Sustainablog

Large events, from weddings to corporate functions to even your parents’ 50th wedding anniversary bash, provide a double-edged sword when it comes to going green. On one side, as events like these often focus around food, such gatherings provide the ideal opportunity to showcase local, seasonal and organic fare. But then there’s the other dark side of the catering and event planner world, where efficiency, cost and disposability typically rule the bottom line.

Enter Greg Christian, owner of Greg Christian Catering and Events, Chicago’s “Conscious Caterer” on a mission to bring the healthy, sustainable food message to the event scene. Wearing his white chef coat like a cloak of armor, Christensen proves that commitment, passion for healthy food and a dedication to constantly questioning and evolving can prompt true change.

Christian’s journey toward sustainability sparked when his young daughter’s asthma improved significantly through eating organic foods. “But I was living two lives, eating organic at home and using conventional foods in my businesses,” Christian confesses. “I realized I couldn’t live these two separate lives anymore and I started literally diagnosing where my food inputs came from on a world map.” This mapping system prompted not only change, but a deep sense of humility for Christian. “I’m humble and honored to be part of the global food system,” adds Christian, an emotion fueling his catering company’s constant quest to buy from area farmers, run a zero waste kitchen and continually work towards further greening his operations.

Planning an event you would like to keep green? Here are five tips to get started: Read the rest of this entry »

I went to Northern California recently on a business trip.  I got too much done.  Meetings, work sessions, proposals, emails, conference calls, and a few very memorable dinners. Four cities in just as many days. Before returning to San Francisco, I stayed with a friend in a small town up north. One sunny morning I decided to explore the area, so I asked her what there is to do.  Knowing me, she told me there’s a nice walking trail.  I could walk there or drive.  Well that was a no-brainer, of course I’d walk.

But I got thrown totally off track.  What I expected to be a calm, relaxing, reflective stroll beneath California oaks, turned into a passionate, ecstatic, breathless plunge into excesses the likes of which I hadn’t experienced in years.  It took my breath away, melted all self-control, and spun my world halfway round.

Oh, shame on you for thinking naughty thoughts.  It wasn’t the Adonis of the Litoral I encountered on the path (sorry gals… !)  It was an unassuming blackberry sprig.  Peeking out from the dried grasses along the edge of the path.  Winking at me in the sun.  I winked back, then looked around.  Is it legal to pick a blackberry here? I walked past it, choosing planetary well-being over my own base desires.  That’s probably the only blackberry sprig on this trail, and how awful would it be if I picked it rather than leave it for the birds or animals trying to earn an honest local living.

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Now that we have picked apart the many hidden wonders of cow manure, we may safely examine yet another, more recent entry in the annals of excellent excrement: E. coli.

Believe it or not, E. coli may actually be useful for something other than infecting spinach or beef, giving you a serious case of diarrhea, and initiating massive recalls of different food products. The waste of these reputedly nasty little bacteria can, in fact, be used as a source for biofuel. No…er, joke.

As CNN reported recently, a biotech lab in San Francisco, LS9 Inc., is using a harmless form of E. coli to make biodiesel. The genetically altered bacteria get fed various forms of sugars, anything from sugar cane to wood chips or other plant waste, and after munching their little mitochondria out (they do not have hearts, after all), they poop the equivalent of diesel fuel.1 Now that is some exciting excrement!

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This is The City. A city with lots of old appliances that seemingly get discarded onto the street or simply get tossed in the city dump. Not a pretty picture for the numerous washing machines, refrigerators and other large appliances that not only create a landfill nightmare but could seemingly be put to use.

So what do we do with our old washing machines and such? We stumbled upon a place that picks up washing machines and other appliances. For free. Could this be real? This place called Rancho Grande, located in the Mission near Bernal Heights picks up appliances (and recently picked up some of our non working washing machines) for free. But where’s the Green slant? In the case of washing machines, they fix the machines (often with the used parts they have collected) and resell the working machnies for a susstantial discount verses new ones. The people at Rancho Grande say that the used machines from the 70s and 80s often last longer than the new ones because the current models have so many plastic parts that don’t last.

For machines that can’t be repaired (or the cost is too much) they first drain the oil (which is then reused) then take the appliance to a local metal yard where it finds new life as crushed metal scrap. Sure, the newer Energy Star models use less energy but like cars it’s probably a better bet to use the old one to its final days before buying a new, more energy efficient version.

I’ve been reading the Little House on the Prairie book series aloud to our six-year old son, Liam. The cover just fell off “The Long Winter,” perhaps due to the irony that we’re reading it as the summer mercury swelters outside here in southwestern Wisconsin, but more likely because the paperback hasn’t been opened since I last read it in 1978.

For those of us who grew up reading the Little House on the Prairie books, those images of independent Laura, the vast beauty of the prairie and butter churning prompted a generation of ten year old girls who wanted to hitch up the covered wagon and homestead. What would Laura think if she knew some of us actually did? As I re-read the books as a forty- something adult - surrounded by my five acre farmstead Inn Serendipity, my abundant gardens, pile of wood for the woodstove and starry open skies above - I realize what an impact those books had on me decades ago. Laura Ingalls went beyond my third grade Halloween costume; her words inspired me, in my own way, to become Laura Ingalls (minus the butter churning. I’ll let Organic Valley handle that).

Books also inspired my fellow farmer friend, Kriss Marion, who traded the Chicago scene in 2005 to launch Circle M Farm in Blanchardville, Wisconsin, running a CSA (community supported agriculture) and a fiber business. “People often ask me how it happened that we uprooted our city family and came to be market farming in southwest Wisconsin,” explains Marion. “The answer, plain and simple, is books.” Read the rest of this entry »

When you think of “buying in bulk,” you may well envision barrels of mustard and mayonnaise, cereal boxes large enough for your family to live in, and tubes of toothpaste too big to pick up with one hand. And, depending on where (and how) you shop, you may not be far off the mark.

However, buying bulk does not necessarily mean putting a strain on your car’s shocks and struts whenever you go on a shopping spree. Nor does it mean listening to your shelves groan under the weight of gargantuan packages of…well, you name it. Nor does it mean endless meals with sides of ketchup in order to beat the dreaded expiration date.

Just about every natural foods store nowadays has a much more manageable option for buying bulk: bulk bins. If you head on over to the Bulk Section, you will find little plastic or glass dispensers of countless foods, herbs and spices, teas, and sometimes even soaps or other household products. So, for example, you can hit the bulk bins and stock up on oatmeal, dried fruits and nuts for trail mix (make it yourself or get some already made in another bulk bin), and maybe pick up some ground ginger and peppermint for tea.

Bulk bins are fantastic ways to be a conscious consumer for a number of reasons.

Bulk items are universally cheaper than products on the shelves. This frugality factor arises primarily from the fact that purchasing in large volumes costs less; this is why Wal-Mart can sell stuff so cheaply, because it buys LOTS AND LOTS of everything. Since the stores purchase voluminous bags of bulk items (25, 50, and even more pounds each), it pays the manufacturer/distributor less and so can “pass the savings on to you!” Ergo, you fork out less money when you dip into a bulk bin.

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“Simple living” continues to garner much pop culture hype, sparking books, magazines and a slew of self-help opportunities to assist you to declutter, scale back and slow down. Environmentally conscious and sustainable living fall under the simple living radar, but where does ecopreneuring or running a green business fit in?

My wife and I incorporated numerous “simple living” strategies into our business and life over the years. While our lifestyle may exude quintessential simple living elements — from canning applesauce to crafting holiday gifts — there remains an inherently complex element to our ecopreneuring workstyle. Our calendar looks like a treasure hunt map of lines of travel, Bed & Breakfast guests arriving and departing, writing deadlines, family gatherings, and our son’s home-school group projects. We always juggle multiple, sometimes unrelated, projects.

A better word than “simple” to describe our ecopreneuring approach is “focus.” By consciously choosing to do certain things, we inherently simplify by prioritizing. We open more time to focus on what we really want to do by eliminating (or at least seriously reducing) time drains, including the following:

(1) Daily commute.
With the average daily commute in the US now nearly a half-hour, by working from home, we save over seven days per year driving to someplace, not to mention the fossil fuel emissions of daily driving.

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Schools don’t foster it. Most parents advise against it. Corporations crush it.

Passion, often, unfortunately, ranks as an optional side dish on the buffet of life. If you can find a job that provides the staple meat and potatoes, lucky you. Dessert, or feeling passionate and fulfilled by what you do, adds a nice touch if you can get it — but is definitely not necessary.

In ECOpreneuring, my wife and I write about going for dessert first (we’ve also been known to start at the back of a menu at a restaurant and work forward). Identify your passion and build your work, your business, your life around that which makes your toes tingle. A reverse perspective to the normal career path, we realize. It took us almost a decade of soul-searching, global travel and life-changing experiences — both positive and negative — before we started to unearth the human beings we were deep down inside, our core that represented our heartfelt passions, reflected our values and our Earth Mission that guides our life. Partner your passion with small business and satisfaction blooms far richer than just dollars of a paycheck.

Shift Your Thinking: Become an Eco-effective Mosquito Business

Ecopreneuring stems from a paradigm shift in how we approach a career and how we define livelihood. Like nature, we thrive on interdependence while aspiring to a greater degree of self-reliant independence — the ability to make it on our own in a supportive community. This shatters the prideful image of a generation ago where the “company” would “care” for you and your family after you retired.

Think independent and multidimensional: a Portfolio Perspective. Look at your life as multidimensional; Different rather than just one paycheck coming from one job, have a range of income-generating sources. Different elements contribute to fulfillment and satisfaction. If one project disappeared, you’d still have others. One interest fuels ideas or business leads in another area. Like a diversified stock portfolio, by having multiple income sources stemming from your passions, your livelihood provides multiple benefits. A Portfolio Perspective also provides the opportunity to integrate and overlap these interests intelligently and strategically, using business deductions effectively. Such a shift fundamentally alters the historic perspective separating your “job” from your “leisure” activities. Your job earns you money to pay for your leisure interests. What if you love photography or helping people savor healthy and locally grown food? Why not make that part of your livelihood?

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Birgitte Rasine is the chief evolution officer of LUCITÀ, a firm believer in abolishing junk mail.

Help.  My hands are sweaty, my heart’s racing, my vision’s blurred and I can’t breathe. I’ve been shredding since last Monday and my office is nearly filled to the ceiling with little multicolored bits of paper that resemble viruses magnified under a microscope.  I feel myself sinking down through this swamp of cellulose dust, flailing about in vain to find a chair or cabinet to hang on to, grasping for one last breath of clean air… then darkness.

That’s my nightmarish vision of what it would feel like if I took all the direct mail that I ever received and shredded it all in one go.  I’d probably pass out, either from exhaustion or breathing pulverized paper pulp.

Let me be blunt: I hate junk mail. Whoever invented it, I want to dunk them into an Olympic-size pool filled to the brim with mailers, postcards and superficially impersonal letters.  I want to pour all the ink that’s ever been wasted into their bath tub and make them sit in it.  I want them to lick every single postage stamp ever used for direct mail.  I want them to look in the eyes of every one of their victims—once vibrant, dynamic people who are now spending their lives trying to organize, shred, get rid of junk mail they never asked for.  Their names are sold without their knowledge, their identities traded like junk bonds in darkened, dusty corners of cyberspace. Do-not-call and do-not-mail lists are riddled with loopholes. Few of us have the time or the resources to mount legal campaigns to protect the rights that should naturally be ours to begin with.  Do we need martial law to protect ourselves from the insistent march of these malicious mailers?

In real life, I’m somewhat more diplomatic.  In principle, I get why direct mail exists. There are legitimate reasons used by legitimate organizations with legitimate desires to inform their audiences about the work they do, their products and services. The problem is, it’s purely financial.  There’s not a single piece of direct mail that I have ever received that was sent for any other reason than acquiring donations, selling products or services, or other monetary gains.

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Life offers more than a paycheck, corner office and promotional title.

In fact, many of us are working ourselves to death. Less than 40 percent of working Americans actually take all the vacation time that they’re offered, and many who do have a hard time disconnecting from the office, voicemail and e-mail. Added to this are the hours each week we spend commuting, wasting time and polluting the environment unless you’re fortunate to be able to walk or bike to work.

For many years, I let myself be defined by what I owned and the company I worked for (at a big advertising agency, of all places). For many people, their identity is so closely associated with their job that when they stop working, they end up passing away not long afterwards, lacking hobbies, social connections or life purpose. But what it says on a business card says nothing about our passions, interests, talents or aspirations.

A shift in perspective is underway, from desiring a standard of living defined by possessions and financial wealth to a quality of life defined by experiences and genuine well-being. For many people, maintaining their high standard of living contributes to their poor quality of life, not to mention often contributing to the destruction of the planet.

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