About a year ago, I saw a free-standing display at Home Depot (or, as they like to call themselves but no one else does, The Home Depot), the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer with stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, 10 Canadian provinces, Mexico and China. Home Depot's headquarters is here in Atlanta, so I guess, technically, that makes this mega-store my local hardware store.
The display said "Eco-Options" and touted Home Depot's commitment to identifying products that treaded lighter on the earth. It included organic seedlings and other organic gardening supplies, and I believed, yes, we had turned a corner.
But then, as suddenly as the display appeared, it disappered, and I was never to find an organic seedling again. Occasionally, I'd find a few packets of organic seeds. Other organic options like Terracycle's Worm Poop, organic potting soil, organic compost, and organic soil amendments were tucked on the edge of a shelf, with no signage highlighting their Eco-Options status.
I was surprised, therefore, to see Home Depot's Eco-Options website. You'd read the thing and think these folks had it goin' on. Energy-Star Retail Partner of the Year two years in a row. Largest supplier of certified Forest Stewardship Council wood on the planet. Recycles all their corrugated cardboard and wood pallets and has a program that keeps drywall separators out of landfills by recycling them into useable product. Plus, the website has tip sheets, online clincis, online videos, an Eco-Options virtual home, a personal energy audit, and more. All good.
Why, then, is there such an incredible disconnect when I go to the Home Depot store? The website says Home Depot has 3,000 Eco-Options products in it stores right now. I walked around the other day and was lucky to find three little tiny eco-options signs. Not to mention--okay, I'll mention it--that the big hoopla in the garden section is the Bonnie vegetable seedlings in biodegradable peat-pots. Those seedlings are so doused with chemicals you can see them. And the seed packets? One--count 'em, one packet of organic white radishes. Yeah, I'm sure there's a rush on those. I didn't see one compact fluorescent lightbulb in the entire lighting department. No low-VOC paints. One little tiny sign for sustainable flooring. There were no two ways around it. I had to ask myself, "Could this be a case of corporate greenwashing or has Big Orange truly gone green?"
So I called the man referred to in an article as The Green Man in the Orange Vest. Ron Jarvis. Senior Vice President of Environmental Innovation for The Home Depot. Ron, his colleague Jean, and I talked for quite some time on the phone. Here's a man who has a saltwater pool. Who grows organic tomatoes and feeds his family an increasing amount of organic food. Who uses all CF lightbulbs. Who's trying, like so many of the rest of us, to make daily choices that make a difference. Ron Jarvis got this job after he spearheaded the consolidated sourcing of sustainable wood while working in one of the Home Depot stores in Florida. This is a man I am inclined to trust.
He told me that the 2,000 Home Depot stores have had varying success embracing the Eco-Options communications, but that this very weekend they are all getting a brand new, expanded sign package that will highlight Eco-Options more than before. He said the company had an internal contest, called Scream If You're Green, to identify the most environmentally-savvy team associates in the company, and then named a Green Captain for each store from these findings. (Wanna' know where the greenest employees in the United States came from? The first place winner for greenest employee lives in Hawaii. The second place winner is from Gainesville, GA!)
I asked Ron what I should tell readers of FoodShed Planet. He said to ask you to go to your neighborhood Home Depot (and, interestingly, apparently we all have two at which we consider shopping. He says we call one of them "the other one." That made me laugh because, for me, that is so true). See if the Eco-Options signage is up, starting this weekend. If not, ask for the Green Captain and find out what is going on at your store for Eco-Options. And stay tuned for more information about Earth Day events.
I had a pile of suggestions for Ron, things I'd like to see in-store, especially considering that I am a 12-month gardener in a temporate climate but the store treats gardening as something that kicks off in spring, long after my winter and early spring crops bolt. I also don't like having to search all over the store, like looking for organic items at Target. I like a little section of eco-choices. But Ron had a good point--Home Depot likes to display eco-options next to less earth-friendly options with the hopes that folks who wouldn't have searched out those options will choose them. That, I like, but I still want my litte eco-section! If Home Depot is supposedly so environmentally-aware, I want to feel "at home" when I am there.
If you have thoughts and ideas, let me know and I'll pass them on to Ron. When a company the size of Home Depot makes positive changes regarding the environment, the ripple effect is felt all over the world. I intend to support this.
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5 comments:
I'm kinda with Ron on the product placement. I don't think we should segregate eco and non - the reason being is that you will get more inadvertant customers that way and maybe that'll be their tipping point. My local grocery chain (Hannaford's) has some stores with a whole section of organic/vegetarian/vegan whatever - it's like a little whole foods on the edge of Hannafords, but I see more organic stuff in the baskets of the stores that don't have a separate health section. If you've got your Bob's red mill hot cereals right next to the quaker oats, someone who's looking for something a little healthier might opt for the organic steel cut oats, or the flax seed whatever without having to actually seek it out, and I know that when I'm out and about if I need lightbulbs, I'm going to the lightbulb section not some eco corner.
Great points, but I like the way my Kroger supermarket does it best--it has an eco-aisle or two, plus it repeats the most popular organic products--milk, for instance, in the appropriate general section. For me, I only want organic products and at Target, for instance, I feel like I'm missing many of them because I hate hunting up and down every aisle for them. Also, and this is an important point to me, I don't like my kids to see all that junk. I like being able to avoid all those aisles entirely. In a Home Depot environment, however, it would probably work the other way, where my kids would see the non-eco options and say, "Why would anyone buy that if they have the choice of this eco-option?"
But don't you think a nice showcase area for the eco-options would be helpful? I mean, if there are 3,000 eco items in that store, why not highlight 50 of them at a time in a showcase area?
I heard a little while ago that Home Depot is planning to put out no-VOC paint (the coloring doesn't even contain VOCs) on April 1st in all of their stores. I'm waiting to repaint my bathroom until then, so I really hope it's true.
It is nice to see bigger companies trying. Some of it may be greenwashing, but if it gets people who wouldn't normally think about the environment to make greener choices (that hopefully lead to awareness and more greener choices) it's a good thing.
my local depot carries the no-voc paint, plenty of CFL light bulbs, organic lawn products but not a darn organic seed.
I am with Tameson - whether I want tinned tomatoes or organic potting mix I want to go to the section that has all the tinned tomatoes and potting mixes and make my choice. In Coles supermarkets they have divided off the organic things and I hate it and haven't been back there for about a year because of it (after telling the manager why, in case they missed me!Ha ha ha!)I went back there ysterday and guess what! It has all returned to 'normal' ! Wow, did I do that?
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