The GreenRoost Blog

The common misconception not that long ago was that the eco-friendly lifestyle was something for an elite population only. After all, who can afford installing solar panels, buying organic clothes, or shopping at Whole Foods for all their grocery and household needs?

But just ask your grandma about affordable living, and you’ll get the best earth-friendly advice: living on a cheap budget is most often earth-friendly. Cheap means buying less, reusing more - and as a result wasting fewer resources and generating less trash.

I came across a great (and funny) post by Jeff Yeager about “make your own” economic stumulus package - for $8. Look at all the sustainable items he got for this amount at a local dollar store:

• Seeds
• Reusable water bottle
• Window insulating strips
• Earth-friendly cleaning supplies (vinegar and baking soda)
• Lentils
• Reusable shopping bag
• A DVD movie

Granted - this was a lucky shopping experience (you never know what  kind of goodies you can find at a local dollar store), but do check out his blog post about the $8 economic stimulus package : )  for inspiration. After all - spending less and saving more gives us a little more freedom and peace of mind, as well as available cash to invest in products that will save you money long term, such as solar panels.

The bottom line is, a true green lifestyle is cheap, on a personal and on a national level. Costa Rica is a great example of that. A country where the average salary is $300/month managed to put forth enough effort to not only sustain their bio-diversity and find a medium between eco-friendly and economically-friendly, but to go as far as producing 95% of their energy from renewable resources.

How do they do it?

In personal life and in business, making the right choice is often about the right financial incentives. When these incentives are missing, most of us unfortunately won’t go that extra mile to make the right long-term “big picture” choice. Here in the US we often do not add the negative environmental factors (such as polluting air or a river, depleting a fish stock or destroying a forest) - to your bill. But perhaps we should? Nothing makes us think outside-the-box involving our creative abilities as - “what is this going to cost me?”. In Costa Rica  in 1997 a tax on carbon emissions was imposed — 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels — which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them. As a result Costa Rica now has twice the amount of forest it did 20 years ago. Sounds simple and doable, and certainly affordable!

On a personal level, if a product is marketed as green but the price seems too high - the high price tag should be a warning that there is something wrong earth-wise with this product. Just think about it - the cost of resources is what drives the price of goods, and since most of the producers of common goods would sell them as cheaply as they could afford - the high price tag often means a high cost of natural resources. But of course, marketers do try to charge a premium if they think customers will buy it!

Organic cotton is a great example - the 700 gallons of water needed to grow cotton for 1 tshirt would certianly drive the price up. This kind of water waste is really appalling and certainly not sustainable - not only in the near future, but even now! Read about the mass suicides of farmers in India due to the financial hardships that came as a result of water shortages. (And keep in mind that most of the world lives on a cash basis - loaning money and piling up debt is really bad stigma in most places but the US! Much worse than having yellow teeth or driving a 15 year-old car!)

Planet-friendly living is about going away from the consumption mentality. And doesn’t the word “consumer” sound insulting to you anyway? I am personally sick of hearing phrases like “the average US consumer” - the word “consumer” makes me think of a carnivore eating everything around and getting really mad when everything gets eaten. If we are that kind of an animal, maybe we are due for extinction. However, I really hope that most of us could take responsibility for our actions and stop playing the ostrich game of hiding our heads in the sand - when it comes to evaluating our current planet situation.