Turkey Day the Sustainable Way

Oh what a glorious time of year! Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and we are all patiently waiting for that one aspect of the day; the FEAST! The Thanksgiving feast is a time for food inhibitions to be thrown away, but let’s make it the only thing we toss away! Here are a few simple ways to make your feast more sustainable:

1. Purchase locally grown, seasonal produce- Buying local reduces the amount of shipping it takes to transport them to the area and supports local businesses and farmers. For the freshest vegetable and fruits, buy seasonal produce.

2. Buy organic foods- Buying organic foods help the environment because of the reduced use of pesticides. Several essential feast items can now be found in organic including turkey, apples and celery.

3. Create natural centerpieces- When searching for the perfect items to create a Thanksgiving centerpiece, try looking in nature instead of stores. Pinecones, dried leaves, Osage oranges, and other natural materials that can be found in your backyard can create an awesome centerpiece for all to enjoy!

4. Purchase ingredients with minimal packaging- Many food products are wrapped in multiple layers of packaging, which ends up in the trash can. Attempt to find products that are lightly wrapped in order to cut back on the trash.

5. Don’t use the garbage disposal plate technique- We tend to mound an assortment of food on our plates until it is impossible to tell where the turkey ends and the green bean casserole begins! American’s thrown away 40% of their food, so this year encourage your family to take smaller portions and clean their plates (then go back for seconds, if needed).

6. Leftovers, leftovers, leftovers!- Find new innovative ways to turn leftover food into more masterpieces!

What's Greendex?

So, you've been "green" for awhile now. But, do you ever wonder how or if it's working?

National Geographic and the international polling firm GlobeScan have just conducted a study measuring and monitoring consumer progress toward environmentally sustainable consumption in 14 countries around the world.

From their website: "Why? We wanted to give people a better idea of how consumers in different countries are doing in taking action to preserve our planet by tracking, reporting, and promoting environmentally sustainable consumption and citizen behavior. This quantitative consumer study of 14,000 consumers in a total of 14 countries asked about such behavior as energy use and conservation, transportation choices, food sources, the relative use of green products versus traditional products, attitudes towards the environment and sustainability, and knowledge of environmental issues. A group of international experts helped us determine the behaviors that were most critical to investigate.

The result: the National Geographic/GlobeScan "Consumer Greendex," a scientifically derived sustainable consumption index of actual consumer behavior and material lifestyles across 14 countries. The Greendex will be tracked over time and will be comparable across the selection of countries representing both the developed and developing world.

To provide context for the Greendex results, we developed a "Market Basket", an index of actual consumption in four areas important to environmentally sustainable behavior-energy, transportation, travel, and consumer goods. A Market Basket for each country was assembled using a set of independently collected macroeconomic indicators, gathered by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which mirror, in part, the consumer behavior measured by the Greendex survey. The purpose of the Market Basket is to provide an external estimate of the results of changes in consumer behavior over time. The Greendex, for example, measures things consumers are doing to save energy in a country; the Market Basket measures whether total energy consumption in the country is actually going up or down. The Market Basket will also establish a framework for comparing the relative environmental impact of each country's size and rate of growth, over time."