By Julie Blaustein
Photo by Chris Brennan
FairTrade USA is the leading certifier of fair trade products in the United State. They are responsible for auditing and certifiying transactions that take place between US companies and their international suppliers and most importantly, guarantee that farmers and workers that produce Fair Trade goods are paid fair prices and wages.
Nimisha Ambati of Club Dine In! who has a most sustainable blog about eating and being physically sustainable, provided the following recap of the event. “Fair Trade hosted a sustainable party to launch its new name and brand identity along with its kickoff of National Fair Trade Awareness Month. Appropriately, the double celebration was held at Temple Nightclub – one of the greenest nightclubs in the nation. Temple Nightclub was the perfect venue as it combines modern design with decor dating back to the 11th Century, has an extensive composting and recycling program, has an on-site garden for their restaurant and is energy efficient.”
Included in the evening’s program was a classy networking reception with TransFair USA powered by Trendy Lime. FairTrade provided complimentary sampling by 15+ vendors including Divine, Chocolate, Honest Tea, TCHO, The Hoop, Weaver’s Coffee, Andronico’s, Thanksgiving Coffee, La Yapa Quinoa, Tompkins Point Apparel, HAE Now, Clothing Rishi Tea, Traditional Medicinals, Numi Tea, Mark and Coco Zen. The FairTrade also provided RAFFLES, cocktails with ultra-premium FAIR.vodka, Photography by Chris Brennan and Tunes spun by DJ Corinna Regan and DJ Chris Orr. Take action to support Fair Trade Awareness Month and become fan of Fair Trade on Facebook.
I was browsing my oh-so-favorite blog, The Coveted, this morning and was taken on a link express way into what may be one of my new favorite sites dedicated to all things green fashion!
Fashion Me Green is a site where ‘style goes green.’ They’ve taken a trendy topic, green, and combined it with real street trends and fads showing readers how their new obsessions can be worn or bought in an eco-friendly version. The sustainable fashion awareness project provides site browsers with style influencers and designers who have taken their brands green and a section called FMG Daily where you can get tips on what’s hot in green fashion and how to get it!
Another awesome feature to look at is the site’s ‘projects’ where they travel to fashion capitols of the world and select a fashion influencer and style them in entire eco-friendly outfits! This is what brought me to Fashion me Green, the San Francisco Project with Jennine Jacob of The Coveted and IFB. They’ve taken her previously styled outfits by Jennine and re-created them into similar fits but using all green clothing and accessory labels. Love what you see in the eco-outfit? Just mosey over to the ‘Shop the shoot’ section and there is everything you’ll want to know on how to get those green styles.
I am an advocate of solar power – but the biggest advocate? I don’t think I’d fit that bill, but maybe you do!
The new ‘Power the House’ campaign just launched to find the most devoted advocates of solar power and have them help get solar panels back on the White House. Using the many facets of social media, the Power the House campaign encourages the public to check their social-media-linked site to get their daily action plan and participate in a game that spreads the solar word.
Once completing solar missions around the social-sphere on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Foursquare, players can earn points and win GLOMANA merchandise, like a glow-in the-dark t-shirt. If you’re really into the idea and campaign, earning enough points to become the ‘Ultimate Solar Advocate’ will score you placement in a nation-wide press release when the campaign reaches 10,000 petition signatures!
The lead company driving the campaign, Sungevity, sent a request to the Obama administration to accept their offer of a free solar power system and launched their site to encourage the public to join in with them. Looks like there are some participants and I hope it succeeds to reach their petition goal soon!
By Julie Blaustein
It was wonderful to get out of the city and experience the 32nd. Annual Harmony Festival. Not only was the schedule filled with workshops in health, arts, ecology, spirituality, dancing and both local and Grammy-nominated musicians such as Lauren Hill, there were over 300 vendors to buy cool merchandise and eat mostly healthy food.
The Verizon Grafitti Maker
Techie stuff was all around the festival too. Many of the vendors banners included .com in their names. Verizon was the proud sponsor of the Eco Rally that featured a Skate Contest, Skate Jam Mini Ramp Contest, Best Trick Contest and more. In addition they had a huge vendor space to demo their products and provided goodie bags that included sunglasses and glow-in-the-dark necklaces for the concerts. They also provided a Graffiti booth that enabled folks to create neon looking wallpaper for either one’s desktop or mobile phones. The Brand Ambassador Tech Lead, Owen Powell, said that Verizon chose to exhibit and sponsor as the demo is on the young side and for the strong green movement at the festival.
Fun with Technology
Don’t miss next year’s 33rd. Harmony Festival. You can connect with them on Facebook and Twitter. They also offer free admission for volunteering!
Many more pics of the Harmony Festival can be found here!
If it weren’t for Buffalo Exchange and Crossroads, my closet would be busting at the seams. There’s nothing like doing a sweep through of your wardrobe and getting rid of those impulse purchases you never wore and trading them for something new!
Granted it’s not fun to lug bags of clothes and accessories throughout the streets of Berkeley only to have them take 3 pieces, but sometimes it’s worth the risk! On days where I don’t want to take the risk, I found a lovely option #2 called Rehashclothes.com.
Rehash allows members to trade clothing, accessories and books with others online! Join specific groups, socialize with other sellers and swap away! No waiting in lines, no lugging bags and no buyers. Everyone just swaps what they don’t want for what they do want!
Best of all clothes swaping may just be the way to start creating an eco-friendly closet with items you already own! According to stats on Rehash Clothes – each American throws away an average of 67.9 lbs of clothing and textiles per year! That is insane, amazingly wasteful and can easily be avoided by sites like this and consignment shops in local neighborhoods.
In addition to just trading clothes, you can find useful fashion and green living advice from members, post in forums and even post/attend live swap events to share offline and online!
