Absorptive Capacity

I have noticed a rise in awareness of the ecological trend in the Swedish media. You might even speak of a development of Ecomedia (not to be confused with the EU ICT project, nor the Austrian blog, nor the Canadian media company, nor the book by Sean Cubitt) far away from the traditional look and feel in this segment. First there was Camino, a magazine made in Göteborg focusing on sustainable consumption. Next came EcoQueen, who’s attitude towards ecological aspects could at best be described as more playful. Even Vecko-Revyn is publishing a piece on ecological dresses from several Swedish fashion companies. However, they focus more on H&M than thoroughly ecological clothing company DEMCollective (also based in Göteborg) who act as true societal entrepreneurs using their company to impact the clothing industry.

Of course, if you are really into ecology, there are many more magazines you can browse through such as WWF and National Geographic or even our Frisksport Journal (as seen in the picture).

But keeping up with the trend is not always that easy. I remember participating in a workshop last year at the “The Power of Positive Change” conference in Orlando. The workshop was organised by the design company Ideo and our task was to design some kind of device or process to help an employee at Al Gore’s TV company Current to become more sustainable in his daily life. We were introduced to this “extreme user” though a film showing us a typical day in his life. However, I suspect that unfortunately he wasn’t that extreme at all. He drove to the office, although he lived just a few kilometres away. Breakfast was bought at a coffee shop and taken to the office. His dustbin was filled with paper mugs. And so on. I do hope Ideo told him about all the clever ideas we developed during the workshop.

Paper media of course has an advantage when it comes to absorption (yes, I know that’s not what’s meant by absorptive capacity but I couldn’t resist the pun). This, however, has not deterred the Swedish e-newspaper project DigiNews. But what is really the most ecological way to consume news? Any comments on that?