Humboldt's Legacy

While big-box retailers in the Canadian city of Winnipeg leave large, unsustainable footprints, 'Humboldt's Legacy' treads much more lightly. Located on a quiet, elm-lined street with an organic food co-operative and a wholegrain bakery for neighbours; Humboldt's is a sanctuary for green consumers.

Humboldt's Legacy was founded on the belief that consumers can influence the shift to a more sustainable society by changing their purchasing habits. It gives consumers access to products that support the shift towards an alternative, sustainable economy.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines the term 'purchasing power' as: '1. A person's financial ability to make a purchase. 2. The amount that a sum of money etc. can purchase.' At Humboldt's Legacy, the term could be defined more broadly as 'a consumer's power to effect change when purchase decisions are based on environmentally, economically and socially responsible criteria'.

'This is a very democratic enterprise,' says Willi Kurtz, Humboldt's co-owner. 'Our whole concept of this store is that the consumer sets the tone for the economy. For instance, we constantly hear people demanding certain products, or an end to child labour and so forth. That's a very simple thing that would happen tomorrow if our shopping patterns would change. And that's what we've seen here every day for ten years.'

RealMedia Clip 1: Do consumers recognize the power they have?

The belief that our current economic system and patterns of consumption are impeding a shift to a more sustainable and just society is what led Willi Kurtz and his wife, Chris, to look for an alternative.

'Our goal when we started was to take this concept as far as we could,' he recalls. 'Not just to run a small family business, which is what we still do, but, naïve as it sounds, to change the world.'

For over decade, Humboldt's Legacy has been providing environmentally friendly household products to Winnipeg consumers. According to Kurtz, the economy as it exists today seems to be intent on fostering social inequality and environmental degradation.

In striving to promote sustainable living, Humboldt's Legacy supports a wide range of community events. In addition, Willi and Chris have constructed a super-energy-efficient home.

'It's the only house like it in Canada,' he claims.

For the past eight years Humboldt's Legacy has been based in a brick building on Westminster Avenue in Winnipeg. Its shelves and display space are filled with products that are environmentally and socially responsible alternatives to the items consumers purchase every day.

'Most of our customers have a pretty good grounding in all of this,' says Kurtz. 'We have a newsletter that goes out a couple of times a year which discusses various issues.

'In terms of education, we are very careful about how we discuss things with our customers. Everyone comes from different vantage points. Everyone brings their own beliefs to this, and we want to make it open to everyone. So we stay away from a heavy-handed way of doing things. This is entirely a free-will store. We just want to make people feel welcome.'

Humboldt's Legacy is an unconventional name for a retail store. However, the name symbolizes the core values of the operation. In the 140 years since Baron Alexander von Humboldt's death, most of the world has forgotten about, or never heard of, his name. Alexander von Humboldt is the man many consider the founding father of the scientific disciplines of physical geography, climatology, ecology and oceanography. He was one of the first true naturalists, an explorer and, according to Kurtz, a Renaissance man. His scientific papers attempted to provide a comprehensive physical picture of the universe. Among other things, he believed in the interconnectedness and complexity of natural systems.

'He was born into quite a bit of wealth but by the end of his life he died penniless,' says Kurtz. 'He had given it all away in his travels. If he showed up somewhere and people were suffering from a medical ailment, he would build a medical treatment centre and staff it. It was a very localised way to help people.'

Humboldt's Legacy opens its doors each day believing that the humanistic and natural principles promoted by Baron von Humboldt should not be forgotten.

RealMedia Clip 2: Does supporting community in a localized way, like you're doing, tie into fostering and supporting activism?

There are major challenges involved in operating a business like Humboldt's Legacy. When consumers are faced with a trade-off among product attributes, the environment almost always loses. Additionally, green consumers (i) are usually reluctant to pay extra for environmentally sound products, (ii) typically assume these products are less effective than non-green brands, (iii) will tolerate only minimal inconvenience associated with green products, and (iv) will not go out of their way to find sources for green products.

Although Kurtz had no previous experience of running a business, he attributes his determination to succeed in part to his parents having been entrepreneurs.

'You have to be able to settle your stomach when things go wrong - and things go wrong all the time,' he says.

RealMedia Clip 3: How is the store doing?

Humboldt's Legacy opened in the late 1980s at a time when concern for the environment was growing rapidly. During that time, Kurtz reckons there were probably 300 stores similar to his open in North America. Within five years, 90 percent of them had closed, succumbing for the most part to the fickle tastes of the consumer.

The first five years were a struggle for Humboldt's, too, and even now unexpected problems arise. But Kurtz is quick to identify the trait that keeps their business on track.

'It's almost entirely stubbornness,' he explains. 'When I said that those 300 stores opened and 280 closed I know that Chris and I could have salvaged 95 percent of those bankruptcies just by grit, just through hanging on. In the last couple of weeks one supplier refused to honour its contract, and we took a very significant financial hit. But the next day we showed up and opened the door.'

Another problem frequently encountered is inconsistent supplies.

RealMedia Clip 4: What are some examples of products you carry?

The Humboldt's Legacy product range is diverse, but designed for anyone wanting to live in a sustainable society. Customers can find recycled paper; soaps, shampoos and detergents in refillable containers; clothing and bedding made from organic cotton; seeds that support biodiversity and organic agriculture; books and magazines providing information on a plethora of green subjects; and many other items.

When asked if they have any competition, Kurtz is in no doubt. 'Our competition is the majors,' he says. 'That's what we've always said. We are trying to draw consumers from major supermarkets and that's always been our goal. So the city's full of competition.

How does Kurtz reconcile the ethics of the store with the far less sustainable business practices that consumers accept so readily today?

'The trick is balancing all those things,' he says. The question is how much you compromise in achieving your daily goals while still staying true to your original vision. For me it's not a trick because I'm stubborn and, in some ways, just plain stupid. We could make the compromise and carry a lot of items manufactured in the Third World, for instance; that would be a lot cheaper. We'd hear the odd complaint, but our business would soar. We could carry soaps that would be an animal fat-based soap and it would be 30 or 40 percent cheaper and we'd sell ten times as much soap. For me to say 'I won't do that', is it noble or just stupid? It depends on how you look at it.'

RealMedia Clip 5: Why aren't the products you carry distributed more widely, aren't more mainstream?

With a growing number of businesses recognizing the economic benefits of adopting sustainable business strategies, does Kurtz envision a time when Humboldt's Legacy will become obsolete?

'I guess that was my initial hope when we started,' he admits. 'But I think that even if our society evolves to the point where we really do find a sustainable situation, I think we will still see significant pollution. We will know how low the pH in a lake can go and still keep the fish alive. So it's really a question of what we can get away with. We still justify in our own minds a global economy that has cut out the poorest half of the population. It would take an evolutionary step, I think almost as great as moving from the apes to where we are now, for everyone to be included and to have a decent standard of living.'

For more information contact:

Humboldt's Legacy
887 Westminster Avenue
Winnipeg
Manitoba
Canada
Phone: (204) 772-1404