They are big on nutrition and flavor, microgreens can be expensive to purchase. But they can also be grown cost-effectively at home, in a tiny space and with simple supplies. If you have a sunny windowsill, a shallow container, some potting mix and suitable seeds, you’ve got all the essentials for growing your own microgreens.

You can purchase your own starter kit here

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Mother’s Day is here.  This year, show your love for our common mother—Mother Earth!

Here are six simple actions to make your life (even) greener and reduce your impact on the environment.

Educate yourself about the environmental concerns important to you. Pick one environmental topic you want to know more about (climate change, renewable energy, organic food, etc.), and make a commitment to educate yourself about that topic. Start reading books on the subject that you find at your local library, or go to your local bookseller for books. Search for nonprofit organizations and green news sites that provide information on your topic.

Use your knowledge to get involved. Contact your elected officials when an environmental issue will affect you or your community. Join the local chapter of a nonprofit organization that works on your area of concern and help them be successful.

Eat healthy, with less meat and sugar, and more fruits and vegetables. I’m not just talking about the usual January resolutions to lose weight. I’m talking about developing new healthy habits and eating more vegetarian. Have you tried meatless days, using beans and rice for your protein? How can you add more fruits and veggies to your meals?

Reducing your meat consumption has a positive effect on the environment, and for the animals too. Livestock production accounts for nearly 20 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and about 25 percent of all global water used in agriculture. Websites such as Meatless Monday and Eating Well offer numerous vegetarian recipes that are healthy for you and the environment.

Go on a low-carbon diet and cut your energy use. We each have to take personal responsibility for the energy we use each day—and the estimated 20 tons per year of carbon dioxide we generate daily. Replacing your light bulbs is a start. Rethink the use of your car(s), make public transportation more of a daily feature in your life, and walk whenever possible. Insulate and caulk your home to cut heating and cooling bills, and turn out the lights around your home and business.

Adjust your thermostat to save energy and money—or do it automatically with a programmable thermostat. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that consumers can save up to 15 percent on heating and cooling bills just by adjusting their thermostats. Turning down the heat by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit for eight hours can result in savings of 5-15 percent on your home heating bill.

Cut your consumption, and recycle everything you can. Before buying anything, think about the environmental impact of that purchase—from the use of raw materials and water and energy to make the product, to the transportation and packaging—and whether you really need it. Make it easy to collect and take your paper, cardboard, and containers to your nearest recycling bins, which are often located in grocery store parking lots. Give used clothing, furniture, and toys to Goodwill or another charitable group.

Rethink your need to own a car if you live in a city with a car share service. Already more than half a million people in the U.S. are sharing instead of owning.

Strive to eliminate plastic from your life. It’s estimated that 10 percent of all the plastic created each year eventually ends up in an ocean, where it harms marine life that accidentally eats it. Set a goal today of not accepting a single store bag with a purchase. Then avoid bags for a week, a month, and the rest of the year. Take your own reusable containers to a restaurant for your leftovers.

No more bottled water! Americans use an estimated 2.5 million plastic bottles an hour! The bottled water industry made nearly $11 billion in profits in 2010—money that could stay in your wallet if you used tap or filtered water and your own containers. Only about a fourth of plastic bottles are ever recycled. Recent studies have found that bottled water often contains more pollutants than city tap water. Fill up your glasses and reusable water bottles with filtered water from your kitchen.

Get involved with like-minded people in your community. As one of our 1776 patriots noted, “We must all hang together, for surely we shall all hang separately.” Margaret Mead long ago noted that we should “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Many people like your are looking for ways to connect with others to solve local, regional, and global environmental problems. Each geographic community has numerous Eco-oriented groups, and myriad ways of finding out where they are. So what are you waiting for? Join your local Sierra Club, Green Drinks group, or another nature-loving group.

The post It’s Mother’s Day – Show your love for Mother Earth: Protect the planet appeared first on EcoExpress.

If you are are looking for ways to reduce your consumption, or you are simply looking for ways to save money in the long run, here are a few ways that your small business can start to go green.

Identify Waste and Attack It

When you think of waste, you should see money washing down the drain. While you might not think that you are wasteful, chances are that you are paying for things that you are not consuming all of the time. Leaving lights on during lunch, ordering more inventory than you need, or taking several trips to an office that could have been reduced to one are all wasteful actions. Identify the waste and find ways to stop the inefficiency so that you are using fewer resources and spending less money. Look for waste in your kitchen, reporting and paper usage, and use of electronics and energy.

Reduce Commutes to Work and to Meetings

Did you know that one of your biggest areas of consumption is more than likely your commute to work? When you commute, you are consuming fuel, which is a very scarce resource. Save money and reduce your carbon footprint by encouraging people in the office to bike, take the bus, or even carpool.

You will also spend quite a bit of money driving to meet with clients. If you are meeting with clients to gauge satisfaction, consider greener alternatives. Meet online whenever you can or make a phone call to reduce your impact on the environment. At EcoExpress we practice this daily. Some of us work remotely and we avoid wasting time, resources and fuel by utilizing skype video chat meetings.

Become a Part of the Cloud

Cloud technologies have changed the way that you keep your files accessible and your business computers online. If you use cloud-based technologies rather than using software backup programs, you can reduce the time you spend backing up your files and also reduce your energy consumption costs. You can also reduce the amount of paper and printing you use by using cloud services. Keep all of your reporting, analysis, and customer feedback surveys online and in the cloud, and you’ll be helping the environment and saving money.

When you are looking for a cloud-based software system, find a system that works for you. Make sure you cover all your angles, analysis, storage, and customer satisfaction. One really great resource that we use is DropBox. It allows all of us access to files for sharing, reporting, image storage and more!

Turn Off Your Equipment

When you leave your office, you do not need your monitors and copiers to stay on. More than 10% of your energy bill consists of powering your equipment even when it is on stand-by. Power your equipment off, including your PCs and your copiers, you reduce your energy costs. Turn all lights off and keep unused appliances off and unplugged when not in use.

You need to make efficiency and reduced consumption a priority when you are going green. Consider these the four useful tips, identify areas where you can improve and reduce the waste, and join the movement for businesses to go green. Going green is good for the environment and your bottom line, so start today.

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That is why it is of utmost importance that we provide positive examples for our children, as they are likely to inherit much of our lifestyle choices, both the good and the bad.  This extends to how we observe and react to the world around us.  With so much turmoil and unease in the world today – political, social/economical, technological, environmental, etc. – it’s now important to keep a positive outlook more than ever.  Not only for our own well-being, but for our children and the generations that follow.

So how to do we pass along our ideals and actions to our children without forcing it on them?  And in a way that even our youngest children can understand them?  I’ve recently given this some seriously thought and came up with a few basic examples we can impart these values upon our children in ways they understand and can easily implement into their day-to-day lives.

Healthy Personal Lifestyle Choices

Physical and mental health obviously play an important role in our overall well-being and outlook on life.  Maintaining a healthy diet and an active lifestyle are integral to keeping our bodies and minds fit.  Here are just a few things you can do to ensure a healthy and sustainable lifestyle:

• Take your kids shopping with you and teach them the value of buying organic and locally-grown produce and other items (Take them to your local farmer’s markets and community co-op markets)
• Avoid driving to places in your neighborhood when you can walk or ride a bike instead
• Teach them to avoid unhealthy foods, including fast food and highly-refined processed food and explain to them why they are undesirable (and reward them when they make healthy choices!)
• Go hiking and camping and show them the beauty of the outdoors (and teach them to leave trails and campsites better than when you arrived)
• Plant a garden with your children to give them a tangible example of how much fun growing your own food and eating healthy can be!

Understanding Sustainable Energy & Conserving Natural Resources 

In addition to our children’s own health, we want our children to maintain a healthy relationship with the world around them – within their communities, and within their relationship with their physical environment as a whole.  The ideas and actions of a sustainable lifestyle is integral to these relationships.  It’s important for even the youngest children to have an understanding of sustainable energy sources and the knowledge to conserve our limited natural resources.  While your conversations and examples could encompass a wide spectrum of topics, there are many simple ideas that children can easily grasp and put into action. 

• Recycling is a simple and obvious practice that children can easily understand.  Teach them how to recycle household items like plastic bottles, aluminum cans, paper, etc.  You can even let them manage the responsibility in your household and reward with them with the earnings from recycling cans and bottles at local recycle centers.
• Participate in local food drives and donations and involve your kids in your actions.  You can make it fun for you kids by running a household scavenger hunt in which you reward you children for finding household items to donate, such as clothes, toys, books, old appliances, and canned goods.
• Make it be known that that that there is nothing wrong in purchasing second-hand items from thrift stores, yard sales, or via classified ads or even online via places like eBay or Craigslist.  You will want to oversee their purchases, especially when it comes buy items online, but let them actively find ways to stretch their allowance or part-time wages by purchasing things used, such as clothes, books, furniture, and even bikes and cars.
• Teach your children the importance of water and energy conservation and reward them for turning off lights and fans when they leave the room, or by limiting their personal water usage by taking condensed showers, turning facets off in the midst of washing hands or brushing teeth, and only washing dishes or doing laundry with a full load.
• Encourage your teens and older children to walk or ride bikes to school or friends homes and other places they hang out, instead of driving or requesting a ride.  You can even reward them with extra allowance with the money saved on gasoline and car upkeep.  Public transportation can also be a great alternative depending on the area and your comfort level.

Personal Finances – A Thrifty Lifestyle Is A Sustainable Lifestyle 

Our economic stability is also a key aspect in maintaining a healthy outlook and plays an integral part in a sustainable lifestyle.  (And vice versa!)  Teaching your children to be thrifty with their earnings, whether via allowance or wages from a part-time job, works in tandem with teaching them to live a sustainable lifestyle.  Stress the importance of saving and staying away from debt.  Such as:

• Spend less than you make and invest the difference
• Don’t acquire material things to impress your friends
• Live simply and surround yourself with positive people (not stuff!)
• Be prepared for emergencies — financially and physically
• Get to know the whisper of your spirit, and pay it more attention than the trumpeting of your ego

Personal accountability and responsibility is the name of the game.  Ego-driven choices are responsible for much of the negativity, fear, and unease in the world today.  Instead, lead a life driven by love, positivity, and hope and impart those ideals on your children today.  The world you leave behind for the next generations will benefit because of it.

So, have you given any thought to how to teach your children about sustainable living?

What kinds of things have you tried?

The post Teaching children about the importance of a Sustainable Lifestyle appeared first on EcoExpress.

Reduce Waste

Millions of tones of food are thrown away in western countries every year. In the UK, it has been calculated that 330 kg of food is thrown out by every household each year. This rotting food accounts for 20 million tones of carbon dioxide gas each year. It is a similar story in other large, wealthy nations worldwide.

To reduce food waste, there are several simple strategies that you can employ:

• Learn creative ways to use left-overs to make delicious and nutritious meals.
• Store food correctly to reduce the amount of spoilage.
• Shop wisely; only buy what you know can be consumed by your family within its use-by date.
• Plan your menu and only buy what you need.
• Learn new ways of preserving food for later use.

Shop Locally 

The best and freshest produce is purchased locally, from farmers’ markets, farm gates, CSA’s, roadside stalls or a friendly neighbor. Locally grown food has greatly reduced food miles and doesn’t need to be specially treated to have a long shelf life. A lot of locally produced food is also grown organically, so the food is better for you and the environment.

Choose packaged products that are produced as close to where you live as possible to limit the miles it has to travel. Support local industries wherever possible.

Eat Organic Food 

Organic farming is a sustainable method of growing crops and grazing meat animals without the use of toxic chemicals. Traditional farming methods have developed that use large quantities of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, which have been shown to be present in the food we eat. These toxic chemicals kill off the good bacteria and insects along with the pests. The soils become so degraded that large quantities of artificial fertilizers, many based on petroleum, need to be added to make crops grow. Often growth hormones are added to force the plants and animals to achieve marketable size more quickly. Food grown organically is sustainable, non-toxic and produces better quality food.

Eat What is in Season 

We have come to expect to buy any type of fresh produce at any time of the year. This means that the food has to travel long distances to get to you, often from overseas. Varieties have to be selected that have a long shelf life to allow for the length of time between picking and purchase. Often quality and taste are sacrificed to obtain this long shelf life. By eating food that is in season, you are saving on storage and freight costs while eating the way nature intended.

Read Labels – know what you are eating 

Educate yourself by reading the labels on food packaging. You might be surprised by what is actually in many packaged foods. We were not meant to eat artificial colors, preservatives, flavors, enhancers and more. There is still a lot learn about what effects these substances are having on our health but medical research is showing that many are bad for us.

Grow your Own 

Plant a vegetable garden to grow those foods that you can in your area. If you don’t have a garden, use pots on a balcony or sunny windowsill. I use pots and my garden does extremely well.

Remember, anything you grow is going to taste better and be more nutritious than anything you can buy in a store. Trade any surplus with neighbors or take it to a farmers’ market. You can’t grow everything you eat but every bit helps.

These tips have really helped us eat more sustainably and I hope they help you too.  Start small and make a few changes at a time. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself.  Remember, every small step is helping you move towards a more sustainable lifestyle.

So, do you eat sustainably?

What are some ways you have learned how to cut down your carbon footprint?

The post Eating Sustainably appeared first on EcoExpress.

If you want to improve your health and your sustainability, one of the best ways is to grow a garden. Caring for a garden offers opportunities for exercise outside, and it allows for you to ensure that the food you eat is responsibly grown. Plus, if you are interested in local food sources, it doesn’t get much more local than your own backyard.

For the beginner, though, gardening can present a number of challenges. If you are just starting out with your garden, here are 5 tips that can help you out:

Start Small

At the outset, keep your garden relatively small. You don’t know how much time you’ll have, or how large a plot you can handle. Starting small gives you the chance to get to know some of the best techniques for growing your garden, and it can prevent you from becoming overwhelmed.

As you become more experienced with gardening, and as your confidence improves, you can plant a bigger garden.

Grow Easy Items First

You want your first garden to be a success, so consider growing relatively easy items that you know you will eat. Check with a local master gardener, or with some other resource, to find out which items grow best in your climate. You won’t be able to grow everything in your garden, so choose items that have the best chance of survival — and that aren’t too finicky.

Some plants that are generally easy to grow for most people include tomatoes, green beans, various squash, peas, potatoes, and certain herbs. Raspberries and blackberries, and even strawberries, are also fairly low-maintenance.

As you learn the ropes of gardening, you can begin to add more challenging plants to the rotation.

Create a Schedule

A schedule can help you stay on track with caring for your garden. Set aside time each week to make sure that your garden is watered, weeded, and otherwise cared for. Scheduling this time ensures that your garden receives proper care, and it allows you to look for problems and address them.

Use Starts

One way to get your garden solidly underway is to use starts. Rather than planting your seeds outside, plant them inside. You can use empty egg cartons or other small containers for this job. Plant the seeds in a small amount of soil, and keep them in a sunny window. They’ll start to grow, and you can then transplant the sprouts, plus the soil, into your garden. Starts can be a way to avoid some of the hazards that come when you plant a seed in the soil. I like starts especially because there is usually a late cold snap in my area. I can keep the starts safely inside until the weather is mild enough to begin planting.

Make a Plan

Be sure to plan out where you will keep your plants. This is especially important if you have produce that requires a certain amount of sunlight or shade. Our backyard gets a lot of sun, so it isn’t a big deal for us. However, we planned it out so that our fruit trees are are in a position where they won’t cast shade on other plants. Think about how to situate your plants so that they don’t interfere with each other.

Other Things to Keep in Mind

Here are a few other tips and tricks that the beginning gardener can use to increase the chances of success:

• Don’t be too neat: You want loose soil so that the roots can easily get in there and grab hold. Avoid planting seeds and starts in neat, smooth holes. Instead, make sure you till up the soil (we use a shovel, since we have garden boxes) and make sure there is plenty of loose dirt. When covering the seed, or planting the start, don’t pack the dirt tightly.
• Use beer: This is something we’ve used to great effect in our garden. Get a small container (tuna cans work great) and put them in so that the top is level with the soil. Add a small amount of beer and water to the can. Slugs like the smell — and they drown, rather than get into your plants.
• Watch for signs of disease: Keep an eye on your plants, and removed leaves or other portions that look diseased.

What are some of your best tips for beginning gardeners?

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The problem of managing these amount of waste is nothing short of overwhelming for governments. Thankfully, there are easy ways for us consumers to change this number and make a difference. There are simple ways to cut down on waste, from buying concentrated household products to buying in bulk. Today, I am going to share with you 8 ways you can recycle, reduce, and reuse.

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It’s quite simple, really. With a small upfront investment, you can reduce – or even eliminate – all the waste that comes from eating a “disposable” lunch at work or school. Here’s all that you need:

• Stainless-steel or bamboo forks, knives, and spoons
• Washable plates and bowls
• Stainless-steel or glass straws
• Resealable sandwich or lunch containers, made from stainless steel
• Reusable sandwich bags and tote
• Reusable water bottles like ones from SIGG and Klean-Kanteen
• A washable bag or insulated tote to carry everything in

That’s it! It’s quite simple, really. Everything in that lunch bag can be washed and reused or at least an be dealt with in an environmentally-friendly manner. For example, most leftover food scraps can even be composted (other than meat, of course) so they can be brought home if a school or workplace doesn’t do composting.

It may seem cheaper to buy plastic bags, paper sacks, and disposable utensils when you need them but over the long run it’s much cheaper to buy reusable goods that will last years and years. Of course, that’s only the financial savings. Think of all the plastic and paper that won’t need to be made and shipped only to then end up in our landfills, recycling centers, or in nature where it can negatively affect wildlife and even our drinking water. It’s crazy how much trash we generate even when there are easy solutions!

The best way to reduce the amount of waste we throw away is to not create it in the first place. A few simple changes at home can go a long way to cutting your environmental footprint on the planet. From the time they start school at around 5 years old until they graduate from high school, the average student can generate 871 pounds of needless trash that we have to deal with. That’s a lot of trash that can be saved just by switching to packing a waste-free lunch five days a week. Make 2013 the year you move from disposable lunches and materials to reusable ones. The planet (and your wallet) will thank you!

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Häagen-Dazs to pilot sustainable vanilla sourcing program

The brand known for its rich ice cream is hoping to spread some riches back to vanilla’s source: the farmers in Madagascar who supply Häagen-Dazs and its parent company, Minneapolis-based General Mills.

A two-year pilot training program set to launch this spring among villages in the country’s northeastern Sava region aims to provide training and education to several hundred farmers on how to cure vanilla. Curing — a multistep process that includes drying and storing the pods as a way to release their trademark fragrance — is performed mainly by vanilla suppliers and traders. Farmers will receive access to equipment and curing facilities as part of the program.

Providing the farmers with the training and facilities to take on the curing process post-harvest is designed to strengthen the farmers’ economic livelihoods, General Mills Chief Sustainability Officer Jerry Lynch told GreenBiz. The farmers — who rely on the vanilla harvest for most of their income — will also be trained on how to generate higher yields from the vanilla orchid plants.

“The training allows them to capture a bigger part of the of the value chain,” Lynch said.

Häagen-Dazs and General Mills have joined forces with in-country NGOs to implement the program, according to Joan Lundgren, the deputy executive director of strategic partnerships and alliances at CARE. CARE is an international organization that has worked in the vanilla-growing Sava area for nearly 20 years implementing community health, food security and disaster risk reduction activities. Malagasy conservation group Fanamby will conduct the technical training with established grower associations, while CARE will provide small business and financial training for farmer families, Lundgren said.

Another partner is Virginia Dare, a longtime vanilla supplier and processor based in Brooklyn, N.Y. The company will work with the team to share its knowledge of the vanilla market with the farmers. Virginia Dare has previously worked with the first village selected to receive the trainings, according to Lundgren.

Company benefits, too

But the company’s efforts — paid for by the General Mills Foundation with a $125,000 budget over the two-year period — are not simply aimed just at benefiting farmers. A tandem goal of the program is to ensure a sustainable supply of vanilla for Häagen-Dazs and General Mills in the future, as vanilla is a “really important” ingredient to the ice cream brand, Lynch said. Lynch declined to disclose the volume of vanilla the company uses each year.

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