A Four Leaf Clover of Green Living

Four leaf clovers have an association of good luck. Living green is a means of bringing good fortune to the future of our planet by responsibly managing resources. How can each clover on a 4 leaf clover reveal the virtuous aspects of living green?

Hope:  Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life.   With the over saturation of negative media today, it’s easy to lose sight of good things to come.  Identify areas in your life or business or personal life that have an environmental impact and that you are also willing to change and improve.  Look at going paperless at home or in your office, perhaps improving air quality or maybe start recycling.  These changes don’t have to be hard or cumbersome, create an expectation of ease of transition using hope.  Hope for good things to come in your life, work, and for the environment.

Faith:  Faith is the confident belief in the truth of or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.   Focus your attention with anticipation of a positive outcome.  Stretch your imagination and take action.   If you started a paperless program or energy efficiency program as part of your sustainability plan, then start looking for the savings on a monthly and quarterly basis.  Intangible benefits that aren’t as easily measured may be the first evidence of taking action based on faith: improved employee morale, stakeholder impressions changing for the better or family members and neighbors feeling good about taking environmental action.

Love: Find appreciation in what is working in your life and your business.  Have you noticed that what you focus on expands?  Why not appreciate a job well done?  Share and reach out in your community.  Businesses extend latitude towards customers and vendors.   Love your life, your business, and love our planet.

Luck:  Create your own pot of gold.  The actions we take today create our tomorrow.  Invest in sustainability concepts in your business and your life for a better tomorrow:  waste reduction, energy efficiency, recycling programs, water conservation, community involvement, sustainable businesses practices, living a sustainable lifestyle and invest in socially responsible investing.

Green living is an expression of demonstrated values. When others see you living a sustainable lifestyle, and see that you are enjoying it, it inspires them to make similar efforts for themselves.  Like a four leaf clover, we can share good fortune with each other and our planet.

Technorati Tags: green living, inspiration

Live Green – On Your Terms

Look around and you’ll see going green slogans everywhere.  The web is full of information on going green. For many, this mountain of information can be confusing and at times a little overwhelming.  But navigating the green waters doesn’t have to be challenging. It all starts with getting clear on what it means to be green.  Is it living off the grid? Living in a green house? Working at a green job?  What exactly does it mean to be green – to you?

Stripping away the multitude of readily available green websites, blog post, and information there is the seed of what green living is all about. It’s a lifestyle and set of choices that minimizes a person’s environmental impact.  While living green embraces concepts of efficiency, organics, waste management, and so forth, the mindset is more important than the actions.  Why?  Because life is dynamic.    When you think about it, applying green living concepts one way today may not be the sustainable solution of tomorrow.  Your life circumstances change so it’s in your approach to life that matters.

Discover the different ways of being green and see what fits for you.

•    Discover what can be recycled and what cannot!  Can you recycle paint? Hair? Crayons?  Find out here.  Better yet, discover recycling centers near your home by visiting Earth911.

•    Discover the rewarding sensation of volunteering in your community.  Not sure where to start?  Visit VolunteerMatch and enter your zip code and area of interest to find a perfect volunteer match.

•    Discover cycling as part of a sustainable lifestyle and as a rewarding personal adventure. Explore health, environmental, and cost saving reasons for biking to work and pick out your favorite resources to help you do it.

•    Discover a new shade of organic makeup just in time for the summer months.

•    Discover ways to decorate the eco friendly way with eco friendly materials, paints, and plants.

•    Discover ways to green your routine.   Pick a different day of the week to take eco action on different sustainability concepts.  The thrill is in changing habits on a daily basis.  Need ideas?  Visit here.

Through our daily living, we are presented with opportunities to expand our awareness and make informed choices.  Being conscious of green living concepts contributes to creating a lifestyle that you define as green and one that works for you.

Technorati Tags: green living

Fun Green Summer Activities for Kids

The kids will soon be home from school and now it is time to find something for them to do.  This may seem like a lengthy and cumbersome process, but it doesn’t have to be.  Why not use it as an opportunity to share your appreciation with nature and green living with your children?

In a great post by our friends at Lime, Growing Greener Kids, they discuss some great green summer activities for kids:

• Take Them Outdoors: spend more time at nature-friendly destinations, like state parks and beaches.
• Do Crafts with Reusable Household Items: sustainability is a kid-friendly concept so teach them about recycling by using disposable materials to create something beautiful and new.
• Show Them Life in Action: the more kids see, touch, and experience, the more they respect life in all its forms.  Create projects around the house to make nature part of your daily living: bird houses, bird feeders, lady bug houses.
• Tune Into Green TV: on those rainy days when the kids can’t get outside, tune the TV to “Animal Planet” or “Discovery Planet” and allow your kids to soak up the eco awareness.
• Pick up a copy of GreenMyParents and join the Youth movement to seed the green economy & save the Planet.
• Celebrate Nature with a Summer Party: incorporate green activities into your summer parties and season ending party by acknowledge all the great activities and things your children have learned.

Personal sustainability can touch every area of your life and usually encourages others to become involved.   What better way to raise the eco awareness in your household than to engage your children in the process.  By incorporating the sustainability concepts that bring you joy into your summer planning, you will create fun activities for everyone.

Technorati Tags: conscious parenting, green living

Eco Friendly Fast Food

Are you always on the run? Does it feel like you never have quite enough time in the day to eat a proper meal? Lack of time is a major reason why many people give up eating right. However, healthy eating is important for promoting good health as well as bringing eco awareness to a green lifestyle.

Consider the drive through drink you bought at lunch.  Did you know that each year the average American throws away about 100 polystyrene foam cups, each expected to last over 500 years?

Although sustainable fast food sounds like an oxymoron, Chipotle’s is one of the fast food restaurants recognized for tasty food but also as a leader in building business sustainability.  Quizno’s is another fast food choice supporting the environment. When eating on the run, maintain that goal of living green.  Look for restaurants that consider the environment:

• Energy / Water Efficiency and Conservation
• Recycling and Composting
• Sustainable Food: local and organic
• Pollution Prevention
• Recycled, Tree-Free, Biodegradable and Organic Products
• Chlorine-Free Paper Products
• Non-Toxic Cleaning and Chemical Products
• Green Power

Need some resources?  Check out the Green Restaurant guide for local green restaurants.  Or, use Foursquare for Greenies.  Find your eco friendly friends and discover the green restaurants they frequent.

Technorati Tags: green living, Health & Well-being

How to Get on Board with Green

The web is full of information on going green, living green and buying green.   For many, this mountain of information can be confusing and at times a little overwhelming.  How do you make sense of it all?    Where do you begin?  A thought to consider is: what works for one may not be the right fit for another.

It’s important to identify the keys to success in making green work for you.  To begin, keep in mind that personal sustainability is a continuous improvement process that challenges an individual to constantly expand personal eco awareness.   This may seem obvious but it is so true.  There isn’t any one single defined path to green living or a sustainable lifestyle.  And, there isn’t a beginning and there isn’t an end.  Personal sustainability is your journey of discovery.

The post, Exploring the Value in Personal Sustainability, identifies some of the drivers, challenges, and big opportunities around green living.   Key points include:

• Follow the path that is most inspiring to you.   If recycling lights you up, go for it.  If energy efficiency is exciting, get started with that.
• Expand your eco awareness on these topics, then shift to alternative choices and behavior changes.
• Don’t try to take it all on at once, remember small changes add up.
• Consistency over volume: daily and regular practices have the most impact.
• Reward your successes.  Take not of the status of your project from the beginning state and its now current state. Benchmarking is important.
• Momentum brings visibility to previously inaccessible ideas and behaviors.
• Your personal sustainability success will ignite new inspiration for more eco actions.

By capitalizing on the power of inspiration and focusing on personal value drivers it’s easy to discover a green path that works for you, the planet, and inspires others to live green too!

Technorati Tags: green living

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