I am a low inventory consumer. There are very few things on my shopping list, typically. That might seem kind of ironic considering I run a business that is driven solely by advertising revenue. Were Conscious Choice any other kind of publication, I guess it would be ironic.
The foundation for my consumerism is part economics, part frugality and part upbringing. My grandmother washed and re-used each sheet of “foil-paper” until it had no integrity left. I think as a culture today we tend to forget this kernel of reality: not many generations ago, the goods and services we have now did not exist. We take a lot for granted. A short time ago options were much more limited and there was much less waste.
So, in this age, I get very excited when I find a product or service that is sustainable, eco-friendly, works well and allows me to stay in my low-impact comfort zone. I recently experienced a couple of these while going through unavoidable remodeling at the Conscious Choice office. Through years of partnership and trust, I generally look to our fellow LOHAS entrepreneurs for assistance when tackling something beyond my limited expertise.
My first point of contact during this exercise was with a company call GreenWerks. You can check them out at greenwerkspro.com. GreenWerks is a general purpose commercial and residential contractor specializing in eco-friendly projects. I was immediately impressed when the proprietor, Chris Campbell, came to the office and walked through some low-impact ways we could accomplish our project. He explained what we could recycle, what would be difficult to recycle and how we could do what we needed to do with low-impact to our resources — both in budget and in materials. And, how we could get it all done on time without disturbing regular work flow. He then supplied the materials and personnel to do it without a hitch. His two workers, Santana and Leo, made every effort to be considerate and thorough. There were no surprises and everything turned out right — the first time.
After the new walls went up and some old walls came down, we had to think about the finishing touch — paint. I was very skeptical about this stage of green remodeling. I have painted with both high toxicity and low toxicity paints. My experience with the latter, low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) materials had not been the greatest. I like deep tones and bright motivating colors in the work space, and get annoyed when it takes multiple coats to get where I want to go. However, I felt I owed it to the environment, the staff and the office dogs to make an effort on the low VOC front. So, one of my high-efficiency staff, Tim, got a hold of Michelle Quaranta at Colori Paint Boutique, colorichicago.com.
Tim managed to chip off enough painted surface from the walls that had the colors we wanted to keep and bring it to Michelle. The old paint, I hate to admit, was what I purchased and used from a large home improvement chain about five or six years ago. It was terrible paint — stinky and it took a lot of coats to get the oranges, yellows and warm nutty colors. When the LoVo paint arrived from Colori, much to my surprise, we got the color we wanted — an exact match — in two coats. The two finishes we used, eggshell and semi-gloss, were exact replicas of the more “commercial” store finishes. The icing on the cake was there was very little odor other than a very feint ammonia-ish smell which went away as soon as the paint dried. It taught me a lesson: there is more paint in a gallon of LoVo paint than in a gallon of run-of the mill home improvement store paint.
The entire project came within our meager budget. It turns out that if you are careful about your resources, keep an eye on sustainability + re-use, and look for good quality, low-impact resources, it is possible to stretch a dollar a little further. Still, that won’t keep me from washing aluminum foil.
— Richard McGinnis