Barbara McLean

In 2007 a friend gave me a little book called The Better World Shopping Guide for my birthday which was a surprise because I’m not much of a shopper. This amazing little book graded the companies we all buy everyday things from like beer, chips, laundry soap, shoes, toilet paper for their environmental and social responsibility. Even though I was an environmentalist, hugged trees and so forth, and consumed as little as possible, it never occurred to me that I should pay attention to which companies I bought stuff from.

This book opened my eyes to the fact that some companies are really better than others. As Ellis Jones, the author of The Better World Shopping Guide says, “As consumers we vote every single day with the purest form of power, money. The average American family spends about $18,000 a year on goods and services. Think of it as casting 18,000 votes every year for the kind of world you want to live in.”

I combined this information with what I had learned being Chairperson of Sustainability for the Columbia Group of the Sierra Club and thought maybe I could help people and the planet by researching which are the most sustainable everyday living products produced by the most environmentally and socially responsible companies.

And by helping the planet I could preserve those things I love best about the earth: a clear blue sky, deep, green conifer forests, cold mountain streams, silver-bodied salmon, wildflowers in the spring, wild rocky coastlines, bear, deer, elk, wolves, porcupines, salamanders, butterflies, tiny birds, and alpine meadows.

Jessica Ilalaole

Growing up with my nature enthusiast and environmentalist mother was no easy feat. I was dragged along trails leading to glaciers, camped in the craters of ancient volcanoes and hauled huge backpacks across the shores of Hawaiian beaches. I had been on more hikes and backpacking trips by age fifteen than most adults have by age thirty. It wasn’t until I left home and started college that I began to realize the meaning behind my unusual upbringing. My mother wanted me to appreciate and know nature as it is, our natural home. A house is not my home, it is my dwelling, the place where I keep my belongings, sleep, eat and bathe. The planet is my true home just as it is for every living and non-living thing. I feel a deep connection with and a need to protect the earth. The planet provides us with precious resources, but what do we give back? Opening The One Stop Sustainability Shop with my mother was my answer. Our goal is focused on education and to make sustainability an everyday and practical household concept. Preserving our home and its resources should be part of our thought process whenever we buy goods or services and we aim to make that easier for the consumer.