Save in 5: Staying Local

Buying Local for the Greater Good

Welcome to our Save in 5 series, where I try to become more eco-conscious by following five rules for at least five days.

This week, I’m exploring sustainable gardening and buying local.

Sustainable gardening is an organic horticulture movement focused on creating a food source in your own backyard. Because the food industry has created countless environmental challenges (discussed in a prior post), I wanted to share some ways that you can be proactive in counteracting some of these issues.

Buying local is usually defined as supporting people in your local community, but it’s also beneficial for the environment. Sustainable agriculture and industrial food production strongly support this. Industrial food production contributes to increased CO2 from not only the animals and other products, but from the processing and shipping of the food. Sustainable agriculture cuts down on both the transportation and processing of products. [X] The same goes for other products sold by large corporations with the shipping and production waste that comes at the environment’s expense.

It’s important to focus on this topic this week, especially living in a city like Columbus, where the idea of buying local is embedded in consumers’ habits.

The 5 Rules for Buying Local and Sustainable Practices

1. Only support local businesses this week.
2. Make a single purchase, big or small, each day.
3. At least one purchase has to be a physical item.
4. Check out local plant shops for garden help.
5. Plan out my own sustainable garden.

Day 1
This morning I almost forgot that today was the first day of the buying locally. I really wanted to pick up a coffee from Tim Horton’s. With fast food being so convenient to purchase, it’s probably one of the reasons many people forget about their local coffee shops. But in Columbus, there are so many choices we can make that can better our community and others with just a simple cup of coffee.

Roosevelt Coffeehouse, a social enterprise focused on eradicating human trafficking, is near the Columbus College of Art & Design downtown and focuses using fairtrade products and hosting events to inspire involvement and connections in our community. Mission Coffee Co on High Street also has a similar approach in using fair trade coffee and a open space for people to meet and talk. Focusing on these small shops, and not the big corporations will not only help out your local business owners and employees but better the lives of people we possibly will never meet.

So today, I am getting some coffee at The Roosevelt Coffeehouse for my afternoon pick-me-up.

Day 2
Drawing up my sustainable yard at my house, I know I probably won’t be able to plot my garden out as planned. To plan my garden, I’ll need to take light and soil and other factors into consideration, so it’s going to take more than a couple weeks to garden up.

To do this, I’m going to wait to take a trip to a local gardening center. Columbus has several, from the more chic gardening stores downtown to the one next to my house on the west side of Columbus that’s been there for years. I know I can create a sustainable, beautiful garden from buying locally grown plants from local garden centers.

Day 3
Today for lunch, I stopped by the North Market and got some lunchtime noms.

I always love going there for lunch. Not just because the food is delicious, but that most of the people that run and manage the restaurants are the same people every day. You get the chance to see up-and-coming businesses grow and flourish, and watch as they continue to increase employment opportunities for people here.

Day 4
Some friends and I decided to hit up the Short North area to find our friend a birthday present. We went to Flower Child, a vintage thrift boutique store, along with Karavan, a Turkish gift shop, to find her something unique. By buying from these sorts of places, we were able to get our friend special, thoughtful gifts that we knew she would love.

Day 5
Honestly, I don’t have that much money to spend since I am a broke college student. So I decided not to purchase anything today at all. On my budget, buying local surprisingly didn’t impact my bank account as bad as others might make it seem. There is a noticeable price jump, but at the same time, you are stimulating your community’s economy, helping the environment and helping someone achieve their dream of entrepreneurship. Making every extra penny worth it.

Takeaways
I want to reiterate that buying local is important. Also, with the way my schedule worked out, I wasn’t able to touch on the sustainability gardening topic much during the week. I am hoping to write a follow-up post during the summer to share the entire experience.

With this week’s challenge, I don’t have anything I can prove. But I can say it was sort of difficult during the week to not get fast food or run to Walmart for a quick errand. Despite any disadvantages, it’s much more important to focus on how we are spending our money and be deliberate in using it for the greater good.

Thanks for reading this second post in our Save in 5 series! Next week, I’ll be focusing on electricity and energy conservation so stay tuned.

Faith Gutzman is a creative intern at Fulcrum Creatives and part of the spring 2016 FORCE team. When she’s not in the office, Faith is part of the Columbus College of Art & Design campus working on her senior thesis or going on mini-adventures around town.

Since 2002, Fulcrum Creatives has worked with nonprofits, social enterprises, benefit corporations and organizations — whose bottom lines are focused on impact, sustainability and solving for the greater good. Branding, digital presence and strategy, marketing, SEO, social media and copywriting are just a few of Fulcrum’s core offerings. Fulcrum Creatives earned its Certified B Corporation (B Corp) certification in October 2014, making it the first B Corp branding, design and creative services agency in Ohio; the third B Corp in Central Ohio; and the eighth B Corp in Ohio.