No Impact Man

While I was on vacation last week, I kept hearing about "No Impact Man". Then, when I checked my e-mail this morning I got a great newsletter from Allison Teich of aGaiN NYC who again mentioned him. I decided it was time to check out his blog, which I encourage you to do as well. No Impact Man's mission can be broken down into a simple mathematical formula:

Positive Environmental Impact + Negative Environmental Impact = No Impact

His blog is full of inspiration from his yearlong quest to live "off the grid" in the middle of New York City. I've already decided, like Allison, to frequent my local Farmer's Market more often after reading just a fraction of the information and ideas on his blog.

Visiting your local Farmer's Market is just one of the "easy" things you can do. Like me, you'll probably want to spend hours reading No Impact's blog for even more ideas and inspiration that you can adopt in your everyday life.

Offset your summer vacation with TerraPass

As you've probably seen in our newsletter and our calendar, we are gearing up for summer vacation here at Natural Heights. So what better topic than to talk about offsetting your summer travel with TerraPass! All of those summer road trips and airline flights can really add to the issue of global warming. But now you can take action and purchase carbon offsets for your travel. Just visit TerraPass and input your trip information into their website and they will tell you exactly how many carbon offsets will help balance the impact of your carbon footprint.

For our own summer vacation, we'll be driving out to Chicago for my cousin's wedding. Once we return, I'll be logging the number of miles into TerraPass to balance our own carbon footprint for the trip. When you buy a TerraPass, your money funds renewable energy projects such as wind farms. These projects result in verified reductions in greenhouse gas pollution. And these reductions counterbalance your own emissions.

So rest a little more soundly on your summer vacation this year, knowing that you're also giving back to the environment.

Co-op America and our Local Products

One of the follow up questions during our Co-op America application process asked about the local products that we support at our store. While we only carry a few brands right now, those few brands actually account for a significant portion of our revenue and we are very proud to carry them at our store! You can now buy one of those brands, Eveline's Ever Grow, online on our Etsy site as well!

And don't forget...our Slope Suds Sugar Scrub was named neighborhood pick for the summer, and the ever popular Nesting Pillow is always a great hit as a baby shower gift. All handmade right here in Brooklyn!