ECO-YOGA MAT De Jour

By: Darrah Le Montre

 

Yogamatic.com is gaining a lot of attention these days as the only customize-able, eco-yoga mat out there!  Featured on Extra, The Ellen Show, E! and in leading magazines, Yogamatic.com allows people the opportunity to design their own custom one-of-a-kind yoga mat!  By uploading photos onto their website, a truly unique experience is born!  Nobody else in the gym or at the resort will have YOUR eco-mat!  Plus, in addition to being able to make your own mat, you can also choose from over 200 designs in their online Gallery.  Wicked!  And the images range from the Dalai Lama to Barack Obama's inaugural speech, foraying into pop art and even more irreverent images.  Made from sustainable and compost-able materials, the mats are printed using water-soluble ink, so they are non-toxic.  There are no toxins, lead, phthalates or chemicals.  Ever.  You can collect different mats and gift them this holiday season!  Active in philanthropy, the Santa Monica-based company got a boost when Donna Karan and Calvin Klein created exclusive mats whereas 100% of proceeds benefit "Fashion Targets Breast Cancer."  And now Alice+Olivia designer du jour, Stacey Bendet, has two mats with her classic neon flavor, sold in her Malibu Lumber Yard and Beverly Hills stores.  5% of proceeds on all mats purchased from YM benefit the leading environmental charity Global Green.

Yogamatic.com is turning stereotypes about Yoga upside down.  Their new web-series "POSERS: Yogastyles of the Movers and Shakers" is an edgy "Yogamentary" capturing a wide array of vibrant Los Angeles personalities; Actors, Musicians, Captains of Industry, and Celebrity Instructors who offer their take on Yoga and how it has impacted and transformed their daily life.  Including Academy Award nominated actress Mariel Hemingway, Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Michelle Branch, Celebrity Instructor Mandy Ingber, "Skinny Bitch" bestselling author Rory Freedman, Yoga Works' Vinnie Marino, who was recently hailed "L.A.'s Yoga King" by New York Times and many more!  Check out POSERS here: www.youtube.com/customyogamats

Darrah Le Montre is a yoga enthusiast and green professional.

http://www.yogamatic.com/

Twitter: @yogamatic

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from greenblognetwork's posterous

ECO-YOGA MAT De Jour

Bio Plastics - Gettin' The Skinny

By Elizabeth Rickard Shah

The new age – Bio Plastics (sustainable design) 

In the l967 movie The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman's character was advised to go into "Plastics!" if he wanted a promising career and a prosperous future.  Since then we truly entered into the Age of Plastics. 

100 million tons of Plastic are produced every year.  We use plastic in and for about everything we consume. From a Design perspective this great invention is doing a fantastic job. It is going to be a challenging to replace it.

Yet unless we re think our approach to manufacturing, design and invention, this AGE OF PLASTIC is here to stay.

Nether the less, this revolutionary material that has had such a huge purpose in our consumer driven lives, is actually damaging our very existence.  

As a designer myself, I believe that our roles as designers/creators/inventors, is to use our creativity and ideas to introduce new innovations as well as improve on what already exists. And as designer who believes in protecting our environment, I believe if we can do our job whilst incorporating sustainability and understanding nature’s cycle, we can and should help reshape our future.

I recently had the opportunity to explore and research bio plastics.  This research opened a world to me that in my opinion is not only innovating, but co –exists with today's economic environment. Further more it is part social, part green business, part design and part re-invention of human industry and it is one of our best hopes for a future of sustaining prosperity whilst still respecting nature.

However this emerging Industry, although around sine the 1900’s still has to prove its way. There is little if any consumer awareness. Leading understandably to skepticism. 

Are they really what they say they are and how do we know?

Bio plastics are polymers that are generated from renewable natural sources,

They can be produced by biological systems (i.e. micro-organisms, plants and animals), or chemically synthesized from biological starting materials (e.g. sugars, starch, natural fats or oils, etc.). 

Bio plastics have enhanced environmental properties. The most important being that they are biodegradable and compostable.

But what does this mean?

Biodegradability is the natural process by which organic matter decomposes. Composting is the common process.

Four factors play a role

1. Moisture
2. Oxygen
3. Temperature
4. Micro-organisms

It is important that the three stages of process occur.

1. Fragmentation. The matter breaks down into Fragments which are invisible to the human eye but still present in the environment
2. Bio – assimilation. Micro organisms in the ground digest fragments
3. Mineralization. Elements which can be absorbed by plants

It is important to add that waste produced by biodegradation must not pose a toxic hazard for the environment.

Biodegradation can occur in a controlled environment – composting.Or in natural environment. 

There are very high standard certification processes involved, which need to adhere to all of the above before one can claim to have a bio plastic.

The most important tests at present are

ASTM D6400 Test to certify if a product can be composted

ASTM D6868 Test to determine if a biodegradable plastic is truly biodegradable

EN 13432 European Test to determine biodegradability and compostability of plastics

In fact consumers should be demanding that biodegradable products on the market demonstrate either one of these standards if they do not already.

Other reliable symbols to look out for are

   

In Italy where I live there is a Bio plastics company called Novamont that produce a biopolymer Mater-Bi. Please visit their website. www.mater-bi.com.

Novament exemplifies the continual research required and necessary to bring the Future to us

My local supermarket FIRENZE COOP replaced all of their classic petroleum made shopping bags with a compostable substitute made from Mater-bi ., the biopolymer produced by Novamont.

They appear to have been a huge success. I myself composted one of the bags and indeed it biodegraded within weeks.

However I do understand all the concerns surrounding bio-plastic. Although there has been an incredible step forward, there are still underlying issues.

In fact most plastic bags that claim to be biodegradable are in fact partially destroyed fragmentation and not comply with the standard EN 13432 (the strictest of all standards)

For more information visit. www.greenplastic.com

Further more, It is important that consumers are concerned about whether or not the natural sources are GMO enhanced, or if increasing production of corn affects the food chain.  Where the raw material comes from, and what types of pesticides are used.  There is at least five other blogs that could be written in defense of or put argument to, all of the above.

There is a wealth of information on all the bio plastic producers websites, which can answer many concerns, however there is often not enough on the end usage or finished product.

Here are some useful website that are both informative and helpful

www.bioplastics24.com

www.sustainablebusiness.com

www.bpiworld.org

www.bpsweb.net

www.biothinking.com

www.biolymers.net

The widespread use of Bio plastics will depend on how successful they can be in the marketplace. To do that we all need to understand and trust them. This will depend on how strongly we are committed to, environmental preservation, and sustainable technologies, as well as realizing also it is a work in progress. There are growing signs that people indeed want to live in greater harmony with nature and leave future generations a healthy planet. If so, bio plastics will help bring us into a NEW AGE. 
 
Elizabeth Rickard Shah is the co-founder of PURE, a chrome-free leather goods manufacture and design company based in Italy, where she lives with her husband and daughter.

Posted via email from greenblognetwork's posterous

Bio Plastics - Gettin' The Skinny

Greening Hollywood: Green Warriors

Green Warriors is a book published by The Rand Corporation,
commissioned by the United States Army.

"Prompted by the growing importance of environmental considerations in
military operations, the Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI) asked
RAND to examine how the Army approaches this issue in overseas
contingency operations...".

The book's 228 pages are full of statistics and operational objectives
of the U.S. Army focused primarily on mitigating environmental impacts
of overseas operations, here the focus is mostly on Iraq, and also
addresses some of the challenges that the Army faces in its environmental
objectives such as when barracks are classified as temporary and yet
remain servicing troops for several years.

To classify such installations as semi-permanent would allow for greater
environmental program objectives to be installed and carried out.  So the book,
on many points, strives to be candid not only about achieved objectives but
also on what needs to be addressed to better carry out these objectives.

In Addison D. Davis IV's article, "Beyond An Inconvenient Truth: The
Army's March Toward Operational Sustainability," he underlines the
army's motto of a "triple bottom line."  The Triple Bottom Line consists
of mission, environment and community. Davis is Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. 
He writes, "the contributions of the military community can have a profound
effect on the environment, through recycling of household and commercial
waste, reduction of consumables, carpooling and other initiatives that
reduce unnecessary use of materials."

Green Warriors notes, and illustrates with graphs and surveys, that
consistently the #1 environmental issue of concern for Iraqis is clean
drinking water. 

Book has a glossary and index.  For example, the definition of Black Water: 
Water that has been mixed with waste from the toilet.

Interesting that such a prominent Security Firm in overseas operations
would have taken that as its, now infamous, company name.

I wonder what the young Hollywood set, as in Paris and Brittany, might
have to say about Black Water and the importance of clean water as
a U.S. environmental policy?

Green Warriors can be downloaded from this site: http://www.aepi.army.mil/

It has prompted me to want to read how the U.S. Army and other branches of
our military are ensuring safe, clean drinking water for our citizens domestically.

Read More:  The Green Blog Network   http://greenblognetwork.blogspot.com

Posted via email from greenblognetwork's posterous

Greening Hollywood: Green Warriors

Greening Hollywood: Social Justice 4 Kids

By Paige Donner

School lunches are a social justice issue for children in our country today. Sugar is our nation’s biggest addiction, after oil.

And sugar, coupled with poor nutrition, is just as debilitating. A poor diet, one that is preservative rich and nutrient poor, causes kids to feel sluggish, perform poorly and addles their brains. This is referred to as the "achievement gap" because it generally affects children of lower-income households.

So while everyone is talking about healthcare reform, let's talk a little about growing a healthy next generation so we won't need so much healthcare. It's called preventative medicine. Anyone ever hear of it?

On Harry Shearer’s most recent Le Show, he cited stories from Australia where the number of children who are getting “lap bands” and gastro-intestinal surgery as YOUNG AS AGE 12 doubled in the past year. Go ahead. Read that again...at age 12 they're starting

U.S. stats aren’t far behind:

32 % of U.S. teens are overweight or obese.

30.5 million children areserved free or reduced price lunches in the U.S. This number is expected to rise due to recent economic woes.

A typical school lunch costs: $2.57 A healthy school lunch costs: $3.50

National estimated cost of obesity: $147 Billion.

Chef Ann Cooper, known as the Renegade Lunch Lady, says, “There is an achievement gap and a life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor. When you feed kids a diet high in sugar and corn syrup they just can’t think, and if you’re not well nourished you can’t excel,” she adds that, “We have kindergarteners entering school with Type 2 diabetes, 10- to 14-year olds with clogged arteries. We have a moral imperative to turn this around.” Read more from Chef Ann at www.schoolfoodpolicy.com

Want to get involved? First, go to your kid’s school and eat what they’re eating for lunch. Then do the homework: go to www.schoolwellnesspolicies.org the website run by the Local School Wellness Policy Act which promotes healthful eating for our kids at school.

Eating healthy and organic doesn’t have to cost more. It’s just a question of informing yourself. The Environmental Working Group issued this list of the Good and Bad organics this past year. They call it their Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15.

The Dirty Dozen (Always try to buy organic. They have very high levels of toxic pesticides.)

Peaches, Kale

Apples, Lettuce

Bell peppers, Grapes (imported)

Celery, Carrots

Nectarines, Pears

Strawberries, Cherries

The Clean 15 (These test lowest for pesticide residues.)

Onion, Cabbage

Avocado, Eggplant

Sweet Corn, Papaya

Pineapple, Watermelon

Mango, Broccoli

Asparagus, Tomato

Sweet Peas, Sweet Potatoes, Kiwi

Are pesticides as scary as they're made out to be? Yes!

The Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA) says that pesticides such as Atrazine, banned in France, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden BUT the second most widely used pesticide in the U.S., and Dursban, banned by the EPA for “nonagricultural uses”only, are associated with serious health issues such as neurological damage, birth defects, developmental and behavioral issues (autism, ADHD), and some cancers.

“One recent study showed that birth defects such as spina bifida, cleft lip, clubfoot, and Down’s Syndrome are most common in children conceived during the spring and summer, when agricultural pesticide use is at its peak. Read more at Environmental Health Perspectives.

The magazine Delicious Living has a solid breakdown on basic USDA organic standards. Try searching USDA Organic at www.deliciousliving.com.

Also check out Ann Cooper’s website and Nonprofit, F3: Food, Family, Farming. www.foodfamilyfarming.org. Search for the site’s interactive tool, The Lunch Box where you can design a blueprint for starting a healthy lunch program at your kids’ school.

Read more at: http://greeninghollywood.blogspot.com
And at            http://greenblognetwork.blogspot.com
                       http://greenblognetwork.wordpress.com

Posted via email from greenblognetwork's posterous

Greening Hollywood: Social Justice 4 Kids

Greening Hollywood: Green Graywater Gardens

Dawn of A New Era
A revolution occurred in California on August 4th led by Santa Barbara-based graywater advocate, Art Ludwig, and an army of passionate stakeholders from throughout the state. The revolution was the historic graywater code adoption that took place in Sacramento at the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).
Graywater is the wastewater that drains out of washing machines, sinks, bathtubs and showers. It can be treated for indoor use and may be used untreated in some landscape applications.
SB 1258 required HCD, in consultation with the Department of Public Health, to develop standards for the construction, installation and alteration of graywater systems for indoor and outdoor uses.
As of August 4th, 2009, “Californians can legally install simple laundry and single fixture systems without a permit. For the first time, licensed professionals can legally help with the 1.7 million existing graywater systems in the state.” -Art Ludwig, graywater Researcher and Educator


"Water Messaging In Media" Dinner presented by Greening Hollywood
and Environment Now at the Dorothy Green Home in Westwood
Typically, a three-bedroom home generates 160 gallons of graywater per day or 58,400 gallons per year. With the new standards, a family of four could potentially divert nearly 22,000 gallons of water per year by using graywater from the laundry system alone. Great news for water conservation advocates.


The all-day Sacramento hearing was described as “a rollercoaster” where “passionate stakeholders” spoke for and against the adoption of the new standards and where a “collision of world views” was on full display as the meeting drew to its “historic” conclusion.
Another historic outcome from the meeting is that the HCD, who has asked the California Building Standards Commission (www.bsc.ca.gov) to revise California’s Green Building Standards, shifted – significantly – to taking into account off-site and future impacts of a building’s systems as opposed to only considering occupant safety.
Why this matters?
More than half of all carbon emissions, those nasty greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, are from buildings. Buildings built to California’s current codes are sucking the groundwater out from under California. Under the new codes, graywater permits would allow people to – legally – redirect their laundry water runoff to irrigate their backyard organic vegetable gardens, for example.
Watch the YouTube Instructional video here:
Abundance In Balance by Devin Slavin

And Art Ludwig's video here:

http://oasisdesign.net/greywater/laundry/video/
Art Ludwig periodically holds City of Santa Barbara-sponsored workshops on engineering Laundry to Landscape systems, for free. Santa Barbara started the graywater regulation revolution in 1989.

On California’s graywater revolution, Ludwig’s office, Oasis Design, said, “The commissioners are to be congratulated for their leadership. It is always more work to set up a new system than to fit into an existing one. It would have been a lot easier to stand aside as legal buildings continue to waste resources and pollute the environment. However, in the face of deeply entrenched, powerful opposition, the commission [California Building Standards Commission] is rising to the challenge of revising all of California’s building codes to allow/require better building systems.”
In the California Code of Regulations (CCR), Title 24, California Plumbing Code, Part 5, Appendix G where you can find the existing graywater standards, you will see that they are antiquated. The revised standards allow for the installation of graywater systems for the purpose of water conservation. The intent is to encourage new ideas and technology related to water reuse.


The disputed point, at present, seems to be whether these state-level revisions now supersede local and municipal regulations. For example, must someone in Culver City wishing to implement a graywater system for their newly constructed building comply with the City’s code if it departs from the newer California state code?
Water activists such as Conner Everts of Environment Now says that the California State code now has precedence. Wesley Roe of Oasis Design confers. However, Jennifer Sweeney, Communications Director for the California Department of Housing and Community Development, says,

"The code provides guidance to inform the user about minimum health and safety requirements and then allows a system to be designed...at a scale that is appropriate...This can range from the simplest of low technology (a drain to a mulch basin) to the most complex...system.
Typically, small systems are very simple and adding the cost of building permits and professional design/engineering quickly becomes too expensive and burdensome to be practical. This problem has been addressed in the new graywater regulations by not requiring a construction permit for the installation of a clothes washer or single fixture system.
Homeowners would still have to check with their local authority to be sure graywater systems are allowed in their jurisdiction, therefore these regulations do not supersede any local code. Additionally, the systems would still have to be built to the requirements specified in the state Building Code. More complex systems will still require a construction permit and any system will still be regulated."

At the August 28th Greening Hollywood presents “Water Messaging in Media” dinner at the Dorothy Green Home in Westwood, California, these issues and the topic of how to present complex issues of water to the states’ stakeholders, i.e., every California resident and business owner, were discussed.
Co-host Conner Everts of Environment Now, a longtime water activist and friend of the Green family, focused the dinner table discussion on the peripheral dam issue. He cited Timothy F. Brick’s recent editorial HERE in the L.A. Times Op-Ed section as a position he takes issue with.
Water H20 3G
Since many of the dinner attendees, including Stephanie Molen from Sen. Pavley’s office, Frances Anderton, Producer of Warren Olney’s To The Point on NPR, and Catherine Geanuracos of LiveEarth have extensive experience in presenting information in digestible form to large audiences, we steered the conversation toward Water Messaging in Media and the question of which issues to focus on right now.

Susan Munves, Santa Monica Green Building
Water Conservation and Clean Water were two topics at the fore. One of the dinner guests, perhaps it was Edward Headington who counts Breathe L.A., hosts of the Green Salon Series, as one of his clients, or maybe it was Josh Green, the late Dorothy Green’s son, or maybe it was Susan Munves from the city of Santa Monica Green Buildings Program – or, likely it was all three - who said we need to keep the message short, sweet and simple. The message needs to be represented by a one-punch image that will resonate with the Facebook crowd. Something like Water “H203G.” Stay tuned…


Dinner was generously provided by Chef Simon Dolinky of Palomar’s Blvd. 16 who runs a kitchen stocked fully with organic and sustainably farmed ingredients. His platters of roast pork smothered in fresh roasted vegetables and his seafood platter of fresh shrimp, mussels and chubby scallops were all heaven-sent.
Jen Mullen of Jam Gourmet provided us with a fig and gorgonzola pizza – wonderful combination of savory and sweet – and a romaine salad with paper thin-sliced crisp peaches, red onions, pine nuts and feta. Mendocino Farms, the fully sustainable downtown eatery who is opening up their second location in L.A. on 5th and Flower, provided us with Chef Judy's Seasonal Farmer's Market Salad with Arnett Farms Fuji apples, parmesan cheese and honey roasted almonds on organic farmer's market greens with a sherry vinaigrette.


The Green Family’s Otelia, who was first brought into the family 41 years ago by Dorothy, helped with the fluidity of the dinner. Indeed, it appeared that she was delighted by the home being used, once again, as a hub of activity for the water tribe.

Water...for the Next Generation...
Read More on Greening Hollywood.
And also here:

Greening Hollywood: Green Graywater Gardens

Greening Hollywood: Green Graywater Gardens

Greening Hollywood: L.A.'s Downtown Fashion

By Paige Donner

[First published on The Huffington Post, March 2009]

The key words to this year's L.A. Fashion Week were "City of L.A., Vintage and (yeah!)...Eco." CoLA FW, City of L.A. Fashion Week, set the bar with their Friday and Saturday night closing weekend shows at downtown's Lady Liberty Building.


Fashionista Scenesters at CoLA FW, Photo by Paige Donner

"CoLA is about encouraging and supporting this city's talent. Our desire is to set a standard of sophistication that will invite fashion moguls and originals back to the West Coast," said Dani Michelle, CoLA FW Founding Principle. Team CoLA, including Executive Producer Shannon Leggett, staged two nights of back to back runway shows - flawlessly. Their Brian Lichtenberg theatrics was, by fashionista decree, the epicenter of our city's Fashion Week this year. Other labels that walked the runway were Fremont, Eksempel, B. Son, Joyrich and COA (a secret show).


What set CoLA FW apart was that it was so seamlessly organized. We're talkin' "flow." The building's second floor was devoted to party space sponsored, in part by TyKu Asian Liquor. Runway shows were held exclusively on the 5th Floor of this loft space. The drama and theatre of the runway show collections were heightened by having their own devoted space. It was also clear that these were "industry events, not consumer events." Read more from Whatswear's N.Y. Editor, Joseph Ungoco, also in attendance. Some images from the collections:


Fremont collection, Photo by Paige Donner


Fremont designer Brittany Pham noted that her collection was "Depression Era - inspired." She went for basic classics that hold to them the nostalgia of Hollywood Glam.




 
 CoLA FW featured Designer, Brian Lichtenberg Collection, Photo by Paige Donner



 
Fremont collection by Brittany Pham, shown at CoLA FW, Photo by Paige Donner



 
CoLA FW, backstage with models, Photo by Paige Donner



 
Model and CoLA FW attendees, Photo by Paige Donner

Downtown L.A. Fashion Week's Vintage: Classy, Timeless and Eco



 
Rachel Griffiths, co-host of DLAFW, wearing Ferdinando Sarmi Vintage; according to Cameron Silver, co-host, it was the only vintage maternity dress in his Decades boutique. Photo by Paige Donner
"I'm enthusiastic about fashion week taking place at the epicenter of the city's garment district," said Cameron Silver, owner of Decades Inc., L.A.'s starring vintage fashion boutique, who was curator of Downtown Los Angeles Fashion Week's show staged at the MOCA in downtown L.A.'s Little Tokyo.



 
Designer Louis Verdad, at MOCA Geffen Contemporary, showing his Louver Collection, Photo by Paige Donner


 
Panoramic view of DLAFW held at MOCA Contemporary Museum, Little Tokyo L.A., 
Photo by Paige Donner
 
Thursday's "Evening of 20th Century Glamour" happened by the graces and sheer creative innovation of museum's Vanessa Gonzales and her team of "crazy fun" accomplices, including forward thinking DLAFW Executive Producer Leanna Lewis of Leanna Lewis Events. Silver, co-host of the evening along with actress Rachel Griffiths, said that the Geffen Center at MOCA was an exciting venue to stage a runway show and sees L.A. as being the attractive fashion debut destination for both N.Y. and Pan-Asian designers.

"L.A. Fashion Week can really position itself well because everyone I want to dress is already here," added Silver, referencing some of the actors and celebs who showed up for the MOCA DLAFW event including Nicole Richie, Marisa Tomei, Rose McGowan and Nicki Hilton. "We need to import designers to L.A. rather than export our talent to N.Y.," said Silver.


Vintage designers shown on the runway included the show hit, "Iconic Mermaid Coctail Dress - Red," by Norell. This number "stopped the show" and garnered the model, Monique, applause from the crowd. Other dresses included: YSL, Valentino, Azzaro, Dior, Givenchy, Mugler and De La Renta.
DLAFW Founder, Lewis, feels that one of the most effective ways to be environmentally conscious is to re-use old(er) things. She also incorporated EcoNouveau into the DLAFW line up of event sponsors. She's a believer in putting L.A. on the fashion world's map. "I think there is a tremendous amount of talent in this city and it's my mission to expose it the right way, L.A. style. Fashion, art and music fused together. The success of the event last week is the beginning of the future of fashion here in LA and will initiate the credibility Los Angeles deserves."



 
Louver Collection '09, Featured at DFWLA at the MOCA Contemporary Museum, 
Photo by Paige Donner

Speculation by the crowd was that this year was "fashion freer." Freer in the sense that the corporate underwriting was no longer there [by Mercedes Benz, anyway] and that this therefore allowed the designers to "go a little crazy creatively" said some. Comparison of Louver's new collection with last year's reveals that he certainly showed a different side to his design spectrum. Co-host of DLAFW Cameron Silver commented that he has always been a huge fan of Louis Verdad and that "he was really the first designer to explore the 40's in a modern way. I was excited to see his collection on display at MOCA for the evening. He's a really, really talented designer."
Battalion showed at the Los Angeles Theater the first weekend of Fashion Week as part of BoxEight's Fashion Weekend. Its Native American themed collection had the crowd raving. This is an eco line that says Lights, Camera, Eco-Action...with Style! Battalion Collection PHOTOS of collection.


Lobby of Los Angeles Theater, National Historical Building, in Downtown L.A. where Eco-Line Battalion showed and also Society For Rational Dress along with Sahaaj, Photo by Paige Donner


L.A. Fashion Week attendees were enthusiastic about the downtown venues where the shows were held. A particular hit was the Los Angeles Theater where GenArt and BoxEight staged their shows. Theater's rich history includes that its grand opening was attended by Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein. Women loved the roomy bathrooms which feature marble floors and an ornate, gilded makeup room.
See LA Pretty for more Fashion Week L.A. coverage.



 
CoLA FW's Eksempel show, Photo by Paige Donner



 
GenArt's Society for Rational Dress, Photo by Paige Donner

Read MORE on The Green Blog Network   http://greenblognetwork.blogspot.com

And on  
http://greenblognetwork.wordpress.com

Greening Hollywood: L.A.'s Downtown Fashion

Age of Stupid Film Trailer

<p><a href="">Ed Miliband</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/ageofstupid">Age of Stupid</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Posted via email from greenblognetwork's posterous

Age of Stupid Film Trailer

Greening Hollywood: Green Leadership

By Paige Donner

[First published at The Huffington Post, March 2009]

ATHGO International recently gathered 100 students and young professionals together for a 4-day Forum held, this time, at UCLA (past ATHGO International Forums have been held at the U.N., the World Bank and in Geneva), which was sponsored by Boeing, Milbank, UCLA Sustainability and Green Conversion Systems.


ATHGO International is a nonprofit that cooperates with the U.N., using the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals as guidelines. Its focus is on cultivating leaders within the youth demographic of 18-32 year olds. These youth are culled from an international pool of exceptional individuals.
The goal of the Forum is for students to come up with an actionable business venture that utilizes Clean Technology and drives environmental sustainability and economic development. The teams are evaluated on the final day by representatives from the professional community. As a result, participants this time developed eight innovative social venture designs.

Dr. Armen Orujyan, Founder and Chairman, ATHGO International Photo Courtesy Robert Kuzon

ATHGO's Founder and Chairman, Dr. Armen Orujyan, speaks of the "three i's of ATHGO: Innovation, Incubation and Implementation." He explains that step one is to nurture the students in their innovation in coming up with entrepreneurial business ideas. The next step is incubation of the most commercially viable of those business ideas and the final phase is implementation. For the past 6 years, ATHGO has primarily pursued phase one, innovation, and is now getting set to launch more fully into phases two and three. Coach Bill Walsh of the San Francisco 49ers put it, "More than creating, innovation involves anticipating. It is having a broad base of knowledge on your subject and an ability to see where the end game is headed."


The Keynote Address at the Forum was given by His Excellency Cheick Sidi Diarra, United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Africa, and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. H.E. Diarra spoke with Paige Donner for a few minutes at the reception for him hosted by ATHGO and the City Attorney at L.A.'s Tom Bradley Hall.



Dr. Armen Orujyan, Founder and Chairman of ATHGO, has a doctorate in Political Science. His doctoral thesis is on U.S. Presidential campaign strategies. He shares here some of his thoughts about ATHGO International, the U.N. and the importance of cultivating youth leaders...

Our demographic is the 18-32 year olds. We have students and young professionals, social entrepreneurs. The average age is about 24, 25 years old. They come from all walks of life. We have students here from Canada, from Europe, from Africa from Latin America - so although we're here at UCLA, we only have one student from UCLA here.

There's a common saying that youth is wasted on young people. I'm not a major believer of that. There's a great energy in young people. There's a great ambition in young people. They're very open to change and they're more conforming and they're more interested in coming together with people from different backgrounds. They're not stuck in a dogma of any nature.

So what we attempt to do here is bring this energy together and give them the skill set on entrepreneurship, with the addition of a social component to it. We have them organize into teams and together come up with great social venture designs for them to launch profitable businesses that would have several impacts. The impacts will be social impact, environmental impact and economic impact.

We saw over the years that if you give them an opportunity, a platform for them to thrive, they will. What's missing is platforms of this nature. You don't find them around. We send them to traditional university systems, they excel, they get to the climax, the peak of it, and then there's a huge drop when it comes to getting into the professional field. So if they reach the maximum in academia, it is definitely not at a maximum on the practical setting. We try to bridge that gap for them to have the business skills along with the educational skills.
We have five current programs. We have programs here at UCLA, we have larger programs that are at the U.N .Headquarters in N.Y., and at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington D.C. We have repeat attendees because our programs are never the same. The thematic area is always different. The umbrella, for example, would still be Climate Change or Information Communication Technologies, but what we're attempting to do with the larger picture is different with every forum.

The U.N.'s interest in ATHGO is that we're not an advocacy group. The only advocacy ATHGO engages in is giving opportunities to young folks for them to thrive in life. But ATHGO itself is not an advocacy group. We focus on skill set development, and skill set development that will affect economic development positively in working with the U.N. on their Millennium Development Goals.

The U.N. is a major supporter of ATHGO because we are working with a particular segment of the population that is not easy to reach. And once you reach them, it is very difficult to know what will get them engaged and really stay with you continuously. Since we exclusively work with the 18-32 year olds, and we work exclusively with them to develop skill sets that will help their overall economic development, it's very interesting for the United Nations.

The fact that we're not an advocacy group helps the other nation-states within the U.N. as well as the World Bank, to embrace our methodology, for them to try to even model some of the things that we're doing within a larger context with their own work. So they've opened the doors to us for the last five or six years and we've been thriving in our relationships. As you saw, we have the Under Secretary of the U.N. here visiting us for the same purpose, the very nature of how we approach these issues with our methodology.

Navneet Singh Narula, of the Points of Light Institute with the U.N.'s H.E. Cheick Sidi Diarra at the ATHGO Forum, Photo Courtesy Robert Kuzon

Other speakers at this Forum included Mr. Tod Arbogast, Director, Sustainable Business at Dell; Mr. Rich Lechner, Vice President, Energy and Environment, IBM; Mr. Navneet Singh Narula, National Director, Points of Light Institute; Dr. Woodrow Clark, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; and Mr. John Shegerian, President, Electronic Recyclers International, to name only a few.



Dr. Woodrow W. Clark, II, MA3, Ph.D. and Paige Donner, CEO of Greening Hollywood spoke on the Role of Media Panel at ATHGO Forum held at UCLA (Ms. Alegre Ramos not pictured)

The Global Environmental Youth Conference
ATHGO is working with Cynthia Ruiz, the President of the Los Angeles City Public Works, on its Global Environmental Youth Conference. Last year, the city brought 5,000 young people, ages 12-21, together to learn about things they can do to lessen their impact on the environment.



ATHGO Participant, Brad King and others in background, Photo Courtesy Robert Kuzon

ATHGO has been invited by Cynthia Ruiz to lead the initiative globally. What they'll do this year is bring together a large group of young people in five to ten cities worldwide simultaneously to get some knowledge, get some skill sets to come up with some incredible results in their own respective cities. The mission is to come up with a plan that will be actionable on that day. "When you bring in a couple of hundred people, or a couple of thousand people, that energy transforms into some kind of a result. That's what we're planning to do. So it's going to be fun," says Dr. Orujyan.


Read more on The Green Blog Network:  http://greenblognetwork.blogspot.com

                                                and also   http://greenblognetwork.wordpress.com

Greening Hollywood: Green Leadership

Greening Hollywood: No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and MadMen

By Paige Donner
July 25th, 2009
With this year’s Emmy’s just around the corner, the talented members of the Costume Guild are already feeling the spotlight. This past weekend FIDM hosted the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Costume Design and Supervision Peer Group as they honored the 61st Primetime Emmy Award nominees for outstanding costumes. Several of the collections on display are vintage-era designs and re-purposed style from our Grandmother’s day.
Nominees included Janie Bryant, Costume Designer, Mad Men; Jo Katsaras, Emmy nominated Costume Designer for The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency; as well as Kim Martinez and Jennifer Kamrath, Emmy nominated Costume Designer and Supervisor, respectively, for The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice.

The fourth annual exhibition, “The Art of Outstanding Television Costume Design,” showcases the work of this year’s Emmy nominated costume designers and costume supervisors. Show is curated by Mary Rose, President of the Costume Designers Guild and also Television Academy Governor, Costume Design and Supervision. FIDM, host to the exhibit, is also home to this season’s Project Runway.

Jo Katsaras and Mary Rose

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Janie Bryant and Barbara Bundy

Grey Gardens

Chanel Costume Design

Mary Rose and Librarian Nominees

Janie Bryant and Mary Rose

Pictures courtesy Paige Donner

• » See also: Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild Interview With Rachelle Carson Begley

Evidence of this year’s synergy between costume design and Depression-era fashion trends is spotlit in the exhibit, particularly those pieces on display from vintage-looking Grey Gardens, Chanel and Mad Men. Janie Bryant, Costume Designer for Mad Men, acknowledges that her choices are often very eco-friendly but also admits that it is an afterthought for her. “I use all vintage pieces – woolens, silks, I recycle fur,” she said. “I am primarily designing for the show’s look but when I can make eco-friendly choices as well, all the better.”
Depression-era styles are popping up in fashion shows, on street-wear and in the collections of new designers such as Miss K.K. who are re-purposing using sourced quality vintage-era garments rather than exploiting new materials.
Costume Guild member Nancy Fisher who works primarily on commercial shoots commented that she would much rather reach for an eco-tee but knows that she can only dress her clients in things they want to wear. “If I’m working with Cameron Diaz, for example, then it’s no problem to get her to wear eco. In fact, she prefers it. If only all the talent I worked with were like-minded…!”

Tweet This Post

Tags: 61st EMMYs, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chanel, Costume Designers Guild, Depression-era fashion, eco-friendly, EMMYs, FIDM, Greening Hollywood, Grey Gardens, Mad Men, Mary Rose, Project Runway, The Librarian, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, The Tudors

Greening Hollywood: No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and MadMen

Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild Focus - Make Up and HairStylists I.A.T.S.E. Local 706

By Paige Donner

June 17th, 2009

There’s more to bringing the beauty industry and green scientists together, all at one table, then might first meet the eye. By the time I presented our panel of beauty experts, moderated by Rachelle Carson Begley, last weekend in my Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild seminar and workshop, I had learned a lot. I had learned more than just that Tarte has come out with a game-changing mascara called Lights, Camera, Lashes! and that O.P.I. had removed all three of the most harmful chemicals in their nail polish, and that Suki Pure has re-defined how to be profitable and committed to pure ingredients in the cosmetic industry.

Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild panelists: L-R Nikoletta Skarlatos, Make Up Artist, Pirates of The Caribbean; Robert Hallowell, Hair Stylist, Dancing With The Stars; Christina Marcaccini, founder, Raw Natural Beauty; Rachelle Carson Begley, Co-Star, Living With Ed; Lisa Archer, Campaign for Safe Cosmetics; Paige Donner, Founder, Greening Hollywood.
What a lucky stroke that EMA, the Environmental Media Association, came before me. The organization that Norman and Lynne Davis Lear founded 20 years ago has made inroads into almost every facet of “green” – including the billion dollar make up and beauty industry.
Of course, the first I thing I did, was go to Debbie Levin, president of EMA and tell her what I intended to do – namely present a panel of natural and green beauty experts for members of the Hollywood Make Up and Hair Stylists Guild – I.A.T.S.E. Local 706. Her colleague, Lisa Barnet, recalled they’d done something similar in 2006 though not for guild members specifically. It had been well-received but for whatever reason they’d chosen to do it as a one-off.



In the past three years lots has happened in the beauty world turning parts of it a deeper shade of green. For one, Oprah got on her show and talked about the terribleness of parabens in beauty products. That was a wake up call to women across the nation to look at the ingredients list in their beauty products. Secondly, California has since passed our Safe Cosmetics Act which is a piece of legislation aiming towards regulating the make up and beauty industry. The scientists from Environmental Working Group and Campaign for Safe Cosmetics who spoke on my Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild panel are quick to point out that there is NO FDA regulation of the ingredients put into cosmetics. Even though our skin acts like a sponge, absorbing whatever we put on it – nearly as much as what we put directly inside our bodies.
Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild, Focus Make Up and Hair, Panelists from I.A.T.S.E. Local 706 Hollywood’s Make Up Guild. Moderated on June 14th by Rachelle Carson Begley and Presented by Paige Donner, Founder, Greening Hollywood.
Now, when you’re an underfunded non-profit such as EWG and Campaign For Safe Cosmetics (a.k.a. breast cancer fund) and you’re going up against well-established cosmetic companies who have big slices of the billion dollar beauty industry, what do you do? Well, if you’re Lisa Archer (CFSC) and Becky Sutton, PhD. (EWG) you simply tell it like it is. AND you create a ratings system called SkinDeep.org where consumers can go to search and see how their products rank in terms of harmful ingredients. Their perspective is a consumer’s advocate one.
This is where the friction between cosmetic companies – both big and small – and these research non-profits rears its head. I contacted one cosmetic company to ask its CEO to speak on our panel and got an earful about the EWG and CFSC. This particular company is known to be one of the cleaner cosmetic companies and donates its profits to charity – all of its profits. They are on the smaller side as cosmetic companies go. I quickly was informed how they’d nearly been put out of business because of information pushed out to the public regarding their trace amounts of lead in a few of their lipsticks.
Now the issue of lead in lipstick is a big one. Last year California narrowly defeated a bill that would have disallowed the sale of lipstick in our state even with trace amounts of lead in it. Most cosmetic companies that you recognize when you walk into a department store have product lines that they sell in Europe - including lipstick with NO lead in it. So, it doesn’t seem to be a stretch for them to just introduce those products here and phase out the ones that are perceived to be harmful to our health. But, no. Alas, a handful of the biggies lobbied successfully last year and defeated the California bill that would have disallowed leaded lipsticks in our state.
Interestingly, the smaller company I referenced above, who is not a California company, did reformulate to take out all lead from their lipsticks. But she nearly went bankrupt doing so. She explained to me that there is more lead found naturally in a bar of chocolate than in a whole tube of her lipstick (before reformulation). And what the scientists apparently forget to consider is that someone, especially some of us women, can and will sit down and eat a whole chocolate bar. But never do we eat a whole tube of lipstick. Surely not in one sitting!
The point being that the SkinDeep rating system is an extremely useful tool. It does have its fallacies, however. Namely that it is self-rated. So a company whose CEO is honest will submit all its ingredients factually and candidly and get a certain rating. Whereas another company more savvy with playing the SkinDeep system, will submit only those ingredients they know to be rated safe and simply omit the harmful ingredients so that their ranking is strong on SkinDeep. They know that there is no auditing mechanism. Whatever they say is what their rating will be based on.
That said, when speaking with the President of Local 706 I.A.T.S.E. the Make Up and Hairstylist’s guild, she emphasized what a concern health issues are to her and her membership. Many guild members work long 12-14 hour days inside small trailers or otherwise enclosed spaces. To be inhaling noxious fumes and chemicals for long periods like that is not healthy and only time will tell what sort of ailments come of it. Similarly, many actors and actresses are also subject to vast amounts of chemicals in the form of beauty products being applied to them. One of our panelists, Nikoletta Skarlatos, a guild member, spoke about the use of prosthetics and how the industry is formulating natural-based prosthetic make up as an alternative.
Robert Hallowell, the “kitchen beautician,” another of our panelist’s and also a 706 member, acknowledged that a natural and effective hairspray is the Holy Grail of hair products. His line of hair care products, “Prawduct,” is all natural-derived and from recipes he cooked up in his kitchen.
Christina Marcaccini, who founded Raw Natural Beauty based in Manhattan Beach, spoke on our panel saying that when necessary companies have to re-formulate their products. If for no other reason than to capture the growing consumer demand and burgeoning market share that safe and pure ingredient cosmetics now command. L.A. – based O.P.I. nail polish company did this and removed three of the most toxic ingredients in their nail polish. The scientists see this is a victory and O.P.I. still has a huge slice of the nail polish pie. Girls won’t stop using make up – after all, most of us girls just want to play. But we can play safe and we can do so by choosing products that contribute to our beauty – both inside and out. And when needing a boost to go within, try Buddha Nose balms and aromatic sprays. Serenity in a bottle.

Greening Hollywood: Guild by Guild Focus - Make Up and HairStylists I.A.T.S.E. Local 706