Earlier this month, my fellow b5media bloggers at Tree Hugging Family talked about organic and green lunch bag/box options. They gave readers some great options here and here, but if you’re not in school anymore, you might want a more sophisticated option than what they showed, which are mostly for kids(although I was totally a fan of Bento Box Set they showed). Here are some adult-friendly green lunch bag options:

Built NY Gourmet Getaway Lunch Tote

JanSport Lunch Break Lunch Box

Vera Bradley Out To Lunch New Colors

Elle Essentials – Sadie Lunch Bag – Brown
I …read more

Business around the world are going green, and these decisions aren’t just being made by large corporations. You may not be able to change the world by yourself as a small business owner, but if we all work together, we can make just as big of a different at larger corporations.
In honor of the small business owners who really are working to be environmentally-friendly, I’m putting together a series of posts featuring these men and women, and their small businesses.
What are you doing to go green? Do you sell green products? Do you provide green services? To you help …read more

Right now, I’m in the middle of my Green to Save Green series, which you can see at this post. On one of the tips, a reader here at Greener Assets left an interesting comment. The tip in question:
Tip #26: Add a green message to your email. I like something like “Save a tree – don’t print this email unless you need to!” Encourage your employees to do the same. It’s a free message to everyone you email on a daily basis!
I actually get a number of emails with this type of message in the person’s signature, and more than …read more

With the 2008 Olympics drawing nearer, China is in a frenzy to show the world that they’re clean and green. But check out this picture, snapped this morning in Tiananment Square:

That’s not misty rain or morning fog, my friends. That’s smog you’re seeing, for the most part (although it looks like it might be drizzling as well).
Look, we all knew that China’s green-ness was…questionable at best. China, when vying for the bid for the Olympics seven years ago, insisted that Beijing’s air quality would pass World Health Organization standards, though. Clearly, that’s not happening. They’re in a frenzy, …read more

I just had a real “well duh” moment. In fact, I think a lot of the world just has a “well duh” moment.
UK food retailer Sainsbury’s has won the European Retail Solutions Best Green IT Initiative Award 2008 for using simultaneous two-sided thermal receipt printers from NCR Corporation in its store checkouts. Read more here.

Sainsbury reports that they use 40% less paper with their new printers, saving 502,000 rolls of paper every year, and they haven’t even implemented the new printers into all of their stores – they’re only in half of them. That means that this ONE …read more

If you live in the UK, shopping online just got a little sweeter. Tesco, Marks & Spender, Books, the Body Shop, and over 900 over retailers are offering a green rewards cards to shoppers to give them a little budget break as a “thank you” for buying their products.
Green Rewards is a new program that gives you points for buying anything from any of the companies involved in the program when you shop online. The points you accumulate can then be spent at the Green Rewards website for any of their environmentally-friendly products and services.
This is a great …read more

Today, my sister, a friend, and played hookie from work and went to a local water park. While we were there, standing in a glorious tidal wave of spraying water, my friend noted, “I wonder how big their water bill is every month.”
Its a good question indeed. Water parks might be fun, but with all the water they waste and all of the chemicals they use for safety, aren’t they really bad for the environment?
According to one source, a typical big water park uses 7,000 to 10,000 gallons a day. That water is pumped continuously through a filtration system, so …read more

I work from home, so its rare that I get all dressed up in the morning. I don’t use a ton of make-up, even when I do have a meeting or social event. However, I realize that there are tons of women out there who do put on a face every morning. While the greenest option is to go as natural as possible, if you need makeup to feel happy and confident, check out some greener options.
The Green Guide is actually a great source for all kinds of green products, but they have an especially large makeup section. Here’s …read more

GreenBiz.com has a great article up today about “green fatigue” – basically the concept that “green” has become a buzzword in this day and age. It is hard for the consumer to identify greenwashing vs. legitimate green advances. This site gave five tips about avoiding green fatigue with you consumers:

Make sure your environmental progress is authentic.
Make your product/services need to work well before being green.
Set prices accordingly.
Be honest about your improvement plans.
Avoid complaints about the challenges to going green.

It’s a fantastic article that can help any company, large or small, improve – go read it!

I’m lucky in that when I started my business, I decided to do so myself. While it can be a burden sometimes, it also means that I get to make every decision. What I say goes. I’m the boss. You don’t like it? There’s the door.
Most businesses out there have more than one owner, though. Whether your business partner is an old friend, a like-minded business acquaintance, a spouse, or some else, you won’t always see eye to eye on everything, including going green.
The major problem with small businesses becoming more environmentally-friendly is another type of green – …read more