Environmental Leader

eBay has launched two green initiatives aimed at positioning itself as a conservationist in the eyes of consumers. The online marketplace has unveiled a new green shopping hub that will help consumers find millions of green products, and launched its eBay Green Team Challenge that commits the online giant to save up to a quarter of a million acres of rainforest for consumers who reuse.

Starbucks also has a new marketing effort that will generate funds for rainforest preservation.

For the first 250,000 people that pledge to reuse on eBay, the company, in collaboration with Team Earth, will protect an acre of rainforest in their name.

Green products sold at the new green shopping site can be pre-owned, vintage or refurbished; made from sustainable materials or energy or other resource saving products. In 2008, eBay launched its first green marketplace for shoppers of environmentally friendly and fair-trade goods in partnership with fair-trade company World of Good. It launched its expanded “green team” the following year.

To promote eBay’s new challenge and gain more consumer awareness, eBay is partnering with Hearst Magazines for its month-long “30 Days of Green” program. eBay will run a three-page ad insert in the April issues of all 15 Hearst magazines, reaching more than 74 million readers.

These ads will feature a variety of eBay products and educate consumers about the green attributes of buying used, along with highlighting eBay’s core sustainability principle that the greenest product is often the one that already exists.

eBay worked with Cooler, a company that specializes in carbon footprint calculations using financial data, to determine the carbon footprint of reusing products found on eBay in comparison with that of comparable items purchased new.

Starbucks also has implemented a program to save more forests. In collaboration with Conservation International, the coffee house chain is launching a new Starbucks Card made with 80 percent post-industrial recycled materials. Starbucks will donate 5 cents to Conservation International to help save forests each time consumers pay with the “Preservation” Card from March 9 to Dec. 31.

Both the eBay and Starbucks campaigns will allow consumers to support the Team Earth challenge to “protect an acre” of rainforest.