Shades of Green Blog: Livingreen Store Santa Barbara
I was invited to be a panelist at a lecture at the downtown Livingreen store in Santa Barbara. Ellen Strickland, the owner and Lindsay Horstman of Smith Barney put together a panel to discuss and answer questions about how to green your life one shade at a time.
Ellen Strickland has expanded her store from the ‘Funk Zone” location to Coast Village Road in Montecito and a store in Los Angeles. She was very generous to open up her store to the crowd of about 70 people that packed in to be sheltered from he rainy evening.
I spoke about being the first EcoBroker® in Santa Barbara and how I already loved real estate but now I loved it even more that I had found my niche.
Richard Sanford from Alma Rosa Winery talked about the choices that he and his wife Thekla have made over the years to maintain control over their wineries. Formerly the guiding forces behind Sanford Winery, Richard and Thekla chose to part ways from the winery with their last name attached since the investors were not willing to spend a little more to maintain the organic processes and way of life. I found it interesting that in general a consumer will gravitate towards products with an organic label, yet they will shy away from a wine with an organic label. I would bet that in due time this will change.
Elissa Loughman from Patagonia talked about the carbon footprint of the products that Patagonia makes. How the whole company is all about doing the right thing and contributes 1% to the planet of all of their profits. She mentioned how Patagonia is hoping to start using cotton from the farmers who are in the process of converting to organic cotton. She explained how it takes an average of three years for the cotton fields to be fully converted from “regular” cotton to organic cotton and they want to assist those farmers who are taking major production losses now in an effort to do those things. Patagonia is a fabulous company and their catalogs continue to use more and more recycled content and their clothes continue to be cuter…
It was a wonderful evening, filled with good company, delicious wine and food and educational topics. Livingreen is planning to host more lectures and panels with different green businesses featured in the future. Feel free to contact me to see when and how to sign up!
