Today starts a new series of posts, that’ll appear once a week here on the TreeHugger blog. We want to make it easy and fun to take positive action to add some green to your life, so we’ll be breaking it down by category, suggesting a handful of ways to take some green steps, and explaining why they’re important; pick one, choose three or do them all — we don’t mind — as each one individually (or in combination with others) will help you further incorporate green into your life. And the title of the column — Green For Dummies — is not a reflection of the level of intelligence of you readers, of course; we just want to break it down to a level that anyone can approach and embrace. Today, we’ll talk about eating.

As something we all do several times every day, making greener food choices is one of the most impactful behaviors you can do. TreeHugger recommends the following:

Eat organic — which means, of course, that there aren’t any pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or any other nasty chemicals used to help the food grown. That’s better for the food, and for your body, for sure, but way better for the ecosystem in which it was produced, too, as well as healthier for those who harvest the food, the plants and animals that require the surrounding land to survive. For more on organics, see the USDA Organic homepage [www.ams.usda.gov].
Enjoy fair fare — or Fair Trade certified foods, ensure a proper wage and working conditions for those who harvest and handle it. But fair trade is green for the environment as well. TransFair [transfairusa.org], the only fair trade certifier in the US, has strong environmental standards built into its certification process that protect watersheds and virgin forests, help prevent erosion, promote natural soil fertility and water conservation, and prohibit GMOs and many synthetic chemicals. TransFair claims that their environmental standards are the most stringent in the industry, second only to USDA organic certification.
Think global, eat local — Buying local food that’s in season is a boon for the environment for a lot of reasons. Since most food travels many miles from farm to fork (1,500 miles, on average, here in the US), food from local sources cuts back on the climate-change impacts of transportation. Local food also generally uses less packaging, is fresher and tastier, and comes in more varieties. It also supports small local growers, rather than big industrial agriculture and lets them get more for their produce by not having to spend so much on packing, processing, refrigeration, marketing, and shipping. This is a subject we’ve covered before here on the blog; check out the full entry [www.sundancechannel.com] for more.
Grow your own — It doesn’t get any more local than right from your own backyard (or kitchen, even!), and you not only get the satisfaction of the do-it-yourself project, but you get to eat the delicious fruits of your labor. If your real estate doesn’t allow extra room for a garden plot, there’s always hydroponics [www.hydroponicsonline.com] or its waterless cousin, aeroponics [www.aerogrow.com].

Don’t follow the pack — Instead of buying foods that come in extensive packaging, which is often petroleum-based plastics, look for unpackaged or minimally packaged foods. Bringing your own containers (and your own reusable shopping bag) to the grocery store is a quick ‘n easy way to cut way back on packaging; alternately looks for brands that use bio-based plastic packing — there are a few out there, but there are more almost every day, it seems. Of course, try to recycle or reuse any packaging you can’t avoid; read this article [www.foodproductiondaily.com] for more info.
Compost the leftovers — Greening your eating doesn’t stop when you’re full; composting leftovers (a subject we covered in some depth, starting here [www.sundancechannel.com]) will ease the burden on the landfill, give your soil and plants a fertile boost, and keep your kitchen waste basket from smelling. And remember, it’s not just for those who have room for a huge pile out back; apartment dwellers and yardless city dwellers can do it, too.
Ease up on the meat — Meat is the most resource-intensive food on the table and eating less of it can be the single most green move a person makes. Producing meat requires huge amounts of water, grain, land, and other inputs often including hormones and antibiotics, and leads to pollution of soil, air, and water. A pound of beef requires around 12,000 gallons of water to produce, compared to 60 gallons for a pound of potatoes. If you’re a bona-fide meat eater, for starters, try cutting it out of one meal a week — Meatless Mondays, or something like that. Going full-on vegetarian or vegan is a profoundly meaningful environmental choice, and it’s done wonders for Coldplay’s Chris Martin [www.treehugger.com] and Prince [www.treehugger.com].

Each Friday, we point TreeHugger’s green spotlight on a designer practicing sustainability and incorporating green into their designs. Either through materials selection and use, manufacturing practices or finishing techniques (or a combination of the three…or any number of other, smaller — but no less important — considerations), they’re creating beautiful, useful, functional artifacts that leave a smaller footprint on the earth. But doesn’t it just create more stuff that we may or may not need? Isn’t an opiate for people who want to be greener but don’t want to actually do anything? Why is spotlighting (and encouraging) sustainable design important? Read on…

Just about everything we use, consume or see every day has been designed; designers have their hands on all of these things, far before we ever see them on the shelves (or on your computer screen, as with each Friday here at the TreeHugger blog). While there’s a lot — a lot — of “design-for-design’s-sake” out there, we want to encourage designers to take these formally disposable products, keep them beautiful and increase their relative sustainability. While it’s true (for the most part) that we can’t buy our way to sustainability, TreeHugger feels its important not only to showcase as many of the really striking, really modern examples of design as we can, but to use our green voice to encourage designers not yet on board to follow suit. If we can help convince the world (and the designers) that green can look good and is worth doing, there is no product that can’t be made greener by this philosophy. The computer you’re reading this on, the keyboard tray you’re resting your hands on, the light you’re reading by — all exemplified in Herman Miller’s new Be Collection [www.thebecollection.com], pictured above — all can be more beautiful, more functional, and more sustainable.

So, we don’t think you should go out and buy everything that you read about on this site, or at TreeHugger, for that matter. But you should know that it exists, that sustainable, fantastically-designed, thoughtful versions of just about everything you consume on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis can be yours. Come back this week for more musings on product design, plus some advice about where to learn more and (finally) where to buy it when you’re ready. Stay tuned!

The TreeHugger blog here at Sundance Channel completes its first month today, and during this short time, we haven’t been shy about highlighting the many virtues of bamboo. If you’re just joining us, or just want a quick refresher, read up [www.sundancechannel.com] on why we’re such fans of the über-material. Of its many implementations, though, furniture might be TreeHugger’s favorite, and some of the best comes from the designers at Modern Bamboo [www.modernbamboo.com].

Making spare use of bamboo to create chic, modern furniture, Modern Bamboo concentrates its efforts on three simple products: a chair, stool and table. All three employ the bent-plywood technique, where a sheet of flat plywood (made of bamboo, in this case) is carefully bent to create the desired shape. The technique yields a smooth, linear feel, and is a super-efficient use of materials; because entire pieces of furniture can be made with single sheets of plywood, it uses only about 1/8 (or just over 10%) of the material of traditional furniture-making techniques. Add that to bamboo’s ability to regenerate at an incredible rate, and you’ve got a pretty sustainable combination.

All bamboo isn’t created equal, though, as we noted before at TreeHugger [www.treehugger.com], and must be chosen carefully. Fortunately, Modern Bamboo uses Smith & Fong Plyboo [www.plyboo.com] for their furniture, which have high standards when it comes to using glues with negligible levels of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen and indoor air pollutant. If the Spring Chair, Becca Stool or Game Table (all pictured individually, as well as together in a room, above) aren’t your style, but you’re yearning for some bent-ply bamboo furniture, Modern Bamboo can still help you out. They do a good bit of custom work [www.modernbamboo.com] and are happy to chat about your vision for a beautiful piece of bamboo furniture designed specifically for your home. Learn more about their work (and try not to drool on your keyboard) at their website [www.modernbamboo.com].

Welcome to the TreeHugger blog on the brand-new Sundance Channel website, and thanks for reading! If you’re unfamiliar with TreeHugger, we’re dedicated to helping everyone pursue a modern, green lifestyle. What does that mean? We offer news, products, ideas and tips to help reduce your footprint on the planet without sacrificing good looks, quality design or your own personal style. Our goal is to bring sustainability to the mainstream by showcasing all the ways you can be hip, have fun, embrace design and look good while actively engaging in environmentally-friendly behavior. We’re bringing all of those ideas to our blog here.

So what does “being green” really mean? Lots of things, for sure, but, for our purposes, it can all basically boil down to four simple things: buying and using less stuff; buying and using stuff that’s less harmful to both the planet and its people; finding out and thinking about where all this stuff comes from; and learning to triage these results to create meaningful, lasting benefit in your own life. We’re confident that every person who reads this blog can find a way to connect to living a greener life, whether its through interior design, technology, consumer products, inspiring individuals or simple lifestyle tips, and we’ll help you do it. We won’t advocate that you go out and purchase all-new furnishings or a new wardrobe, but, when the time comes, we want you know some available options; we won’t tell you that the sky is falling, but we will show you how you can make a difference in some of the pressing issues facing our world; we’ll embrace relativism (a hybrid is green for a car, but not as green as riding your bicycle or taking the bus) while recognizing that we all live in the real world, and that everyone can’t do everything (and that’s okay). It’s going to be fun.

TreeHugger is a big believer that there isn’t anything you can’t do with a smaller footprint or lighter load on the planet, and we’ll do our best to find as many diverse examples of this idea as possible. For the most part, we’ll provide quick, easily digestible posts with lots of links for further reading and research. We’ll give details without getting too technical or relying on jargon, and contextualize with awards, certifications and ratings when they’re available. Without being judgmental, we’ll explain the green merits of the various concepts, ideas and products you’ll see, keeping in mind that “green” is evolving and that we’ll be operating on something of a sliding scale.

Above all, we’re really here to show how easy, enlightening, and, dare we say, fun it can be to embrace a greener lifestyle. There have never been more ways to do it, it’s never been this cool, and we’re excited to be able to be bringing it to SundanceChannel.com every day. We’re excited about this stuff, and hope our enthusiasm will help entice you to visit us often, develop an appetite for being green, and learn a few things about how to be better at it. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more of the best in green!

In this post, you will learn about Collin Dunn, who will be the primary writer for the Treehugger Blog on Sundance Channel. Collin Dunn has been working at Treehugger.com for a few years and has distinguished himself as an educator and motivator in the environmental movement.

Collin Dunn is a sustainability enthusiast based in Seattle, WA. He really digs modern design, music and pop culture, and believes that they all have a place in our greener world and are a great way to engage a mainstream audience in a greener lifestyle. Over at TreeHugger, he most often writes about ideas and products that can help us all be a little greener and live a little better without sacrificing looks, design and personal style. He figures if we’re going to change the world, we might as well like the way things look while doing it. Collin’s sustainable heroes include the Eames brothers, Rogan Gregory, and Bill McDonough; they’ve all helped show the world that green can be hip, cool and sexy. When it comes to apparel, he believes that organic cotton feels better; with food, he thinks that there’s nothing like fresh basil from your local farmer’s market, and that organic food tastes better when you prepare it yourself. Collin also thinks everyone should see An Inconvenient Truth, and that you should ride your bike to the movie store to rent it. He believes in human ingenuity and the power of positive thinking, that the democratic process works when everyone engages in it, and that we should all vote with our dollars. He doesn’t think there is any reason to take ourselves too seriously all of the time. He knows that no one is perfect, and that’s okay.

When he isn’t blogging about these ideas, Collin daydreams of a sustainable future while feasting on indie rock and sipping java from independent coffee shops. He makes a mean paella, prefers pinot noir from the Willamette Valley and doesn’t mind walking in the rain.

Collin believes everyone can do something every single day to make the world a better place.