Green gift guides are destroying the environment. Or at least that’s what PSFK editor-in-chief Piers Fawkes would have you believe. In an editorial titled “Tis the Season to Avoid Green Gift Guides,” Fawkes blazes with the fervor of the recently converted—a result, he admits, of working with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project on ways to harness gaming behaviors for the collective good.
“What has happened to the environmental movement?” he asks. “It seems to be all about top 10 green-product lists and there’s little about who’s really causing damage to our planet. Blogs and magazines seem to be keen to wave the latest cool eco-packaging ideas in front of our noses but ignore the deeper environmental issues at the companies that are making the products that are wrapped in it.” In short, bah humbug.