Nicole's guide to the Holidays

Hello Everyone

I know you are going shopping. So I wanted to arm you with some things to think about when you purchase your gifts in the next few weeks.

We live in a time, where we have more than enough, so here is the theme...

Buy Less, Buy Better

Buy Less

Save yourself some money, giving a gift does not have to be a new THING.

• Give of gift of something homemade or something you don't use any more
• Give a gift of chores - wash your friend's floor, watch their kids for a night, rake their lawn, help them paint a room they always have wanted to do... the list is endless.
• Give the gift of appreciation - sit down for 10 minutes and write a note to someone about how much they mean to you. Think about how wonderful it feels to be appreciated.

Buy Better

• Buy used. I was in a Goodwill the other day and found some beautiful items that I know friends would appreciate, used is the new black.
• Buy organic - it can be food or clothing, but this gift is not only a nice treat for the receiver, but also for the farmers and the communities who grow organic crops.
• Buy Fair Trade. This is not charity, it is about good and fair business being done all the time. Each time you support Fair Trade you are directly helping workers at the lowest levels of the supply chain gain access to a better living.

My Favorite brands right now:

PACT - All organic and super cute T's, socks and underwear.

prAna - prAna is offering more organic and Fair Trade styles than the company ever has before. You will love the designs.

NAU - I am a huge fan and appreciate all of the work that goes into the designs of their products, and the contents are recycled, organic or TENCEL.

Metiseko - this amazing company is a French couple living in Vietnam who are focusing on all organic cotton and silk styles. I got to meet them when I was there 2 years ago. Amazing products. 

Green e-bay - e-bay has a specific site for all things green - worth checking out especially if you have kids.

The Body Shop - continues to innovate around sustainable innovation for farmers and customers around the globe. And I LOVE the smell of pink grapefruit!

Share your favorite sustainably designed products for the holidays. 

Inspiration to keep going

I will be honest with you - I am not a saint. I know hard to believe eh?  Well not really.
So while I do have strong values and a passion for sustainability, I don't have perfect days.

I was feeling a little bummed out that both work and personal sustainability efforts were feeling a bit stalled of late.  Trying to get past habits and bad behaviors that we all get accustomed to that is leading the unsustainable life style we are cranking on.

Well I spent a few days a couple of days ago up in Nelson BC where one of my sisters lives full time and my other sister lives part time.  Nelson is one of this magical places that embodies contradictions: clear cuts and hippies, conservatives and liberals, insane athletes and a whole lotta coffee. It is everything that is there that gives the area its culture and flavor of passion.
I had the pleasure of being inspired and reminded that life can be what ever you want to make it and you will still be successful and live a full life. I was also reminded that what I do does mean something and not in what I do just for work, but how I live my life. That when I make decisions to buy local, from a coop, organic, fair trade, or Nothing, I am making a difference and creating a world that I think helps more people than less.

So I am taking this inspiration to the streets - yep join in!
I am calling on everyone to make a decision to change a single behavior that they didn't think they every could and just do it.
Ideas? What about:
- Never using a take out cup
- Buying only organic milk
- Buying only Fair Trade coffee
- Checking out craig's list for purchases before getting something new
- Building a drying rack and stop using the dryer.

Want some more inspiration? Leave a comment telling the world what your commitment will be and for the rest of the month all names will be put into a draw for a $100 gift card to prAna. Yep I am now buying your sweet sustainability love. But I have a feeling you are going to be greatly inspired and see the difference that you make!

Can't wait to hear your ideas... OH wait - what's mine. No more cheese unless it is organic. Ack - this one ain't easy. I love cheese and Organic cheese is spendy - but time to put my money where my mouth is...

Organic - learn more and make change

I am very excited and honored to have had the opportunity to work with experts in the organic movement for an Earth Day series we did at prAna.

Make sure you check out all of the blog posts about organic, why it is important and why we need to look beyond the food we eat but also to the clothes we wear.

Post 1 - Annie's 
Shauna Sadowski Director of Sustainability shared why organic is important to Annie's and why they work so hard to ensure that the wonderful food they create takes care of the soil and the farmers. Read the post here

Post 2 - Hood River Garlic
Terri Hixson is an organic garlic and blueberry farmer here in Hood River where I live. She has been certified organic for 10 years and feel so strongly the need to only produce crops that are not poisoning the planet or herself. Read the post here

Post 3 - Textile Exchange
Liesl Truscott is the farm team manager for textile exchange is working directly with organic cotton farmers globally to understand and build capacity for organic cotton farmers. She shares the impact of organic and why we need to think broadly about the clothes we wear. Read the post here

Post 4 - prAna
Here I talk about the realities of organic cotton and the need to grow the amount of organic products in the market. We need to see a shift in consumer understanding and the efforts that prAna is taking to move this forward. Read the post here

Sustainability around the world

I just got back from a 10 day trip to Hong Kong, China and India visiting apparel suppliers for prAna.  This trip was different than ones I had done in the past.  Usually I am visiting factories reviewing audits and focusing on problems that the factory may have meeting prAna's code of conduct.  It has been adversarial and while informative, I always wondered how productive and how much change was really being made.

This trip I took a different approach - I met with suppliers to share the direction and vision of sustainability that prAna and other apparel companies are taking with the hopes to drive environmental and social benefits down the supply chain.  I was able to share the desire for a clean environment and protection of workers rights.  I am a realist and know that where we currently are globally is not sustainable, nor is it something that can easily be changed.  So there is an openness to meet suppliers where they are at and still share what kind of future we all want to see.

What happened was a very different conversation than I have had in the past.  There was a lot more honesty and transparency about what the "real" situation was on the ground regarding labor laws, industrial practices, environmental norms, government and brand involvement in bringing about change or lack there of.  It wasn't easy to hear that solutions are going to be challenging to implement and perhaps not even in my lifetime.  But there was a desire all around to see some kind of change.

I was also excited to hear all of the stories that suppliers were taking to improve social and environmental issues they were facing.  The drivers for these changes were different from each factory and each country, but every bit helps.  One factory realized that they couldn't improve social security benefits because workers did not see the value in also paying into the social security scheme, so the factory was focusing on training workers about the benefits to pension, unemployment insurance, and medical leave.  Yes it means less money in the workers pockets, but it ensures their ability to be provided for.  Another factory was facing huge increases to their energy costs so they did an energy audit and changed over all of their lighting to LED lights and are now saving 40% of their previous energy bill.  Another factory recycled their fabric scraps to a company that makes rugs out of the fabric.

I was reaffirmed that there is a global desire to see the world be a better - amore healthy place for the environment and people. Solutions are not a western top down enforcement, but a globally shared initiative that all partners who we interact with can learn from each other.

While I saw more pollution and poverty than I ever do here in the USA I have a renewed sense of optimism that we all can be better and with more and more people doing there part - the change will come. 

It is Fair Trade Month

Fair Trade month is about bringing awareness to the Fair Trade movement.
I recently wrote a blog post for Fair Trade USA about prAna's Fair Trade apparel program. check it out
http://fairtradeusa.org/get-involved/blog/wear-fair-carving-fair-trade-path-apparel 

What I am working on today

I have to admit I get tripped up when people ask, in your job what do you do all day?  The field of sustainability is a strange one.  I feel that everyone in their job, no matter the job can be thinking about, learning about and implementing sustainability.  In fact as I read articles about new break throughs in sustainability it is starting to read like a engineering journal - with details in parts, operations, efficiencies, and all other types of improvements to how we operate.

So as a sustainability director what do I do?  The easy answer is I am a project manager.  I have to know enough about a lot of things, but more importantly I have to know where to find more information and experts. Then I pull pieces together and work with different teams within the organization to start implementing changes.
It differs all the time, so I thought I would let you in on what is on the dock for this week.

For prAna we are reviewing our sustainability strategy - every few years it is important to look at what strategy we set for ourselves, how we are doing and where we will go.  I find this time so exciting and scary all at once. There is SO much opportunity out there, but also there are limited resources.  My time being one of them, effective implementation, and of course bandwidth and money within the organization.  Balancing all of these leads to developing the strategy and if we do it right, some major headway will occur in the next few years.

For the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association (FTSLA) I am only one month and one week into my new role as the Director of Education and Communications.  I am still learning the nuances of the organization, the language, the tone and the needs of our members.  This week I will be focusing on understanding and strengthen our reporting and review process.  Reporting is hard, starting with data collection, tracking, reporting and understanding the information for future goals. I am not strong in this area, so am enjoying the opportunity to learn more. And help our members make this process easier.

I think the biggest lesson I am learning in this field is that there is TOO much work to do in one lifetime and to learn to just do the best I can.  Every day I hear of a new cause, problem or need that pulls me away from my day to day work and I have to evaluate if it is worth pursuing.  Luckily there is a growing momentum for sustainability and so many more people are tackling the subject making solutions a lot more easy to find. 

Fair Trade Certified makes its way into clothing

I don't think I would normally be this excited about a product, but it has been the focus of the last 18 months of my life, so I have to share...
I have to go back a few years. There has been a desire from customers to want to buy products that are made with high ethical manufacturing practices.  Many companies and organizations have been working on trying to bring that level of transparency, but with traditional manufacturing and spread out supply chains it is very difficult. Fair Trade Certified is label you see on products like chocolate, coffee, bananas, sugar etc. But in the past few years  Fair Trade USA had been working on project for Apparel.  To ensure to customers that the products are in fact Fair Trade they developed the Apparel and Linens standard and I got a chance to review it years ago.  The ideas were right, but there were too many questions with implementation.  However they listened to their stakeholders and continued to revise the standard to a place that as a brand it would be relatively straightforward to put into reality.
So when I started a new job with prAna in August of 2009, the values of social responsibility resonated with the brand, everyone at the company was on board to test this out.

I am writing about this now because finally you can buy prAna's first Fair Trade Certified product - the SOUL T on prAna.com

The process was incredibly interesting as prAna along with a small handful of companies were the tester brands for this new standard and I soon memorized the Fair Trade USA phone number.  The shirt was designed and developed by prAna's internal team and we worked with the Liberian Women's Sewing Project in Monrovia Liberia to make the shirts.  This is just one of many factories that have already been approved by Fair Trade USA to make Fair Trade Certified product.

When people ask me what is so special about Fair Trade Certified Apparel - it really is about having a transparent supply chain, knowing that there is environmental protection, direct trade, and getting fair wages into the hands of the workers.  We all feel this should always be the case, but it just isn't so. So to support a system that does this is incredibly important.  Ideally we would see Fair Trade attached to all manufacturing.

It is so inspiring to be a part of something that is bigger than yourself and that is what being involved in a project like this does.