Dec 1, 2020
Welcome to Choosing Eco
Hello and welcome to Choosing Eco. This project has been a longtime coming and I am pleased to share it, even in this very early stage.
Background
In 2019, my family and I moved from Denver, Colorado to Minneapolis, Minnesota. There are a lot of reasons we made that move, but one of them was sustainability. It is no secret that water is a serious issue facing the West, and Colorado has been proactive in their solutions to facing the issue. However, my wife and I still maintained longterm concerns about water scarcity and how Denver and the Front Range could look in 15, 20, 30 years and beyond.
We decided that Minneapolis would be our new home. Minnesota is not immune to its own environmental concerns, but longterm, we felt more comfortable in the Midwest. Why does all this matter to the beginning of Choosing Eco? It’s all about the understanding of my personal sustainable practice foundations.
Denver taught me a lot. It is an extremely climate-focused city. One of the earlier adapters of home composting through the city, businesses and merchants who cared about the city and how it treated the world we lived in. Our friends were of equal minds and heavily influenced us with their drives to become zero waste households, sustainable gardening methodologies, and collectively raising our children to care about our world and environment. It is the only one we’ve got.
How Choosing Eco Began
Simply put, it was an idea. After moving in 2019, I felt guilt and confusion about how to move nearly 1000 miles without a huge carbon footprint. Bubble wrap, plastic wrap, tons of cardboard boxes. The fuel of the trucks and cars to move us and our stuff.
After the move, we began settling in, thinking about ways to make our new home work in tandem with our goals for sustainable practices. It was at this time, one of our closest friends Jess Lybeck began a company called Remark. The goals and aspirations of Remark inspired me. What could I do to help others be open and willing to be more sustainable?
There were plenty of things that have irked me in the past.
- The waste of gift giving, from the tape to paper to ribbons — not to mention the constant new things. It’s a first-world problem at its finest, but a problem nonetheless.
- Abundance of plastic at grocery stores. A local store in Minneapolis told my wife she couldn’t use a produce bag for bulk mixed nuts, that she had to use plastic for health code reasons.
- The overwhelming amount of resources for ways to learn about green living.
Simply put, I was stuck feeling overwhelmed and inundated with information at a loss of where to start.
And that was it, that was Choosing Eco. I decided then to figure out how to help others in the same situation I was. How do you start? Where do you start?
That is the essence of what I am hoping to make Choosing Eco. The guiding hub of eco resourcing. There is SO MUCH information, companies, people, ideas and processes we could seek out. But knowing what to look for can be difficult. So, that’s where Choosing Eco — and you — come into the world.
Let’s help each other make our planet better together. If you know of a product that has changed your life and made a green difference — share it! I’ll share it here and hope it helps others make easier decisions. That’s the goal. Educate ourselves and others to how to make the eco choice easier, quicker and every single time. So, are you game to join me on this journey? Because we’re all in this together no matter what we believe. If we don’t act now, what future will we create?
What Now
You can follow this publication for posts, or subscribe to the newsletter on Substack for regular and exclusive content.
What began as a website, has transitioned to a newsletter and content posted here on Medium. I chose to leverage these existing platforms to allow me to focus on content and not having to continually build and maintain the website too.
Choosing Eco on Substack has a secondary publication that has news and info tailored to the Twin Cities metro area, so if you live there, you can subscribe to those posts as well for relevant local info.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you’ll join us on this sustainability journey.
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Last Update: February 2022
This post was originally published on Choosing Eco in 2020.
