Houston Goes Green
Cities across the country are going green. Businesses that value the triple bottom line are leading the charge. Green Business Challenges, like the Westchester Green Business Challenge in Westchester County, New York are becoming widespread and mainstream. Stamford Connecticut and Houston, Texas, as well as Charleston, South Carolina are also great examples of communities that value people, planet, profit and the benefits of going green.
Check out the Green Business Challenge Initiative on GreenTowns and join with other Green Business Challenge communities that are moving towards sustainability. If your community does not currently have a Green Business Challenge in the works and you would like to help get one started, please contact our GreenTowns Advisors and they will guide you!
Together, we will make a difference.
Daphne
Director, GreenTowns
courtesy: http://www.elmstreeteconomy.com/
Paul and Sarah Edwards are remarkable people and making a difference in their community. As co-directors of a non-profit organization called Let’s Live Local, they are dedicated to sustainable living in their community of Pine Mountain, California.
“Let’s Live Local is our effort to create an Elm Street Economy: one that provides jobs that last, services one can depend on … where people come first, communities organize to help themselves and home businesses are essential parts of the fabric,” says Paul.
Although Let’s Live Local has many activities and projects, three that stand out are their Beef Coop, Organic Produce Coop and Wood Pellet Coop-almost half of the community participates in the coops.
Paul also writes a blog.
Pine Mountain is the eleventh, Transition United States, community.
HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW!
- Learn more about the national grassroots community movement called Transition United States
- Checkout the Transition Challenge. Register your Action.
- Do you know a local green hero? Share their story with the GreenTowns network.
- How Green is Your Town? Find out now!
- Know of a great initiative? Share it with your community.
- Questions about sustainability? Ask one of our GreenTowns Advisors:
Energy Food Water Transportation Land & Conservation Building Recycling Connections
Global Exchange has been providing opportunities for people to get involved in local, positive action since 1988. Their approach is holistic and is centered around creating a local green economy, that embraces diversity.
Some of my favorite programs are: Community Rights, End Dirty Energy, Local Clean Energy.
You can find more information about this outstanding organization here. You can also find them on FB and Twitter
Together, we will make a difference.
Daphne
Director, GreenTowns
Do you know a local green hero?
Share their story with the GreenTowns network.
How Green is Your Town?
Questions about sustainability?
Ask one of our GreenTowns Advisors:
Danny Martin, GreenTowns Advisor
Danny Martin
GreenTowns Connections Advisor
Cosmology is how we understand our place in the world: it comes from observation, something that some of us – scientists – do professionally. An emerging new cosmology tells us that we are not separate from other things, that what we call nature includes us. The implications are enormous, for if we actually are this universe then how should we live with everything else. But promoting a new cosmology is not easy because people resist it for obvious reasons. Galileo experienced such resistance from the leaders of his time even when he presented them with a telescope to see the evidence for themselves. Perhaps the most creative thing we can do now in order to make our world a more sustainable place is to encourage each other to look around us and also let in the new knowledge we have – take a peek through the telescope – and get the new cosmology.
Read more about the new cosmology.
Do you know a local green hero?
Share their story with the GreenTowns network.
How Green is Your Town?
Questions about sustainability?
Ask one of our GreenTowns Advisors:
by Daphne Dixon on February 3, 2012
in Building, Connections, Energy, Food, GreenTowns Categories, Land & Conservation, Lifestyle, Recycling, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water
What is that magical combination of elements that turns a community into a “green” and sustainable community? Well, like all things organic, it starts out with a seed, that nourished, over time, grows, blossoms, and reseeds. In communities, sustainability starts with people who have a real passion about making a difference. Naturally, people come to the green space with a variety of experience, knowledge and are drawn to different areas of interest. But when these people start groups, clubs and organizations that support their sustainability mission, the ideas spread, are shared with others and the community evolves. Water, food, recycling, energy, transportation, land and conservation, building, are all integral to creating a sustainable community.
Does your town have the building blocks in place?
Does your town have monthly Green Drinks, a USGBC chapter or a Master Gardner Program? Do you want to have a more sustainable community, but don’t know where to start?
Send me your question.
Together, we will make a difference.
Daphne
by Daphne Dixon on February 1, 2012
in Advisors, Building, Connections, Energy, Food, GreenTowns Categories, GreenTowns News, Initiative of the Week, Land & Conservation, Lifestyle, News, Recycling, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water
GreenTowns is a shared platform of 15,000 individual town networks, where communities around the country, can share their green projects and efforts, not only on a designated town page, but also within a network of 15,000 towns. Find your town now!
If green efforts are shared on one platform, so that we can learn from each other, share resources, and initiatives, then we can collectively, hasten sustainability efforts throughout the country.
Please share what you know about local green efforts.
Please invite your friends to join their community network and be a part of a national effort to make communities throughout America greener.
Have a general question or comment? Ask Daphne
Have a specific question for one of our advisors? Check out our category pages.
Energy Food Water Transportation Land & Conservation Building Lifestyle Recycling Connections
National Association of Realtors' Green Resources Council's Kristin Short and Amanda Stinton
The Green Pavilion, at the National Association of Realtors’ National Conference, is being hosted by Amanda Stinton and Kristin Short of the National Association of Realtors’ Green Resources Council. Seeking to build on the networks and community knowledge of realtors, to bring green practices into the mainstream, they have both helped organize formal training programs under the NAR’s Green Designee Program, and have now set up a series of presentations to reach all realtors at NAR’s national conference.
What’s exciting to see is the response to “green” from everyday realtors. Even realtors who have not gone through the Green Designee training process appreciate that green practices are important to their community and that local sustainability resources and information is essential to any informed real estate decision. To create sustainable communities, “green” needs to become part of our culture and every day living practices. It’s great to see that through the Green Designee Program, the National Association of Realtors is championing sustainability in towns across the country.
by Daphne Dixon on October 25, 2011
in Building, Connections, Energy, Food, GreenTowns Categories, GreenTowns News, Land & Conservation, Lifestyle, Recycling, Transportation, Water
Mayors in towns and cities across the country, are making a difference and supporting sustainability efforts. Mayor Finch, of Bridgeport, CT talks about green initiatives going on throughout the community.
Mayor Finch, City of Bridgeport, Connecticut
