sustainable business
Natural Groceries Part 2: Spud! Organic Delivery Service
I had the chance to try out and review Spud! Local and Organic Delivery this past week. After reviewing Whole Foods in order to have something to compare Spud with, I had high hopes for the delivery service, but mixed results in the end. But more on that later.
Spud (short for Small Potatoes Urban Delivery) was dreamed up in 1995 by a sustainability business consultant determined to correct the imbalance between large scale and independent farming through alternative retail methods, i.e. direct home delivery. This method generates 80% less food waste, creating direct connections between food suppliers and customers, and reduces grocery store car trips saving people time and reducing carbon emissions. Spud claims to be North America’s greenest grocer, through buying local, buying organic, and being completely, 100% carbon neutral.
The site itself is kind of amazing. It calculates how far away every item you order comes from. You have the choice to order only locally sourced items, meaning they are grown or made within 500 miles of your zip code. › Continue reading
PeopleTowels: No they’re not made out of people…
I still remember what I initially thought when I first heard about PeopleTowels. I’m rather ashamed to admit it was something along the lines of “What, are they made of people?” Thankfully, no. They’re made for people, to empower people to cut back on the over consumption of paper towels. As co-founder Linda Lannon puts it, “It is the opposite of a paper towel, it is a PeopleTowel.”
Don’t pretend you haven’t walked into a public bathroom, either at a movie theater or at work, and cringed at the sight of the trash can literally overflowing with crumpled up paper towels. Even the air only blow driers use up a ton of energy and don’t get your hands properly dry anyway. Every once in a while you’ll see the waste-conscious, roller hand towels. But even then, I’ll always wonder whose germs I’m spreading over my freshly soaped and scrubbed hands.
The solution? PeopleTowels: the smart, personal, reusable hand towels. They’re conveniently small, roughly nine by nine inches. They’re well designed and brightly colored. They’re certified organic, fair trade cotton, made with 100% natural and nontoxic eco-friendly dyes. Absorbent, light weight and fast-drying, they come in a number of bright, fun, eco-chic designs. My personal favorite is the “this is not a tree” design, which really brings the point home. By using a PeopleTowel for one year, your actions alone are saving an entire quarter of a tree, conserving 250 gallons of water, and reducing landfill waste by 23 pounds. Those kinds of numbers add up pretty fast. › Continue reading
Green Jobs
image: flickr user OregonDOT
In today’s current economic situation, there has been a lot of hope (and hype) inspired by what’s being called “green-collar jobs”. This self described new industry would appear to be the much needed solution to not only the depressingly high unemployment rates, but also the need for alternate energy sources and even a more general, cultural environmental paradigm shift. But what is the real situation when it comes to the green job market today? What even qualifies as a “green collar job”? It’s sometimes all too easy to fall for perhaps over emphasized, environmentally significant buzzwords. Recognizing this, let’s start with a couple definitions.
In a Time article, What Is A Green-Collar Job, Exactly, Phil Angelides (chair of the green employment focused coalition, Apollo Alliance) defined it as a job that pays decent wages and benefits that can support a family, a job that is part of a real career path with potential for advancement, and a job that reduces waste and pollution and benefits the environment. Personally, I prefer Green Collar Blog‘s wider definition of “full-time, part-time, or internship opportunities that provide a social or environmental benefit. These jobs can be in the public, private, or non-profit sector and include jobs in areas such as energy efficiency, green building, natural resource management, recycling, and renewable energy.”
The Green Collar Blog definition includes a broader view of green, including sustainability and corporate social responsibility type jobs. It really all comes down to an argument over what the real definition of “green” is, but let’s save that for another blog. › Continue reading
Tools for Sustainable Investing
One way I like to try and make a difference is supporting sustainable companies that I can feel good about. There are two ways to do this, one is by buying their products, the other is by investing in their future and showing your support and investing in their future. The second way also leaves you an opportunity to benefit from the success of that company.
I try and keep an eye out for new and sustainable companies, environmentally responsible stocks and mutual funds that promote eco-friendly and socially conscious values. Honestly this has paid off for me much better (especially in the long term) than most of my other stock or mutual fund picks. I recently found and interesting investing tool called the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), which are a collection of global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide.
A partnership between the Dow Jones Dow Jones Indexes, STOXX Limited and SAM they provide asset managers benchmarks to manage sustainability portfolios. The nice thing is that you are able to access them as well for your investment decisions. You are able to look up companies and filter them by key factors outlined by the index.
For each company, the input sources of information for the Corporate Sustainability Assessment consist of the responses to the online questionnaire, submitted documentation, policies and reports, publicly available information and SAM Research analyst’s direct contact with companies. Each sustainability assessment is verified by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
New on the Green Scene
I get quite a few emails a day from green companies and individuals recommending their favorite products and sites, however, I just don’t have the time write feature articles on all of them. With so much great stuff to share, I figured I would just type up a quick summary of each so everybody can still benefit.
Positively Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio has taken great strides to help turn this lakefront town into one of the nation’s greenest cities, from the environmentally friendly hotels to a number of restaurants who exclusively cook with locally-grown food. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Cuyohoga River fire, Positively Cleveland has compiled a list of the 75 “green” things to love about Cleveland.
Forty years ago the Cuyahoga River caught on fire due to heavy pollution, but Cleveland has since turned this unfortunate incident into an opportunity by striving to make itself one of the nation’s greenest cities. After decades of hard work, Cleveland has grown to become a “green city on a blue lake.”
Gobble Green Vegan Food
Gobble Green is an online marketplace where you will find a diverse and frequently updated selection of healthy, pre-packaged vegan meals. Our food kits are packaged in environmentally friendly containers and shipped directly to your home.
Gobble Green is all about the protection of our environment, animal rights, and healthy eating. Gobble Green is right for anyone who is interested in leading a humane and environmentally responsible lifestyle. We are very proud of our menu and our message.
Buy Green
A great new green shopping resource, Buy Green even has its own green standards for the products it carries.
You will find eco friendly clothing, including bamboo clothing, green home environmental products including natural organic products and solar powered lights, just to name a few. Commercial buyers also have a wide selection of products from environmentally friendly bags for retailers to recycled paper products.
Recycled Fire Hose Gear
It’s amazing how many things we use out there that just get thrown away. Good thing there are creative and resourceful individuals who are willing to try to make products out of recycling just about anything.
Recycled sails and recycled inner tube bags are the hot ones right now, but I just found another unique niche, fire hoses.
Carrotmob Mobs Seattle for Sustainable Businesses
I am pretty excited about the first (of hopefully many) Carrotmob event at the Pike Place Place Brewery in Seattle, Washington. If you haven’t heard about Carrotmob, you should check out their website and get hooked into their sustainable consumer network.
Carrotmob organizes environmentally conscious individuals to reward businesses for being eco-friendly. One way they do this is to funnel large amounts of consumers to patronize a single business which has promised to become more sustainable. The means is negotiated beforehand by the Carrotmob team, which can range from upgrades to make a business more energy efficient, to converting over to renewable energy.
The first ever Carrotmob event in Seattle happens TODAY (sorry about the late notice) April 22, 2009 in tandem with a Seattle Greendrinks event at Pike Place Pub and Brewery.
Buy, Sell, Trade and Get Rid of Stuff – Recycle and Trade Spring Cleaning Treasures
I was going through my place doing a little spring cleaning (in spring, can you imagine?) and I ended up with 3 different categories of items:
- Items I want to sell (and I think i can)
- Items I want to sell (and I think they are pretty much worthless)
- Items I just want to get rid of
If you can believe it, there are actually very specialized places to do business with all three of these types of items. For items that actually have some value and could fetch a fair amount of cash, I usually head straight to craigslist, ebay or amazon
