Monday, August 13, 2012

Practically Green


Practically Green is a website that offers a great, practical, introductory path to sustainability, health, comfort and energy efficiency. I joined up and took the survey and found some engaging ideas and challenges that I will consider adapting in the near future. Check it out and see if it might work for you. The following is from their 'about' page:
In 2006, our founder Susan embarked on a major healthy green lifestyle makeover, inspired by her young son’s food and environmental allergies. During the process, she actively sought out useful online tools where she could discover new actions to take as well as learn about their impact, track her progress, and even compare and share the experience with friends. While she found no such site, she did find LEED®, a system that evaluates and recognizes designers and developers for incorporating green features into buildings.


Susan began to wonder why there wasn't a LEED® for people. The vision for Practically Green was born.
We are redefining the way people go about their daily lives.
Sustainable living seems like a simple concept, but there's a reason why Practically Green has become the leading program for greening people. Going green isn’t just about using less energy, producing less waste, and reducing exposure to harmful substances (though we're not complaining when that happens!); it's also about clarifying what’s confusing, offering motivation, and helping people embrace and even share their new way of life. We make healthy green living simple, personal and relevant, trackable, and shareable. We also make it fun!

Practically Green is now backed by a team of people who know that sustainability can be tricky. To make it easier, we’ve taken the best tools we know—interactive technology, game mechanics, and social media—and applied them to the challenges of sustainability. It helps. The proof? We now have tens of thousands of people from hundreds of countries using Practically Green. We work with amazing companies to power their own, customized sustainability engagement programs for their employees, members and customers. As we go, we’re constantly tweaking our products and programs to make them both effective and loved, then scaling them as broadly as possible.

Practically Green is not only a useful and efficient digital tool, it's also a community of people who make it a reality: A talented, multitasking team; members who share their actions and opinions, making the journey easier for others; and organizations that know sustainability is the key to the future. We're focused on regular people—young and old, business as well as family types. Our goal is to give people what they need for each sustainable step, each sustainable choice, and each sustainable change. Our dreams are big, but we're not stopping until healthy green living is the conventional way of life.