The Seduction of Sustainability

photo by Jaime Kowal

If you want something to become popular, it needs to be branded (in marketing terms) as savvy, progressive and the “in” thing to do. If you were one of the 12,000 people who caught EPIC, the three-day Sustainable Living Expo, last month at Canada Place then you saw this principle in motion. Being earth-friendly has gotten really hip—isn’t it about time?

SharedVISION is involved in numerous public events—festivals, expos and the like—so we get the opportunity to check out a lot of consumer shows. And this one took the prize for sophistication and style. Exhibit booths were chic and aerodynamic. Products, from reclaimed doors to high efficiency toilets, were showcased with as much class as the two dozen eco-fashion lines. Moreover, there wasn’t a Birkenstock or observable tree-hugger in sight.

Sustainability has grown up and become, ahem, very sexy. This bodes well for its future, and hence, the future for us all. Vancouverite Marc Stoiber, owner of Change Advertising, coined the term “Sexy Sustainability,” and observed a couple of years ago that when sustainability can be perceived as sexy we’ll have turned the corner, making this way of life cool in the eyes of the public and profitable from the standpoint of business.

To this end, while other cities in North America are ahead of us with green living shows—San Francisco, for instance, is in the fifth year of its Green Festival; Washington, D.C., is in its third—Vancouver, a much smaller city, took its first sustainable living expo in a starkly different direction. EPIC’s creators avoided heavy use of overt references to ‘green’. Even its name, EPIC—standing for ‘Ethical, Progressive, Intelligent Consumer’—spins a different perspective. While green conjures up old images of a fringe and marginalized subculture, everybody can relate to being a consumer. And if you’re seriously invested in being part of the solution, you want to be an intelligent consumer. Even better, an ethical, progressive, intelligent consumer. Doesn’t that feel better than being considered the odd outsider?

Granted, the use of language around this issue is very nuanced, but it’s vital to creating a collective mind shift. Green products, as John D. Wiebe, Chairman of EPIC, points out, have historically been perceived as inferior... less style and less quality than the norm. “We want to show consumers that it’s not a dichotomy to have high-quality products that are also sustainable.”

So let’s celebrate the fact that Vancouver is the hotbed for a calculated strategy of winning over the mainstream and jump-starting a collective need to be part of the solution. And while we’re at it, let’s mark our calendars for EPIC’s return next year.

Test Drive Day: If you’re in the market for a new vehicle, you’ll want to join us for our Test Drive event on Sunday, April 22nd at the North Shore Auto Mall. The new fuel-efficient models will be available for your consideration (see page 23). It’s a great opportunity to do some prep work in order to take advantage of the government’s rebates on hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles. It’s all good. It’s all a SharedVISION.

In gratitude,
Rebecca