Living Lightly

When I began considering “subjects” for the first Living Lightly Project film, I was attracted to people with a strong personal commitment, a passion and a certain fearlessness. What I imagined was a lot of people with interesting stories to tell about what they do to live lightly at home and in their community. I had no trouble finding interesting stories of this type. What I did not expect was the speed with which the film turned to looking equally at businesses, and the people driving change at work, and through their work.

You see, I had not intended to focus on businesses and stores, perhaps as a result of having seen too many people try to use “green-sumption” to purchase their way to a more sustainable lifestyle, and perhaps as a result of my loathing for “greenwash”, whereby companies market themselves and their products as greener, but with little substance to those claims (and sometimes outright false advertising!).

So it came as a surprise when, in my first few interviews, names of local businesses and products kept coming up. My friend Fran Doy was getting her rain barrels and her safer cleaning products from Arbour Environmental Shoppe (see this week’s “rough cut” Living Lightly video about Arbour). Several people mentioned purchasing “green electricity” from Bullfrog Power. Almost everybody was getting coffee and meeting friends at Bridgehead.

Without any prompting from me, people kept mentioning businesses that were important players in their quest to live lightly. When I thought about it, all of these companies are owned by people who are themselves trying to live lightly, at work and at home, in various ways and degrees. They are trying to help by offering buy ativan online with no prescription useful solutions at a fair price. They are trying to make a “decent” living; or, as the saying goes, they are doing well by doing good.

Some are getting rich, some are getting by. All seem to be getting a reward from the way in which they have chosen to earn their livelihood.

So, while I am not planning to make this into a “green business” film or website, I can see the content easily being 1/3 “corporate”. Which raises another point: are these stories really corporate, or are they more about people? After all, business really is about people, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. Owners are people, staff are people, suppliers are people, and clients are, of course, the most important people of all.

Ultimately, the planetary predicament in which we find ourselves was created by the action (and inaction) of people. So the solutions will be about people, sharing with, inspiring, and sometimes making money from/with other people.

If you know of any businesses (I mean people) who should be featured on this site, or in a film, please pass on their details. Or just as good, why not take a crack at interviewing them yourself? We’ll help you with the technical details.

N.B. Before anyone asks (and you should), the Living Lightly Project does not accept money from subjects we interview (be they businesses or people). We will gladly accept financial and in-kind support for our ongoing work, but we will not feature or in any way promote people, companies or goods wherever financial or material support has been accepted or offered.

David C