There are a lot of pretty cool features to the new website including tips and suggestions for “greener” ways to approach buying and selling, but what I find the most compelling is the open invitation for people to participate in an interactive discussion right there on the site, called Green Team Talks, about sustainable shopping and sharing ideas with each other. Team members also are invited to take “eBay Green Team Challenges” to learn how small, everyday changes can have a large, positive impact on the environment.

I’ve been following this one internally for a little while now and was looking forward to being able to announce it here on Ink. What began as a proactive effort by 40 eBay employees in 2007, has grown into a full-blown company-wide initiative. The eBay Green Team (of which I became a member only recently) now boasts over 1000 employees worldwide and, when the company needed more office space, they were the driving force behind the construction of “Mint”, the first building built to LEED Gold Standards in San Jose, CA, including the city’s largest solar panel installation.

To help kick off the campaign both offline and into a broader community, eBay is working with Hearst Magazines to launch “30 Days of Green,” a month-long initiative to raise visibility among Hearst readers around the issue of sustainable consumption.

I’ve talked in the past about how I felt that eBay and its community of buyers and sellers essentially represents the biggest recycler on the planet with people buying and selling used goods on a previously unprecedented scale. eBay CEO, John Donahoe agrees:

“eBay’s global community of more than 86 million active buyers and sellers support more sustainable commerce every day,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “The greenest products are often ones that already exist, and eBay creates a global market for used, refurbished, vintage and even new products from excess retail inventory. eBay buyers and sellers trade $2,000 worth of goods every second, a majority of which are used, refurbished or vintage. The eBay Green Team effort, which was inspired by our own community and employees’ accomplishments, will continue to encourage these behaviors and promote new ways of thinking about shopping green.”

I’ll keep an eye on the discussion board over on the new website. It will be interesting to see a public conversation that is driven primarily by content from the Green Team members both inside and outside the company. I will also be intrigued to see if a dominant voice evolves there over time into a kind of moderator role for the group… right now it looks very unregulated and unstructured – most likely designed that way to promote a discussion actually worth having.

Kudos to the folks involved in making this happen. I know this labor of love was a big project to bring to life. Congratulations!

Cheers,
RBH

There are some pointed evaluations being made this afternoon regarding three bills currently being reviewed today by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime, terrorism, and homeland security. First, an interesting blog post by New York Times’ Brad Stone was followed up by an even more alarming post over on the NetChoice blog regarding what this could mean for ecommerce and independent sellers.

Apparently, Joe LaRocca, a mouthpiece for large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target (his official title is Vice President of Loss Prevention for the NRF), claimed that selling on the Internet is so addictive, people are getting hooked and satisfying their addiction by entering a life of organized Internet crime; pretty much equating eBay sellers to drug-addicted criminals.

According to the NRF press release, “all three bills would address organized retail crime, in which groups of professional thieves steal merchandise from stores on a large scale and resell the goods in venues ranging from flea markets to the Internet.”

In reading through the release, it seems to me that these bills are completely avoiding the focus of the real source – the retailers themselves. By placing legal ramifications on online, secondary marketplaces like eBay (and, more importantly, the small and/or individual genuine online seller), one would think the same would be placed on the actual retailers themselves. Thieves have to get their hands on the inventory somewhere before they attempt to sell it, right?

eBay issued the following statement in response to the NRF bills:

“Selling stolen goods anywhere, online or on the street corner, is already illegal so the point of the proposed legislation is more about limiting competition. Big retailers don’t like the honest sellers who rely on online marketplaces like eBay to provide consumers with more choices and better deals. Attempting to sell stolen goods on eBay is one of the quickest ways to get caught. eBay’s marketplace is incredibly open and transparent. We also have teams dedicated to collaborating with retailers and law enforcement to investigate and prosecute individuals who abuse our platform. The proposed legislation would restrict honest competition and limit consumer choice while doing very little to effectively address the issue of retail theft.”

I agree that marketplaces like eBay have a responsibility to help prevent Organized Retail Crime but I think it is a shared responsibility among all parties that play a role in getting a product from manufacturer to consumer.

Cheers,
RBH

Related Reads:
Battle Over Stolen Goods Sold Online Goes to Washington
Big Box Blame Game
Debunking Big Retail’s Truthiness