Live Your Life - The Holstee Manifesto
Posted: September 29th, 2010 | Author: Jonathan Bahe | Filed under: Leadership, Strategy, Sustainability, Uncategorized |Holstee is an organization was founded in 2009 by two brothers who are passionate about sustainability and wanted to pursue this lifestyle and its links with innovative design. They have produced a variety of products including shirts, wallets, and jewelry - you can find more of their products here. To help its customers understand the ecologic impacts of the product they sell, Holstee has developed a series of badges which describe the key sustainable elements of each product. They have also taken great care to address issues of shipping and packaging - two significant issues for the sustainable product realm. And if this wasn’t enough, Holstee has committed to using 10% of all sales as micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Holstee has tied this all together with their manifesto. Not only graphically pleasing, but also contains powerful beliefs which guide the organization. Not only has it generated a decent amount of press, but it also makes their consumers aware of who they are and what they believe.
What if you were to develop a similar “manifesto” for yourself as a design leader? What would it say?
How about for your professional practice or organization? What bold public statements are at the core of your work - define the essence of your practice? Are they different than your personal beliefs?
Green ? Sustainable?
It is still all about consumption. The more you buy, the more they will make.
Certainly you can make the argument that consumption of most any kind is inherently unsustainable. It isn’t very realistic to expect people not to consume.
However, by consuming smarter - choosing companies that care about sourcing of materials, individual designers, and look at smarter strategies for shipping and packaging - that is more sustainable.
Hmm.. looking at their products, to average consumers, they are just more expensive . To me , consuming smarter does not mean paying extra for green products. Consuming smarter means consuming less. Buy only the things we really need. Many of these green companies would eventually ended up making a bunch of stuff that no one really needs or wants to buy. Do we really need a wood ring ?
Truly “sustainable” ideas cannot be monetized. They are totally contrary to commercial interest.
Taken to it’s absurd extreme, the philosophy of sustainability means the extinction of the human race. This is the only way to minimize human impact on the environment. Obviously, this is not in anyone’s interest.
The only way there can be a business case made for sustainable ideas, is when they promote sales through consumer selection of a particular product based on “good will.” If an idea has commercial viability beyond the creation of good will, then it is not a sustainable idea, it is a commercial idea, and any properly balanced capitalist system will reward its implementation, it does not require additional regulation for force it, nor subsidized promotion. Profit motive will eventually cause its implementation.
I wish the public debate would shift from what is good for the environment, to what is good for people.
Peace. Freedom. Fun.
Jonathan-
Thanks for this kind post.
I wanted to join this convo and add a few words, since this is a regular topic of discussion at Holstee.
We’ve worked hard to understand the impact of each product we design, create or curate. The bottom line, as i think everyone here agrees- as long as things are created there will be an impact.
Still, consumer products is an enormous, multi-trillion dollar industry. It impacts everyone and everything on this planet and it’s only growing. The good news, the direction it moves is literally in our hands. Consumer’s have a voice in this system. It’s exercised every time we make a choice about what to buy. Best case scenario? Simply buy less stuff. In the event that we do purchase something new, we should remember that every dollar spent is like casting a vote. It sends a signal to a business, a company, a producer, a designer, an artist, a factory saying keep doing ‘this’. Our goal is to make consumers aware of the most positive alternatives, and to continuously raise that bar. We do this to rally enough ‘votes’ in this direction so that more and more folks get on board. We’re finding ways to raise this bar for ourselves- and anyone we work with is on board with that. Because of this, we realize we may not always be the cheapest option but when it comes to people+planet+product we’ll deliver the best value.
This is my passion and I’m always interested to learn how we can improve what we’re doing. Feel free to contact me mike@holstee.com
thanks, michael radparvar
co-founder, holstee
Mike,
I love your manifesto and the good intentions it represents. It is obvious that your heart and mind are in a good state. We should all strive to live with passion, peacefulness, and love held tenaciously in the present moment.
I wrote a similar note to myself (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=496003278456) for new years 2011 and I will teach these things to my children and try and impart a positive influence on all. Good on you for envisioning a positive set of values that can guide us all.
Life is simple. … wonderful manifesto
they had nice products but a little pricey
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