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Down a Martini, Plant a Tree
Down a Martini, Plant a Tree
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - 1:32pm
There is, according to a public relations pitch that landed in my inbox Wednesday morning, "MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH NEWS" to report. Tru Organic Spirits—vodka and gin—are "the most radically carbon-negative consumer products on the market."
That's quite a claim, and best for Modern Spirits, the company that makes Tru, it's impossible to either verify or refute.
Still, if Modern Spirits' marketing materials can be believed, it's hard to outright fault the effort. Sure, selling hooch, however high-end, based on its supposed greenness is a shallow marketing ploy. But few people criticize organic wine, so why should overpriced organic vodka be any different?
Further, if the company really is doing stuff to offset the harm it's doing to the environment (since all manufacturing harms the environment), that's better than not doing anything, right? That there is some hucksterism involved in the marketing doesn't change that. And as insufferable as "eco-chic" can be, it's better to be trendy for the environment than, say, against it, right?
Modern Spirits says that for every bottle of organic vodka it sells, it plants at least one tree in Central America through the Sustainable Harvest organization. Last year, that amounted to about 50,000 bottles, and 50,000 trees.
That's what supposedly makes Tru "the most radically carbon-negative consumer products on the market." Modern Spirits says that each tree soaks up a lot more carbon dioxide than is expended by the earth-friendly procurement, manufacturing, and packaging practices that the company employs. So, say the environmental consultants hired by Modern Spirits, the products are "760 times" carbon negative.
As Fast Company pointed out last week, "these carbon calculations are tricky." They assume that "each new tree lives out a full 50-year lifespan and isn't chopped down or burned by ranchers and farmers in Belize or Honduras."
And to single out Tru as the "most" carbon-negative product in the world is tough to do without testing it against every other product.
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Comments
The devil's in the details
Although Dan's opinion piece suggests that selling products with a responsibility element turns them into shallow marketing ploys, we think it's a crucial element of doing business .
As a society, we keep depleting nature and systematically cutting down its ability to cope with our impact. With evidence building up about climate change, continuing down the same path is madness.
Our goal is to give more than we take and be transparent about our efforts. We do make claims to be the most carbon negative. Let's hope it stirs the pot and gets other companies to follow. Why not out-do us?
Imagine the impact if every consumer product had a negative carbon footprint! That would be real change and not something easily dismissed. But it must start somewhere...
By the way, the 50 year lifespan for trees DOES include ones that die naturally or are chopped down (check our reports at truvodka.com/how-green-is-tru.html). Fast Company got this part wrong.
Cheers,
Melkon Khosrovian
co-founder + spiritsmaker
Modern Spirits/TRU
Earth to Jaded
Hmmm, sounds like this writer doesn't understand the importance of organic or carbon negative...or is way too "cool." Fine, go back to your Beluga, imported bottled water and Escalade. The rest of us will clean up your trash.