Living a green lifestyle and saving money in my view has always gone hand in hand so I have picked 7 ways you can cut your carbon footprint and your budget at the same time.

1.Buy ‘preloved’

Find your nearest furniture reuse centre, tip shop, car boot sale or local charity shops and get your hands onsome great preloved bargains. Buying clothes, books, cds, furniture and household items second hand is a great way of recycling and saving money.

2.Ditch your motor and join a car club

Car clubs are growing in popularity and schemes exist mainly in bigger cities down south, although hopefully it won’t be long before they spread nationwide. If you are a city dweller, ditching your car and joining a car club can save you literally thousands of pounds a year. It is estimated that for every member that joins a car club they reduce their car usage by 50%

3.Work from home

Working from home not only saves you time and money it’s often greener too. Cutting transport time and petrol costs are the main benefits but there are many more reasons why its greener to work from home.

4.Grow your own food
Growing your own fruit, veg and herbs not only saves you money but also reduces food miles and waste packaging. I love gardening myself and find it a great way to relax, breathe in the fresh air and unwind after a hard days work.

5.Cycle to save money

Cycling to work or nipping into town on your bike has so many benefits. Parking is free, it’s great exercise, zero emmissions, cheap as chips and fun to boot. If you don’t have a bicycle, post a message on your local freecycle group or check out your nearest tip shop for a preloved one

6.Embrace the Downshifting Movement

Downshifting is about slowing down your pace of life and finding a better worklife balance. This means embracing living with less and leading a simpler cheaper, greener and happier life. Perfect for those of you out there wanting to save cash. To learn more about the movement visit the downshifting website and for some easy downshifting tips to get you started visit this link.

7. Plan a weekly menu

Even Gordon Brown has warned us about the amount of food we waste and it is estimated that an average household throws away a staggering £420 worth of food every year. Plan your meals for the week, make a shopping list and stick to it when out shopping. Check out the Love food, hate waste campaign for more ideas.

If anyone has any other ideas or tips for ways of saving money and being green I’d love to hear them.

Kate

GreenFinder

It’s a new term I just read about - it stands for Socially Conscious, Upwardly-mobile person, a term coined by Chuck Faila, president of a Manhattan based financial planning firm.  He says he’s tired of being called a yuppie and hopes this new term will take its place in the American lexicon as the natural progression from Hippie-Preppie-Yuppie to Scuppie!

These days, more Americans not only want to live well, but want to also do good (or at least do no evil). They still love money and conspicuous displays of affluence. But now, the way to achieve status is to trade in the Beemer for a Toyota Prius, spend $50,000 putting solar panels on the roof, shop at Whole Foods for $7-a-bunch organic endive, and acquire a chic new wardrobe fashioned entirely of hemp, soy fiber, and recycled tires, Failla says.

He hopes to get the word out through a national promotional campaign and he is also writing a guide: “The Scuppie Handbook: A practical guide to living well while doing good.”

Visit the website and read “A Scuppie Believes”, it’s funny!

Before I started reading the book I already had an answer to the question myself and that is No. It has always been my belief and my experience (even as a child) that a good / happy life does not have to cost the earth. To me the simple / free pleasure are always the best for example:

* Just peacefully being with my loved ones

* Volunteering my time to help people and also the planet

*Breathing the fresh air of the countryside

*The taste of freshly picked organic food from my garden

*The beautiful sound of bird song

*Walking along the beach with my fiancé

As you may have gathered from some of my posts I always aim to consume as little as possible in life as it is my belief and the book also supports this that….

“people who consume above their fair and sustainable source of the Earth’s resources is no more likely to be satisfied with life than someone who is living within our collective environmental means”

(Quote within book and sourced from the European (un)Happy Planet Index, 2007)

The book has some interesting contributors all of whom have focussed on different areas of what makes a good life. Below you will find my favourite quotes from all of the featured contributors:

Tom Hodgkinson (Editor of the Idler): “Good lives are cheap, cheerful and will save the planet to boot”

David Boyle (Author): “Victorian economists calculated that the average English peasant in 1485 needed to work fifteen weeks a year to earn the money the needed to survive. In 1564, it was forty weeks. Now of course it is questionable whether we can manage to afford a reasonable life in
Britain without two salaries all the year round”

David Goldblatt (Author) “Step forward motor sports: Seriously, guys, yes you in the fast cars, peak oil is here or near. What are your great-grandchildren going to think a hundred years from now when they look back and see you spunking up the last precious drops of gasoline”

Phillip Pullman (Author) “Environmentalists need to know something about basic story telling in order to make their words effective”

A.C Grayling (Philosopher) “The environment has suffered in pursuit of wealth”

Oliver James (Author) “We talk of needing these things (i-pods/cars etc), but really we only want them”

John Bird (Creator of the Big Issue) “What we need today is to keep monopolies out of our life. Whenever we have a monopoly, whether public or private, you have the limitation of choice.”

Adair Turner (Vice Chairman at Merrill Launch Europe) “Population stabilization will be crucial to our long term success in dealing with climate change and other global environmental impacts”

Dame Anita Roddick (Founder of the Body Shop) “Providing for these vital human needs requires another kind of economy altogether, which emphasizes beauty, community and creativity”

Ann Pettifor (of Advocacy International Ltd) “We live in a global community that worships the god ‘Money’”

Larry Elliott (Financial Journalist) “The idea of personal thrift has gone out of the window, to be replaced by a culture in which it is not just permissible but commonplace – acceptable even – to live beyond our means”

Colin Tudge (Author) “The people who get to be in charge are the people who like power and the people who like power are not necessarily on the side of humanity”

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (Writer, broadcaster, campaigner) “Buy local food and almost by definition your buying seasonal produce with a low environmental impact”

Rosie Boycott (Writer and Broadcaster) “How you live is just as important as what you say. We argued (the feminist movement) that by changing the way in which we lived, we would in time influence the larger world around us. Now, I believe that sentiment is back”

Kevin McCloud (of Grand Designs) “I think that human beings are of our own environment, we are the problem but we are also the solution: the cause and the cure of our own environment”

Wayne Hemingway (Creator of Red or Dead and the Land of Lost Content) “We cant change the fact that new things stimulate us. But if we are really to achieve sustainability, then durability is incredibly important”

Stephen Bayley (Design Correspondent of the Observer) “Man is homo faber, a divine monkey who makes tools. While saving the planet it is a priority no one should ignore, its important to remember that since we stepped out of the primeval glop on to the dry shore and started the journey that ended with reality TV, the world has been constructed by us”

Nic Marks (Founder of the Centre of Well-Being at nef) “The language of well being doesn’t rely on an economic model that assumes that more consumption is always better”

David Cameron (Conservative party MP) “The greatest responsibility in the fight to save our planet lies with the Government, which must give a lead on the issue and set the right framework”

Hilary Benn (Labour party MP) “Transforming our economy, our cities, our way of life and cherishing our countryside and wildlife is something that we have to do”

Caroline Lucas (Green Party MEP) “Whether good lives are defined as happy lives or lives of well being, the bottom line is that living a good life and sage guarding the climate are not only simply compatible, they are inextricably connected and mutually dependent”

As you can see the book really does have a wide range of contributors, each providing their own insight in to whether good lives have to cost the earth.  I found the book an excellent read as it provided different perspectives on the green movement, I highly recommend it - however to be green and frugal get a copy from the library, a friend or second hand.

If you have already read the book what did you think? If not what are your thoughts about the featured quotations? And a question for everyone ‘do you think that goods lives have to cost the earth’?

Let’s all discuss….

I can’t seem to find things that are the “100% GREEN” that I hoped for. In every process to create anything there is a flaw. This flaw can occur at the beginning, in the middle of production or at the end with distribution. Flaws are part of our recent civilization, especially with all things manufactured. I look around me at this moment my slippers, my coffee cup, my Buddha statue - each item has some sort of flaw in it’s journey to exist.

It seems GREEN marketing is way ahead of science and is caught in a process of defining terms. Regulation is not universal, what works in one field doesn’t work in another.

What is a human being to do if they want to be GREEN? Keep wishing, hoping and dreaming and please, please, please do not feel guilty!

Being GREEN is gathering information on how things are done and searching for choices within the system. A GREEN movement is to weigh the steps and determine the route of lowest impact. Each GREEN business and every GREEN person introduces their own unique changes to make things GREENER. Being GREEN is a choice.

As a creator of an item it is best to be informed. Not all information is free flowing; facts must be checked and this takes time. Also, it may require effort to sift through murky information to find the GREEN. If you conduct detailed research you could most likely annoy some people. You may be like a fly on wet skin! Becoming GREEN can be an adventure.

As a shopper one can ask questions. Asking questions motivates change. Asking questions will spawn new GREEN invention in all aspects of production. Knowing where and how things are made empowers one to make a personal and knowledgeable choice. Being GREEN is finding answers. Questioning will lead to TRANSPARENCY.

A forward-looking solution is to promote the movement of TRANSPARENCY. Providers of items can present their findings publicly. Not all details will be perfectly GREEN, yet we will respect the choices being made. This will have great influence. Those manufacturing industries with gas guzzling, chemical spewing, water dumping, labor abusing ways, will begin to change when the market shows that these ways are not only unacceptable, they are a bit absurd. By supporting the items made from those rising to the challenge of making improvements for a better world, GREEN will grow. Being GREEN is a process.

Businesses can openly discuss their raw materials and the processes used to turn them into goods, the full geographic journey, and all aspects of packaging and distribution. The goal is to seek out a combination of attributes in these areas that will contribute to the steps needed to make our environment a healthier place. If being GREEN becomes a debate about what is good and what is bad we will lose. Leaving a footprint is unavoidable, yet making our footprint lighter is attainable.

The GREEN movement is just getting started!

Important! I am not writing this post nor will I be writing the subsequent Veganism posts with the aim of converting you all to being Vegan. Instead I am writing about veganism to share with you an element of my life and also to hopefully start a discussion / debate on GGG how our lifestyle choices can affect the planet and even our health (whether in negative or positive ways)

So you may be asking ‘Why vegan? Well I personally believe in the vegan principles and ethics. Also I am now 100% committed to being vegan because it is better for the environment and also my health.

Principles and Ethics

Some may argue that we are born omnivores (meat and veg) and that eating and using animal based products is only natural. But is killing any animal (including human) ‘natural’? Is exploiting any animal (including human) keeping them locked up in pain and suffering ‘natural’?

I don’t think that it is ‘natural’ at all. Yes in the animal kingdom and in the circle of life some other animals kill other animals for food and some even ‘fun’. But these animals do not have choice – as humans we have a choice to choose that no animal including humans suffer in order for us to survive as a species. We do not need to eat animals to survive. We do not need to exploit anyone or anything including animals, humans or the planet to survive.

For more information about vegan principles and ethics then please watch the The philosophy of Vegan Values: The practice of non-violence Youtube video, go to the Veganism article on Wikipedia, or go to The Vegan Society website.

Environmental Benefits

Being a vegan is better for the environment compared to an animal based diet because fewer resources are used.

Here is a simple demonstration:

Land + Water + Energy = Crops

Land + Water + Energy + Crops = Livestock and dairy products

I could go into this in much further detail but the post would be far too long. However hopefully from the simple diagram you can see by eating meat or having dairy products additional resources are being used. So to me it makes sense to just eat the crops. Yes energy and land is needed to grow crops and I will write more about vegan farming / agriculture in another post.

If you want more information about the environmental benefits of being vegan then please check out an interesting online essay called ‘Logical Environmental Reasoning for a Vegetarian Lifestyle’.

Also some food for thought is, in “A 2006 study by Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, assistant professors of geophysics at the

University of Chicago, found that a person switching from the average American diet to a vegan diet would reduce CO₂ emissions by 1,485 kg per year.” Source: Diet, Energy and Global Warming study.

Health Benefits

As the vegan society says “How many times have you been told to eat more fruit and veg? Contrast this with how many times you’ve been told to eat more burgers…” The typical vegan will eat more fruit and veg than the average meat eater! And who can deny that an increase of fruit and veg is bad? Also people who “avoid meat also tend to have lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein, and higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, and phytochemicals” Source: “Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets (June 2003)

A well balanced vegan diet provides a range of health benefits compared to meat eaters and even vegetarians. For further details about the health benefits and for some recipe ideas etc, check out Super Vegans – Living proof vegan diets and nutrition.

Next Post

My next veganism post will explore about how easy it is to be Vegan using organic and locally sourced food. But in the mean time feel free to leave comments about your experiences of being a vegan or your arguments for or even against the various benefits of veganism including environmental.

Indeed, I have never felt such a sense of purpose and urgency in my work–not simply that the work I am doing is meaningful, but that the work I am doing is truly part of something greater, a small contribution to things that might actually change the future of this place. And for the better.

Perhaps unconsciously, I have always considered myself to be “from” here–four generations before grew up and lived and worked in Hawaii. I am finding that I am a true Californian in ways I didn’t know, and that in me is a heart for Hawaii in a way I hadn’t expected.

Hawaii is the most isolated island archipeligo on earth. Often depicted as a place of fantasy and paradise, it is in reality a place of unique, limited, and increasingly threatened resources. A microcosm of this earth-island we all inhabit together.

I look forward to discussing with fellow green girls the problems faced and solutions offered, to environmental problems here in Hawai’i. And to sharing with you the experience of doing non-profit work here in the islands! Aloha!

Going through the 100 ways you’ll see some of the more familiar mantras such as ‘use energy saving lightbulbs’ and ‘buy food that’s in season’. This definitely reinforces how easy it is to make those little changes and what a massive difference it could make if everyone did.

For every familiar tip you see and give yourself a ‘tick’ there are many others that remind you of more you could be doing or unusual ones that you could give a try. If you want to know what they are then request the book for yourself!

Whilst you’re over at Life Goggles have a look around, I noticed an interesting article ‘Are you Experiencing Green Fatigue?‘ which is definitely topical and links in with our own ‘Beware the Backlash‘ and ‘Will the green bubble burst‘ discussions.

Check out the blog at www.lifegoggles.com and download the book ‘100 Ways to Save the Planet’

now as a green girl I am not proud to say that I only scored 1,9… I would have love it to be around 0,8… room for more improvement… how much did you score ? - tell me in the comments..

This small encyclopedia of over 400 everyday solutions and easy lifestyle changes is a friendly and practical guide to respecting the planet and its resources. I was glad that I had the opportunity to review it as one of the bloggers here at Green Girls Global. As an avid reader of the many green sites on the web, I didn’t think that this book would surprise me. It did!

I loved the can-do attitude that the book takes and the powerful results that it reports on every change it suggests. Rather than feeling guilty about not doing enough, this book actually inspires the reader to want to do more. If you are into the eco-razzi thing, there are some interesting interviews of leading green celebrities who talk about why and how they are making changes in their own lives.

When I asked the writers “How has your outlook on the future changed because of your working on the book?” I was inspired again.
“I have always been hopeful for the future. I do feel like the more we can create movements that bring us together and give us all something to do and a role to play, the better the future can be. Hopefully the green book can add to that .” Truly a worthwhile and necessary addition to any home that is committed to more sustainable living.

Find out more at www.readthegreenbook.com or www.crownpublishing.com

This year for my birthday I had grand plans of holding a lovely summer barbeque birthday bash but those plans were thwarted this weekend by the relentless rain we’re having at the minute. Not that it mattered though, I had a fantastic time.

Its been a while since I threw a party, certainly before I was so keen on reducing my environmental impact and luckily a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Lucy Brindley from ‘Little Cherry perfect parties‘ who wanted to tell GGG all about the green party products they provide. Intrigued by this I checked out the site and told Lucy that I was thinking of buying some products. Generously, Lucy offered to send me a sample to review and asked me how many would be coming to the party and how old my child was. I had to fess up! “The birthday party is for me, I am a 31 year old child!” .

As promised, Lucy very kindly sent me samples of party items from her shop - some cutlery (knife, fork and spoon set), pink balloons and 12 candles all presented in gorgeous drawstring bags.

‘So, what’s green about those?’ - You might ask. Well, I’m going to tell you.

The first thing that actually impressed me about Lucy is that she knows her products well, she was keen to tell me why she had chosen particular items, any pros and cons, where they had come from and so on. I really like that transparency, and its clear that Lucy has nothing to hide.

OK, to tell you more about the party items I received; The cutlery is organic bamboo which is biodegradable and did in fact go into the compost after we used them. They were nice and strong and didn’t bend or snap like those horrid plastic ones and just about everyone commented on how attractive and different they were, which gave me a great opportunity to tell them about Little Cherry.

The balloons are also biodegradable, made from latex which, Lucy tells me, breaks down in about the same amount of time as an oak leaf. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about the idea of biodegradable balloons until seeing them on the Little Cherry site and had dismissed them as something that ended up in landfill or harming wildlife after being discarded. Additionally, many conventional metallic and printed balloons end up causing pollution because of the amount of resources that go into their production and the toxic ink used to decorate them. One thing that I meant to ask Lucy was about the rubber trees that the latex is sourced from and whether they are managed sustainably - I’m sure she’d be able to tell me. The balloons are still decorating my kitchen because I can’t bring myself to throw them away but when I do, I know they’ll be gone in 6 months time.

My partner’s mum made me a delicious birthday cake which was covered in fair trade chocolate. Having the pure beeswax candles from Little Cherry to place on it couldn’t have been better. I’ve often wondered what is in regular birthday candles that makes them give off that nasty black smoke but you just don’t get that with these beeswax ones. I’m told they provide a honey aroma but I didn’t give them long enough to burn before blowing them out, making a birthday wish and eating the cake. As you can see here, it didn’t last long!

Of course there are many other products available from Little Cherry and no doubt I’ll be going there for more party supplies in the future. The items that Lucy sent me were presented in lovely ethically-sourced cotton bags which are printed with ‘100% eco-friendly’ and ‘my party bag’ in non-toxic inks.

I noticed that the Little Cherry promotional materials are also eco-friendly - the letterheads and business cards are made from recycled paper and the fridge magnet from recycled plastic cups. Its obvious that Lucy has thought about the environment throughout her business.

Aside from how great the cutlery, balloons and candles were there is something else that I respect about Little Cherry and that’s honesty. When Lucy sent me the candles she told me that she’d had to import them but didn’t feel happy about that and currently is looking into having the made in the UK. We all know that not one of us is 100% green but the important thing is to know where we can improve and how to go about it and here’s an example of a company doing just that. Although I think Little Cherry already have a lot to be proud about, thank you Lucy!