This interview is part of a series on people who are making their communities smarter, greener places to live. Got a nomination? Leave it in the comments section or send it along to us.

Winner of Project Laundry List’s 2009 “Art on the Line” competition. Daisey BinghamAlexander Lee founded Project Laundry List as a Middlebury College undergrad in 1995, after hearing Dr. Helen Caldicott say we could shut down the nuclear industry if we all did things like hang out our clothes. He’s been true to the cause ever since, pushing for clotheslines across the land—even at the White House. Grist caught up with him to find out how hanging out can make for better neighborhoods, what clotheslines have to do with climate change, and why laundry stigmas are as persistent as wine stains.

Q. You created and run Project Laundry List—why, and what are its goals?

A. Growing up, my mother had always referred to herself as Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (the prickly laundress in Beatrix Potter’s series) and the clothesline was much less a pennant of the eco-chic, as it is becoming today through our work, than a flag of New England Yankee frugality. Helen’s idea resonated with me and we started a subgroup of the environmental club. We asked people to put themselves on the line and come hang out with us, and the puns haven’t stopped.

Our mission has evolved to focus on “making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as a simple and effective way to save energy.” This really only became my day job in 2007, after years as a teacher, law student, public utilities commission staffer, and political campaigner. I get paid roughly minimum wage, mostly raised through selling clotheslines and drying racks. I work a bazillion hours. We have never really written grants. There is no time for that nonsense when the house is burning down. This is a work of love and passion, motivated by an abiding sense that we are in planetary crisis. Not much sense in working for Lehman Brothers and laying up treasure, like many of my classmates did, when ain’t none of it gunna matter if we don’t get ahold of the climate monster. I am just not the type to drink martinis and listen to Mozart as the Titanic is sinking.

Raise your hand if you believe in the right to dry!Couresty Project Laundry ListI am inspired by people like Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, to live and work as I do, but I fall way short. Furthermore, I am too irreverent and incorrigible to be as good a Catholic as she. An editor for my forthcoming book (More Time to Hang) likened me, somewhat admiringly, to a monk. I grunted and then chuckled, remembering Dorothy’s rebuke to somebody calling her a saint: “I won’t be dismissed so easily.” In July 2008, ABC World News, in their story on the right to dry, referred to me as “a 33 year-old bachelor lawyer from Concord, NH.” That conjures up another image, entirely. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Q. The clothesline issue seems to have gotten a lot of press in the last year or two—to what do you attribute that? Does it surprise you?

A. No surprise. People love to talk about laundry and everybody, everybody is an expert. Laundry is a universal human experience that is tactile, olfactory, and sentimental. Nearly everybody of a certain age has their own story of twirling among the bedsheets pinned on a clothesline with a grandmother or parent. Consumers like the smell so much that Yankee Candle has four scents meant to remind us of clothes drying on the line. (Forget that they mostly smell like dryer sheets.)

We have received mention in the WSJ twice, ABC World News and the CBS Sunday Morning Show, and NPR and The New York Times (seven times!). We have a meme that works, but the clothesline is just a “gateway drug” to better environmental living. It is a jumping off point to talk about the failure of the fourth layer of government (“community” associations); to talk about clothing care issues more generally, like we are doing with the Permacouture Institute through our New Again Coalition; to talk about why taxpayers foot the bill to wash prison uniforms in hot water; and to think about so much else.

Q. I’m always taken aback when I hear about places that don’t allow clotheslines, and then I assume they’re gated communities in sprawling places. Is that generally true? And are the bans are a reflection of some sort of stigma?

Lee (left) with Canadian folk singer and children’s TV personality Fred Penner, sporting a clothesline tie. Courtesy Project Laundry ListA. Truth is, clotheslines are banned or severely restricted by landlords and mobile home parks, too. It is not just the super-wealthy who are afraid of some mythic property value decrease if a neighbor shows some thong on the line.

The Italians—only 3 to 4 percent of them own a dryer—think we are crazy. They are a fashion-conscious, industrialized nation. We could take a page from their book. By contrast, about 80 percent of American households own a dryer, but good news: for the first time last year, we did see a drastic decrease in the number of Americans who see the dryer as essential.

There are five major objections to the clothesline that I confront all of the time: Prudery, snobbery, liability/safety, convenience, and feminism. I could write a book (I am writing a book) full of anecdotes that paint a picture of an America looking for any reason not to use a clothesline. The excuses range from the absurd to the comical. In both Connecticut and New Hampshire, shills for the local chapters of the Community Association Institute testified against Right to Dry legislation, claiming that the clothesline is a liability. Somebody might walk into one in the common area of a condominium and sue the association, they claimed. Never mind that, according to the National Fire Prevention Association, dryers cause 15,000 fires every year, resulting in 10-15 deaths and $200 million in property damage.

Michelle Obama put in that garden at the White House and I said, on Facebook, “Maybe a clothesline will be next.” Within minutes someone asked me if I was being racist or snarky. He was surprised to learn we had been pushing for a White House clothesline since 2007 on www.right2dry.org. That is what we are up against here. Stigma.

In response to the Times debate I wrote a piece for, a woman proclaimed, “You’ll pry my clothes dryer out of my cold dead hands.” Project Laundry List is not telling her she cannot have a dryer. Feminism is about choices. We are telling her that if she has a dryer, the oceans may rise and her front porch will get wet. Tough choices for some.

We are not anti-dryer; we are pro-clothesline. If you cannot get up out of your wheelchair or you have debilitating allergies for part of the year, the dryer makes sense and is a marvelous invention, but the real problem is not the millions of Americans disallowed from hanging clothes, it is the hundreds of millions of Americans who refuse to get up, go outside for some fresh air and sunshine, talk over the fence with their neighbors, and mindfully take time to do an essential human task. By my estimate five billion plus people in the world manage fine without a dryer. It may not be “easy living,” but it beats having the ocean lapping at your door.

Q. What promise do better laundry habits hold for individuals? What about for climate?

A. Life is about choices. We should sweat the small stuff, because small is beautiful; however, we can ill afford not to sweat the big stuff. A report that just came out concluded that if Americans would hang their laundry out to dry, along with 16 other small steps, they could slash U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 7.4 per cent by 2019. This is a studiously conservative study. We can do more, faster. I know we can, in my unscientific gut.

As far as laundry itself, we do a terrible job of measuring its true national energy impact. It is okay to look at the average household energy used by a fridge, but when you have over 2 million households doing fifteen loads or more per week and others skewing the average by doing laundry down the hall or at a Laundromat, the 5.9 percent figure, which is the average American residential electric use for the tumble dryer, tells you almost nothing. There are 2 million people in jail in this country and millions spent last night in a hotel, hospital, or nursing home. We do not submeter commercial or industrial laundry facilities to see how much they are using. All that laundry done for restaurants, universities, fish piers, etc., goes unaccounted for.

Q. You spent the summer on a “Clotheslines Across America” tour—what are the most memorable things you saw and heard?

World’s largest—and solar-powered to boot!Courtesy Alex LeeA. The tour started on my 35th birthday in New York City. The purpose was to have fun and meet some of our supporters. I wanted to see this country, see the holy ground that people like my uncle, a Marine lieutenant in Korea, died to protect. I met somebody at the giant clothespin sculpture in Philadelphia who had supported us for over a decade!

Another primary purpose was to provide material for a movie that is being made called Drying for Freedom—watch the trailer. The interviews that we did in Kentucky, visiting the World’s Largest Laundromat (solar hot water!) just outside Chicago, standing beneath the Arch in St. Louis on the Saturday morning of Parkapalooza, and watching a baseball game with Gov Pat Quinn of Illinois (we want a major league team to do a “Line Dry” event next year) were a couple of the highlights. I had the most fun doing a photo shoot with a pin-up girl in Philly so that we can make a poster that asks, “Why Don’t More Men Hang Out the Laundry?!” She was watching as I did the dirty work… and don’t worry, it was tasteful! Maybe every Hollywood couple can do a similar photo shoot with Celeste Giuliano (the awesome photographer) and we can produce a whole calendar on this theme.

Q. What will it take to get every U.S. municipality to give its citizens the “right to dry”?

A. What will it take to get every utility company in the country to give away clotheslines to its customers, like Toronto Hydro and BC Hydro have done in Canada? Couldn’t they give away racks, too? What will it take to get these places you are asking about to allow xeriscaping, compost piles, window AC units and screen windows (so people don’t get central air), and gardens? Maybe some really good designer drugs from Aldous Huxley. Maybe the Community Association Institute making this an organizational priority.

Q. What eco-worry keeps you up at night?

A. Environmentalists have this fascination with carbon dioxide. It is time for them to start paying attention to methane, before the proverbial cow pie hits the electric fan.  To understand why methane is 72 times worse than carbon dioxide over a twenty year period, read Wikipedia. Particularly, I am worried that New England governors are about to encourage Hydro-Quebec to build more dams when nobody can show me any peer-reviewed evidence that rotting vegetation in temperate hydroelectric reservoirs are not a major producer of greenhouse gases. I have been working with the Cree since the early 1990s on this and have paddled the Rupert River—just dammed this year—five times.

Q. Anything else you want people to know about your work?

A. Without throwing about academic terms like Jevons Paradox and the Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate, I just want to say that heroes of mine, like Amory Lovins, who have asked us to invest with religious fervor in the concept of energy efficiency, have forgotten that we need to focus on what happens with all that leftover cash saved through efficiency. If the individual takes that cash and flies to a conference in Copenhagen or buys one of these new drying cabinets that Maytag thinks we need to have next to our dryer, then we have not gained a thing. In fact, it is a setback.

Read More Work for Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan and Elizabeth Shove’s book Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience (Berg 2003). Stop putting your faith in sweeping political reforms, like the “clean” nuclear and America is the Saudi Arabia of clean coal mumbo jumbo coming out of our Congress, and start taking some personal responsibility. Congressman Brian Baird is on the right track with his behavior change research bill. New technology is important, but not the silver bullet.

The biggest crisis facing humanity is not campaign finance reform, climate change, nuclear waste and proliferation, or endocrine disruption and our poisoned food, air, or water, but rather how we do our laundry. What if every one of the five billion people without access to a dryer now suddenly had not only a dryer, but a refrigerator, washing machine, and hot water heater in their mud hut? And what’s up with all the wooden clothespins we buy now being “Made in China”? I was made in America and think conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, that you should put on your sweater and turn down the thermostat. It is almost winter, for Pete’s sake.

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Photo: Shi! There’s a new fashion trend this fall: saving Indonesian rainforests. The Gucci Group, the prestigious conglomerate of fashion and luxury brands that owns Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Balenciaga, has decided to eliminate all paper made from Indonesian rainforests. That includes everything from its letterhead to the pretty paper bags with ribbon handles that they give to shoppers to hold their new couture.

A paper policy, you say? That’s not really fashionable, is it?

Turns out it is. Gucci Group’s policy puts it at the front of a list of major companies -- including Tiffany & Co., H&M Group, Hugo Boss, Bulgari, and Ferragamo -- that have decided  they don’t want their brands to be associated with the destruction of rainforests or with encouraging climate change.

Worldwide, the degradation and destruction of tropical rainforests is responsible for 20 percent of all annual greenhouse emissions. In Indonesia, which supplies much of America’s paper, a lot of this deforestation is driven by the pulp and paper industry -- notably the notorious paper company Asia Pulp and Paper.

This hurts the climate as well as the forests. The carbon emissions resulting from Indonesia’s rapid deforestation account for around 8 percent of global emissions -- more than the combined emissions from all cars, trucks, buses, planes, and trains in United States.

The Gucci Group’s comprehensive policy commits it to one of the strongest paper standards in the industry. With its new policy, the Gucci Group has pledged to reduce the amount of paper it uses, eliminate fiber from high-conservation-value forests, and only purchase recycled products or those certified by the Forest Stewardship Council by December 2010.

“Standing rainforests are not a luxury, they’re a necessity if the world wants to stop climate change,” said Mimma Viglezio, executive VP for global communications at the Group. “Our actions are lowering our own carbon footprint, but we hope that they will also raise awareness inside the fashion industry that it’s possible for our industry to make a difference for rainforests and for the climate.”

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What? Take away my Aqua Net?!nyki_m via flickrOK, really just one high and one low. It’s been a busy day.

The high, fittingly, is related to hair. When I first saw an email subject line that began “Directional Runway Hair” float into my inbox earlier today, I honest-to-god thought it had something to do with airports. Even when I realized it was fashion-related, my brain was still confused, and I found myself picturing a runway model with “directional” hair shaped like an airplane. But the news here has to do with inhalation, not aviation: A company called John Masters Organics is—deservedly, it would seem—boasting about its ability to create high-fashion ‘dos without “a toxic cocktail of chemical styling products.” (Masters and crew put their gunk to the test at New York Fashion Week’s green shows—find out more about the green scene courtesy of our friends at Inhabitat.)

One need look no further than EWG’s Skin Deep database to realize that everyday cosmetics are full of nasties. Just imagining the cloud of chemicals backstage at a fashion show makes me woozy. So ... here’s to progress, and to companies like Masters that are seeking less-toxic approaches to glamour. Now someone give those models a grass-fed burger, and we’ll be good.

The low for the day is down by the toes: This week, the EPA sued the owner of clothing company North Face for failing to register an antimicrobial agent used in more than 70 styles of shoes (which appear to have been discontinued). Which, bummer about the failing to register part. But more to the point: Really? Do we need antimicrobial shoes? As one staffer put it in our news meeting this morning, “It’s called a shower. Look into it.”

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American retail is riddled with cheap, fall-apart merchandise. We know this. Sales are a ploy to get a shopper to spend, as opposed to a boon for penny pinchers. Right. And how much mileage do we get from that old, overused adage, "You get what you pay for"? More than we'd like to admit.

So why is Ellen Ruppel Shell's new book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, so shocking?

Shell deftly weaves a compelling, cautionary tale out of disparate strands: the psychology of manipulating shoppers, the environmental costs of our lust for inexpensive things, the deskilling of the retail industry, and the loss of appreciation for "quality." Tracing the history of discount culture from the yesteryear excitement over brown paper packages to today's ambivalence about crammed plastic bags, Shell shows us why we feel we've been ripped off if we pay "full price."

She pushes readers to ponder the strange circumstances that make an item shipped from thousands of miles away less expensive than something homegrown. And how a major furniture retailer can convince a customer to get attached to a piece just enough to buy it, but not enough to keep it long. And, most disturbingly, just how expensive our bargain hunting is turning out to be.

_____

Ellen Ruppel Shell

Q. What audience did you have in mind when you wrote Cheap?

A. This grew out of my own curiosity about my own behavior. Since I have a science background, and I try to be a very rational person, I was startled by my own shopping behavior. So if that was happening to me, I figured it was happening to an awful lot of people. As someone who is socially conscious, I was making purchasing decisions that didn't reflect that social consciousness sometimes. I wondered what was behind that.

I'm trying to reach a thoughtful audience, and I'm particularly interested in reaching younger people because I think they have the spirit and the opportunity to change. Interestingly, it seems to resonate with young people quite a bit.

Q. Why do you think your message is resonating with young people, especially considering how inclined they are to move around and not get attached to their property?

A. I don't want to speak for all young people, but there are all sorts of ways to get value without playing into this con game of cheap.

You go to a place we have in my town [Boston], called the Garment District, which is second-hand, third-hand kind of clothes, and you can get really good stuff there for very little money. You can be creative with it -- dress it up or dress it down, do what you want with it. It's not a cookie-cutter piece out of H&M that everybody's wearing that week. You're the boss of that thing, it's not the boss of you. It's style rather than fashion.

The idea that you can go to IKEA and get good deals -- it's really not a good deal. You can't ever get rid of it, it's not something you can resell. You don't really own it; you're kind of renting it. So that's something that young people who are thinking about moving can think about. What you want to do is to be able to put it on craigslist, or maybe get your friends to help you move your stuff. You want your stuff to [have] resale value if you really want to save money. You're not being cheap, you're being smart. They're two different things.

Q. How does the psychology of marketing inhibit the ability of consumers to see an item in terms of its entire lifespan?

A. IKEA names all its products to make stuff seem cute, but then they're telling you, "You're not really attached to this, are you crazy?" They're getting you to laugh at and make a mockery out of the idea of durability. They make durability seem like an old-fashioned, passé idea. And it works. I think it's really juvenilizing: "Oh, come on, you want a new toy. You always want a new toy."

Particularly in the marketing of cell phones. You have a cell phone that works really well for you, and then you have a friend who has a cooler one, and you want it. That's kind of 4-year-old behavior. When you have 3- or 4-year-olds, they want the new shiny thing. But as you get older and a little more mature--and I don't mean 50, I mean 16 or 17--you learn that that's not what it's about. It's about what works for me. Marketers obviously don't want you to think that. In the case of the cell phone, they assume you're going to use it for a year or less, and it's not durable. Even if it is, they assume you're going to junk it. I say, "Screw them!" If it works for you, hang on to it. Don't buy into that, because basically, it's all about them making a profit. It's not about you and what you really want.

Come hither -- cheap goods for sale!Q. Do you see similarities between the psychology of marketing cheap goods and of greenwashing?

A. Yes, I do. There's a mnemonic device that's used by marketers in terms of discounting. The mental shortcut is, "Lower price, good deal." And those two things don't necessarily follow. Something that's low price triggers the impulsive side of our brains and causes us to make decisions without much thought. The same thing is true for some of this green marketing. We're told that something is green, or it has the aura of green, and that makes it OK to buy it.

That's actually why I [focused on] IKEA instead of Wal-Mart. Most of us think, "IKEA's the good guy." IKEA has taken some tiny, baby steps towards environmentalism. For example, they started charging for their plastic bags. When you charge for plastic bags, it's reasonable to question if it's really a green step or just a way to make profit. They use low-wattage bulbs in their stores. But those are cost-cutting measures. There's nothing wrong with cost-cutting measures, but they don't take environmental steps that cause them to reduce their profits. People think, "Oh, it's a green store." But the whole story that they tell of clean living and the outdoors is a mnemonic to get you to buy. When you look under the hood, and you look at something that is essentially being sold as a non-durable product, something that won't last and isn't necessarily marketed to last, that's not an environmentally sound product.

Q. What do you say to those who believe the way discounters do business is essential to the American spirit of capitalism?

A. If you reconsider Adam Smith's arguments, in light of today's realities, he would not say what a lot of people think he was saying. He was concerned about greed and morality. He was a moral philosopher. When we talk about a free market, Adam Smith could have never anticipated the free market that we have today, which is a global market of supply chain that depends on instant messaging across the globe and transportation costs being so low that they're essentially negligible.

That's why the invention of [shipping containers], which has severely lowered transportation costs, is so important in the story. In [Smith's] days, if you shipped something from Japan or China, it was costly. Now, it really isn't. It completely changes the argument about what works and what doesn't. And when you're talking about a global economy and you have workers who are completely out of our sight, who we use as a labor source--and the resources in those countries as well--and costs are so low because transportation costs are so low, it's a completely different equation.

Q. Do you foresee a change in our perception of cheap if transportation costs are driven up through climate legislation?

A. There's no question [about] that, if we actually taxed for carbon use around the globe so that we can't just outsource our pollution--which is what we're doing now to the developing world. In terms of pollution, it was pretty shocking to see the levels of particle pollution of areas in China. We're talking huge amounts of carbon being burned, toxins in the air and the water, which is all to keep prices low, because when you put in environmental protection it costs money. If the price of oil went up substantially and environmental restrictions were made globally so that we couldn't outsource our environmental costs, I definitely think this could have a big impact on cheap.

Q. So there are two ways to frame the rejection of cheap: from a personal, psychological standpoint and also an environmental standpoint.

A. And also sociopolitical impact, because as we pursue cheap goods, we also pursue lower wages, less benefits, and worse working conditions because that's what makes things cheaper and cheaper. If wages go up in Mexico, plants close up and go to China, and if wages go up in China, the plants move on to Vietnam. We're basically pursuing the least regulated cultures, where the rule of law is the weakest when it comes to enforcing the kinds of things we in the United States really value.

Q. Do you think the general public is shocked when they make the connection that their cheap habits are supported by deregulation?

A. Some of the critics have said the book is shocking in the sense that it kind of opened their eyes. And it was shocking to me; I didn't know this stuff before I did the book. I think with knowledge comes power and you get to enact change in people.

Q. Is a rejection of cheap goods and food sustainable on a global scale?

A. In the book I quote World Bank economist Michael Morris because I don't want people to think that this is going to be easy or that we're all going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. It is a world of many billions of people. In talking about agriculture and small farms, there's this notion of happy peasants--which is a myth. It's true that small farmers can flourish, but it's also true that in many places in the world, the small farmers are the poorest of the poor. We do need to feed this world, which has so many more people than when we had these small farms. We do need to have large agricultural systems.

What I call for in the book is a middle way. I don't think we necessarily need factory meat farms, for example. I think that's actually a very costly system in many different regards. If that's something that the local-food movement and the slow-food movement pushes against, it's probably a good thing. Do we need large fields of gain? I think we do. [Fields of corn] to be fed to livestock is an unfortunate thing, but, as my background is in science, I do see the positives there, and I don't want to sell them short. For people who are starving around the world, they need a source of readily available food.

To feed the world, we're going to have to keep some of that in place, but we're also going to need a lot of local farmers, and we need more diversity in what we subsidize. We subsidize the grain growers, and the corn growers, and the soybean growers--anything that has to do with the meat industry. But we don't subsidize very much fruit and vegetable growers, which, if you're going to have a healthy diet, that's what you need. We need to really rethink our agricultural system, but the way to do it, I believe, isn't just to tell everyone to shop at their local farmers market--it's too expensive for most people, and it's unavailable to most people. I take more of a middle ground than a lot of other folks, people who I very much respect, but who I think are looking through a very narrow lens. I think we have to be careful not to oversell or oversimplify.

Q. In Cheap, you talk about the role that corporations and politics have played in how we've gotten to where we are, but you also place a significant part of that burden on individual consumers. How do we get to a sustainable middle ground in the retail landscape?

A. Consumers need more information. When you go to New York City and you go to a coffee shop, they tell you the calories of what's in the food. You can make better decisions; you change your choices.

I didn't write this in the book and I wish I had, but some kind of labeling so that consumers know the origins of what they're buying, and how it's made, and what it's made of [is important]. And eventually you should be able to go on the web and find out what company made this, where's the supplier, and [if] are they acting responsibly. Suppliers in the developing world are notorious for labor abuses. The way you make these changes is to make the labeling at the point of purchase where the buyer can see, right then and there, what he's buying. And that changes behavior.

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Q. Dear Umbra,

I've converted myself to clothing made in the USA, hemp, organic cotton, etc. The issue I am struggling with is the panties and bras. I am a 34D, and I need a decent amount of support. Even sports bras do me no justice (I usually wear my regular bra under them when I mountain bike or hike). Are there any good alternatives for bras and undies? Any advice would be helpful.

Coree

A. Dearest Coree,

Underwear and socks are sticking points in the overall attempt to make a greener wardrobe. Buying other people's discarded bras and underpants is not so tasty. To me, anyway. Others might find it a useful route, and it's feasible that some secondhand socks are not worn to the quick. On the upside, the washing and maintenance of clothes is often the highest-impact life phase, and few underpants and socks need to be dry cleaned.

The bust intentions.Organic, hemp, and made-in-USA underpants are easier to find than bras. I would even say they are easy to find, on the internet if not at actual stores near you. Amazon is always stunning me with the amount of stuff they carry. Which I guess is why they are Amazon -- but in any case, from Amazon to Fairies Dance, there are plentiful organic cotton underpants for the ladies and the gents. I also had some luck finding Made in the USA products, and a couple of union-made sites.

In general, we know to buy used clothing and not buy items that need dry cleaning, and we also know we are meant to buy fewer clothes (fewer defined in contrast to the commercial imperative to seasonally refresh our entire wardrobes). Again, undergarments provide a challenge here, because in theory the more underwear we own, the less often we need to do laundry, the less heat and water we use, and the higher our general quality of life. But buying 20 pair of ecologically correct underpants can set a person back hundreds of dollars. Perhaps it's something to chop away at bit by bit, rather than to tackle whole hog.

With bras, of course, as Oprah says, we need only three of top quality: one to wear, one to wash, and one in the drawer. The three will perhaps also cost quite a bit, but they should last longer than a set of underpants. If any readers know where to find three decent, supportive, organic or fairly traded bras that fit anything above an A cup, write in immediately. One union-loving vendor offers union-made bras for large-busted women, but many "eco" sites offer the same series of cotton bras, which don't look particularly supportive. Look for yourself at Gaiam and the above-mentioned Fairies Dance and see what you think. As an aside, I have to mention one hemp bra I found on the internet, which time-travelled here from a 1960's macramé workshop.

Another option, after you exhaust your fingers typing "organic bra": handmade bras and underpants. Etsy.com is full of handmade items, including "intimates," and you may come across other sites from there. And my final offer as we wait for reader input: make your own underwear! All you need is fabric, elastic, and a sewing machine, and the bra and panties of your dreams can be ... somewhat re-created. I think underpants are feasible for the beginner, though I am quite daunted by the bras. But perhaps other will rise to the challenge. Sweatshop-free, made in the USA, and organic if you can get it. Or you can knit your own hemp hippie throwback, as above.

Hopefully,
Umbra

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Read more about Eric Pallant's West Bank wanderings in his story about keynoting a green-building conference there.

There is a hamsin today, so the wind is whipping hot Saharan air and dust across the landscape. Despite the limited visibility, I can see that the cities that string south back from Ramallah, where I lectured at Birzeit University, to Jerusalem are well-kept and orderly. Palestinian military personnel stand in pairs every few miles. There is no trash in the street or in yards. Tall apartment buildings are tidy; no laundry is hanging from windows the way it does in Israeli tenements. Billboards advertise state banks and Coca Cola.

My afternoon will be given over to the Faisel Husseini Foundation for Educational Improvement, located in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem. Once we arrive, we enter the famous Old City walls through the Damascus Gate into the Arab Quarter, winding our way past vegetable sellers hollering the names of produce and extolling the quality of their chickpeas, tomatoes, and grape leaves. Walking deeper inside the market, past the clothes boutiques and spice and sweets sellers, we make a left in an alleyway and ascend several flights of limestone stairs.

At work on a new kind of craft.Eric PallantI have been brought to help teachers with no environmental training understand the value of reduce, reuse, recycle. I do my usual spiel about how I barely care about solid waste and landfills, but am concerned instead about the energy and water required to make and transport a product in the first place. My audience is three Christian Armenian women, six covered and scarved Arab women, and one man with the mark of praying to Mohammed bruised into his forehead.

In two hours I show them how to make paper, turn used fryer oil into biodiesel (methanol, caustic soda, and olive oil that has fried too many falafels), and create fused plastic-bag fabric. This plastic-bag fabric is proving to be a big hit on the West Bank. If there is an international fruit in the developing world, it is the plastic bag. So ubiquitous are they that in many countries I have visited, these inexpensive, flimsy bags are speared on branches like apples in an abundant year.

I had arrived with plans for taking an iron and melting together eight layers of bags. My plan was to demonstrate how to create the fabric, hope someone in the room could sew better than I can, and have the teachers begin to teach their students to make recycled shopping bags. I dream -- or as they say in Arabic about virtually anything worth hoping for in the future, Inshallah (literally, it will be God's will) -- that the fashion in five years will be like it is at Target. Show up with your own bag, eschew the inadequate one they give you, and even wash yours out if it gets messy. It's only plastic, after all.

I am not a plastic bag.Eric PallantBut like the college students at Al Quds, at Faisel Husseini these women began designing things I had no idea were possible. They mix different colored bags to design multihued flowers and then fuse their flowers onto latchable purses. They make gardening gloves, wall hangings for children, and religiously adorned shoulder bags. There are picture frames and jeweled tissue dispensers, little heart-shaped diaries, and ornate appliqué florets sewn onto cloth bags. All this in under two hours per group.

I had mentioned to the teachers that they could finish the edges with discarded fabric from worn-out clothing or the famous red and black embroidery worn by many Palestinian women, but it is clear from the intensity of their eyes as they cut, iron, sew, and gossip that my suggestions are not going to be needed. Fusing plastic on the West Bank has legs.

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We first profiled Summer Rayne Oakes in 2006, introducing readers to a belly-baring, sludge-loving 22-year-old with “superhuman ambition” and a moniker that was just too fitting to be made up. Since then, Oakes has been a loyal friend to Grist; she’s done occasional fashion blogging for us, and she participated in one of our fundraising appeals. Now, a month shy of her 25th birthday, she’s almost too busy to breathe. This spring saw the launch of a shoe line and a book, and she has spoken at venues ranging from the Fashion Institute of Technology to the Fair Trade Expo in Hong Kong. Press coverage is exploding—her website gives just a taste—and an article in The New York Times mentioned her in the same breath as Al Gore. Well, almost.

Summer Rayne OakesDespite this astonishing comet ride, Oakes seems to remain approachable, accessible, and down-to-earth—about as far from the stereotype of a fashion model as you can get. Try as we might to find a reason not to engage in unabashed fawning, it’s tough; she works her photogenic butt off, and about the only dirt the web reveals is that she’s occasionally Photoshopped. Shocker!

In short, the ambitious Oakes is putting a good face on green. To find out what the future holds, we fired a few questions her way.

Q. In April, you launched a shoe line with Payless. Can you tell us a little bit about your work on the line, and why it’s important to you to make sustainability affordable?

A. Payless are incredible partners to work with because they are really into this. They’ve figured out how to democratize fashion in the footwear industry, with design partnerships like Lela Rose, Patricia Field and most recently with Project Runway’s Christian Siriano. But this is really the first step for them on the sustainability front.

This is also the first time they’ve had a person come in both as the strategist and face for a brand, which is one of the things that I really love about my work. You get to wear different hats and truly feel a part of something.

She’s got sole and she’s super glad.PaylessI’ve been involved on a number of levels, including idea building and strategy, messaging, sourcing and design ... This is definitely not a flash-in-the-pan-brand. We’re building it into a lifestyle brand equipped with awareness campaigns, and it heartens us to see that it’s selling really well just out of the gates. That sends a message back to the company about what is important to consumers. Believe me, we’re listening!

I was just telling some environmental journalists the other day ... that I love the fact that this brand touches so many different demographics. I was chatting with some women from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico who will be getting the brand in their hometowns in June and September, respectively. They were so excited about what this brand was about. This is the first time they were really hearing the term “green” and seeing something “more sustainable, fashionable, and affordable.” I can equate it to the energy that Americans had in the green space back in 2006, 2007. It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s exciting, and most of all, it’s within reach.

Q. Tell us about your book, which also debuted this spring, and what kind of reaction you’re getting.

A. Style, Naturally is a global guide to sustainable fashion and beauty. I wrote it for women who love style, but may not have “green” or “environment” in their lexicon. It’s all a part of my vision to keep the movement in a forward-moving direction. I thought, why write another green book for green people? Why not make a style book that is invisibly green? For instance, my book is sold as a “Lifestyle” book, not a “Green” book, at Barnes&Noble. I just went there the other day and saw it sitting next to Harper’s Bazaar‘s new book and The Lucky Style Guide. That’s exactly where it should be.

I’m getting good feedback about the book from all over, but I’m making a really big effort. We’ve launched it in ten countries—from Canada to the U.K.; Singapore to Indonesia; U.S. to Australia and New Zealand and many places in between—and I’m making an effort to go to all those countries, not only to promote the book, but to really get a feel for what’s happening on the ground there, see where the media and culture is on the environmental front, forge new alliances, and see what information I can bring back.

Q. Over the last couple of years, you’ve gotten more prominent, even being mentioned as a back-up speaker for those who can’t swing Al Gore’s fee. What’s that like, and what type of audience is your favorite?

A. Yah, that was a real honor—you know, to be mentioned side-by-side to Al Gore’s message. And it’s true, you know: In this economy, it’s hard to swing some of those speaker’s fees now that attendance is down. I’ve spoken at a lot of venues—from the World Trade Organization to boards of advisors of fashion houses to green conferences—but I most like speaking to college students. There is something about coming in to a group of students, who are about the same age, and just being real with them.

It’s awesome that people have begun recognizing my work, but it’s been a steady climb for me over all the years. Almost like an ascent up a mountain where you can stop and catch your breath along the way; enjoy being outdoors; squint your eyes and see the summit; and most important, look to the foothills and clearly see where you’ve started. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve never forgotten about where I’ve come from and where I am going—and I think that is an important message to convey, especially to my peers.

Q. You’ve said “swapping is the new shopping”—has that gotten you any flack from the fashion world?

A. I think the fashion world has got bigger problems to worry about.

Q. What are some upcoming projects for you in the next year?

A. Finishing up the book tour and travels, experiencing life a little, building a B2B and B2C sustainable design site, doing a soft launch for the a.d. schwarz label in the next few weeks, and heading out to Africa [with them] in the fall, trying to get a Pennsylvania Clean Energy Council off the ground, which is proving to be difficult due to lack of time, and gearing up later this year for some on-camera work with Planet Green. I think that’s enough. My blood pressure just rose a few points after reading all this stuff over.

Q. What’s one non-green habit you just can’t shake?

A. Do you consider travel non-green? I project my carbon footprint for the year (I know, a tad nerdy) and calculate how many trees we’ll plant in Mozambique at the Mezimbite Forest Centre, where the line a.d. schwarz is from.

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Photo: Doug BulgerFrugal is fashionable in this economy, and the creative minds behind Haute Trash have discovered the cheapest (and chicest) way to dress in a depression is to put junk on your trunk. From pop-top chain mail to yogurt-cup lids, any dumpster-dive find can become a design inspiration. See all the fab runway garb(age) Friday at RE Store's annual Haute Trash Recycled Art & Fashion Show. Need a rain check? The work of a number of trashionistas will be on display for the month of April at galleries in three cities.

Plan it: Friday, April 17, 8-10 p.m. Tickets are $10.
Map it: New York Fashion Academy, 5201 Ballard Ave., Seattle, Wash. (map)
Make it: Learn how to create your own recycled art during a free workshop at RE Store's Bellingham location.

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Q. Hi Umbra,

I'm a long-distance runner in need of a new pair of shoes. I'm looking for the company with the most sustainable practices. Any suggestions? I've heard some promising things from different companies (e.g., Nike's shoe-recycling program, ASICS' commitment to recycled materials), but I remain undecided about what which company offers the best overall choice for the environment, for workers, and for my legs. Thanks!

Kyle
Marquette, Mich.

A. Dearest Kyle,

There is no way to answer your question without a seeming overabundance of puns. I will attempt to hold my tongue.

Feet of engineering.

I am impressed by all that running shoe companies are doing to reduce their ecological footprint. It would be easy to feel dejected after reviewing all the problems with shoes. Luckily, I wrote about leather vs vinyl shoes last year and so need only give a brief review here before celebrating positive developments in the road to better footwear. Shoe issues include: too many made, too many thrown away, too many toxins in the shoe, so many different parts in the shoe, which all need to be glued together and each have their own affiliated up- and down-stream pollutants, global shipping, and lots of waste material in the manufacture and packaging.

Several of the larger running shoe manufacturers, and some new brands, are making what seem to be sincere efforts to narrow the EE-width athletic shoe footprint down to an AA. I should say here that I thoroughly enjoyed and have taken a lot of information from a long piece in Runner's World about the shoemaking universe.

Areas targeted for improvement have included improving packaging via recycled and lighter boxes with soy-based ink, putting fewer materials into a shoe, using less-toxic or less glue, altering manufacturing processes in order to reduce waste, and integrating recycled and biodegradable materials. The three manufacturers who made me the most interested were Nike, Brooks, and a startup called END.

Nike is insanely gigantic, but if it makes even a small positive per-shoe alteration, that translates into a significant change. Its Considered line intends to achieve significant improvements in waste, solvent use, and materials used. Brooks says it has a biodegradable midsole (I infer that this is part of the middle of the sole), has been making them in a less waste-producing way, and has also taken action on the packaging front. END is a new company making shoes with less stuff in them.

Other companies are also taking action. Adidas has reduced VOC emissions and Reebok is using recycled material, among other things. So, in all, we are beyond the phase of recycling old shoes and into a good new phase of creating less terrible shoes to begin with.

Now where this leaves us in terms of Best, I'm not sure. As you mention, there are still labor issues to consider, which I won't delve too far into here but which you can find out more about by reading reports from organizations such as the Fair Labor Association, by visiting Coop America, and of course by general googling of your brand.

I certainly have no knowledge about performance, since I consider three miles a long-distance run. How about this: You must have a few brands that fit your feet and perform well for you. If they are one of the brands I've mentioned, look in to their corporate statements a bit, see if your conscience agrees with mine that a bit of good corporate effort is worth supporting, and buy away. Otherwise I've left you at -- ahem -- the starting line.

Topsolely,
Umbra

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Dear Umbra,

Sustainably grown bamboo is a very good choice for fabrics. But how does the consumer know it is harvested sustainably? After all, some bamboo is clear cut from old-growth stands. Even in cultivated bamboo there are some very unsustainable practices (for instance, harvesting too young). How can you know if the bamboo fabric you are buying is harvested sustainably?

Gar L.
Olympia, Wash.

Dearest Gar,

Telepathy is the only way. Close your eyes, put your hand on the fabric, and let a vision of a Giant Panda come in to your mind. If the panda is frolicking, all is well.

Dude, that's a lot of grass.

Bamboo is hot hot hot, for flooring, fabric, and myriad other stripy items. It is an inexpensive material, and the plants grow quickly and can do so without many fertilizers or pesticides. The mysteries of the exploding bamboo industry include the questions you mentioned above, and others such as how are the workers treated, are commercial pressures leading to the removal of other vegetation and the planting of bamboo in its place, are farmers adding chemical fertilizer to increase production, and what toxic chemicals are added in order to make products such as flooring and fabrics?

We'll get to that last question in a moment. The answer to the rest is: no one really knows for sure. I spoke with Jackie Heinricher, a bamboo expert and entrepreneur here in Washington, who says bamboo is both blessed and cursed: It's a truly green plant, but there's no accountability in the current industry.

There is no sustainable-harvest certification to look for, in part because, says Jackie, bamboo grows so quickly that no one imagined it would ever have overharvest issues. I did find that the Forest Stewardship Council has a certified bamboo flooring producer. I also tracked down one organic bamboo fabric producer, certified by OCIA International and the USDA, whose products are sold by Bamboosa and perhaps others. (The organic certification process for bamboo fabric would be similar to that for other fibers such as cotton, and is governed by crop and livestock production standards.) Another certification often touted for fabrics is Oeko-tek 100, however this only guarantees minimal residue on the fibers and tells us nothing about raw material production methods.

Outside of these eco-certifications, I think there is no surety for sustainably produced bamboo fabric. Given the general positives about bamboo -- its speedy regrowth, its low fertilizer needs, its high carbon-sequestration abilities -- we could hold out some reasonable hope that a bamboo plant's life was fairly low-impact. But here's the catch: It's the bamboo fiber production that leaves quite a bit to be desired.

It's just difficult to make a hard grass into a shirt, and so we use chemicals to soften the fibers. Here's what I've read: there are two ways to mash a bamboo plant in to fibers appropriate for fabric. One is mechanically, via crushing and enzymes. Mechanical processing results in a linen type of fabric, and is expensive and unusual. Most bamboo is processed in a bath of lye and carbon disulfide, along with something referred to as "multi-phase bleaching." It is akin to the method for making rayon out of cellulose, and it can be quite toxic to workers and nearby nature.

So is bamboo worse than other fabrics? Probably not. It may in fact be a little better. There aren't good "chain of custody" certifications, but that doesn't mean that the wool is pulled over our eyes and bamboo is never ecologically preferred. A possibly promising development comes from Jackie and others, who are finding ways to cultivate bamboo domestically and responsibly. Meantime, we're just stuck with our same old clothing rules: buy few, buy organic, buy used, dry on the line.

Pandaly,
Umbra

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It seems everyone’s going green these days—but some couples are doubly committed to the cause. In honor of Valentine’s Day, we take a look at 14 prominent pairs who share a certain planetary passion.

Brad and Angie
Yes, the ever-expanding footprint of this family might raise a few eco-eyebrows, but they make up for it by, oh: green-rebuilding New Orleans, funding a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia to the tune of $5 million, narrating a PBS series on green design, supporting Haiti’s Clean Streets Project, partnering with an eco-cosmetics company to raise funds for charity, and buying an organic winery (OK, that one’s a glittery indulgence). Angie reportedly ate organic to get back into shape after having the twins, and buys bamboo pants for her kidlets too! How do we get adopted?

Photo: Jerry Bauer

Michael Pollan and Judith Belzer
Let’s say you’re the country’s leading voice on food politics and sustainable agriculture. Wouldn’t it be convenient if your life partner were not, say, a PR flack for Big Ag, but a landscape painter? Indeed it would, which is why it’s lovely that Michael Pollan is married to Judith Belzer. The college sweethearts, who met in 1974, have pursued their overlapping passions through a 22-year marriage, several moves, and Pollan’s rise to fame. No slouch herself, Belzer landed solo exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston while Pollan kept himself busy writing eye-opening titles like Omnivore’s Dilemma. As she wrote in one artist’s statement, “No one view of nature prevails because nature itself—not just the observer—is constantly changing.”

Portia and Ellen
Amiable talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is, along with her partner Portia de Rossi (also known as “Really? Wow, good for her!”), raising awareness of a lifestyle that’s often marginalized by the mainstream. Yeah, we’re talking about veganism. After celebrating their marriage last year with a vegan ceremony, the two have apparently converted to a 100 percent vegan diet. De Rossi is designing a vegan shoe line, and DeGeneres promotes vegan companies on her show. Over the years, she’s also hosted eco-guests ranging from Al Gore to a six-year-old recycler from Columbia, S.C. Plus, did you see her dance with Obama? Maybe teh veganz are OK after all.

Ed Begley and Bill Nye
No, they’re not technically a couple. But thanks to their neighborly eco-spats, the actor and science guy have become nearly inseparable—in the media, at least. Taking the idea of “keeping up with the Joneses” to fierce new heights, Ed and Bill have made improvements to their respective homes that include solar panels, rain barrels, and recycled-milk-jug fencing—and broadcast their story every step of the way, to outlets ranging from USA Today to PBS. Skinny white homeowners unite!

Photo: Joli

Eddie Vedder and Kelly Slater
Another eco-bromance we’re wild about: the sun-and-fun-and-sustainability relationship between musician Vedder and pro surfer Slater. Besides frequently catching waves together, the two pair up to raise big bucks for reef protection and environmental awareness through the Kelly Slater Foundation. Vedder, in between songs at a benefit show for the foundation last year, explained his motivation: “Half of every song I’ve ever written was written in the ocean, so that’s sort of my way of giving back.”

Photo: TheHundreds.com

Erykah Badu and Jay Electronica
Soulful singer Badu, who’s been a vegetarian for 20 years, converted to veganism two years ago and has taken her family along for the ride; in one interview, she referred to her children as “vegan vegetarians, organic babies from birth.” Her charity organization, Beautiful Love Incorporated Non-Profit Development (BLIND), focuses on building culture and community in her hometown of Dallas; in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, she sponsored programs for young evacuees. On top of it all, Badu and her rapper boyfriend tweeted the birth of their child this month—think of all the paper they saved on birth announcements.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Margaret Kirkpatrick
The dreamily progressive, bow tie-sporting Congressman from Oregon is known for his vocal support of sustainable development, energy efficiency, clean water, and public transportation. His contagious enthusiasm has convinced fellow pols to join the 160-member Congressional Bicycle Caucus, which he founded upon being elected in 1996. And his wheel-vangelism apparently extends to his personal life: His wife “frequently bikes to work,” he told Outside Magazine last fall. Her job? She’s an environmental lawyer and VP at Northwest Natural Gas Co., vice chair of the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission, and co-chair of the American Wind Energy Association Siting Committee. Now that’s a power couple.

Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton
When the actress and her playwright husband took over as artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company in 2007, they made greening the facility a priority. While it’s no small undertaking, the pair has made some headway—printing brochures on carbon-neutral paper and reviewing the waste-management contract—and still hopes to undertake a massive solar installation and water-system overhaul. The couple reportedly put $1.5 million into eco-renovations at their own home in Sydney, and Blanchett has been involved with Earth Hour and the Walk Against Warming. “As I see it,” she said in a 2008 interview with Marie Claire, “there’s no greater challenge we face as a species than dealing with climate change and its effects.”

Laura Dern and Ben Harper
The eco-leanings of this actress-rocker duo seem to have expanded with the addition of their two children, now 6 and 3. Dern is an active spokesperson for the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition, spreading the word about household toxics and how to avoid them. The two drive a hybrid (OK, two hybrids); Harper has also been spotted bike-hauling his daughter home from school. On the road, he tours in a biofuel bus, and his most recent CD was packaged entirely in recyclable materials. As committed as he is, Harper admits that his spouse leads the green charge, and told one interviewer, “She’s my environmental hero.”

Brian and Nancy Schweitzer
As governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer has earned kudos for his ability to address environmental issues without sounding like some kind of—how to put this?—East Coast weenie. Since being elected in 2004, the gun-lovin’ former rancher has hit the national scene by talking up clean energy and staring down climate change. Back at home, he and his wife, both scientists by training, have launched an initiative to get the state’s children engaged in science, both in school and through programs like roadside signs, trading cards, and a youth forest monitoring program.

Pierce Brosnan and Keely Shaye Smith
There’s more to this green couple than their splashy Golden Globes arrival in a hydrogen-powered Beamer. The former James Bond met his future wife, an environmental journalist, while participating in an eco-campaign in Mexico. Since then, they’ve been actively involved in marine conservation, as well as fighting a proposed salt factory in Baja California and the LNG terminal off of Malibu. The couple has donated money and time to several green groups over the years, and taught their kids to compost. “I continue to be a student of the world,” Brosnan told [PDF] Bon Appetit last year when asked how he got interested in eco-causes—then listed his wife among the people who inspire him.

Barbara Kingsolver and Steven Hopp
The couple bared all in 2007’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, in which they chronicled a year of growing and locally sourcing food for themselves and their two daughters. But the book was no dilettantish dip into the eco-well. Kingsolver’s best-selling novels feature natural themes, and Hopp is an environmental studies professor with a vireo fixation. The “Hoppsolvers,” as they’ve jokingly referred to themselves, moved from Arizona to their farm in Virginia to escape the eco-unreality of a desert existence. They continue to blog about life on the farm, and retain a down-to-earth attitude. As Kingsolver puts it, “I’m sort of allergic to sanctimony.”

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck
Their eco-efforts first struck us as modest: Yeah, Jennifer was spotted shopping at a farmers’ market. OK, Ben dressed up as an ear of corn for a flex-fuel film! (Don’t watch it. Seriously, you can’t get that 5:31 back.) And fine, Jennifer and Ben made PSAs for Live Earth. But then we read that The Dimpled One campaigned against former California Rep. Richard Pombo in 2006. “Our fight to unseat Richard Pombo is ... a fight for the ecological preservation of the United States,” Garner said at the time. “It’s a fight for the world I want my little girl to inherit.” Yes! Only now it’s little girls, plural—congrats, you sorta-committed cuties.

Michael and Mary Brune
As executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, Mike Brune has helped convince major companies including Home Depot and Goldman Sachs to change their business practices, protecting millions of acres of rainforest along the way. On the Huffington Post and in his recent book Coming Clean: Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal, he works to raise awareness about energy and conservation. Meanwhile, Brune’s wife Mary is an activist in her own right: she co-founded and is the director of Making Our Milk Safe, a member organization created in 2005 to raise awareness about industrial pollutants in breastmilk. The Brunes live in California with their two children; after having the first, Mary remarked that “we hope that she’ll be one more soldier on the front lines who’s going to fight for the Earth when she grows up.” With genes like this, the chances seem good.

Bono and Ali Hewson
In 1975, Paul Hewson met a girl and joined a band. The girl would become his wife; the band, U2. Over the years, the eco-causes taken up by Bono and Ali Hewson have included anti-nuclear activism, poverty and AIDS relief, and fair trade. In 2005, they launched EDUN, an eco-clothing line whose goal is to support sustainable business in the developing world.

Courtesy of New Belgium

Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan
We love a good love story, especially when it involves beer. In the early 1990s, Lebesch and Jordan turned a curiosity about amateur ale-making into New Belgium Brewing, the county’s fifth-largest craft brewer. The company is partially wind-powered, makes organic varieties, and gives bikes to its employees. Before going commercial, the Colorado couple hiked into the Rockies to write their mission statement; one of the 10 items is “honoring nature at every turn of the business.”

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
The co-creators of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, an international, multifaith organization that explores the connections between faith and environment, are giving voice to a key constituency in the green conversation. The Yale-based brains have edited several books on ecology and spirituality; Tucker is also a member of the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment at the United Nations Environment Program.

Photo: Bart Nagel

Kit Crawford and Gary Erickson
Seventeen years ago this month, Gary Erickson debuted a snack that became a household name: the Clif Bar. He and his wife, who both grew up camping and hiking, now serve as CEOs of the company; they count “sustain the planet” as one of the five tenets of their business. Now living in Napa Valley with their children, they’ve branched out into the wine business, with a focus on organic and sustainably farmed grapes.

Photo: Ode Magazine

Jurriaan Kamp and Helene de Puy
This Dutch duo co-founded Ode magazine in the mid-1990s, with an eye toward telling the other side of the news—the side that shows social, environmental, and economic promise. Since then, their publication for “intelligent optimists” has found an audience of 100,000, and in 2004, they moved to California to launch a U.S. version. Recent topics have ranged from green search engines to sustainable banking.

Photo: greencouple.com

The Green Couple
OK, it’s not exactly a business, but we couldn’t resist: these kids are young and in love—and in love with the planet. The self-dubbed Green Couple blogs from the heartland to show others that it’s possible to care for each other and the earth without spending a ton of money or getting overwhelmed. NSFW, but only if your boss doesn’t like hope and earnestness bleeding from the page.

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