The 212 Green Team Recommends: Seventh Generation

Last month we explored Patagonia’s sustainability mission and methods to produce better products to reduce how much customers consume. This month, we focus on household products manufacturer Seventh Generation.

The name "Seventh Generation" comes from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy that states, “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." With this message in mind, Seventh Generation finds ways to inspire their customers and retailers to think about sustainability.

With initiatives like the GIVE Program (Generate Inspiration Via Education), Seventh Generation develops training modules that educate their employees on the Seventh Generation mission, empowering them to speak knowledgeably about their products and enabling them to connect with the company's values. The GIVE program also provides "how-to" guides to companies interested in holding sustainability fairs as a way of motivating their employees on environmental issues. Most recently, GIVE programs started working with corporations like Starwood Hotels, to bring awareness of healthy-home issues and natural products to hotel guests.
 
In 2009, Seventh Generation and their sustainability partner, Pure Strategies, developed a new tool called a Product Scorecard. This scorecard allows product designers to determine various aspects of a product's environmental impact. Through categories outlined on the scorecard, the Seventh Generation team is able to see the "big picture" of product sustainability. The scorecard assesses a products based on impact on human health, water and air quality, and other categories such as resource sustainability. Along with an annual corporate sustainability report, the scorecard method aims to inspire product designers to new levels of innovation.

One important component of Seventh Generation's mission is improving production methods. To better understand their “cradle-to-gate" greenhouse gas emissions, the company tracks materials, ingredients, and packaging used in all their products. By monitoring the environmental impact of these products, Seventh Generation has been motivated to increase its use of natural ingredients, rather than petroleum, by 68%. The company aims to reduce their use of virgin plastic by 80% by 2014 and to use only 100% renewable materials by 2015, an ambitious but inspiring goal.
As designers who strive to consider sustainability through every step of the design process, we applaud Seventh Generation and their partners for believing that "for every environmental problem…there is an environmental solution."