consumer has likely bought into the brand marketing and messaging. (more…)

Many people don’t realize the impact that going green can have on their wallet. In this economy, everyone is looking for practical and easy ways to cut back without drastically changing their quality of lifestyle.  In today’s sluggish economy, energy conservation is an easy way to help the environment and at the same time save money on utility bills. One of the new trends for understanding utility expenses in and around the home or office is Energy Monitoring systems that work in conjunction with hardware and/or software designed to analyze power usage. (more…)

“Triple Bottom Line”, or in simpler language, “People, Planet, Profit” is a term that was coined in 1994 by John Elkington, an entrepreneur and environmental consultant who was looking for a way to relate to businesses and impress upon them the importance of becoming sustainable.

Today, the Triple Bottom Line Philosophy is a primary way of understanding the Social, Environmental, and Economic impact that businesses have on their surroundings (more…)

Many people think of LCA’s as something that only businesses should perform to understand the environmental impact of a particular product or service, but how about an educational institution like a high school, college or university? Is there a need to perform a detailed Life-Cycle Analysis for an institution of higher learning? There’s still a lot of confusion regarding LCA’s and what they are and aren’t so we’ll try to “clear the air” regarding this hot topic. (more…)

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the recent announcement by Walmart that they will begin to require their vendors to answer a number of questions regarding their environmental impact for the creation of Walmart’s new sustainability index. The index will cover a number of issues such as Carbon Footprint, Water & Energy Usage as well as types of packaging and materials used. One of the items that seems to be overlooked by those who are critical of this groundbreaking initiative (more…)

Lots of info coming out of Bentonville this week. No need to worry. Lifecycle Assessments (LCA’s), calculating your carbon footprint [baseline], implementing sustainable product, process and packaging initiatives and eco-labels are all part of NextLife’s comprehensive service offerings. In fact, we might be as bold to say that the eco-label we’re designing could, ultimately, be the template for not only Walmart, but all retail and consumers at-large.

So, let us help you stay ahead of the curve…and on the shelves of Walmart.