Let’s talk about sustainability and be open to dialogue!

In these months of great ferment, both online and offline, we have seen how conversation and sharing, two cornerstones of the web and the social web, are as true as ever. While the numbers in our activities are beginning to increase, a specific weight is given to the qualitative part of the interactions that arise every day on the web.

We realized how with speed instant sharing phenomena can be triggered, virtuous circles reserved not only for insiders but precisely for the general public. Just think of our article responding to what was published in Corriere della Sera, which had provided erroneous and superficial information about some of the practices in our industry: to put it in a strictly technical term, sometimes you just have to catch thehashtag right to get into the discussions of greatest interest and visibility.

Having then expanded the reach of our networked observatory, thanks in part to the theme of Social Housing and the related event within last month’s Made Expo in Milan, we have opened our eyes to new models of labor and design sustainability, reinforced also at Abitare il Tempo in Verona, where in turn other concrete examples and insights into sustainable business were offered.

Precisely sustainability is a topic that is talked about on the web now at a rapid pace, especially at this time of crisis and instability, economic and environmental first and foremost, so much so that “green marketing” has become for all intents and purposes an area full of content, insights and suggestions but also clichés.

Falling into the trap of so-called “greenwashing” (basically, as Wikipedia puts it, it is “an unwarranted appropriation of environmentalist virtues by a company“) can be a matter of a few moments: eco-friendly, sustainable, bio compatible, so many bombastic concepts that run the risk of being vacuous if not even counterproductive.

Just an article we came across recently made us think about this issue: environmental-themed ads are different from traditional product-related ads, if a product is promoted because it is cheaper, just do a quick check to confirm it or if a particular drink is listed as the tastiest compared to all competitors, it will only take a couple of euros to see if it is true or not. But if we talk about these issues, what is it that really makes a difference and how can we verify the veracity of certain claims?