Move over Al Gore, here comes Alec Loorz. My first (and not last) guy on Women Of Green. At the age of 12, Alec founded Kids vs Global Warming after watching Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Feeling the weight of the global situation and a sense that he could make a difference, Alec felt compelled to tell other kids about the problems we are facing and created a presentation made specifically for youth, full of videos, animation, easy-to-understand science, and compelling motivation for youths from Kindergarten to college age.
Continue reading... →My guest today is woman I have known for a number of years.Tara Grodjesk and I met about 4 years ago when I was helping actress, Marsha Mason, launch her natural products company, Resting in the River. Back then, Tara told me about an idea she was percolating — a professional network to help spa owners green up. What was a seed is now fully sprouted. The Green Spa Network is a thriving membership organization that helps spa owners take specific steps to green up their spas. And there’s more than 14,000 in the US alone. Tara shares her journey and passion in how she’s helping an industry she’s been intimately engaged with for over 25 years take a healthy and prosperous leap into the future.
Continue reading... →For years, one of the biggest roadblocks for going green is the price. Typically green or organic goods can be anywhere from 20 to 50 percent more. So unless you’re a die hard greenie, chances are you’ll pass up the organic kitty litter for the more conventional type. Not any more. Thanks to Karen Schiff, a woman who knows the art of green deal, There’s EcoBunga, an online directory that lists hundreds of green giveaways and deals everyday. From hybrid cars to organic foods. And since the site’s launch in 2008, Karen has personally reviewed thousands of green promotions, screening each one to ensure that the listing is truly green and truly a deal before publishing it online.
About my guest: Karen Schiff is co-founder of Ecobunga!, an online directory listing hund
Continue reading... →The balance of the masculine and the feminine is my mantra on Women Of Green. With the recent (or not-so-recent) oil spill, we see the extreme need for this more than ever. My heart burst open every day watching our waters be turned into a toxic soup of sorrow. With that, I share the blog post below by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. It shines a light on an important view on the BP story that has not been covered in the current news.
— Carolyn
One year ago, BP’s most senior woman left the company. Vivienne Cox was the head of the company’s renewable energy business. A lifelong proponent and pusher of sustainability issues, she was one of the many women to leave the company after the current CEO Tony Hayward took over from Lord Brown, something 20-first.com reported on at the time. Watching the current debacle and the culture that created it, one wonders had she and the other women stayed, would BP be in its current mess?
Continue reading... →My guest today is working hard along with thousands of other volunteers on containing the spew with hair – human hair, dog hair, even alpaca hair. This nationwide effort is lead by the not-for-profit organization, Matter of Trust, that turns the collected hair into oil collection mats and tubes. And so far they’ve collected hair from thousands of individuals and over 40,000 businesses have signed up.
This podcast is on location at a local salon in Santa Fe. Melodi Wyss-Feliciano, the owner of Rock Paper Scissor Salonspa, is leading the way in New Mexico and has collected boxes and boxes of hair not only from her salon, but others in New Mexico. Yesterday, she added my hair. What about yours? Think of it, your strands seeping up the sludge. It’s a beautiful thing.
Continue reading... →Remember my Earth Day guest, Rebecca Harrell Tickell, the author of Hot Rich and Green? If you remember, the book revealed secrets that woman are using to get rich and save the planet. Well, I found my guest today in Rebecca’s book and she shares some of her secrets to her success including how connection with your community trumps “hard work” — and how being authentic was her competitive advantage over other “how to green up your whatever” businesses. I love Rachael’s honesty and transparency in this interview as she shares openly her own emotional journey in life, in business and in green.
Continue reading... →Consumers buy over $200 billion of natural personal care and cleaning products, organic produce, hybrid cars, fair trade coffee, and the list goes on.
But gone are the days of buying green to save the planet. The green market is maturing and the name of the game is “Me first, planet later.” My guest knows this more than anyone. Jacqueline Ottman is a true pioneer in green marketing and the author of “Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation.” She has helped over 60 Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, 3M, and Nike – as well as the EPA’s Energy Star label find competitive advantage in this growing market.
As a green marketer myself, I have admired her from afar for years, I am thrilled to have her on Women Of Green to talk about where we are in green, and what’s to come.
Continue reading... →As I was watching Carole Morison in the Oscar nominated film, Food, INC, she instantly became a personal hero of mine. “This is not farming, this is mass production like an assembly line,” she said in the film. Carole, a Perdue chicken grower, was the only farmer brave enough to allow the film crew into the chicken house for all the world to see what’s really happening — how these animals are really being bred and what we’re really eating when we sit down to our family meal with a plump, juicy, stuffed chicken. If you haven’t seen the film, I promise you, what’s happening and what we’re eating isn’t finger licking good.
As a business woman, what blew my mind is a typical grower with two chickens houses has borrowed over $500,000 and earns about $18,000 a year. Not good. I asked her in our interview, “What DIDN’T you say in the film that you really wanted to?” Carole doesn’t hold back. You’ll want to hear this for yourself!
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