A lot of you may have read the extraordinary story in last Thursday’s New York Times about a Manhattan family trying to live a “no impact” lifestyle. The extremes that this family went to live an eco-friendly lifestyle were well beyond the norm:
- unplugged their refrigerator and turned it into an “icebox”
- unplugged their TV
- no carbon-fueled transportation
- only consume organic food grown within 250 miles of NYC
- no elevator up/down to their 9th floor apartment
- make their own bread leaving a stinky “mother” sourdough on the shelf
- have a compost pile inside their apartment
- and the headliner, they plan to go “the year without toilet paper”
Not surprisingly, this story inspired a lot of chatter in blogland. Many people felt bad for the baby subjected to organic cotton diapers without disposable wipes. Others noted that there were little things all of us could do to live a greener life. Bert, for example, outlined these “little steps” on Tribe
- bikes are obvious, composting, buying from the farmers market, etc…
- an easy thing is putting a big bucket in your shower and under your sink to collect excess water and then using that water to gravity flush your toilet or to water plants with…
- another is to reuse bags and ziplocs and container…
- also the better you eat..the less TP you will need.
So, what’s all this have to do with Marketing for Good? First, the story about the Beavan’s (the “no impact” family) is news because of the extreme nature of their approach. No one I know would go this far but everyone I know is fascinated by someone who would try especially with a kid in diapers. Very few of us are inspired or entertained by the ordinary. Even Marketing for Good needs to highlight the extraordinary. Second, the motive for the Beavan’s extraordinary lifestyle is not purely altruistic. Mr. Beavan is a writer and needed a new book project. “The No Impact year was the only one of four possibilities his agent thought would sell” and Mr. Beavan is chronicling his family’s adventure on noimpactman.com. Cynics might even call this an elaborate publicity stunt for his book (and the documentary) and they would be right. So what? Anybody who is willing to forgo Charmin Ultra (my personal favorite) and its competition has earned my attention… I want to write more about this by have to get back to my day job.