Savvy Girl

New Source for Organic Flowers

I received these beautiful organic callas last week from my dear friend April, and I was excited to see that they come from a different source than those I have used in the past. In reality, Organic Style turns out to be a spin-off from Organic Bouquet and they now offer a much wider variety gifts, from garden accessories to apparel. While I was a tad disappointed to realize that it wasn't actually a new supplier entering the market, this is a clear sign that they are doing well. Here's to fresh flowers!

Green Living Ideas

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why I have not come across this website before, but hey, I guess you learn something new everyday, huh? I stumbled across www.greenlivingideas.com this morning as I was searching for more eco-travel ideas. It could be argued, of course, that travel in general is not an environmentally concious/conservative thing to do, but for some of us, it's a guilty pleasure that we may never be able to shake. Specifically, I was looking for information on off-sets that do not involve planting trees. You may not have heard this before, but planting a tree is not really the most effective way to offset carbon. Don't get me wrong now -- trees are great! But there are some drawbacks to the way some of the tree-planting is being handled. Plus, there are other options that some argue will have a much greater impct. More on this next week. For now, I just want to leave you with this great website as a fairly comprehensive resource. Happy reading!

Simply the Best Cakes

I met a fantastic new (new to me) cake designer yesterday! Clara Lindstrom is originally from Seattle, but has been in San Francisco for the last three years. Her cakes are made from scratch using 100% organic ingredients and mostly importantly -- they're stunning! Clara custom designs each cake to fit the style of her clients and will happily make wheat-free/gluten-free or vegan if you please!

Check her out at: www.simplythebestcakes.com

STUFF and the CITY ...

Wandering through the streets of New York City last week, I noticed it was impossible to avoid being inundated by advertisements and drawn to beautiful displays of all kinds of STUFF. On a short stroll to dinner one night I passed five Starbucks stores, eight shoe stores, and fifteen women’s clothing stores, six street vendors selling everything from really yummy smelling pretzels to hot dogs to roasted chestnuts. I saw at least three pairs of shoes that I was tempted to try on. I saw women with fabulous coats and purses, and boots … oh the boots!!

When I’m at home in San Francisco, I consider myself a pretty thoughtful and minimalist consumer of stuff, but being here, I am reminded of just how easy it is to be influenced by all of the advertising and that feeling of “lack.” I’m surprised at how susceptible I’ve been to this. One of the things I found really disturbing is that some companies are now using global warming to sell us more stuff (click on the photo above to see what I mean.)

I believe that this is one of the major roadblocks for American society in our effort to go sustainable. If we don't all have the newest, latest, greatest shoes, computers, phones, iPods, TV's, cars, then we feel like we're being left behind (which is so not cool!) If anyone hasn't yet seen The Story of Stuff, please check it out here:  http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

I guarantee it's totally worth 20 minutes of your time!

Information, on the one hand, is a wonderful way to begin combatting this, however, what about too much information? At the Borders store near Lincoln Center, I found three, yes three!, walls of books on the subject of going green or going sustainable. I was so excited, I started grabbing books off the shelf left and right ... and then I thought: "Do I really NEED all these?" Luckily, I realized that I have plenty of reading to do for my MBA program at the moment and that I really didn't want to lug an extra 10 pounds of books on the plane, but the urge to consume was still so strong! How do we fix it? Would love to hear your thoughts as this all translates mightility to the wedding and events industries.

Where Does Convention Trash Go?

Greening of the Convention Trade

Making Conventions Environmentally Friendly

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Finally, meeting planners are starting to sit up and take notice! One of the reasons I left the corporate meeting planning world was due to the ridiculous amount of waste it creates and the feeling that I had no power within my organization to begin changing that. This article from Sunday's Chronicle hits the nail on the head.

Thank goodness there are services popping up to help us deal with this massive problem -- like Good Green Graces, owned by my friend Janice Sitton (another meeting planning refugee). Janice is totally set up to help companies and events calculate their carbon footprint, help them reduce it by taking over the monumental tasks of recycling, management of commercial composting, and sourcing of compostable and recyclable food service and office supply products -- all part of a complete Waste Diversion Plan to be followed up by a cost-savings analysis of greening activities.

Finally, Martha Stewart is On Board!

I just picked up the Winter issue of Martha Stewart Weddings and lo and behold! There was an article inside entitled, "How to Throw a Green Wedding." The article is not yet available online, so here is a brief synopsis:

1. Marry by day - getting married outside in the morning or afternoon will cut back on electricity needed for lighting, as well as air-conditioning or heating. (Seems obvious, but maybe not something everyone thinks about.)

2. Think small - "An intimate event requires fewer resources across the board."

3. Cut down on paper - As you all well know, I have long been in search of great invitation vendors, but they also suggest adding a note to you registry to request that gifts not be wrapped. Great point!

4. Keep events near each other - this cuts down on the emissions created by transporting the party from ceremony to reception. (Also allows more time to party!)

5. Pay it back - Carbon offsets are a nice way to make yourself feel better about all the emissions created by guests travelling a long way to your event.

6. Go local - "Food and flowers grown nearby require less transportation." As far as food goes, this is fairly easy to do, but depending on the location of your wedding, I wouldn't count on finding locally grown flowers, and Martha didn't provide any suggestions for this. You can always order from organicbouquet.com or californiaorganicflowers.com, but they have to be shipped. I'm still searching for the greenest solution here. I guarantee that within the next five years, we'll have a good alternative, but this doesn't help those of us who are getting married this year

7. Give Earth-friendly favors - This is one that is near and dear to my heart. How many times have you attended a wedding and received a favor that you tossed or gave away to Goodwill the next day? The article recommends "donations in guests' names to an organization such as the World Wildlife Fund or the Rainforest Alliance. Or, if you'd like your guests to go home wiht a small keepsake, try tiny potted herbs, tree seedlings in biodegradeable containers, or edible gifts such as fair-trade coffee or organic chocolate."

8. Recycle - "Yes, you should ask your caterer to separate bottles and cans at the reception and ferry the leftover food to a shelter." They also suggest wearing your mother's gown or a vintage dress, and repurposing flowers. I think this subject warrants an entire article - there is just so much more that you can do! (I'll come back to this in a later post because I definitely think it needs more attention.)

All in all, it was nice to see a major publication like Martha Stewart Weddings starting to take notice of this issuse. Granted, it wasn't a cover story, but it was a little step in the right direction. If only they would start printing their magazine on 100% post-consumer recycled paper ...

I love school!

I know I've been sending text messages to many of you with this same statement over the past couple of days. You may think I'm getting redundant, but I can't emphasize it enough. I've never been in an academic environment with so many people who share my values! It's absolutely amazing! More later, as I'm totally exhausted right now, but I'll have lots of stories for you when this residency weekend is over.

Eco-Invitation Vendor

Yes! Finally an eco-friendly invitation that doesn't look like it's made of seeds and bark! Jennifer at Earthly Affair just started her business this summer (around the time that I was getting going) and I'm thrilled to see her first designs. I think I will be using her for my own invitations soon!

I'm in!

Welcome to 2008! Yeah, I know, I'm a little late, but I've been busy and without constant internet access for the past few weeks and sometimes that can be a good thing.

The good news is, I am starting school next week. Yes, I've been accepted into the MBA in Sustainable Management program at Presidio School of Management. No, I didn't mention to most of you that I was even applying, but it sort of came up out of the blue.

Anyway, I'm very excited to get started!

Tree Fixins

Yes, I fixed the tree ... the very next day, actually. It's just taken me a little while to get to the computer with all the parties going on this week. The fabric at the bottom is leftover from an event and the tree will be composted later. I already mentioned the LED lights. All in all, I'd say it's pretty green!!