Thanks are in order ...

Now that we are one week away from D2E and the whole office is focused on finalizing details for the show, I'd like to take a moment to say thanks. Thank you, thank you, thank you to our amazing Board of Advisors. (Ilene Bezahler pictured above talking with Betty about the food programing.) They would get out of bed extra early and stumble into the Clear Conscience Cafe in Central Square, Cambridge at 7am to help us make this happen. They did this because they believe in our mission, they want to help us do it right, and Dan at the Cafe serves up some mean coffee and pastries. I would show more photos of the board, but this is the only one without someone's eyes closed, Peter's hair sticking straight up, or my thumb in front of the lens. Please do visit our board page to learn about these amazing people.

We discussed many issues that helped shape D2E:
• If a company offsets all of it's energy and claims it is carbon neutral, does that qualify? No.
• If a big company that does not have the best track record is making significant strides to turn around, does that qualify? Sometimes - this leads to a lengthy discussion. We decided that we should support these efforts, so we will explore this more in the second year.
• If a bottled water company is carbon neutral through offsets, has established a recycling program and has a charity set up in the developing country that helps replenish the rainforest, do they qualify for the show? No. Bottled water is a huge problem. We can't promote that.
• If a local designer runs a small shop but does not focus on using sustainable materials, should he/she be in the show? Maybe. This depends on the focus of the work. We try to have more than one reason to have them in the show. For example, being a local small business is good for sustainability because you are helping the local market (and adding to the local character). But the business should have at least one other trait, like manufacturing it's products in the US, or using non-toxic materials, or focusing it's efforts towards society or the environment, etc. Just being local is not enough.
• Can we save money and use vinyl banners to hang at the show? NO!

We narrowed our criteria down to a list of about 30 qualifying traits that make up a sustainable business. No one business meets all of them so we have to make each decision separately. We have been navigating a huge gray space and we are the first to say that nobody is completely green. This is part of the reason why we decided to use blue and brown as our main colors. That, and the fact that brown was Lorelei's favorite color as a kid and Betty went to UNC, hence Carolina Blue.

Seriously though, we are focusing on sustainability - the triple bottom line: environment, society & economics. We (the big we) need to consider all three for success. So we felt that the color green is too strongly associated with the environment. We needed to expand our reach.

So now that we are one week away from the show, I may have lost 5,000 carbon pounds during the process but I gained some extra cushion around my mid-section. A few too many vegan treats will do that to ya. So to celebrate my vegan love handles, below is a photo of the lovely Clear Conscience Cafe. I recommend it to everyone. It is LEED certified, it is comfortable, and they serve great fair trade coffee and make some mean treats. Check it out!