Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Green Buzz

Whats the buzz Tell me whats a Happening.

According to Neilson Buzz online metrics, the level of books, blogging and public discussion on Green topics has risen by 50% over the past year. Surprisingly, discussion on global warming and organics have fallen while the discussion has broadened to include packaging, plastics,transportation and the 3'R's.

According to the March , 2008 report "For example, in the retail sector, while Wal-Mart and Target both introduced reusable shopping bags, some consumers voiced skepticism towards Wal-Mart because of its association with environmental, labor, and health care issues."

According to a Shopper Environmental Sentiment survey
66% of U.S. respondents sometimes purchase Green products , the Cone 2008 Green Gap survey lists the rate at 40% and Minto market research rates a total of 200 million Americans as having a Green purchasing posture for enviro friendly products in certain categories - 66% paper products and 57% food.

"For example, 36 percent found the message “environmentally friendly” credible when used to describe a paper product, but 60 percent found the message “made with 80% post-consumer recycled paper” credible.

So, a Green rebranding is not necessarily enough to convince the public of a businesses' enviro- bona fides.

Pollster Harris Interactive identifys 23% of the new 'eco-boomers' demographic (ages 18 - 31) as no longer purchasing plastic bottled water for Green reasons.

And it's not just a question of purchasing but of also dropping product lines all together!

Green market consumers use online searching for 80% of their environmental information and according to
BurstMedia and a third or 37% recall viewing 'Green Messaging'. Have you started to think about the GreenMarket yet?

Publish Post



Sphere: Related Content

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The 6 million dollar Gardener

For everyone planning to spruce up the yard or cottage the following handy tools and outdoor gardening reno innovations should help make the job a little easier.
Check these puppies out for those nasty rose bushes and tired hands - Bionic Gardening Gloves for $40.
Photo courtesy of http://www.bionicgloves.com



Get the Original Green mower again. No more gasoline, no more noise and no pollution - Help reduce Sudbury's carbon footprint and your waistline - runs on sweat and people power.

Why not help set a new Green standard for your neighborhood with this classic lawn mower available from Gardeners.com just like Grampa's.

Encourage everyone around you to keep up with the Green's! They may even start a neighborhood composting lot soon.





And if you plan to spend some time sprucing up the yard or in the vegetable garden have a seat on the garden rocker ergonomically designed to support your back and swivel hips.




Can't quite reach it. Checkout this small business that makes gardening work easier through bulb planters, pruners and expandable rakes. Consider making a purchase online!

For everyone who missed out on the the Festival of Flowers - Check out the monthly calendar on the left side of the page for upcoming GreenSudbury events. Send us your event details, photos or subscribe to our email list or rss feed for complete GreenSudbury information.

Sphere: Related Content

Thursday, April 24, 2008

You are what you eat!


Photo from yuan2003

My neighbors have just dug up their front hedge and will be replacing it with new cedar bushes and will probably spray the area with pesticides and fertilizer along with most of the other homes on the street. The run off into the water system means that our drinking water in Sudbury will increase in pesticides and that makes its way into the food you eat. Doesn't the Earth have rights? In fact, The City of Sudbury has a Food Charter which you can download here

Thanks to the efforts of folks at Pesticide Reform Ontario is now enacting the most stringent no pesticide legislation in North America and alternates will now have to be used with exceptions for farmers and forests.

Individuals are changing their habits. Seeing the connection between climate change, greenhouse gas and global warming is not a huge step to make so why not between water quality and the food we eat? The Sudbury Soils Sample has been documenting and scientifically testing the local Sudbury area for years. One of the most high profile efforts to regreen and save the local lakes is the Minnow Lake Restoration Group.

Plenty of local initiatives are underway to protect the local foodshed -like the watershed and connected to growing and eating our local foods from local farmers. On Weds, May 21st from 4 - 6 p.m. at the Downtown Farmers Market The Foodshed project (from the The Social Planning Council of Sudbury) are holding an open meeting for youth.

This is all part of the larger campaign to Eat Local Sudburyand is a great place to find out more about the Sudbury foodshed and its implications on our health and carbon footprint. - You did know that food trucked from California to Sudbury adds to climate change right!

Local artist Will Morin will also host Aboriginal Spirituality - Food and the Earth. His work is available for viewing at ArtistsonElgin til the end of April. All in all its not easy being Green but so much is happening that sooner or later you will be Green too!

Sphere: Related Content

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

You got the whole world in your hands


Everyone sing along because you know you know the words! Sudbury Earth Day 2008 closed with a wonderful Green film festival at the Rainbow Cinema's in the City Center. A little over 100 in attendance watched films on Composting in New York, a short animation on global warming, the challenge of the Inuit in adapting to loss of language and culture, and coop farming all chosen from the Toronto environment film festival Planetinfocus.

Fridays at the farm was a wonderful first person short on family's and organic farming on a farm coop in Pennsylvania. Using over 20,000 digital pictures and a macro lens the film beautifully illustrated how digital photography can be turned into wonderful films. The film is from Coyopa a socially conscious film distribution company.

Taking photo's and taking care of the earth are one of the ways that art and environment meet up. Locally the
Living with Lakes Center has posted the winners of the 2008 calendar photography contest at Picture our Lakes . Calendars are also available for purchase at artistsonelgin.

Laurentian University and the Cooperative Fresh Water Ecology Unit also invite you to do your bit and adopt a lake at the same time. The center promises to be a state of the art
Green building and should be of interest to all local home builders and commercial developers. A good place to start and check your Leeds standards.

Sphere: Related Content