We are totally in love with AMC’s Mad Men.  Dark, compelling, gorgeous, we can hardly wait for Sunday nights at 10.

Matt Weiner, the show’s creator, is obsessed with keeping the show true to the time period.

Hence the lack of environmental awareness or sustainable business practices.

We’ve come a long way in 40 years, and we’re not just talking about cocktails before noon and free range smoking.

Beginning today, every GreenPoma.com order will be shipped carbon neutral via UPS.

You can read more about it here:   http://www.carbonneutral.ups.com/?VId=CarbonNeutral&WT.mc_id=CarbonNeutral

What else are we doing to green our shipping?

1. Using single wall corrugated cardboard cartons manufactured by Norampac Thompson, Inc.  These cartons use much less pulp than traditional boxes–saving both trees and shipping weight–which means less fuel is needed to get our orders to you.
2. Protecting contents with crumpled paper that has  85% post consumer recycled  content.
3. Printing  all our invoices and office correspondence on 100%  post consumer recycled paper.
4. Collating multi-page invoices with a staple-free stapler.
5. Sealing cartons with 100% paper sealing tape.
6. Marking cartons Fragile or Glass with self-inking stamps made from 80% PC recycled plastic, with vegetable inks.

What are your best green business practices?  We’d love to hear your ideas for reducing our impact on the environment.

Best idea posted here by Friday October 16th will win one of our 3 way CFL spirals. A great green choice for bedside or other reading lamps, these are the only ones the partners of GreenPoma.com use in our homes.  The light is terrific, and the bulbs use 76% less energy than a tradtional, incandescent 3 way bulb.  Guaranteed for 7 years.

A bulb even Betty Draper would love.

Over the Fourth of July holiday we took our two youngest on a quick trip to San Diego.

While our main goal was Legoland, dream world for all elementary aged boys, we were able to sneak in a couple hours at the Zoo.

Sure, we got a kick out of the new Elephant Odyssey with up close and personal access to all 20 inhabitants, and yes, Otis, the resident Hippo was suave and debonair,  but I think the exhibit I enjoyed the most was an artful display devoted to conservation.

Tucked in along the pedestrian walkway headed towards the elephants, three towering sculptures rose above the sidewalk.  Carved out of the metal uprights were silhouettes of various components to living life in harmony with our fragile planet.

Each of the towers is accompanied by a plaque with simple suggestions for ways to reduce energy and water use and to encourage recycling.

It is an artful way to promote a green message. I’ve heard it said that humans need to hear things seven times before the message starts to sink in.

I’d gladly take in this message at least 7 times at the San Diego Zoo, especially if it means more time spent gawking at the koalas.

And here is another message: Our 4 round trips between New Hampshire and San Diego generated 6,100 pounds of carbon dioxide. We purchased carbon offsets from Terrapass.com for $41.63, which is less than breakfast for four in our hotel

Photo credit:  The Boston Globe

A few years ago I heard something that stuck in my head:  there is no away.

We don’t get to throw anything away.  We have to burn or bury or sink deep into the ocean all of the crap we use up and don’t want anymore.

None of these disposal options are terrific for our planet, or all that permanent–remember the needles washing up on the gorgeous Jersey shore a decade or so ago?

As a family and a business we’ve been trying to reduce the amount of stuff we have, so that we can get rid of less stuff (and have less stuff to manage and maintain) but we still throw away heaps of garbage every Tuesday morning.

According to www.onconcord.com, the average person in the state of New Hampshire throws away 7.1 pounds of garbage a day, or more than a ton a year.  I shiver to think of the total that my politically incorrectly sized family of 7 is responsible for adding to our landfills every year, even with the huge amount of recycling we haul out to the curb for bi-weekly pick up.

Like a lot of other places, New Hampshire’s state and local budgets are suffering in this economic downturn, and every cost center is being scrutinized for potential savings.

Frankly, it was no surprise to find that here in Concord we are switching to a Pay as You Throw rubbish removal system.  Basically, every homeowner has to buy special purple bags for a dollar or two, and the city will only pick up those bags on trash day.

There was a lot of push back on this proposal.  Some people felt that PAYT is just a fancy name for a new tax.  And sure, two bucks a bag is more than I pay for even the reeeeeally good and stretchy Heftys, but I get that we have to plug a giant hole in the city budget, and I don’t think that maintaining the current level of “free” rubbish removal is worth further cuts to the library or other essential services.

What is great about the program is that it will force more and more people to recycle more and more stuff.

As my darling Republican husband says, government get less of what it taxes.

So if buying the bags equates to paying a tax, maybe we’ll get less garbage and hopefully that will mean more recycling.

Here at greenpoma.com we offer end of life recycling kits for CFLs and recycling kits for regular batteries.

We don’t make much profit on them, but we too are concerned with adding more mercury to our environment and wanted to find an easy and safe way to get rid of their bulbs when they eventually burn out.

We have one of each of these boxes tucked into a corner of the shelf on the basement stairs, and when they are full, we’ll seal the up and send them off, secure in the knowledge that they will be properly dismantled and recycled.

Now if only we could figure out how to put the spinning composter together.

I

Here’s the deal:  if lots of people do a few fairly simple things, we can reduce energy consumption in America by a shocking amount.

Not only will we save money in energy costs and reduce the amount of pollution in our air and water, but we can also reduce the need to increase energy production.

The basic (and brilliant) concept is energy savings as an energy source.

Join us next Thursday at the Red River Theaters in Concord for a special screening of the award winning documentary Kilowatt Ours. This important movie details practical cost saving solutions for consumers looking to reduce their energy use and save money.  By following Jeff Barrie’s simple suggestions, the average family can save about $1,000 per year in energy costs.

“Kilowatt Ours helps ordinary citizens take an active role in energy conservation.” Jeff Barrie said.  “Most viewers are shocked at the scope of the issue and even more so at the immediacy and simplicity of the solution — energy savings as an energy source”.

The special screening in Concord will be followed by a question and answer session, led by concerned local experts including

• Wes Golumb of the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association
• Jim O’Brien, Executive Director of Granite State Conservation Voters and a Hopkinton town Selectman
• Steven Lundahl of Energy Action NH
• Rob Werner, Concord City Counselor and Concord Carbon Challenge leader.

Peter and I are pleased and delighted that Green Poma can be a part of this event along with the NH Sustainable Energy Association and Stonyfield Farm.

Still need convincing?  There will be door prizes and free giveaways.

Plus our sweet new banner.

Our neighborhood elementary school has a grant to provide fresh fruit  for this school year.

I can’t think of a more welcoming sight than being greeted every morning by this bounty; free and available to all.  And while you can’t see it in the photo, there is a sign on the table indicating which recycling bin is for the melon clam shells.

We take a lot of flack for our lack of ethnic diversity during the presidential primary, but the truth is, here in Concord New Hampshire, our public schools draw children from across the economic spectrum.  Without this program, I wonder how many children at our school would have access to an ever changing variety of fresh fruit.

How great would it be if a table like this were the norm in every school in our great country?

There’s a classic New Yorker cartoon that shows two dogs sitting at computers.  The one says to the other, “on the internet, no one knows you’re a dog”.

That’s the funny thing about the internet; we’re all global, we’re all local, and no one really knows who or what we are.

Peter and I are actual living breathing people who are building this business and raising our family in Concord, New Hampshire.

We are comitted to building a sustainable business; not just in that we hope to sustain our family on the income generated from GreenPoma.com, but that we can support and contribute to the vibrancy our local community.

We’ve just joined Green Concord, an alliance of local businesses in the Concord area that offer environmentally-friendly products and services and that seek to foster a greener way of doing business and create a truly sustainable local economy.  As it says in the brochure, “raising consumer consciousness towards environmental issues and the demand for green goods is leading to many organizations misrepresenting their products or businesses as “green”. Green Concord exists to provide the public with clear and accurate information about environmentally friendly shopping. Our members all share a commitment to green business practices, our products are clearly marked and our staff are well trained. When a customer enters a store that is a member of Green Concord, they can shop with confidence.”

If you are one of our neighbors, please consider supporting member businesses, including Bartlett Design, Cafe Indigo, Concord Food Coop, Earthmade, Gondwana, Little River Oriental Rugs, Lotions and Potions, Real Green Goods, S&W Sports, Works Bakery Cafe Your Home Your World and of course, GreenPoma.com.

We look forward to seeing you!

Celebrate Earth Hour this Sunday, March 28th.

At 8:30 pm local time, join a hoped for billion people around the world as we turn off our lights for an hour to show support for the annual initiative to reduce energy use and greenhouse gasses.

Heck Peter and I’d be happy to do this once a week, if only to get our teenagers to take a texting/facebook break and actually make eye contact with us.

Click through to the official site at Earthour.org to see how people and places around the world will be marking the occasion.  In our home, we will be celebrating with a family dinner by candelight.  And GreenPoma.com will be completely shut down for the hour.

We’ll also be offering a earth hour discount code via e-mail on Wednesday.  Log in to the GreenPoma site to register to receive the coupon.  So that when you’re done flipping off the lights, you won’t even feel guilty.

Excellent Earth Hour posters by Shepard Fairey

Here is our house. Built around 1870, it is drafty and costs a fortune to heat. Even with the thermostats at a toasty 62 degrees, we are still paying $445 a month for natural gas on the budget plan. We added a woodstove last fall which keeps the kitchen at a temperature suited to sustaining human life, but other than that our house is c-o-l-d. Hoth cold.

I love to look at design websites and read about all of the nifty eco-vations that are available to new homebuyers, but not much attention has been paid to the retrofitting of older/antique homes. My assumption has been that in order to really tighten up our home we would destroy most of the charm — adding double paned windows, replacing the slate roof and cladding the exterior with insulated panels would reduce our energy consumption but at what aesthetic cost?

today as I was fooling around on the internet researching green trends I came across a reference to a Victorian home in England that has been totally greened up. Two women are in the process of retrofitting their brick town home to be as energy efficient as possible.  They have reduced their heating costs to something like $30 a month by making about 25 improvements, the biggest ones being the addition of a ton of insulation, a new roof (insulated with old newspapers) and a roof-mounted solar water heater.  They have further reduced their carbon footprint by adding a rainwater recovery system which funnels rainwater through copper pipes into a holding tank in the basement. The captured water is then used to fill the WC’s and to water the gardens, and the copper acts as a mild disinfectant, helpful given the source of the water.  The Guardian has a great tour of the home, and an interesting interview with the architects/homeowners, which you can link to here:  The Nottingham Ecohome.

I would love to find out what an energy audit of this house would reveal. It would be helpful to have a plan, even if it took us a decade to implement all of the suggested improvements. Heck, what’s a decade in the life of a home that is already nearly 140 years old?

If the road to hell is actually paved with good intentions, I’m certainly on my way.

Hopefully, the coffee will be hot….

But now that I think about it, if it’s going to be my own personal hell, it will be from Starbucks.

And lukewarm.

Am I the only one Trying To Be Mindful, Trying to Do The Green Thing…and is totally paralyzed?

Every time I crack open the internet I am assaulted by proof that I will never be as lean, green and in tune with the world as I should be.  And I am constantly shamed by the plethora of wrong decisions I am making.

Take milk for example.

I have 5 sons.

I know I know, I am solely responsible for exploding the population, but it is too late to send them back (and frankly, I don’t think they’d fit).

We go through more than a gallon of skim milk a day.
I know, I know, cows in pens, mucus, hormones, PLASTIC BOTTLES…

But seriously. If I had a local, organic dairy deliver to my house it would be, what, 14 glass half gallon jugs a week? Where would they go? And who would rinse them out? And how would I pay for all that?

The economic truth is I buy the store brand. I hate to even pay for the special milk in the light-block-bottles. So not only am I polluting the environment, torturing cows and generating gobs of mucus, but I am robbing my children of essential nutrients that are killed by light.

I’d like to think I am doing my part? Making a difference?

I guess it could be worse. I could be going through that many 2 liter bottles of Pepsi in a week.

Help?

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I am on track to be the incredible hulk: really strong and kinda green.

YOUR LIGHT BULBS

(jk)

Never in my life have I felt so patriotic.

To be a witness to history, to be poised at the beginning of something new, to be so hopeful for our country; I am an American and proud of it.

There was a moment after September 11th when President Bush had the empathy of the world in his hands. Instead of calling for shared national sacrifice, he took all that good will and threw it away on a war that will not end. I think often about where we would be as a country if Bush had taken Thomas Friedman’s advice and had set a floor to the price of gasoline with the excess going towards maintaining our aging infrastructure and developing new energy technologies. Instead, we had a housing bubble and dopey magazines like In Style a magazine about shopping.

I am certain that America is poised at another such moment, a moment when President Obama can call on us, and the world, to make the hard choices and the prudent investments, that will bring us peace and prosperity and a sustainable society.  Can we do it?  YES.  WE.  CAN.

I think the best line of President Obama’s speech was about “returning science to its rightful place”.

I would like to think this means that our scientists will again be able to guide and shape public policy, and to help us to do, as a country, what we need to do: lead the world toward a more sustainable future.

We will need to make sacrifices and hard decisions and I know I speak for many when I say,

We are fired up and ready to go!