The Sustainable Stimulus: Not All Spending is Equal

Experts tell us that consumer spending needs to be robust to keep our economic system from collapse. Can we be appropriately patriotic, while holding true to sensible values like sustainability and fiscal responsibility? We are in uncharted territory, and many of us - even if gainfully employed - have given in to our natural impulses to reign in spending. But, yes, there are ways to make an economic "contribution" without purchasing made-in-China Plasma TV's, daily lattes at Starbucks, or a new car - just to name a few of the purchasing categories which are in free-fall.

Not all spending is equal. The point is to keep dollars circulating, not necessarily to produce more stuff. Spending money on services keeps people earning dollars, and you get the benefits. Since construction is down, it's a great time to do upgrades on a house, especially ones which enhance your home's efficiency and conservation. Those stimulate the economy but they're essentially investments which pay back. Insulate, replace windows and doors, hire people to caulk, and a painter to throw on a few coats of insulating paint - and you can even get tax breaks. Hire folks to build you raised vegetable beds and a compost to make good on your intention to raise vegetables.

Take some yoga, treat yourself to a massage, acupuncture, Reiki, or go to a spa for a stress-relieving day. Hire an organizer and take the time to go through your surplus. Soon gardening kicks off - there are loads of talented landscapers around. This is a great time to plant a few trees, especially in strategic areas so they will shade your home in summer and let the sun shine into your home in winter. Double green: you're adding carbon sinks and paying for the trees and the labor. That would help both earth and economy.

OK, so you'll skip that plasma TV. But how about springing for a capacitor? This small appliance (like the Kvar, which our electrician recommended), when attached to your electrical junction box, improves efficiency. They run around $500 and quickly pay for themselves with a 10-30% drop in electric usage. Now is a good time to replace old energy guzzlers like dehumidifiers and refrigerators. Our twenty year old dehumidifier not only was sporting colonies of mold, but used so much more energy than modern models that the cost of the new one was recouped in one summer. Maybe this is the season to start biking? Gearing up with the bike, helmet, gloves, bike lock, and spandex shorts will definitely nurse the economy, while you exercise, improve your health, and take a car off congested roads. Win-win-win.

How about supporting crafts people and artists? Check out www.Etsy.com, a website where artists post and sell their wares at very reasonable prices. Like fresh waffles? Buy a waffle iron, and keep batter in your refridge. Way cheaper than buying frozen waffles, and man, it will smell great every morning. Love those lattes? Buy an espresso machine! Take advantage of off-season prices and take your sweetie to a Bed and Breakfast. In this economy, what goes around comes around.

Keep those dollars moving, wisely.

Photo by Thomas Hawk/Flickr

Princeton Microfinance Lecture on Thursday, featuring Yours Truly

LCA ing Is Now A Verb!

Through my work at GreenMicrofinance, I have been drawn into the Wharton social impact scene, and was lucky enough to attend a wonderful conference today hosted by IGEL, Wharton's high level Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership. The topic, Life Cycle Analysis, was addressed by from multiple perspectives: the science, the implementation, the marketing, the consumer. What emerged is that "LCAing" is a wonderful tool, but is limited, like all analysis, by the many unintended consequences and unknowable variables that sneak in from planning to execution, consumption, and - it it's a permanent object - obsolescence or breakdown.
The sticky idea for me: how do you plan for variables which are hard to predict? Prof Noam Lior said essentially prophecy is most effective in retrospect.... He sited several initiatives heralded in their times as major problem solvers: the Aswan Dam and desalination technology. Now it is recognized that the Aswan Dam has stripped the Nile Valley of natural silt nutrient replenishment, and it needs synthetic fertilization. Desalination is now viewed as aggressive, undesirable hydrotech....
The case of Fiji water was raised, first as a ridiculous use of resources, shipping water around the world. Then Maggie McIntosh, who worked at Conservation International, gave more backstory. Fiji has virtually no industry, and the water business helps maintain its biodiversity hotspots and provides jobs; without those in place, the areas would likely be stripped for timber sales. One suggestion, not a bad one: just import the water bottle labels!
My fantasy: some day, just like calories are listed on food labels, the carbon footprint will be listed on each project. Of course the devil is in the details. How do you measure the carbon footprint of products with subcomponents and track it all the way through the production process?

A Passover Cookbook - Great Recipes and Helping the Homeless!

Fabrangen, a counter-cultural Jewish havurah (fellowship) from the 60's which has gradually matured into a 3 generation community, just published a new edition of their Passover cookbook, A Hopeful Passover. Rachel Braun, who edited it, sent me off a copy - my first blogging perk, pretty nice!!
I love the book - it's got a home made feel and voice, with lots of ideas for managing Passover cooking, creating lively seders, and naturally - matzah balls and beyond.
The Passover cuisine very much reflects their demographic - kugels and quinoa, "Back-of-the-Manischewitz-Box Sponge-Cake" to Queen Anne's Cake (fancy! scrumptious!).
Here's a nice part: all proceeds from the book ($25 + shipping) go to Project Hope, their support project for homeless families. Their long term commitment has made a difference in the lives of many families, including one whose daughter has headed off to college. To purchase, just click on the title above.
Here's one of the book's great suggestions for seder enlivening:

The "Freedom Plate": We ask every seder guest to bring an item that symbolizes freedom to him or her, and put it on a plate on the table. When it is time to hold up symbols from the seder plate, we also hold up symbols from the freedom plate. Each person who brings an item speaks about why it symbolizes freedom. You hear great intepretations. Martha Hausman

and here is a really cool recipe/arts and crafts project from Laura Bellows. She grew up at Fabrangen and is an environmental educator - kind of a Flower Child 2.0!

Elan's Candied Violets

Here's another impetus for refraining from the use of herbicides in your yard. Use the beautiful wild violets that bloom in spring in most grassy locations as decoration for Passover cakes and as delicious edibles. This recipe is also adaptable to other edible flowers such as pansies.
20+ blooming violets, fresh picked, rinsed and patted dry. Cut stems to 1" from flower and open blooms.
1 egg white
1/2 c. fine granular sugar

Beat egg white until frothy. Dip violets in egg whites to coat, and then into sugar. Place each violet separately on wax paper on a cookie sheet. Dry in 200 degree oven until crystallized. If story many, put wax paper between layers.

Vote for 2,000,000 Trees!

Trees for the Future is one of my favorite non-profits. Their seedling trees grow to provide livelihood and environmental improvement for people in degraded areas, all the while absorbing our industrial world's climate changing carbon. And they do this for $.10 a tree, hiring and training local arborists. This develops a great infrastructure to keep the reforestation going, another benefit. They're up for a grant of $200,000, hence the 2 million tree number. Please vote for this awesome project! It's a quick sign-up, and they're only a few votes behind the front runner. Read their words:

Vote for 2 MILLION Trees
How about a TWO MILLION TREE OPPORTUNITY? Green Mountain Coffee is offering several grants of $200,000 each for environmentally beneficial projects. TREES has submitted a proposal to assist coffee growers cooperatives in Ethiopia by developing "shade-grown" coffee along with other livelihood opportunities, especially organic honey production, where the bees have also proven to boost coffee harvests as much as 60%.

You can help TREES get this grant by voting here. We are only 200 votes behind the lead project in our category, but everyone is rallying votes in the final push before voting closes on March 21st. Your vote for us will help upland families rebuild their lands in coffee growing communities around the world. Thanks for your help.

Garnett Hill Customer Service - Thumbs Up

Garnett Hill's upscale catalogue includes some green products. Since I like deals, I usually check at the end of the season to see if something I have coveted is discounted. This year I went for the beautiful Asian style pajamas I have admired for quite a few years.
They are a smart company to keep an actual style from year to year and change colors and fabrics. One of my pet peeves is going back to replace something I love, only to find the whole fashion genre has gone extinct.
I ordered two pair of these pricey PJ's, on discount, and they were both too big. I returned them, asking for two new pairs in their smallest size, @ $48.00 (not $68, their normal price!) They are lovely, beautiful, and I will enjoy them for a long time. My daughter loved hers, too.
I don't normally plug products, even green ones, so why am I writing?
When I checked my credit card bill [yes, you should always do this!] I discovered they had charged me $74 for each of the new ones. I called the company and discovered that only certain discontinued colors were on sale. Tricky. Since I had done the choosing online, there was no way to verify how this was communicated. After a few minutes of research, the customer service rep automatically kicked it up to her manager. I didn't need to huff and puff, escalate, and threaten; THIS IS COMPANY PROTOCOL. The manager said only one of the color choices was $48, but indeed applied that price to both.
This morning in my inbox: a record of my refund.
Better not to overcharge to begin with, of course, but once that's occurred, this is a model of how a company should respond. Go Garnett Hill!

Clothing Swap IV: Fun, Frugal, Virtuous, and Green!

The 4th annual GJC Women's Clothing Swap will be Sunday, 3/29/09 at Germantown Jewish Centre, 400 W. Ellet St, in Mt. Airy. We love this event - not only does a lot of terrific gently used clothing, shoes and accessories get reUSED (better than recycled, from an environmental stand point), but we also raise money for Darfur Alert, since there is a suggested donation of $20.

Here's the scoop: On Sunday, March 29, Germantown Jewish Centre will host the 4th Annual Women's Clothing Swap from 11-3 at the synagogue's refurbished, post-fire building at 400 West Ellet Street. This event has grown in popularity each year, and we hope 2009 will attract droves of frustrated Recessionista Shoppers, thrilled to be filling up bags of great finds costing next to nothing, while helping women less fortunate than ourselves.

You may donate your lightly worn clothing, accessories, shoes, and bags, though you don't need to donate anything at all. You can help yourself to as many items as you wish. The suggested charge is a $20 donation to Darfur Alert Coalition. Please come, bring your friends, your family, your mother, your sister, your daughter, your neighbor... It's a great opportunity to clean your closets as the season changes. And hey! If what you "buy" doesn't work out, just bring it back to Clothing Swap V next year!

All leftover clothing (generally a half a truck full, believe it or not) is donated to PlanetAid and we've raised at least $1,200 for Darfur relief each year. For questions, or to volunteer, contact Genie Ravital geniebud@gmail.com.

Women's clothing donations may be dropped off in advance beginning Sunday 22 March.

SEPTA: R8 or 23 Bus to Carpenter Lane

Kamik Boots: Built to Last - One Year!!

News flash: Just heard from Kamik Boots with the offer of a replacement pair. Will update!
* New boots are on their way from Kamik directly.
* Peter Glenn has also offered a $25. credit, even though none of this was their fault - go PG!
* Kamik hasn't explained why their American office directly contradicts company policy in terms of standing by the product....
* Boots arrived. Moral of the story: if you're not treated well, escalate. Getting in touch with a company's PR people, as opposed to the actual Customer Service team, seems to be a good idea, especially if you have a blog :-)

It's snowy in Connecticut where my daughter goes to college, so we encouraged her to buy good boots. She bought a pair of Kamiks online through Peter Glenn. She loved the boots. But when she wore them the second winter, they had sprung a leak, so much for the waterproof boot thing. Also the insides had worn out so much in the first season that by the second season, they dug into her heels. These were not from Payless. They should hold up!
Once my son asked Shoe Store Guy, when we went to buy new sneakers, what to do about the fraying lining of his Timberlands which he hadn't even purchased at that store? SSG had a look and said, "Timberlands shouldn't do that!" He went to the stock area and came back with a replacement pair, no charge. That's what a good company does.
When I complained to Kamik, their response was to pass the buck to the retailer. Peter Glenn was as helpful as they could be, but then reported back that Kamik wouldn't do a thing because the boots' "warranty" was out - as in, they were more than one season old. Wouldn't you think boots ought to last more than a year?
Here is my letter to Kamik. Any bets on whether they'll respond?

I recently had a very unsatisfactory experience. My daughters' beloved Kamik boots sprang a leak. When I talked to Kamik customer service, they passed the buck on to the retailer. I sent the boots back to the store, who then informed me Kamik refused to provide a replacement or refund, because the boot's were "out of warranty" , past their 1 year warranty. What kind of manufacturer of durable boots tells the customer they're only good for a year?!

I am shocked that your company doesn't stand by your product and provide a replacement. In the past when, for example, a Timberland product wore poorly, they replaced them. Likewise with Nike.

Instead, I received a run-around and Kamik passed the buck on to the retailer, who reported that Kamik "can't do anything, because the boots were purchased in 2007, and the warranty is up". Very sad and of course infuriating, given this from your website:

At Kamik®, we make footwear that brings to life our northern origins. Singular. Strong. Simply dependable. We've been doing it for over 100 years. Day after day. 24/7. The result of all this effort: a complete line of outdoor footwear built to deliver superior comfort and reliable protection in the most extreme conditions. We know you wouldn't have it any other way.

I would like to hear directly from your CEO. I am posting my experience on my well-read blog. If Kamik would like to make good on replacing these boots, I will be happy to amend my post.

In the meantime, know that customers who are treated like this get angry. Your name is your real product, and when you damage it, it's hard to fix.

Shocked into Frugality

Steven Roach, writing in the New York Times about when the recession is likely to end, coined a phrase which jumped out at me: "the American consumer is shocked into a new frugality." There's nothing new about frugality, believe me. It's just that frugality is new to many Americans. It's very strange to read about people becoming cost conscious. To me it's more like, hey! Americans are coming to their senses and are gonna be less wasteful. Good news for the planet, even if we're not getting out of this recession any time soon.
I am thinking of it as a Contraction, rather than a recession or depression. Hopefully when things become expansive again, it will be a new economy - one with universal health care and cap and trade carbon legislation enacted. Not to minimize the pain - another friend announced being laid off today, so that's #3 - but if we can do our economic structuring right, we'll be better off. And I think the generation of 20-somethings will develop much more realistic financial habits, which will serve them well. That's the good news about the bad news.