Environment

A 2-post collection

A few things I learned this week

A handful of things I learned in the last week:

  • Carpetright was taken (back) over by its original founder, Lord Philip Harris who grew up in Peckham near where I live. He started with a market stall in Peckham, and built it up over time to become the most successful carpet retailer in the U.K. The story of the takeover and Lord Harris’s empire is outlined in The Times. It’s also available to Apple News+ subscribers.
  • By switching to using a compostable toilet you can save 27,000 litres of fresh clean drinking water per year.
  • I was on the “Can marketing save the world?” Podcast talking about EcoSend and responsible email marketing.
  • Nestle built a supermarket on a barge to sell confectionary to communities along the Amazon river. Years on, these local communities have experienced greater rates of obesity as locals began to prefer processed foods over their native diet. I learned this while reading the truly life-changing book: Ultraprocessed.
  • The Olympic opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 games happened on Friday. Despite many dismissive reports of the ceremony, I thought it was full of incredible moments. The Eiffel Tower looked stunning, and I have no idea how they have achieved the floating balloon for the Olympic cauldron!

A quote for the week ahead

"If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it."

— Charles Kettering (an American inventor and the holder of 186 patents)

Email is not free

For pretty much ever, it's been free to send email.

But just because there's no charge on your credit card every time you send an email, it doesn't mean there is no cost.

The costs of email are hidden.

Sending email is not free in terms of the time and attention of the recipient. Some studies show that people spend over 25% of their working day handling email. How much is their time worth?

Sending email is not free in terms of the data that can be gathered by other parties along the way. Gmail is "free" for good reason.

And an eye-opener for me this week, after the hottest day on record in London: sending email is not free in terms of its impact to the planet.

But despite all of this, at some point, we told ourselves email is free. Look at your inbox (and, if you dare, your spam folder) to see how many people treat email as if there are no costs at all.

We’d do better as senders, and as recipients to think of email as being just as costly as posting a letter in the mail.

Because in many ways, it costs a whole lot more.

P.S. I realise there is some irony if you are receiving this post via email. I hugely appreciate you subscribing, and I hope it was worth the cost on this occasion.