Acting Sustainably to Build a GREEN ECONOMY – using resources for your food, shelter, mobility and other consumption that are easily renewable, recycled and as closely produced to your local community as possible.  Also, work at building your community to maximize what you can do together with other people on limited funds by creating: resource sharing, cooperative purchases, labor and skill networks, community tool sheds or swapping, and jointly lobbying merchants and legislators.  For those items that just aren't grown in your community, like coffee or sugar, always look for Fair Trade producers; however, Fair Trade also encompasses a wide variety of agricultural and handcrafted goods, including baskets, clothing, cotton, footballs, furniture, jewelry, rice, toys, and wine.   Resources & Services not listed elsewhere in Directory Co-housing Communities LEED certified Apartment Buildings (within the full list of buildings)   ECO SHOPS - Misc. Products   Flowers - locally farmed Graphic Designers Pet Stores for Socially-Conscious Animals Prius PHEV Conversion Spa Boutiques Resources for planning your own events WUSA9.com's 'Living Green Now' Page Lodging        To get started:      Take one month to track all of your spending.  Determine just how many of your dollars are helping to Build a Green Economy. . . and set a goal to do better each month.   Then, prioritize finding resources to green the things you use the most - like the internet and telephone.....    Earth Tones  provides internet access, long distance telephone and wireless phone services AND delivers 100% of their profits to grassroots environmental organizations!   Next, look broadly to cover all aspects of your daily life and random activities . . .   Co-op America's National Green Pages The broadest and most reviewed national listing of sustainable businesses for: GREEN INVESTING      RECYCLED PRODUCTS    SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS ENERGY EFFICIENT PRODUCTS      FAIR-TRADE PRODUCTS     SHARE OWNER ACTIVISM

Always know what you can BUY LOCAL   Use ECO STUDIO's REGIONAL RESOURCE DIRECTORY . . . the broadest resource for living sustainabily within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed - and we add more daily!

Buy FAIR TRADE when purchasing items not produced in this area, such as:  Tea, Chocolate, Bananas and other Tropical Produce, Sugar, Rice, Vanilla, Apparel, Artisanal Crafts, Olive Oil, Coffee. Fair Trade   is a people-powered solution to global economic injustice. It is a system of trade based on direct relationships and partnerships between buyers in the global north and producing communities in developing countries.  Fair Trade helps ensure that farmers and artisans throughout the developing world receive a fair price for their products, have direct involvement in the marketplace and safe working conditions, and uphold environmental and labor rights standards as well as respect cultural identities. The system builds real and lasting relationships between producers in developing countries and businesses and consumers around the world. While coffee was the first agricultural product to be certified fair trade in 1988, fair trade handicrafts have been on sale in developed countries since 1946.   View The Fair Trade Federation's case studies to learn more about how these principles are actually practiced.  What you can do:  encourage retailers, wholesalers and cafes to stock/serve products listed above, encourage your favorite organizations to host fundraising sales with these products, only give Fair Trade gifts.  Co-op America's Guide to Fair Trade Fair Trade Federation

Join others to build Community Resource Sharing Groups A great local example:    Mount Pleasant Solar Coop . . .a diverse and growing group of families and friends who want to help solve the global problem of climate change one neighborhood at a time — starting with their own. Mt. Pleasant Solar Coop aims to make rooftop solar power convenient and affordable for everybody in the neighborhood. Stories from other successful initiatives...coming soon