sustainable style foundation*

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From Sustainable Sean...Being the Lifestyle Ambassador & Co-founder of SSF and all, I thought Josh Dorfman had written the perfect book when he penned his first opus, The Lazy Environmentalist back in 2007. Many authors have attempted to write the next big guide to going green, but none quite compared to Josh's first 'guide to easy, stylish, green living'. As it turns out...Josh himself has written the next big guide to going green...and its AWESOME! Once again, Josh is able to make going green totally down to earth and accessible. When Joe the Plumber decides to go green, I'm pretty sure he'll read The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget. In his new book, Josh once again runs down the list of the best products and resources for green living, but this time he's on an even higher mission...going green while saving both time and money. Clearly, given the economic situation we're all in, his new book is timely but it is also a resource that will serve as a guide in any era as it is essentially a road map for how to make affordable and sustainable lifestyle choices whether you're a college senior living on student loans or a hard-working soccer (or hockey) Mom. Recently laid off or just getting out of school but still want to get your green on? Don't fret, Josh even has a section on the booming green job market. Once you've dog-eared your dozens of pages, hit the computer and surf over to Josh's website The Lazy Environmentalist to get new tidbits and pointers. Even better, tune in to Josh on the Sundance Channel starting in June of 2009.

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from Sustainable Sean...

Once again NBC/Universal (NBCU) is going CRAZY green on Earth Day as part of their Green is Universal initiative. Even better, each of Universal's 'brands' has its own green page as well...take NBC's green page and the Sci Fi Channel for example. NBCU actually has quite a bit of programming throughout the year but each year on Earth Day, they go hard core green. This year is no different with green (literally sometimes) showing up all over the place whether its the logo during the Today show to special editions of "The More You Know", to Oprah's Earth Day show.

At very long last I have found a solution to a dilemma greater than paper vs. plastic - what to clean your dishes with. Yes, I do use dish clothes but now and then you need something with a little more texture to get the caked on stuff off. Not being a synthetics fan I've steered away from some of the scary sponges out there. But oh how I've missed that green scratchy side. Now Twist has saved the day with their Loofah Sponge #50. It has a sponge on one side and a loofah on the other...just abrasive enough to get those stubborn scraps off your favorite kitchen kettle. I've had mine now for about two weeks and love, Love, LOVE it!!! Twist cleaning products have been around for a while but snazzy #50 is fairly new. I've now seen them at Whole Foods Market, coops, and local green markets so keep an out eye out for them.

For all you Seattle SSF fans, pick up this month's issue of Seattle Magazine and check out Kelly Moore's latest contribution to eco-entertaining. SSF Co-founders Rebecca Luke and Sean Schmidt, along with friends and green gurus Lynne Barker and Megan Griffiths, chat about environmental issues and green giving for Earth Day. You can get a sneak peak online: "Entertaining: green goes glam".

I just got back from NYC where one thing you see a lot of are bags; Retail shopping bags, plastic bags, etc. This trip I experimented with using my Longchamp shopper and stuffing as much of my shopping in that one bag as possible. I did it. I carried my purchases around with me all day. It felt very chic and I felt oh so much better knowing that I had done my part that day. We have heard so much in the media about the plastic bag and their damaging effect on the earth. And, even though many retail bags are paper, it is still great practice to have a shopping tote for clothing as well as for your groceries. We have highlighted a lot of great alternatives to shopping bags on the site over the past few year...check them out. Remember to pick out something fun that expresses you and your personality.

(Cristina Sacco - Glasgow, Scotland) This week I have seen a couple of dubious statements made in what claims to be an ethical consumer magazine. It promoted the hand-knit items of two companies as examples of more ethical shopping choices. One company is well-known and has Fair Trade credentials. The other one is selling a hand-knit cabled cardigan for £45. Hypothetically, let's say each cardigan costs the company £25, and of that, the company pays for the processing, the yarn, and the labor involved in hand-knitting a cabled cardigan.

Here's where I have to confess that I am a knitter and I know how long it takes to knit an adult-sized cabled cardigan.

Even at wholesale prices, the yarn is a significant cost, so I have difficulty believing that the people knitting these sweaters are working under good conditions, being paid a fair wage. To be fair, the error here is in the magazine, the manufacturer makes no claims of ethical production, the magazine does. If being hand-made is promoted as an ethical attribute of a product (whether by the manufacturer or by a magazine), think twice about the labor involved and check to see if the manufacturer has Fair Trade credentials. Or, if all else fails, learn to knit or crochet your own cardigans, but I will write more on that subject another time.

Ok, I have an addendum this week, so that I don't get renamed "The Skeptical Shopper":

Since Ari mentioned disposable tissues in her latest Green Revelation post (Waste Not Want Not), I thought it was a good time to reveal my little-known affection for the handkerchief. Of my small handkerchief collection, my favorite is by Sukie. Sukie hankies are 100% cotton (not organic), printed in the UK, are easy to wash by hand in the sink, and dry very quickly. They are also beautiful and soft, and make having a cold just a little bit more tolerable.

(Ari, Seattle, WA) First, welcome to my new blog, "Green Revelation". This is my first entry to I hope you enjoy. Now, on to business...

I have a confession to make: I am a terrible person. Now, I don’t produce child porn, I’m not in charge of a human trafficking ring or anything--I don’t even honk my horn when I’m driving (which I don’t do very often). See, these things are all obvious, big terrible things in which to partake. My crimes are much more slippery. I commit them in thousands of tiny decisions each week—decisions I make because I’m tired, or broke, or late and unorganized. It’s only after a while, when I’ve realized how far I’ve slipped from my original intentions that the guilt of my sins begins to weigh on me. It’s only then when I start feeling like a hypocrite, when the guilt makes me clench my jaw at night and I get defensive over every little thing, that I know I need to make a change.

I am a young, well-educated, recently graduated 22-year-old woman. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. My best friend has convinced me that the apocalypse is coming, perhaps related to peak oil, rapidly approaching in 2012. Last year I wrote a paper on the true state of organics, where I investigated how good organic farming really is for the environment. For the first time in my life I am living on my own and I have total control over what I do with my money and myself, but I am not upholding my beliefs. It is time for me to try harder.

Last night my roommate and I got in a fight over some vegetables. On the way home, we happened by this fruit and vegetable stand with awesome looking stuff at dirt-cheap prices. We stocked up, and I was thrilled at the giant load and the tiny bill. Later, he lamented over all the pesticides we’d be eating, all the guilt he felt for not buying local and organic stuff. It’s not fair trade. It’s genetically modified. It’s covered in pesticides. It’s from so far away. Think of all the oil! And the workers! And your body!

I got mad. We can’t afford all organic food! It’s so privileged to be able to! I’m not a yuppie! Fine, let’s just throw it all away, would you like that!!??

It’s a tough thing, to be criticized for the way you live. It’s tough, after making all these rationalizations as to why, at this particular store, at this particular time, it’s okay to buy conventional. It’s especially hard to see the all the milks, side by side, ranging from $2.99 to $5.99 and picking the more expensive one. But the thing is, regardless of all the ways in which I think it might be better for me, when I make the decision to buy conventional, I am not alone. If I can’t make the change, as a young, educated person who believes all the hoopla and searches “apocalypse” and “2012 peak oil” just to freak herself out on a regular basis, what does that mean for the rest of the population? If it’s so easy for me to make it okay not to buy local organics and other green products, many other people must be making the same decisions.

For me, it all comes down to this: If you type “peak oil” into wikipedia, it will tell you that depending on how quickly supplies become scarce, and depending on how much we have prepared alternative energy sources for the occasion (which isn’t much), the chain reaction might cause a global depression that may lead to the collapse of global industrial civilization as we know it. Now, regardless of whether all of this actually happens, things have got to change. It might already be too late! In any case, I want to start trying to live differently now. I want to save energy, reduce my impact on the planet, and stop benefiting from the exploitation of workers worldwide. And if that means buying milk for $5 instead of $3, well, that doesn’t seem too bad anymore, does it?

In today’s world, we are hearing the word “green” and “sustainable” alot. We are hearing these words attached mostly to what we can buy to save the world. While this is a terrific start, there is more to be considered. Recently, a client of mine forwarded an email of a video that had been shown in her grade school child’s classroom “The Story of Stuff”. It is a fabulous and entertaining way to check out the production of “stuff” and how it impacts us socially and environmentally.

In 2008, I plan to devote a majority of my blogs to what we can do to save the world and keep it consistent with our personal “style”.

Our fall interns, Anne-Marie and Olivia, worked hard on creating fantastic list of Sustainable Style Living Tips and I am going to put their work to great use. Stand by for a new tip every week.

Also, there are several books out there to check out as well; if you do a quick search for “ways to live green”, a good collection of books and other blogs will come up. For us at SSF, it’s about looking at the big picture, beyond green.

I look forward to your comments and an on-going dialogue about how we can continue to save the world in style.

We get some cool products to review here at SSF, but I have to say...this one takes first prize. Its the Solio H1000, a hybrid device charger that takes power from multiple sources (including the sun!), holds power, and then powers multiple small devices like cell phones, iPods, etc. I'm testing it out on an extended holiday road trip to Utah and Arizona. I received a sporty orange version of the charger you see to the left...very sassy. I charged it a bit via my laptop last night but during the days I'm going full on solar with the charger up on my dashboard. Its fantastic! Its hip, its cool, its small so packs away easily in a bag (or purse) and doesn't get in the way, and it provides power any time, anywhere. All the various adapter cables are great too, this thing will charge any small device! A couple folks have seen it along the way on the dashboard (Oregon still requires attendants to pump gas for you) and they think it's way cool too. Best of all, I found a sporty little orange bag (I think it may have been a pencil or cosmetic bag) for it at a secondhand store in Sierra Vista, AZ that holds the Solio and all its accessories. Now that's sustainable style!

If you haven't run across Bond Alternative Wedding Magazine yet, their current issue is a sustainable style must-have and a true guide to marriage in the new millennium. As the only fashion (high fashion I might add) magazine and website to include same-gender and multi-ethnic couples, it offers a fresh and modern perspective on that more than four letter word...commitment. White lace dresses are sparse but stunning Prada and Marc Jacobs abound. Lots of fabulous food, wind, flowers, gifts, and decor. But the icing on this cake is that the issue AND the icing on the wedding cake are all eco-friendly.

We love these fabric-softening dryer sheets by method; they use natural plant oils instead of animal tallow like most dryer sheets, and come in that great method packaging. Even though they're less harmful than the conventional alternative, they're still something extra to throw away, but the folks at Apartment Therapy LA have come up with an innovative way to reuse them. After noticing that they look a lot like sweeping pads (like Swiffer; method also has their own version that are compostable!), they discovered that they work a lot like them, too. "Just gently wipe them across fabrics on furniture or clothing, and the used dryer sheets do a decent job of pulling off pet hair. And do you know you can even use a used dryer sheet to scrub away soap scum from shower doors?" Wow, we didn't know that, but those are a couple good reasons not to pitch the sheets straight from the dryer. Good tip! [method] via [Apartment Therapy LA]

Just launched last week, Organic Assistant pledges to be "the one stop shop for all your organic needs" (in the UK, at least) and looks like it's off to a pretty good start. They've got over 30,000 products from suppliers across the UK in their database, and are adding to it all the time. The concept is fairly simple, but quite useful: access information about organic goods from the comfort of your home or office, rather than trawling through search engines and website to locate organic food near your home or a company that makes organic beauty care products that’s 200 miles away. To make it a more dynamic, complete experience, users can register with the site to store details of products you have found and who was selling them, making it easy to get back to previously-searched (and found) products. The organic world, more than ever, is now at your fingertips! [Organic Assistant] via [New Consumer]

If you're reading this right now, you're using a computer, and, if you're anything like me, sometimes your computer gets left on. So, what does it cost to leave it running while you run to the grocery store or chat with your sister on the phone? Jeff Atwood, who writes the blog Coding Horror, posted a piece crunching some numbers for computer energy use -- between his server & home theater PC, he has at least two on, all the time. He figures that his server costs about $16 per month, which doesn't sound like a huge number, but that adds up to $200 each year -- yikes! So, how do you keep it down? A couple quick 'n easy things will make a big difference: configure your hard drive (and monitor) to sleep after a few minutes of inactivity, upgrade to a more efficient power supply, and perhaps the biggest one, unplug it (or put it on a power strip and pull the plug on that) when it isn't in use. Phantom power (or vampire power) can add ten or twenty percent to your electricity use, just for sitting there! Read the full article for more details, and don't let your PC run up your energy bill. [Coding Horror] via [Digg]

Offering an open forum for chatting about climate change, environment, responsible business practices, sustainable development and more, SustainabilityForum.com is a burgeoning community of sustainability enthusiasts that aims to bring people together in defense of the planet and its people. They've got sections for SSF's specialty, sustainable living, as well as forums for the latest news, general discussion, a job/internship and general advice marketplace. What's better: local or organic? What's the story with carbon offsets? How else can you limit your carbon footprint? Click on over and check out what other sustainable lifestylers are doing to up the sustainable ante. [SustainablilityForum.com]

I just received my certificate from Native Energy for offsetting my carbon emissions from my Toronto trip. I know it's a little crazy getting all excited about receiving it but yes, was quite happy to find the pdf in my inbox this morning. I've done carbon offsets before but all you get is a receipt so this fancy certificate is quite nice. I'm addicted. Now I want to offset EVERYTHING, maybe even double offset by buying tree-plantings too. More offsets, give me MORE OFFSETS!