Green Options

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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
—Albert Einstein

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.
—Henry David Thoreau

We must live simply, so that others may simply live.
—Gandhi

Ah, the simple life. No worries, no responsibilities, it’s the stuff of dreams. But in today’s world, living is far from simple. Simplifying your life often seems like one more impossible task on your long to-do list. Even though common sense tells us that the most environmentally conscious life is a simple one, it’s much easier said than done.

It seems like the price of everything is going up lately, and so is the cost of doing business. One of the best pieces of business advice I’ve heard so far is to keep your overhead costs as low as possible. This can be tricky for a green business, since we often spend a little bit more on sustainable and organic materials and office supplies. But with a little green thinking it’s possible to lower your costs while making eco-conscious decisions. Here’s where our old friends reduce, reuse, and recycle come in.

The key to lowering your overhead while greening your business is simplicity. Keep your operations as simple as possible, and cut out the fluff you don’t need. For some this may mean working from home rather than renting office space. For others it may mean scaling your business down and working smarter with what you already have. Every choice you make has the potential to save (or cost) you money, as well as help (or harm) the environment.

Summer is my favorite time of year. The days are long and perfect for hiking, traveling, going to the beach, or just sitting on the porch. And summer is the season of my favorite fruits: berries, plums, and melons! I grew up picking huckleberries every summer in Idaho and am always on the lookout for wild berries. Free, fresh-picked fruit is always the tastiest, and wild blackberries and plums happen to be just ripening for the picking where I live on the Mendocino coast of California.

We took a walk to the beach the other day through an orchard overflowing with ripe plums. Further on, the path was lined with tall blackberry bushes. Needless to say, we had an excess of blackberries and plums for a while. Add to that the fact that a local organic wine was on sale this week, and I naturally just had to make sangria!

My sister lived in Spain for a semester last year, and I had some amazing sangria when I went there to visit her. Of course she knew a recipe for sangria, which the one below is based on. (Thanks sis!) So, with a little local foraging, some fresh-picked seasonal berries, and some local wine, I made a yummy summer drink that can be adapted for any kind of fruit that’s in season.

For as often as we do eat, it seems as if most of us don’t think too much about what we’re putting into our bodies. With food production so far removed from our every day lives, it’s easy to ignore where our food comes from and what it’s impact may be. But what we put on our plates has a larger footprint than what we drive. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,

“Livestock production is one of the major causes of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Using a methodology that considers the entire commodity chain, it estimates that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.”

The things we choose to eat can obviously have an enormous impact on the planet and everything on it, including ourselves. Naturally then, our diet choices can say a lot about our ethics and beliefs. They can even be a political statement and a form of activism. I think that every choice we make has the potential to change the world, and certainly what I choose to eat has an impact.

So you’re starting a green business. Congratulations! Now that you have a dream, a business name, and a plan, how do you go from the initial idea to making that first sale? If you’ve done your homework, you probably have a marketing plan for your business (it’s wise to make it part of your business plan). One of the most important pieces of your marketing plan should be your company web site. Your web site will be the first impression many of your clients and customers have of your business, so it’s important to invest the time and money necessary to create a well-designed, informative, easy to use, and sustainable web site.

Not only does your web site offer you a chance to market your company, it’s also an opportunity to exercise your commitment to sustainability. One way to green your marketing is to make the web your primary advertising focus. Through e-mail newsletters, online ads, and promoting your domain name on all company correspondence, you can drive traffic to your web site and cover a lot of marketing ground without having to waste paper. Focusing your advertising efforts on the internet means less printed advertising, which means less paper waste and fewer pollutants released (the printing process and ink pigments create a lot of them).

There are many sustainable options when it comes to putting food on the table, from eating organic to choosing locally grown foods to avoiding animal products. But there’s nothing quite as truly sustainable, satisfying, and tasty as growing your own organic food. What follows is my homegrown experience in community gardening.

After traveling around in a veggie oil and biodiesel powered “volksvegan” for most of last year, I was eager to have a garden again (not to mention an actual kitchen). It didn’t take long in our small town to find a wonderful non-profit organization teaching organic food production classes and get involved. Before long we were starting seeds in a greenhouse, not quite sure where we’d be planting them when they were sprouted. Luckily, the organization, Noyo Food Forest, was just breaking ground on a new community garden, and we jumped at the chance to get our hands dirty and grow some organic food.

Our gardening experience in coastal Northern California has been quite an experiment. After growing up in the hotter and dryer climate of Idaho, gardening on the coast took some getting used to. But we discovered that with some fertile soil, organic seeds, a few helpful people, and the labors of love, we could grow a bounty of fresh organic produce and community at the same time.

As going green becomes more and more popular, it seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Consumers want more sustainable options for all their needs, and companies are beginning to listen. Or are they?

Maybe I’m just a little paranoid, but I don’t tend to trust the megalithic corporations that have so much power and wealth today. So while I see many ad campaigns touting green promises and hear of many large corporations changing their ways, as much as I want to believe them, I have my doubts that many of these companies are truly committed to sustainability. The very nature of our economy leads companies to focus solely on profit and their own growth, at the expense of people and the environment.

When it comes to eating, I have come to accept the fact that I am a grazer. This analogy is quite fitting given that I am an herbivore, I suppose. I snack often and tend to eat smaller portions several times a day rather than eating huge meals. I hear it’s not a bad idea to eat smaller meals more often, so I embrace my munchies. Of course, I try my best to keep my snacks healthy and green, but occasionally I can’t help but give into organic dark chocolate or Fig Newmans.

My favorite snacks often come from my local farmer’s market, the bulk bin at the co-op, or recently, from my own plot in my local organic community garden! I work from home and am always busy, so sometimes I make them ahead of time on weekends and stock the fridge and cupboards so that I have a quick stash of healthy snacks available to grab quickly. I’ve been known to crowd my desk with small plates of munchies while working. Hey, snacking happens, it might as well be good for you!

So, to the delight of green-minded grazers everywhere, I present my top ten favorite healthy sustainable snacks. As an added bonus, these recipes are all vegan. So dig in.

I admit it, I am addicted to the internet. However, this addiction isn’t all bad -  my hard earned internet savvy has paid off time and time again in the form of referrals and new clients. Without even having to overtly advertise, I have gotten many inquiries about my services and quite a few good clients from my online activities. I’ve also made a lot of friends in my field and networked with other designers that I can bounce ideas off of and partner with on creative pursuits, all online. Yes, the internet is a glorious thing.

One of my favorite things about using the internet to promote my business is that it’s green and inexpensive (if not free). So online marketing and social networking is a great way to get your name out there without using any paper or creating any trash. A good way to start your foray into the world of online marketing is to first establish a web site for your business. This will often be your potential customers’ first impression of your company, so it will be an important investment in both time and money. Once you have a web site, networking through social media sites is a great way to promote it and drive traffic to your site. Online marketing is a strategy that’s becoming more and more popular among entrepreneurs, and thankfully it is one with minimal impact on the planet.

I’ve always thought that many of the issues I am concerned about—the environment, human rights, peace, overconsumption, animal welfare—are all really one big issue. Everywhere I look I see countless connections between many social, political, and environmental issues. I may be involved in many separate causes, but they overlap so often that I feel that I’m really just part of one big movement. Which is why when someone asks me why I’m vegetarian, I am so overwhelmed with reasons that I don’t know where to even start explaining. The top ones are the environment, animal rights, and health, but no matter what you call them, they’re all one big issue to me.

I’m not the only one who has noticed this overlap, of course. And rarely have I encountered such a thorough examination of the connections between animal welfare and just about every other issue that concerns me than in the book Why Animals Matter by Erin E. Williams and Margo DeMello.