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Sustainability at Home:  A Toolkit

The Natural Step

Sustainability at Home is a toolkit that helps homeowners understand how to apply sustainable development concepts to everyday household decisions. The guide covers an explanation of sustainability; root causes of un-sustainability; questions to ask while making household decisions; concrete and simple suggestions for every room in your house; renovations; resources for further information and ideas; and more. Originally designed for Alberta, this guide will be useful for new and experienced homeowners alike.

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Choosing Green:  The Home Buyer's Guide To Good Green Homes

Energy efficient, non-toxic, healthy homes are the hottest trend in the building industry. Homebuilders are constructing green homes in astonishing numbers -- nearly 200,000 in the US alone in 2006.

How does a home buyer who wants a green home know what to look for, what questions to ask a builder, which green home rating systems to trust, and what homes are on the market? Nationally recognized green-building expert Jerry Yudelson provides answers to some common areas of concern, including:

* Energy-efficient home features

* Water conservation fixtures

* Non-toxic finishes

* Green products

* Healthy indoor air

Drawing from the expertise of dozens of homebuilders, government officials and green home experts, Choosing Green deftly takes the reader through these considerations with easy-to-use tables, charts, maps, score sheets and checklists.

The book includes a glossary of green building terms, an extensive resource section and a list of homebuilders, green rating programs and financial incentives. This comprehensive book provides homebuyers with everything they will need to make a successful search for their own green home.

Jerry Yudelson is the president of Yudelson Associates, green building consultants. He has trained over 3,000 people in the LEED green building rating system. He chairs Greenbuild, the world's largest green building conference, and has written six books on green building, including Green Building A to Z (New Society Publishers).

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Holiday Gifts From Nature

Storey Publishing

Since the 1973 publication of Storey's first Country Wisdom Bulletin, Storey's commitment to preserving the arts, crafts, and skills of country life has never wavered. There are many titles in this series of 32-page publications, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins contain practical, hands-on instructions designed to help you master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. From traditional skills to the newest techniques, Storey's Bulletins provide a foundation of earth-friendly information for the way you want to live today.  Try this for making unique gifts from nature for this holiday season.

Exploring Nature
Teacher Created Resources

Help children develop a love of the outdoors. Nature provides the resources; this book suggests plenty of ideas; and you create the opportunities.

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The Natural Step

What is The Natural Step?

The Natural Step Canada is part of an international non-profit research, education and advisory organization that uses a science-based, systems framework to help organizations, individuals and communities take meaningful steps toward sustainability. The mission of The Natural Step (TNS) is to act as a catalyst to bring about systemic change by making fundamental principles of sustainability easier to understand and effective sustainability initiatives easier to implement.

Founded in 1989 in Sweden by Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, the organization now has offices in eleven countries. TNS has received numerous awards from around the world for its work in sustainability including Mikhail Gorbachev’s Millennium Award in 1999 and The Blue Planet Award in 2000 – considered the “Nobel Prize of the Environment”.

Why The Natural Step?

How do we make economic progress, giving everyone the opportunity for a fulfilling life, without continuing to damage the natural systems upon which we all depend? That is the challenge of sustainable development.

For new solutions we need more than science simply telling us about the impacts of our unsustainable activities. What is needed is a framework by which we can come to grips with the whole system – one that focuses upstream on the root causes of our damaging impacts and allows us to design the problems out of society, rather than reacting to unforeseen consequences.

The number of tools and methods for dealing with environmental and social issues has grown to a point of confusion. They all have something to offer, but to be really useful there must be a way of evolving a shared, science-based mindset to facilitate complex decision-making and to integrate these various approaches.  Given this need and challenge, The Natural Step has:

• developed such a framework;
• documented its scientific relevance; and
• established a sufficient track record to prove its potential.

The Natural Step Framework is now being used internationally by hundreds of organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, government departments, universities, municipalities, and small- and medium-sized businesses in their respective journeys to sustainability.  The Natural Step provides two unique services:  

• a clear, compelling, science-based definition of what sustainability is; and
• a practical strategic planning framework to help organizations make smart economic decisions while moving toward their sustainability goals.

 

Click here for more information on The Natural Step.

Have a Green Holiday Season

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Make cards at home from old cards, calendars, photos, etc.  Making your own cards can be easy and fun.  Or go paper-free - there are also great eCards or email.
• Choose earth friendly wrapping paper.  If you are buying wrapping paper, choose some with recycled content and avoid the glitter - it can be hard to recycle.  Think of things you have at home like scraps of fabric, recycled wrapping paper, decorate brown paper bags, use paper bags decorated with photos - use your imagination.
• Make the gift part of the wrapping, for example a scarf, towel, or reusable shopping bag.
• Take your own bags shopping to avoid more plastic bags.

Green Decorating

• Buy a potted tree that can be planted outside after Christmas.  If buying a cut tree choose a sustainable grower.  
• Use nature to decorate your home.  Use real holly, make strings of popcorn, put cloves into oranges - there are so many options.

Be Energy Efficient

• Use fewer lights and LED if possible.  And turn out lights before you go to bed.  Consider a timer - it makes turning lights off and on easy and saves energy.
• Use candles.  Avoid the paraffin ones and choose beeswax, soy, or vegetable-based.  Candles are always festive.
• Lower your thermostat and wear a warm holiday sweater.
• Replace all your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).

Give Green Gifts

• Consider giving gently used items.  This works great if your family and/or friends are like-minded.  Perhaps something you don’t wear anymore, or a great book you’ve finished.
• Give of your time.  Lots of local charities need help.  Perhaps a friend or family is unable to get out - bring a gift of tea and cookies and share it with them.  Offer to babysit for weary parents.
• Choose gifts with less packaging where possible.
• Give eBooks.
• Buy locally.
• Try to avoid batteries as they are hard to recycle.  If you need batteries choose rechargeable ones.
• Bake something and share it.
• Buy less.
• Give earth friendly gifts - a reusable shopping bag, a compost bin, a travel coffee mug, etc.

Create New Green Traditions

• Take a family hike and enjoy the great outdoors.
• Find some things you don’t need and donate them.
• Take some food to your local foodbank.
• Donate to a worthy cause.
• Cook a local, organic dinner.
• During your time off make your home more sustainable (use the toolkit available free!).