Jeffrey Hollender.
What work do you do?
I'm president of Seventh Generation, though lately I've been referring to myself as the Inspired Protagonist, providing the vision and inspiration to carry the company forward.
How does your work relate to the environment?
Photos: Seventh Generation.
Our company provides nontoxic cleaners, recycled paper towels and tissues, and other alternatives to unhealthy conventional household products. But those products are really just the vehicle for promoting an idea called the Precautionary Principle, which says that when it comes to things that could affect the environment, we should take a good look before we leap and err on the side of caution. If there's any doubt about an activity, then that activity should be set aside until its safety is proved. It's the opposite of "shoot first and ask questions later," which is the philosophy that's gotten us into all this trouble.
What are you working on at the moment? Any major projects?
Our Change It program is partnering with Greenpeace to send 100 students to Washington, D.C., for a week. It's summer camp for tomorrow's activists. These students will head home ready to lead their communities to a better place. We're seeding the country with people who can change it. That's a very powerful idea to me.
We've also just created a website called Tampontification that encourages women to share their thoughts about menstruation as a way to get them thinking about safer choices. As a husband and the father of two daughters, this is really a personal mission for me. We're also using the site to encourage volunteerism, rally donations to organizations helping homeless people, and connect people in need to those who can help.
And I'm really energized about our new blog -- The Inspired Protagonist -- creating a community for exchanging ideas and promoting social justice and environmental ethics. I like things that connect the power of one individual to the power of many others to create an energy that's greater than the sum of its parts. I guess you could say that my work involves facilitating those connections.
How do you get to work?
I drive an Audi convertible, but its days are numbered. I'm working on retrofitting an old car to use biodiesel. It's turning out to be an involved process because you have to start with a diesel engine, and you can't buy diesel passenger cars in Vermont so I have to go out of state. But it's really interesting.
winding road led you to your current position?
In my 20s, I founded an adult-education business in New York City. It was surprisingly successful, but not very meaningful. One day I found myself on national television defending certain shallow ideals that were the subject of classes we offered (see "worst professional moment," below!). I realized that I didn't want to teach people how to harness their worst instincts for personal gain. I wanted to make the world a better place. Since then, I've been trying to figure out ways to do that. Seventh Generation is the current culmination of that process.
Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in New York City. Today my family lives in Charlotte, Vt., a small town outside Burlington. Vermont hasn't lost its sense of scale like other places. Everything is still manageable. Life moves more slowly. There's no constant overload of empty distractions, which leaves much more time for the things that matter.
What has been the worst moment in your professional life to date?
Being on the Phil Donahue Show and defending a class I'd created called "How to Marry Money." I realized at that moment that I had turned into the kind of person I most detested, which is someone who can rationalize anything in the pursuit of money. When I walked off the set, I was literally sick. I decided right there to sell the business.
What's been the best?
In 2004, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- perhaps America's most conservative business organization -- gave Seventh Generation its Corporate Stewardship Small Business Award. I found myself at a banquet table in D.C. with Don Evans, the secretary of commerce, and the CEOs of some pretty big and, in some cases, pretty bad companies. Even though my heart was pounding itself to pieces, I had the bully pulpit that evening and used it to tell everyone there what was wrong with the way they were doing business.
What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?
The total lack of understanding of externalized costs. For example, when a company pollutes the air, it might be saving money on clean-air technologies, but those costs are just passed on to someone else. Governments have to clean up the mess. Our health-care system has to treat asthmatics. These are real costs. They're just taken off society's bottom line rather than the company's.
Who is your environmental hero?
Right now it's Buckminster Fuller.
What's your environmental vice?
I'm not as concerned about the environment as I am about social-justice issues. But you can't divorce the environment from social justice. So I guess if I have an environmental vice, it's that our company has been too focused on the environment. The people most at risk from the conventional products our brand is meant to replace can't afford to buy our stuff. That keeps me up at night, and as a company we're working on resolving this.
How do you spend your free time?
Surfing.
Read any good books lately?
Peter Senge's new book Presence is wonderful.
What's your favorite meal?
Seafood. Any kind, prepared any way.
Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?
None! I don't consider myself an environmentalist. An environmentalist is someone who deconstructs the world and figures out the one problem they're concerned about without seeing that everything is related. You need to think systemically in order to fix all the parts of the world that are broken. Environmentalism can't do that because its focus is too narrow.
What's your favorite place or ecosystem?
The ocean.
If you could institute by fiat one environmental reform, what would it be?
Every product or service would reflect its full social and environmental cost. Organic foods would cost half as much as conventional foods and a Hummer would set you back $2 million.
Who was your favorite musical artist when you were 18? How about now?
Then, Joni Mitchell. Now, Death Cab for Cutie.
What's your favorite TV show? Movie?
Which actor would play you in the story of your life?
I drew a blank, so I put it to an office vote. It was a draw between Dustin Hoffman and Mel Gibson. I'll let you be the judge ...
If you could have every InterActivist reader do one thing, what would it be?
Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation
Guide to Safe & Healthy, Non-Toxic
Cleaning.
Realize that you really do have the ability to change the world. It can be as simple as making small changes at home.
Pick up a copy of my new book Naturally Clean, which provides room-by-room tips for eliminating toxic chemicals from your home -- protecting your health and the environment's. All of the royalties from book sales are going to the Children's Health Environmental Coalition, a nonprofit working to educate parents and empower the public to protect children from the toxic threats in homes, schools, and communities.
Jeffrey Hollender,
Seventh Generation.
You mentioned that the people most at risk from the conventional products your brand is meant to replace can't afford to buy your stuff, and as a company you're working on resolving this. Any chance you can give examples of ideas that you're working on? And if not, what do you think needs to happen, in general, for truly natural/nontoxic/recycled products to actually reflect their true costs and become more affordable? -- L. Myers, Salt Lake City, Utah
We're taking three approaches. First, we're expanding our distribution into other channels such as mass merchants. Target, for example, now sells our products in 50 of their stores, and consumers see significantly lower prices since Target operates on smaller profit margins. Second, we're evaluating selling to the institutional market (schools, hospitals, cleaning services, businesses, etc.) to provide safer products to the people who have the highest exposure levels, like custodial staffs, etc. Third, we're working on product innovations that will concentrate our products, thereby reducing their cost per use.
Have you ever put your R&D folk to reducing your packaging? -- Tim Hammond, Lanesboro, Minn.
Quite honestly, our packaging is lousy, at least from an environmental standpoint. More environmentally responsible packaging is one of our top R&D initiatives over the next 18 months.
Is the business end of Seventh Generation as "green" as its products? That is, are the buildings green or LEED-certified, is there an alternative energy source being utilized, natural landscaping, porous parking areas, green roofing, energy-efficient equipment, etc.? -- Jill Scarborough, Tallahassee, Fla.
Yes! We just moved our entire office to a new building that's going to get Gold LEED certification. In addition to the physical structure itself, our systems furnishings (things like desk dividers, etc.) are Greenguard-certified. Our furniture was made from FSC-certified wood. We used wheatboard, an emissions-free material made from recycled wheat chaff, for our paneling, shelving, and doors. The office's sound insulation is formaldehyde-free, and its ceiling tiles have 70 percent recycled content. The paint we used was VOC-free. Our carpets have 25 percent recycled content and a special PVC-free, low-emission 40 percent recycled backing that will be recycled itself when its useful life ends. Local materials, like the granite for our countertops, were used wherever possible. All water fixtures are low-flow. Our lighting is all energy-efficient and controlled by sensors for still more energy savings. We also designed our new office for maximum daylighting, which means that many times we don't even turn the lights on. And all of the energy that we do consume is offset through Native Energy. To help people get to our new office, we provide a $5,000 incentive to any employee who wants to purchase a hybrid car.
Where do you stand politically? What do you think of "anti-corporations" such as Blackspot Shoes by Adbusters? -- Dan Kwiatkowski, Mertztown, Pa.
The first time that Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran for president we endorsed them on the cover of our then mail-order catalog. We pissed off so many people it cost us $250,000 in lost sales. While I am often progressive in my politics, I almost always support Democratic candidates.
I love Adbusters and own a pair of pink Blackspot sneakers.
Having just seen An Inconvenient Truth, nothing seems more important than moving toward carbon zero -- and as a consumer my priority is to support companies that are helping that issue. What is Seventh Generation doing, if anything, to be a carbon-neutral company? -- Shannon Donnelly, Burbank, Calif.
Not enough! But it's an area we're working on. Right now, all our office energy use is offset by Native Energy (see above). We try to keep that energy use to an absolute minimum by using daylighting, sensor technology that turns lights and equipment off when not in use, and other means like simple awareness. Our products themselves require less energy to make in many instances because using recycled raw materials is less energy-intensive than starting from scratch.
In terms of shipping impacts, we've made three changes to reduce our environmental impacts. First, we've increased the number of shipments we make from our supplier factories directly to our customers, thereby bypassing our warehouses and the need for additional shipping. Second, we've increased our use of rail transportation, which releases fewer greenhouse gases than truck shipping. And third, we relocated one of our two warehouses closer to our customers' distribution centers in order to reduce the distances our products travel.
In 2004 (the most recent year for which we have figures), we reduced our greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent per kilogram shipped over the previous year even though we actually shipped 22 percent more product by weight. That's a solid start, but we've still got a long way to go, and we're going to continue to work on this.
I work for a Fortune 500 company that does not have an active environmental policy in place, and I would like to get a project of this importance approved at an executive level. I need to complete an impressive presentation to close this deal. I have done much research on e-policies, but would like your expert guidance on who and what resources to use. -- Jason James Krause, Milwaukee, Wis.
You ask a big question because you have to make the business case for environmental responsibility to your company's management team. In other words, you have to demonstrate that not having an environmental policy is costing your company money and, conversely, that having such a policy would save it money and thereby increase profits. The stronger a policy is, the more money it in effect makes for a business because at the most fundamental level pollution and other forms of environmental destruction are about waste, and waste simply represents money going out the door. There are a lot of very convincing resources available to help you make this case. You can find my preferred choices at the website for my book What Matters Most. The resources section of the site lists my favorite books, news sources, and organizations that can help you with advice, ideas, etc. There's also an updated appendix [PDF] of sorts that I created last year, which summarizes some of the latest evidence clearly showing that environmental responsibility boosts the bottom line.
Are more people making the effort to buy environmentally friendly products, or do you need to put out more educational material about your products? -- Rose Lagerberg, Seattle, Wash.
Our business has grown 30 to 40 percent per year for the past five years! That's pretty amazing and very hopeful. More and more people are becoming aware of the need for change. That awareness comes from education, which is something Seventh Generation does as much as possible via our free email newsletter, our website, our blog, our packaging, product displays, etc. We're always looking for opportunities to share what we know and will continue to do so because consumer education will always be the key to transforming awareness and behavior, and getting people to switch to safer, more sustainable products.
Your products are allegedly not chlorine bleached, but isn't sodium hypochlorite a chlorine bleach? If not, how is it different and better? -- Mary Hubbard, Calabasas, Calif.
Seventh Generation products neither contain nor are made with any kind of chlorine in any form. Sodium hypochlorite is a form of chlorine bleach made by combining elemental chlorine with sodium hydroxide (soda lye). It's not quite as acutely toxic as elemental chlorine, but it's far from safe.
What led you to the precautionary principle? Why do you think it makes business sense? Thanks for your extraordinary work. -- Carolyn Raffensperger, Ames, Iowa
I have been a longtime reader of Rachel's Environment & Health News, a fascinating newsletter published weekly by the Environmental Research Foundation. That is where I was introduced to the concept, which has shaped our thinking about product development for the last eight years or so.
The precautionary principle is one of the most critical frameworks that we, as a society, need to embrace if we have any hope for creating a world that is sustainable and safe to live in. From a strictly business perspective it makes sense because it reduces your liability exposure. Going a bit deeper, the precautionary principle fosters a safer and healthier world, and that kind of world is better for business than a world that's unhealthy and unstable. It's simple really -- you can't make as much money in a world that's flirting with social and environmental collapse as you can in a world that's sustaining itself and humming right along. If nothing else, practicing the precautionary principle is a key way to ensure that the business environment you're competing in is as conducive to profitability as possible.
You wanted to institute as an environmental reform that "every product or service would reflect its full social and environmental cost." Do you think that is possible, and what would be the ways to institute this change? -- Rick Olson, Seattle, Wash.
Unfortunately the best solutions are often the hardest to make happen. This one will take a high level of policy and political engagement, something many of us need to focus more attention on. I do think this is possible, but it's going to take a lot of work, and I have no idea how to speed up the pathway to making this happen. However, I am committed to finding a solution. That's not a great answer, I know. This is something I'm still trying to figure out. Sorry I can't be more helpful here at this point!
I have used Seventh Generation products in the past and offer kudos to you for the concept and the products. I have, however, stopped buying them because the cost of transporting them to my food co-op has been added to the product cost, making the products too expensive for my wallet. Do you have any plans for regional distribution centers or something of that nature, so the cost of the products won't be so high once they reach the grocery shelf? -- Ellen Fisher, Knoxville, Tenn.
Right now, we have two regional distribution centers -- one in Sacramento, Calif., and one in Buffalo, N.Y. We will add more as quickly as we can, but that depends on how quickly we grow. I'd say a third center in the middle of the country is likely sometime in the next two years.
Many of us out there are on a fixed income, literally living from paycheck to paycheck. What are some low-cost things that we can do to make the world a better place, while not breaking the bank? -- Amy Auner, Mosinee, Wis.
Send emails to companies and politicians that do things you don't like. Only buy from companies that are aligned with your values. Be kind. Inspire others. Create hope. Vote. Smile.
Won't you please, please change your definition of an environmentalist? You obviously know that social justice and environmental issues are connected. Well, the environmentalists I know do too. Since I read your definition, I can't get it out of my mind and now I think of it every time I use your toilet paper (which I buy in the large pack) ... it's a problem. My second question is: How the heck do you surf in Vermont? -- Karen Cairns, Louisville, Ky.
OK, Karen, I understand your concern, but I have a hard time getting around the fact that the nation's largest environmental organizations are so single-issue focused and are often totally unable to work together toward a common goal that transcends their own agendas. Did you happen to read "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus? So let's say that while some environmentalists deconstruct the world and figure out the one problem they're concerned about without seeing that everything is related, there are some who understand a systems approach. My mistake here was trying to define a complex word in a way that only managed to capture a caricature of concern to me. No offense intended.
There is NO surfing in Vermont, but my surfboard accompanies me whenever I travel near the ocean, and since I'm on the road almost every week, that happens reasonably frequently!
What are three of the most important things you would teach to a child? (By the way, as a mother of a 20-month-old, I really appreciate your company's baby products.) -- Anastasia Garren, Asheville, N.C.
One: To think in terms of the whole system and not just its component parts (check out the work of Peter Senge and the Society for Organizational Learning). Two: To believe, as Gandhi did, that we ourselves must be the change we want to see in the world. Three: To understand that one person really does have the power to change the world.
How can we inspire citizens to become activists in working to create a healthy and socially just world? -- Caryn Treiber, Colfax, Wis.
Describe the world we want to create rather than what's wrong with the world we live in. Striving for less of what's bad inspires no one. But aiming for more of what we believe in gives us all something to work toward. Inspiration is almost a magical potion that creates hope and possibility. Sharing stories of our successes, remembering those who succeeded against all odds, and staying connected to our own inner passion gives us the hope and inspiration we so desperately need.
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