Protect Our Kids

The emerging Green concept seems to be becoming based on the wishes of those terrible tyrants, the babies of the world. All of a sudden, humanity’s nicer but noisier and fussier members are going Green. This applies to organic nappies, organic baby food and the all important organic toys, which are now literally covering the world.

For parents, there are quite a few upsides to the new Green babies. Not having to spend hours worrying about possible allergies to mysterious chemicals, El Cheapo Crud baby food and shrapnel-producing toys is a relief. The real stunner is that the big corporations are also getting on board with the new market. Maybe babies don’t know they’re running the Fortune 500, but the Fortune 500 does. This is the most sensitive market on Earth, and if baby wants something, baby will get it.

What looks like an uncharacteristic outbreak of mass sanity in the consumer market is actually based on good business and good economics, as well as a general recognition that “Green is good”. The basic fact is that sustainable baby products, in addition to their low risk factors, are a lot cheaper to produce, and require less processing. Good food is good food, for example, and nature doesn’t really need a lot of help in producing good baby food. So the new demand for organic baby food is a win-win.

Even more importantly, the renewable organic foods are guaranteed supplies. Babies may not be an endangered species, but crops can be. Biofuels have been eating up oil producing crops, and reducing the food production. That’s not the case with organic foods, which are all about eating, not fuel. Organic foods are also grown by highly motivated professional growers, not cash-strapped farmers, so the production is truly locked in.

Most consumers are well aware of the concepts of product safety. Parents are also well aware that those concepts seem to be largely theoretical with low quality toys. Toy buying for babies was at one point in history more like risk management than parenting. There was a move to quality, and the organic and sustainable toys, simple fabrics, good wooden toys, and good design produced a surge of Green toys. Even the good big toy manufacturers were taken by surprise, and the smaller Green manufacturers were swamped by demand.

The babies didn’t comment much about all this, but apparently they liked the toys. A strange new menagerie of things from the land of the little guys now covers the world. Dinosaurs,  hordes of kindly and thankfully washable teddies, and a vast array of online toys and playthings have taken over the nursery. That, for the record, is a real market benchmark. The Green toys have completely overturned the old shoddy/cheap garbage motif, and the best toy manufacturers have been busily ditching the remaining fossils as fast as possible.

People really are voting with nappies. The world turns on what makes the little kids happy, and that, let’s face it, is the way it should be.

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