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.

from haberdash.org...Lauren Spa is a new line or organic bed and bath linens in the Ralph Lauren Home world. Given that many resorts are picking up the line already, it is sure to be around for a long time. Lauren Spa has set a new standard in organic linens in terms of luxury, design, and most importantly - sustainability.

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.

Seattle-(Shannon)

Seattle is notorious for its coffee consumption. In the home of such illustrious caffeine pushers as Starbucks, Tully’s and Seattle’s Best Coffee, Seattleites are Buzzed by the Bean pretty much constantly. Walk around the downtown any time, but especially first thing on a rainy workday, and you’ll discover that cups of coffee are as ubiquitous as fleece, as numerous as raindrops.

Being the generally eco-conscious city that we are, many Seattleites carry their own travel mug to work and enjoy coffee that stays hotter longer without contributing to global warming. But what to do when you forget your travel mug at home? Or when you forgot to wash it out on Friday, and now, come Monday, you dig it out from the bottom of your bag only to discover that Horton’s Whos have built an entire civilization at the bottom of the cup?

Promising yourself that you’ll send a check to Greenpeace, you enter your favorite coffee establishment and order something complicated in a disposable cup. You reach for one of those cardboard sleeves that keep your fingers from roasting along with the beans—but wait! That beautiful, bird’s-eye-maple bangle you chose to accentuate your khaki capris and earth-toned tunic is also a java jacket!

Another sustainable brainchild from Vancouver, BC-based contexture design, the coffee cuff is both bangle and friend to the fingertips and is made from reclaimed veneer offcuts generated by furniture makers. Only $68 Canadian, the cuffs are satisfying in both form and function(s), turning the quotidian experience of a double-tall, non-fat vanilla latte into a sustainable, stylish statement.

Are you ready to be a world class eco-designer? Now's your chance to be featured on Treehugger, Inhabitat, Western Interiors, and in a variety of other press outlest. The Sustainable Furniture Council and World Market Center have combined forces to sponsor a design competition "One Good Chair". Designers are invited to contribute their vision for a new kind of eco-chair, one that focuses first and foremost on form, that minimizes resources while maximizing comfort and enjoyment, that truly combines great design with ecology and ergonomics. Designs should demonstrate a new attitude toward an old problem. A cash prize of $4,500 will be awarded to a designer or design team (of 2-5 designers). If all goes well, the award is intended to support the fabrication of a prototype of the winning design. Registration ends May 16, entries are due June 9 and the awards will take place Las Vegas Market, July 30. Check the website for more details.

(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.

Boost Mobile recently created their Boosted campaign, essentially a lifestyle brand infused with art, music, and pop culture. What makes things different is they partnered with designers to produce a line of accessories and other devices that captures the essence of the today's mobile and youth lifestyles while highlighting people and planet issues. A great example is one of their first partnerships with Livity Outernational. The accessories pictured to the left are just such an example...100% organic cotton and great design. You can find these and other Boost x Livity merch at our alter-ego site www.sustainable-style.org. More 'Boosted' Partnerships to come soon so stay tuned...

(Cristina Sacco - Glasgow, Scotland) Bags of Change is a loyalty scheme for shops selling organic and fair trade goods, except instead of a loyalty card, you use their bag. Shoppers with the bag will get discounts on organic and fair trade items in participating shops. Unlike the reusable grocery store-branded bags ubiquitous here, these are made from hemp and organic cotton and are cute enough to act as an every-day tote bag. The bag costs £14.85 and is available in three colors.

All the men out there buying organic goods write to Bags of Changeand ask them to introduce more styles, as these bags are clearly aimed at women. Shops in the scheme sell a wide range of products, including food, paint, mattresses, toys, cleaning products, vitamins, and luggage. Wouldn't men enjoy a discount on these things too?

(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.

(Cristina Sacco - Glasgow, Scotland) For those wondering how to be better shoppers in the UK, Green is the New Black, by Tamsin Blanchard (with an acompanying blog) fits the bill. It is not for those who have resolved to buy less in the new year, as Blanchard’s enthusiasm for recycled fairtrade jewelry and jeans made from organic cottom denim will have many readers holding the book in one hand and clicking around the web sites she mentions with the other. The Little Green Book section at the back compiles these sites into a long list, marking them with vintage, fair trade, recycled, organic, vegetarian, and craft symbols. Short passages from celebrities, style consultants, and models, as well as details of which celebrities wear vegan shoes all add to the chatty magazine-style tone of the book.

Blanchard’s excitement for the topic is endearing and effective, however, Green is the New Black is not without flaws. Blanchard makes a few irritating errors, such as referring to Shirley Manson as the singer of the band Rubbish instead of Garbage, and saying that apple cider vinegar is an alkali (it’s an acid, just like every other vinegar). Also, the section on skincare should have been better- researched for a number of reasons. Firstly, it fails to mention exactly which chemical ingredients are to be avoided in skin and hair care products. Secondly, the discussions of specific different skin and hair care brands is full of vague marketing language like "natural ingredients" lacking in legal and scientific value. Finally, Blanchard and her guests' passages mention brands which do sell products containing parabens and other nasty chemical preservatives against which she had previously cautioned. It's frustrating that this chapter is so substandard as there are good British skin care brands out there, and many international brands are also available here. Faults aside, this is an enjoyable read, and will certainly tempt those who love to shop and are looking to do so more responsibly this year than last.

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!

(Pier Paolo - Torino, Italia) The recent appointment of Seoul as World Design Capital in 2010 could be interpreted in two different ways at least. From one hand we could read the attempt to free South Korea from the stereotyped image of the ICT Nation above all. On the other hand we could consider the effort to include a lot of design Korean actions under the same umbrella named Design. In short, the attempt to boost quality and exports of Korean car district well represented by companies such as Hyundai, Kia or Daewoo, considered worldwide as the second regional business segment after IT (with two Korean pillars: Samsung and LG). And giving authoritativeness to international events such as Design Korea, founded in 2003 and now arrived at the third appointment. This event (International conference, exhibition and so on) very attractive for the international design community, has the cultural objective to put together ideas, design policies, associations, institutions, designers, critics and students. And they do it very well under the coordination of KIDP (Korean Institute of Design Promotion), the real motor of all these events.

Therefore the mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-Hoon, last October (when the city was named World Design Capital 2010) mentioned the so call “miracle on the Han river”. This is the period between Sixties and Seventies in which there was an extraordinary and rapid economic and industrial growth in Seoul, the city in which the river Han flows. So Seoul triumphed over cities such as Dubai, Singapore and Toronto and it is really worthy of this appointment beacuse of all the efforts to support a real international culture of industrial design at different levels. The Korean city and its area (which has about 20 million of inhabitants) will be for one year backstage and background of the design events. However my feeling is that Seoul is already an ICT and design international capital.

It seems that WDC nomination is going to move rapidly from cities that consider design as an instrument for transformation and social-economic change (this condition seemed to be really important at the beginning of the award WDC), to capitals already known as design or ICT cities.

In short, from an award to virtuous cities with their processes of transformations to an award to industrial districts and companies. Of course this nomination is a positive message for European cities such as Barcelona, London, Milan, they will have more chances to get this award. What about other fizzy and interesting cities such as Valencia or Gwangju?

(picture by Sergio Corsaro)

Seattle - (Shannon) Now this is seriously cool: a Power House kit that teaches about regenerative energy sources, photosynthesis, greenhouse construction, cooking with solar power, all kinds of good, green stuff. Apparently, you can even make your own chewing gum. Developed by physicist Uwe Wandrey and produced by Thames and Kosmos, this kit is a fun way to educate kids (and adults) about making wise use of resources.

According to the story in the Power House Experiment Manual, a group of people live on an island with no phone, no pool, no pets. They have only the resources nature and the island provide, so they must use what they have carefully. The kit teaches you to live sustainably: you build a model house that has solar panels, a windmill, a greenhouse, a desalination system, a solar cooker, a solar hot water tank, etc. Robinson Crusoe would have given Friday up to the cannibals in exchange for one of these kits. There are 70 experiments and 20 building projects designed to educate about the basic principles of natural energy sources. Get your kids ready either for a science fair or to survive on Gilligan's Island, or just teach them some nifty, hands-on, sustainable science as they build an electric car and make their own sauerkraut.

Some of the projects include: build a sail car and discover how wind can be harnessed by sails and wings to produce energy. Bake bread in your own solar cooker. Get energy from sunflowers. For ages 12 and up. Prices on the Internet range from $119 to $149.

My most recent book review request came from Yale University Press. The title? Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment by Tom McCarthy. Now I am a sucker when it comes to anything history, biography, environment and so would probably give any book in these categories a pretty glowing review, but I must say I REALLY enjoyed this book. It is a very thorough look at our ever so addictive relationship with cars with all its eccentricities from the need for speed, keeping up with the Jones', to ever present power and greed. And he does it with a bit of humor tossed in here and there. Essentially an environmental history of the automobile, McCarthy points out early that scientists and engineers were well aware of the many challenges that came with cars and even goes into Henry Ford's sincere interest in reducing waste in his uber efficient assembly lines. Pop culture played a key role too, from Elvis Presley to Will Rogers. And, no surprise, even early observations of global warming - and how they were ignored - show up in the book. After reading McCarthy's book, we better understand America's romance with the automobile with all its wires, belts, and oh so many other social, political, economic, and environmental 'strings' attached.