Haagen-Dazs, Bee-Dependent Ice Cream, & A Fab Website

Haagen-Dazs—maker of what is, in my opinion, the world's best chocolate ice cream—has launched a stunningly beautiful website to promote its recent efforts to fund honeybee-related research aimed at solving the "mystery" of CCD.Along with a listing of the "bee-dependent" ingredients used in their ice cream (honey being obvious, along with almonds, strawberries, raspberries and other bee-pollinated foods), the site includes a fun "build-your-own-bee" feature. Can you find my drag-queen bee?I'm not normally one to tout corporations—my status as an unapologetic MacHead being the sole exception—but credit where it's due: this site design is gorgeous and right now I am drowning out the horrid urban sound-scape of honking car-morons and jackhammers with the site's low-key, chittering bird songs and cricket calls.
If Haagen-Dazs puts the same degree of thought and care into its efforts to protect the honeybees as it has in developing this website, we're off to a good start. Let's hope that all companies and individuals whose livelihood depends upon the free labor we extract from honeybees step up to the plate to support not only longterm research, but immediate actions to protect the ecosystem on which we all—human and honeybee alike—depend (a fact that needs no further study). This effort needs to go well beyond PR and funky web design to bring real-world protections to an environment in desperate need of intensive care. Building a virtual bee is cool; building a healthy world and clean environment is—as they say in those Mastercard ads—priceless.

Clorox Buys Burt's Bees—The Juicy Backstory

“The magic of living life for me is, and always has been, the magic of living on the land, not in the magic of money.”—Burt Shavitz, co-founder of Burt's Bees

I've always wanted to know the story behind Burt's Bees, whose lip balms have been close companions of mine over many a dry and windy season.
It's been impossible not to notice the company's meteoric expansion over the past couple of years; whereas once the product was found mainly in health food stores and food coops, it now seems that kiosks and endcaps featuring Burt's Bees products are springing up everywhere, from large grocery store chains like Hannafords and Whole Foods to fancy cosmetics vendors in midtown Manhattan. All this has made me wonder who that bearded man on the Burt's Bees package really is and what lies behind the exponential growth of this brand. (Which, by the way, delivers an excellent product.) I've also wondered about the beekeeping practices utilized at Burt's Bees, which emphasizes the idea of "all-natural" in its branding strategy.

Beekeeping practices are not the main subject of the fascinating New York Times article about Burt's Bees that appeared this weekend, but in the article you will learn:

* That all the beeswax used in Burt's Bees products comes from Ethiopia;

* Plenty of (semi-)juicy gossip about the company's co-founders;

* Details of the rather amazing saga of the company's recent purchase by Clorox for a whopping $913 million;

* That Burt Shavitz lives (by choice) in a modestly renovated turkey coop;

* The range of sustainable practices undertaken by Burt's Bees;

* and much, much more.

The article provides an intriguing glimpse into the odd bedfellows coming into being as large corporations seek to "shack up" with green businesses that offer impressive bottom lines and, potentially, a green-hued halo effect for even the most eco-hostile corporation. Only time will tell if Clorox will make good on its promise to embrace some of Burt's Bees earth-friendly practices, or whether this is just another instance of bleaching the green out of Green.