tagged w/ Sustainable Living
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Two former teachers are on a journey to aquire a more sustainable living arrangement. Mike and Karen Sliwa have been living on different homesteads throughout the US and Europe. Their immediate goals are to learn how to grow food, secure water, build natural structures, live without money, and find a community to share this life with.
Currently they contribute to Transition Voice online magazine and speak about their experiences to different institutions via presentations and TEDx Talks. You can learn more about them at http://www.cactusnewsonline.com/carrotchasing/Two former teachers are on a journey to aquire a more sustainable living arrangement.... more
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The team from Terreform1 suggests ways in which vehicles and urban homes can be deigned to maximize energy efficiency and minimize environmental impact. Access to local food is another major concern for urban communities as transportation raises food costs. To combat these rising costs urban communities are growing their own produce and livestock in a new sustainable living revolution.
Community gardens are a green oasis in a concrete landscape. They provide locally grown produce and, as many community gardens are organic or pesticide free, they limit the amount of toxins and free radicals released into the environment. If a community garden isn't your thing you can still plant your own urban garden on a rooftop, windowsill or on your front stoop. Check out Urban Gardens for ideas on building your own sustainable urban garden complete with birdhouse designs and links to websites by other urban gardeners.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
Do you belong to a community garden or have your own urban windowsill garden? If so, what do you grow?
The team from Terreform1 suggests ways in which vehicles and urban homes can be... more
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Food Supply. Health. Economic Security. Malnutrition. Obesity. Local Agriculture. Sustainability.
What’s in common to link all these words? Sustainable Agriculture.
His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales addressed participants last week at a Sustainable Food Conference hosted by Georgetown University in Washington DC, where he said, “Creating sustainable food systems will become paramount in the future.”
Venturing into sustainable agriculture and fearing for a food-insecurity, the Prince, with a leading voice sketched out that the rate of food production is now less than the rate of population growth. Add in threats to food crop yields, now declining with climate change, and the cost of food production as being so reliant on the rising cost of oil for transport and production, well, it all sums to an expensive forecast. He identified additional facts and pressures that you may like to know:
Global population is heading toward 9 billion people — creating greater demands for food
On average in the developed world, people throw away 40% of the food purchased
Soil is the primary source of health for all plants and people — and soil erosion in the United States is washed away 10 times faster than the Earth can replenish it
23 thousand square miles of arable land is turning into desert yearly
2 billion acres (1/4 of the world’s farm land) is degraded
One-fifth of all U.S. grain production is dependent on water with 1.3 trillion gallons used faster than rainfall can replenish it
By 2030 it is estimated the world’s farmers will need 35% more water than today
Of all the water in the world, 5% is fresh and excluding the most voluminous fresh water lake in the world, Lake Baikal in Siberia, the fresh water sources remaining are three-quarters used in agriculture
The impact of sizeable pressures and forecasts such as these mean more people could go hungry.
Post Continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/sustainable-agriculture-prince-of-wales/Food Supply. Health. Economic Security. Malnutrition. Obesity. Local Agriculture.... more
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Have you ever considered looking up environmentally conscious clothing brands? Sustainable fashion has come a long way from the loose-stitched, tacky hippiewear of yesteryear. Hemp, organic cotton, and bamboo fibers can match your current T-shirts and denim jeans and style and durability.
When your clothes start to wear out, consider donating them to shelters for families who need them, and take a little time to go eco-fashion forward.Have you ever considered looking up environmentally conscious clothing brands?... more
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Organic farming not only heals the Earth, it is healing the souls of those who need it most.
Excerpt:
The helicopters heard overhead are from Camp Pendleton, just over the hill from this 3-acre farm. Today, Archipley is training vets and active duty personnel returning to civilian life for careers in organic farming. It's not an easy job, he says, but veterans are up to the task.
Mr. ARCHIPLEY: We're a type of population that needs more than just a dollar. We need a purpose, and this is one way to give us purpose.
HILLARD: The six-week course called Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training has been approved by Camp Pendleton's Transition Assistance Program. One of the new students, veteran Ron Vaughn(ph) is taking great care to harvest a live bouquet of basil in one of the farm's greenhouses.
Mr. RON VAUGHN: You can plant this right in the water, and it will still keep growing.
HILLARD: The Marine sergeant did two tours in Iraq and was wounded in Fallujah. And the farm, Vaughn says, has given him a new sense of purpose.
Mr. VAUGHN: I went in the Marine Corps so I could serve my country, you know? Now that I've gotten out, guess what? I still want to serve, and you go small-scale organic farming, that is me being able to serve the community.
HILLARD: Vaughn was able to attend this program with a scholarship from the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. Michael O'Gorman is a longtime farmer and the organization's executive director.
Mr. MICHAEL O'GORMAN (Executive Director, Farmer-Veteran Coalition): And the more we work with the veterans and the more we work in this process, the more we understand that there's healing in being needed.
HILLARD: O'Gorman says his organization works with farmers across the country.
Mr. O'GORMAN: Our goal is to mobilize this entire community, then welcome with open arms the returning veterans and look to them for a source of new, young talent going into our industry.
HILLARD: One of those new farmers may be Cory Pollard. Growing up in San Diego, he enlisted in the Marine shortly after high school. He served three tours in Iraq as a rifleman. Today, he's cradling a seedling in his hands.
Mr. CORY POLLARD: Before I got here, I didn't know what chard was, didn't know what kale was, but, you know, nonetheless, I've been here and I never thought I would see myself farming.
HILLARD: Working alongside Pollard in the greenhouse is 26-year-old Carlos Rivera. Both men went to Camp Pendleton and ended up serving in Iraq together. After leaving the Marines, Rivera says he got a job in the city, but it stressed him out.
Mr. CARLOS RIVERA: This is different. You're working outdoors and working with other vets. And I have my own little garden out there in my patio where I live. And I love going out here.
HILLARD: He says it's his dream to one day have his own small farm, something like what he has found here.
Mr. RIVERA: The sounds of trees and the birds singing and leaves falling down.
HILLARD: Rivera has been working on the farm for a year. He says he's not only found the job he loves, but a certain peace of mind. For NPR News, I'm Gloria Hillard.Organic farming not only heals the Earth, it is healing the souls of those who need it... more
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From the blog post by Alex Muse (CEO of ShopSavvy, Inc., the creators of ShopSavvy)
"More and more produce items are sporting scan-able barcodes and we thought it might be cool if consumers could figure out where a particular fruit was grown. Did you know that 27% of produce is grown by family farms? We decided to partner with Top 10 Produce to help ShopSavvy users ‘Know Your Farmer’. The program is brand new, but over the coming months hundreds of farms will be added to the system. ShopSavvy users who scan produce will find pictures, maps, Facebook Pages, Twitter feeds related to the farmer who grew the fruit or vegetable."
http://shopsavvy.mobi/2011/03/08/food-traceability-on-shopsavvy/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
http://www.Top10produce.comFrom the blog post by Alex Muse (CEO of ShopSavvy, Inc., the creators of ShopSavvy)... more
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In this funny and insightful talk from TEDxHouston, builder Dan Phillips tours us through a dozen homes he's built in Texas using recycled and reclaimed materials in wildly creative ways. Brilliant, low-tech design details will refresh your own creative drive.In this funny and insightful talk from TEDxHouston, builder Dan Phillips tours us... more
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Long a proven technology in Europe, green roofs are becoming increasingly common in U.S. cities, with major initiatives in Chicago, Portland, and Washington, D.C. While initially more expensive than standard coverings, green roofs offer some major environmental — and economic — benefits.
The low scrubland of densely packed succulents is in full fall color, a carpet of green fading brilliantly to red and gold. This 2.5-acre oasis, located among a barrens of blacktop roofs that stretches east to Broadway and west to the Hudson River, would be an impressive sight even if it wasn’t sitting atop the U.S. Postal Service’s 1933 landmark Morgan Processing and Distribution facility in midtown Manhattan.
The biggest green roof in New York City and one of the largest in the country, the Morgan facility’s verdant covering was completed in December 2008 and has thrived since. As the inscription above the landmark James Farley Post Office might have it, the roof has been affected by “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” and has flourished through freezes and thaws, through summer rooftop temperatures that reach 150 degrees, and through weeks of drought and torrential summer storms, despite never being watered, weeded, or fertilized.
The 2.5-acre park on the Morgan Processing and Distribution facility is the biggest green roof in New York.The vegetation is a densely planted assemblage of some 25 hardy, low-growing species that have thrived in their few inches of planting material. The plants’ size and modest requirements, however, belie their substantial biological capacities and environmental benefits. Since the roof has been installed, the building’s storm water runoff into the New York municipal water system has been reduced by as much as 75 percent in summer and 40 percent in winter. The U.S. Postal Service estimates that the plants’ ability to cool the roof in summer and insulate it in winter will reduce the building’s energy costs by $30,000 a year.
The sprouting of a large, living roof in midtown Manhattan is a sign that this universally lauded green practice, which has spread rapidly across Europe, is now gaining a serious foothold in the U.S. Although initially more expensive than standard asphalt or shingle roofs, green roofs offer major environmental and economic advantages, from slashing storm water runoff and energy costs, to cooling overheated cities and cleaning their air.
Chicago, which now has more green roofs than any other U.S. city, last year added 600,000 square feet of green roofs and has some 600 projects that will bring its total to 7 million square feet. Washington, D.C. added 190,000 square feet in 2009 and has set a goal of 20 percent green roof coverage by 2020.
In Portland, Oregon, the city provides incentive grants of $5 per square foot for what they call “eco-roofs.” There’s no limit on the size of the roof,
In Europe, Stuttgart and Copenhagen have begun to mandate green roofs on most new construction.but Tom Liptan, a storm water specialist with the city, says that most of the grants have so far gone to homeowners or to buildings in the commercial district. “It was a cost/benefit evaluation,” says Liptan. “The issue here was storm water. We were trying to find a way to reduce the burden on the city. If we trap it on the roofs, we don’t have to build bigger pipes to carry it or cisterns to store it for treatment.”
Liptan figures that if half the roofs in the city were green, Portland would reduce its storm water burden by some 3 billion gallons, a quarter of the rainfall that hits the city’s roofs annually.
This year Toronto became the first city in the Western Hemisphere to mandate green roofs. New buildings with a total floor area of more than 21,527 square feet will, depending on their size, have to cover from 20 to 60 percent of their roofs with vegetation. A 2005 study calculated that if 75 percent of the flat roofs in the city were greened, Toronto could reap $37 million a year in savings on storm water management, energy bills, and costs related to urban heat island effects.
In Europe, green roofs have been a proven technology for nearly 30 years, as a low flight over Stuttgart, Germany — courtesy of Google Earth — will show. Up Eberhardstrasse approaching Marktstrasse, along Friedrichstrasse to Hauptbahnhopf, the central train station, and north of the city center along Oswald-Hesse-Strasse, there’s often more green to be seen on the rooftops than on the ground (including the vast 27-acre green rooftop of the Daimler company). While most cities in the U.S. measure their green roof area in thousands of square feet, Stuttgart can measure its in millions. Some 20 to 25 percent of the city’s flat roofs are green and, due to a combination of government incentives, tax abatements, and regulations, so are 10 percent of the roofs throughout Germany. Cities such as Stuttgart and Copenhagen have begun to mandate green roofs on most new construction.
cont.Long a proven technology in Europe, green roofs are becoming increasingly common in... more
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Here is my hypothesis: We are in a transition. The eco-fashion industry was only created a few years ago, max. Before that – there were designers who happened to engage in fair trade and/or sustainable fabrics… Now, there is an industry surrounding these designers.
Here is my fear: There will be some kind of fast-eco-fashion movement. Why would that be bad? It sounds like a good thing, right? Well consider this...
http://www.awakenedaesthetic.com/2010/11/on-design-industry-or-why-lindsay-is-an-eco-asshole/Here is my hypothesis: We are in a transition. The eco-fashion industry was only... more
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This movie couldn't come at a better time: this November, Americans are expected to spend over $8.5 billion on consumer electronics, motivated by enticements to buy gizmos we don't really need or to replace gadgets that are still working with slightly newer versions.
The thing is, making all these devices takes an enormous SoElectronics_Still018_GreenChallenge environmental and public health toll: mining the metals trashes communities from Congo to Indonesia; assembling them uses huge amounts of water and energy and exposes workers to a host of toxic chemicals; and getting rid of them when we're on to the next, newer, better model creates mountains of e-waste.
The good news is that while the production, consumption and disposal of short-lived, toxics laden electronics are a really big problem, the solution is pretty simple: Make 'em Safe, Make 'em Last, and Take 'em Back.
We're releasing The Story of Electronics today to send a clear message to the electronics industry: it's time to send that design for the dump mentality to the dump where it belongs and start making less toxic, longer lasting and more easily recyclable products.
Our goal is to get a quarter of a million people to watch The Story of Electronics by Black Friday, just over two weeks from now.This movie couldn't come at a better time: this November, Americans are expected... more
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Kendrick Harris, a high school dropout who has been homeless and jobless, has had more pressing things to worry about than the environment.
But in the last year the 22-year-old South Los Angeles resident has planted community gardens, cleaned up abandoned industrial sites and learned how to install solar panels.
"Not knowing where I was going to sleep at night, the last thing in my head was going green," Harris said recently as he helped weatherize a 75-year-old stucco home near Lincoln Heights. "It was never something that was taught and it was never something that I did."
Harris is one of 200 local residents taking part in an innovative program designed to help bridge a green divide. Many residents of low-income neighborhoods say they've been left out of the environmental movement and that clean-tech businesses are avoiding urban neighborhoods while they pitch green advances elsewhere.
"There's a tendency to not seek out communities like these," said Jeffrey Richardson, chief executive of solar installer Imani Energy Inc., one of the few companies that have been actively working on projects in South Los Angeles. "There's the idea that people here don't get it, don't want to get it and can't get it when it comes to green."
That frustration has given rise to an "environmental justice" movement encouraging homegrown, grass-roots industry.
There have been some successes in recent years. Green roofs and urban gardens have started to bloom on dilapidated buildings and parking lots across the country. In South Los Angeles, blighted sites such as an old bus maintenance yard are being converted into urban wetland parks.
But "greening the ghetto," as some advocates call it, has sometimes been a tough sell.
Billboards touting hybrid cars and stores selling energy-efficient appliances are a rarity in neighborhoods such as Compton or Watts, said Prachel K. Carter, director of marketing firm Soulstice, which runs workshops on environmentally friendly living in low-income areas.
"The advertising is not there," she said. "Anything having to do with conscious living, conservation, organic food — it doesn't feature these residents and it isn't geared toward them. It's easier to find a bag of Cheetos in some places than it is to find a tomato."
By not installing energy-efficient appliances and insulating walls and roofs in low-income public housing, the federal government adds an extra $1 billion a year in utility costs to poor families and taxpayers, according to a recent report from the National Consumer Law Center.
And cautious investors are wary about projects in areas with tangled zoning standards, high crime rates and steep unemployment.
"We see the money moving, but not in the numbers we need," said Mary Leslie, president of the Los Angeles Business Council, an influential economic development group. Two recent UCLA studies commissioned by the council found that many Southland communities with the most rooftop space ripe for solar panels are in low-income areas.
Without exposure to green ideas and projects, resident Rhonda Glasper, 46, said she hasn't really paid much attention to becoming more eco-friendly.
The term is more of a catchphrase that conjures up vague notions of recycling, she said, though she has tried to conserve energy by turning off the air conditioning in her South Los Angeles home. But as a renter whose employer is facing tough times, she can't make or afford major energy-efficiency upgrades, she said.
"I don't know too much about green," said Glasper, a hairdresser. "But I'm willing to try anything new."
That's where education efforts and job training could sway residents to take a more active role in going green. Several local groups have begun offering programs in low-income neighborhoods with courses in plug-in vehicle technology, solar thermal installation, green building standards and more.
Last May, for instance, Harris joined the LA Conservation Corps, which started out planting trees and encouraging recycling and now trains young adults for green skills such as installing solar panels and cleaning up polluted properties while helping them earn a high school diploma. Many of those who join — there is usually a waiting list of at least a thousand people--are high school dropouts. Others are former gang members and teen parents.
Harris, who would like to pursue a green career or get involved in oil spill clean-up efforts, is now certified to work in a power plant, remove hazardous waste and clean up asbestos.
cont.Kendrick Harris, a high school dropout who has been homeless and jobless, has had more... more
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Despite the threat of deforestation, people and industries still need wood to manufacture certain products, or do they? What if an environmentally friendly replacement for wood could be developed? Germans Juergen Pfitzer and Helmut Naegele have created an alternative to wood called ArboForm. This sustainable plastic-like material is made from lignin, a component of wood and a by-product of the paper manufacturing process.
Read more: http://www.whitespace.bz/ws/web/forms/pulse/PulseMainArticle.aspx?id=510Despite the threat of deforestation, people and industries still need wood to... more
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Convince just 100 key companies to go sustainable, and WWF’s Jason Clay says global markets will shift to protect the planet our consumption has already outgrown. Hear how his extraordinary roundtables are getting big brand rivals to agree on green practices first — before their products duke it out on store shelves.Convince just 100 key companies to go sustainable, and WWF’s Jason Clay says... more
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A fashion designer and a landscape architect were asked to create an eco-friendly cross-over work of art for the Amsterdam Center for Architecture. What they came up with was a "living" dress created from wool and bicycle innertubes. The innertubes create a smocked effect which is, in actuality, a series of vases that can be filled with whatever type flower or plant you desire. Change the flowers, and you change the entire look of the gown. This is obviously not something the average fashionista is going to hang in her closet, but as a work of art, it's an astonishingly beautiful reminder that anything can be reused. These bicycle innertubes could have gone into a landfill, but instead are helping to sustain life and bring beauty into the world.
Read more: http://adorablenapalm.blogspot.com/2010/08/bicycles-and-butterflies.htmlA fashion designer and a landscape architect were asked to create an eco-friendly... more
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A proposed area for a large solar farm in Lemoore, in the San Joaquin Valley in California.In an article in The New York Times on Wednesday, I wrote about an ambitious plan to build one of the world’s largest solar energy complexes on 30,000 acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Elsewhere, big renewable energy projects have encountered opposition from farmers, ranchers and environmentalists who worry about the impact of solar power plants on agriculture, wildlife and scarce water supplies.
But farmers in the San Joaquin Valley’s Westlands Water District are embracing solar power as a solution to their water woes. And environmental groups are backing the project as a way to avoid fights over building solar power plants in pristine desert areas.
In the 1960s, the west side of the San Joaquin Valley was transformed from a desert to one of the nation’s most productive agricultural centers thanks to a huge irrigation project that transports water from Northern California and distributes it to 600,000 acres of farmland through 1,034 miles of underground pipes.
Decades of irrigation and drainage problems led to a buildup of salt in the soil that forced the water district to spend $100 million to acquire and retire 100,000 acres of land from most agricultural production. Drought and environmental disputes over the impact of water diversions on endangered fish, meanwhile, slashed water deliveries to Westlands farmers.
The water district hopes to make money off salt-contaminated land by providing an initial 12,000 acres to Westside Holdings, a firm that has proposed building a 5,000-megawatt photovoltaic power complex called the Westlands Solar Park.
And farmers like Mark Shannon have agreed to lease their parched land to Westside, reluctantly concluding there’s more money to be made by growing electrons than crops.
“Last year, we received only 10 percent of our water supply and we idled 85 percent of this ranch,” said Mr. Shannon of the 5,300-acre property that his family has farmed for three generations. “My dad is 67 and I can’t believe how many times I’ve called him and he’s in tears — he just always figured he’d pass this land on to me.”
Mr. Shannon took me up in a small plane for a bird’s-eye view of the impact of the water crisis on his land, where brown fields surround green patches of almonds and pistachios. Beyond his farm are dry lands that stretch to the horizon, property owned by the Westlands Water District and taken out of irrigated production.
“Last year, we had over 250,000 acres in the district that didn’t get farmed,” said Sarah Woolf, a Westlands spokeswoman. “Then you have drainage issues coupled with the long-term reliability of the water supply.”
Desperate farmers have been spending millions of dollars drilling hundreds of deep groundwater wells, which in turn has caused subsidence problems.
In other parts of California, the prospect of covering square miles of farmland with solar panels has stirred outrage among some rural residents. But Mr. Shannon and Westlands officials don’t expect any significant opposition in the San Joaquin Valley.
The reason: if farmers such convert their land to solar farms, their water allocations will be redistributed to their neighbors.
“Our family had to get over the broken heart of losing this ranch,” said Mr. Shannon, who plans to continue farming on land his family owns on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley. “But if we can shift the water supply off, say, 15,000 acres, that’s a win-win for the growers left behind.”A proposed area for a large solar farm in Lemoore, in the San Joaquin Valley in... more
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An Earthship is a self-sustaining home. They are just one of the incredible examples of how to live in sync with our planet.
For some, environmental issues are difficult to comprehend. Is it possible to live in a way in which one is being absolutely environmentally responsible? While some may neglect the issue and chose a passive approach, others know that in addition to solar panels there are many other ways to live in a "greener" home. For those who prefer a different and very radical approach, Earthships are the answer.
Read about how earth ships work:
http://sustainability.pipeno.com/Article/Environment/Living-in-Harmony--EarthshipsAn Earthship is a self-sustaining home. They are just one of the incredible examples... more
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360 State Street's lucky first residents are packing this week and will begin moving in August 1st, 2010. Those of us who fell in love with this development are eager to see how a truly 21st century beacon of innovation and sustainable design can perform even when 'people' have taken over the driver's seat for energy and water usage. The phenomenal 400kW Fuel Cell system is in operation and as quiet as a mouse..
http://greenlandlady.com/site/business/living-the-platinum-dream-360-state-street/360 State Street's lucky first residents are packing this week and will begin... more
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The luxury and affordable housing rental markets are doing just fine, thank you, but the middle class is being squeezed into smaller working and living areas and shared space. Could this be good for America, forcing us into a more sustainable way of life?
http://greenlandlady.com/site/business/living-and-working-smaller-in-big-america/The luxury and affordable housing rental markets are doing just fine, thank you, but... more
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Whenever you want to improve in a specific area or program, just the process of increasing awareness will yield improvements. The same applies to living a sustainable lifestyle. Most of us recognize that change can be tricky: habits and convenience make it far easier to slip back into the comfortable way of doing things. However, implementing effective sustainable change does not have to be a laboring process. The key is conscious awareness.
Awareness is the tool used to help discover the personal patterns of behavior that offer low hanging fruit for a sustainable lifestyle. For instance, are you aware of your habits related to energy? Consider how and when you consume the most energy in your day? How could you be more efficient? What inspiring eco actions could you take?
Conscious awareness is key to sparking the eco awareness in a personal sustainability program. As noted in our eco friendly training, following are aids to assist in raising awareness:
• Consciously notice what is most inspiring to you about living green and take eco action in those areas.
• Notice your current patterns and invoke curiosity as to which eco actions would be a sustainable substitute.
• Applaud your efforts: small changes add up. In fact, daily habits have the most impact.
• Observe how new changes become the new habit/ norm.
• Momentum brings visibility to previously inaccessible ideas and behaviors.
• Gain speed: There is ease in taking more eco action.
• Inspire by living the example.
Each day we are presented with opportunities to expand our eco awareness and make informed choices. The trick to capitalizing on those opportunities is being aware. Conscious awareness offers us the opportunity to make changes that are inspiring and manageable relative our current life and the process of incorporating sustainability becomes much easier. Being aware of sustainability concepts when shopping, or at work and play, contributes to living a more sustainable lifestyle.Whenever you want to improve in a specific area or program, just the process of... more
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