Forget slashing prices. What picky shoppers want this holiday season are gifts with meaning.

So merchants are scouting for items that are environmentally or socially responsible, whether that means produced locally, often with recycled material, or made in accordance with fair trade standards, which require that workers are paid a living wage in safe conditions.

“We look at what the company is about. What’s their mission statement? Do they help the Earth? Do they help women?” said Jayne Ertel, co-owner of Team Blonde Jewelry in Forest Park.

At a time when many retailers are reporting sales declines, some green merchants are bucking the trend. Team Blonde projects sales of about $450,000 this year, up 8 percent from a year ago.

“I’m doubling my sales this year,” said Maureen Dunn, co-owner at Mata Traders, a Chicago-based wholesaler of fair trade goods that sells to 70 shops throughout the nation.

The hot seller this holiday season is a $12 scarf made from repurposed sari material. Dunn has added winter clothing and jewelry to her line while being careful to keep prices down.

“If something’s too expensive, I have to figure out how to change the design to make it cheaper so I can compete,” Dunn said, noting that she designs the products that are made by women’s cooperatives in India. Besides wholesale, Mata Traders has a retail booth at the Andersonville Galleria.

Sales of green products are climbing because consumers increasingly are considering where and how a product is made, said Aimee Heilbrunn, co-founder of EcosceneInc.com, a Web site that reviews green products.

“People automatically think if it’s organic or green, it’s going to be more expensive, but that’s not necessarily the case. You can find some good alternatives that aren’t going to break the bank,” Heilbrunn said.

Heilbrunn conceived Ecoscene a year ago, after searching for an environmentally friendly dog bed. “I thought, if I’m a normal consumer looking for these items, there must be other consumers out there who are trying to make better choices,” she said.

Nearly one in four Americans, representing more than $200 billion in annual sales, are environmentally and socially conscious consumers, Heilbrunn said, citing figures from the Natural Marketing Institute.

“Consumers are starting to make choices that are cognizant that we are part of a global marketplace,” said Cheryl Middaugh, president of Mora & Mahogany, a company that helps clients raise money by selling fair trade products.

Mora & Mahogany plans to launch a catalog of fair trade products next year for schools and non-profit groups to use for fundraising.

It was that type of fundraiser at a Unitarian Church two years ago that inspired Cindy Pardo and two friends to launch The Fair Trader, a store in Hyde Park that opened in September 2007. “So many people in the neighborhood said, ‘Gee, I wish we could shop this way all the time,’ ” she recalled.

The store stocks only certified fair trade merchandise, including home decor, jewelry, apparel, paper and bath and body products. Most items range from $25 to $75.

Pardo is convinced the growing awareness of where products come from and how they are made is making a difference. More foreign factories are adopting fair trade principles because they know it will help them sell their products, she said.

Shoppers also feel good supporting local artisans, said Nadeen Kieren, shopkeeper at GreenSky, an Andersonville boutique offering green and one-of-a-kind gifts and home decor. “If people can find something functional or decorative that has a story behind it, they enjoy spending their money.”

About three-quarters of the merchandise Kieren stocks is from the Midwest, she said, though she also carries some international fair trade products. Products range from frames created from pencils, birdhouses made from reclaimed barn wood, repurposed woolens made into hats and scarves and jewelry from Michigan stones, she said. Prices range from $2 for a fair trade chocolate bar from Divine Chocolate to $70 for a sea grass handbag.

To keep up with demand at Team Blonde Jewelry, the business recently expanded to a 3,200-square-foot location, where the owners took care to reuse two-by-fours, wood moldings and drywall screws, said co-owner Heidi Vance, who drives a car that runs on biofuel. The new space includes a jewelry-making studio, where Vance and Ertel make items from recycled material, leaded glass from vintage chandeliers, typewriter keys and Scrabble tiles. Customers also can use the studio to make jewelry.

Vance and Ertel, trained in law and accounting, respectively, gave up professional careers to grow Team Blonde. Initially, they made most of the jewelry the store carried. As they found distinct items at gift shows that appealed to their environmental consciousness, they broadened their merchandise mix.

Products range from Vy & Elle handbags made from recycled vinyl billboards to Zulu grass necklaces from the Kenya-based Leakey Collection, which creates employment opportunities for women. Perennial favorites also are soap and bath salts from the Enterprising Kitchen, a Chicago non-profit that employs disadvantaged women.

“We like things that are unpredictable,” Vance said. “There’s always something new to look at. It gives people a reason to come back.”

By Ann Meyer

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-mon-minding-green-products-dec08,0,386691.story

With the holidays looming around the corner, eco-friendly consumers are on the lookout for companies selling sustainable and environmentally conscious products.

Featured in Good Housekeeping, Time and The Wall Street Journal, Eco-Artware.com’s unique products make cool gifts for environmentally conscious people. Earth911.com spoke with Reena Kazmann, founder and director, to learn more about how her company takes green art to the next level.

From Used to New

Eco-Artware was founded in 1999 with the notion of creating a place to showcase earth-friendly gifts made by artists who factor the environment into their work.

Products sold by Eco-Artware are created from recycled or natural materials. Funky items like sweaters or Scrabble tiles are used to make unique trinkets like children’s toys and cuff links, created by a diverse range of over 25 artists that believe in sustainable living and using eco-friendly mediums. They even feature high-back dining chairs made from retired traffic signs.

“We appreciate the imagination and creativity of our artists who take used or discarded (but perfectly good) materials and transform them into exciting, innovative designs,” said Kazmann.

She believes there is a greater shift toward eco-friendly products because companies are becoming more conscious of the “green” movement, and that consumers are now looking to buy environmentally friendly products.

Doing their best to leave a small carbon footprint, the company tries to limit its own waste by using packaging made of recycled materials, like their jewelry boxes composed of recycled paper.

Seeing the Light

For Kazmann, the best part of her job is “discovering a wonderful design that is eco-friendly and seeing the creativity of people who create eco-friendly designs. To these artists, it is not trash they are dealing with, but rather a work of art. As the saying goes, ‘one man’s trash is another’s treasure.’”Kazmann said she is “thrilled” to offer a unique selection of gifts that allow people to “live well, while lightly living on the earth.”

In the future, Kazmann plans on expanding Eco-Artware’s newsletter, the Recycling Rag, to include more on recycling and making products from trash. They also hope to create a series of videos on how you can make and use products from trash.

Favorite R

Kazmann’s favorite “R” is recycling. Due to the recycling industry, it has become much easier to find products that have been made from recycled material, creating more materials for the artists featured on Eco-Artware.com

If jewelry made from typewriter keys or tea lights from recycled bicycle freewheels and cassette cogs ring your bell, Eco-Artware.com has a host of perfect gifts for all the people on your “good” list.

by Brittany McNamara

http://earth911.com/blog/2008/12/08/new-choices-for-affordable-sustainable-gifts/

Want to give funky holiday gifts to your family and friends, but minimize the impact on the environment?

Andrea Fisher

http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=9477605

Barack Obama’s plan to pull the country out of recession has a strong green hue. Conventional wisdom says Washington won’t have the stomach or the dollars to tackle long-term issues like climate change or dependence on foreign oil when the economy is in the tank and oil prices have plunged. Wrong conclusion, Obama says. These problems, “left unaddressed, will continue to weaken the economy and threaten national security,” he said on Nov. 18 in a video message to a climate summit meeting in California.

His fix? Obama plans to set ambitious targets for reducing emissions that cause global warming—and to invest $15 billion or more per year in energy efficiency, renewables like wind and solar, biofuels, nuclear power, and “clean” coal. Beyond the environmental benefits, says the President-elect, the investment “will also help us transform our industries and steer our economy out of this economic crisis by generating 5 million new green jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.”

Whether or not a “green” stimulus will create millions of American jobs is hotly debated by economists. On the one hand, the seeds of the transformation have already been planted thanks to market forces, such as overall higher energy prices, and government policies like tax credits for renewable energy. But there are also major questions. Many executives and experts say the most effective policy to push America toward a clean, efficient energy future is putting a price on emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, thus raising the price of energy. That’s a tough sell now to Americans struggling to pay their bills. There’s also a danger that the government could steer investments to the wrong technologies. Remember synfuels, President Jimmy Carter’s experiment to reduce dependence on foreign oil? Most important, a green stimulus plan from Uncle Sam may end up sending billions of dollars to foreign companies instead of to Main Street, since the U.S. lags in such crucial industries as solar panels and wind turbines. Will green technologies become today’s VCRs and flat-panel TVs, invented in the U.S. and commercialized elsewhere?

But the fear of enriching overseas companies simply makes a green stimulus more necessary and urgent, proponents argue. Without a plan like Obama’s, which would expand U.S. markets for new technologies, American companies may fall even further behind. Michael R. Splinter, CEO of Applied Materials (AMAT) in Santa Clara, Calif., is a believer in the need for government support. Splinter has seen his business of supplying equipment for factories to make solar panels soar beyond his wildest projections. But 97% of the company’s equipment goes to foreign manufacturers, who then sell panels in the U.S. It seems like the U.S. has “given up on manufacturing,” Splinter laments. “Right now we are on a path to being a second-tier player in clean energy technology.”

A plan like Obama’s could turbocharge American industries, Splinter and other executives say. Why have European companies become world leaders in wind and solar power? Because a number of governments guarantee that anyone who supplies renewable power to the electric grid will get a premium price for that power. That cost is then passed along to customers.

POLITICAL LAND MINES

Similar incentives could work magic in the U.S., says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute. America already has a vibrant green-energy sector, so the transformation could be rapid. There are upward of 3 million Americans employed in green jobs, ranging from renewable-power startups to businesses with products that reduce waste and pollution or boost energy efficiency.

And even when goods come from foreign companies, some of the jobs will be in the U.S. One growing trend is for European and Asian manufacturers to build factories in America so they can be closer to what promises to be the world’s largest market.

Spanish wind company Gamesa is bringing 1,000 jobs to several factories in Pennsylvania and its North American headquarters in Philadelphia. In Memphis, Sharp opened its first plant outside of Japan for making solar panels.

Some green industries are homegrown by nature. Biofuel refineries need to be built near the crops that provide the feedstock. Even more jobs would be created by making U.S. houses and buildings more energy efficient, argues economist Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “There is about $26 billion in retrofitting on public buildings that could be done the day after legislation is signed,” Pollin says. “The job impacts are very high. Each $1 million in spending would bring about 18 jobs.”

What could Washington do to grow the green economy? Limit emissions of greenhouse gases, thus raising the price of using fossil fuel and steering the industry toward more environmentally friendly alternatives. Continue or boost tax credits for biofuels, wind, and solar. Make infrastructure investments, such as building transmission lines needed to bring power from large solar power plants in the desert or from North Dakota’s windswept prairies. And increase federal dollars for energy research and development, aiding programs that have withered during years of declining funding. All of this, proponents say, would foster enough innovation to help American companies leapfrog their overseas rivals. “America’s future depends on our ability to spark an energy revolution,” argues Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Susan Hockfield.

Skeptics wonder, however, if such a sweeping transformation is possible. “The optimist in me wants to believe it,” says Matthew E. Kahn, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The cynic in me asks, is this like FDR jobs creation in the guise of green jobs?” Kahn believes that rather than spending federal dollars, the best approach is simply increasing the price of carbon—which is politically difficult.

Passing Obama’s green stimulus package will be an uphill battle, and its success if implemented is far from certain. But the nation’s financial mess is so bad that the President-elect has a freer hand. He also needs to show action on climate change to help restore America’s reputation around the world—and to bring China and India on board. The surge earlier this year in oil prices (expected to rise again after the recession ends) even has brought traditional opponents of renewable energy and climate action to the bipartisan table, as long as they get expanded drilling rights. Says Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “Energy policy can create jobs, give an economic lift, and get us out of this ditch.”

By John Carey

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_49/b4111030857315.htm