ShopSmart: Five Eco-Friendly, Wallet-Friendly Sites
Published on - October 15th, 2007 (by J.D. Roth) 
While waiting in line at the supermarket the other day, I succumbed to an impulse purchase. I picked up a new magazine called ShopSmart.
“No hype. No ads. Just great buys!” the cover touts. Inside are reviews and tips for everyday products. But ShopSmart differs from its parent publication, Consumer Reports, in several ways: it offers no extensive product ratings, it’s specifically geared toward helping consumers get the best deals, and its target audience is “women over 30″. Don’t let that target audience fool you — there’s lots of good stuff here for everyone.
The October/November issue includes stories about online shopping trends, Green shopping bags, how to shop for shoes, and choosing Halloween candy. I liked ShopSmart‘s ready references to the web. In one piece, the magazine reviewed five “eco-friendly, wallet-friendly” sites that are perfect for Blog Action Day:
- The Green Loop attempts to bring Green sensibility to current fashion. “All of the goods at Greenloop are made by conscientious companies who are committed to environmental stewardship and social responsibility.”
- One easy way for most people to make the leap to Green is to create an environmentally-friendly office. The Green Office is “an online retailer of recycled, environmentally friendly, and sustainable business products, school supplies, and paper.”
- Visit Local Harvest for a directory of locally-grown organic food. You can find local farms, community-supported agriculture groups, a discussion forum, and more. There’s even a Local Harvest store!
- For green-friendly home-improvement, take a look at Environmental Building Center. This site offers tips on how to go green on a budget, as well as a list of “kindred spirits” — other businesses with similar goals.
- Re:modern “provides products, consulting services, and resources to make good design available to the general public.” The company “encourages green practices as an everyday given, not a luxury.”
It’s difficult to judge a magazine after a single issue, but so far I like what I see. If you find Consumer Reports overwhelming with its product ratings and consumer recalls, take a look at ShopSmart. It could be a useful tool to help you save money.
Here are three other sites designed to help your personal finances while helping the environment:
- Ideal Bite offers “easy eco-living tips delivered in a short, sassy e-mail each weekday”. Don’t want to subscribe? Check out the tip library or read the blog.
- The U.S. Government’s Energy Star web site includes a vast library of tips to help you protect the environment while saving money. You can explore Energy Star products, home improvement options, and more. There’s also an Energy Star home energy yardstick that will help you gauge how much energy you consume.
- Consumer Consequences is an “interactive game designed to illustrate the impact of our lifestyles on the Earth”. The game asks you a “series of questions about your lifestyle, and as you play, it will show you how many “Earths” of natural resources it would take to sustain all 6.6 billion humans… if everyone lived like you.”
Know of other sites like this? Let us know!
Contest: Each person who leaves a substantive comment on today’s entries will be entered into a drawing to receive a nature print from photographer Andrea Gingerich. The winner will be announced on Friday, October 19th. (Details.)
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I’ve gone to Energy Star on numerous occasions just to browse. There are a lot of great tools and calculators to help you determine how much energy you currently use and how much energy and money you can save by making simple little adjustments or modifications to your home and energy usage. Most of the recommendations are easy enough for the average homeowner to perform and don’t require hiring a contractor. EnergyStar.gov is probably one of the most user friendly government sites out there! (after the IRS website of course!)
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I’ve recently described to Ideal Bite, and I’m finding the daily emails very informative and encouraging. I struggle with how to do more than simply throw huge amounts of my garbage into a recycle bin, but their website offers some simple, easy ways I can do more to care for our Earth. The website has a great layout and is very user-friendly.
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I’m generally highly suspicious of magazines whose only purpose is to encourage blind consumerism, especially when targeted to women (Domino and Lucky, I’m talking to you.) I love Consumer Reports, though, because it is built on thinking before buying. ShopSmart, though? No ratings, just product “advice?” Are the ratings in Consumer Reports that burdensome? I’ll probably check ShopSmart out (I am in its target demographic, after all), but I guess this is a test of how willing I am to blindly follow any magazine’s “advice,” regardless of source.
On another note, I am anxiously awaiting a day when the word “green” isn’t glued so securely to the word “trend.” Oh, for green living to replace consumerism as a cultural tenet! In the meantime, thanks for the links – some are good friends, some are new – I’ll be visiting them all in the coming days.
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I struggle with this issue. I look at all the people driving a Prius and think, “yeah they are helping the environment, but buying a new, overpriced car, is like throwing money away. Last week there was an interesting article about Wal-Mart’s decision to really push the compact fluorescent light bulb. Which made me feel better about shopping at wal mart. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/business/02bulb.html)
Having said that I’m glad for energy star … I know when I replace my monster of a refrigerator those guidelines will figure prominently in my decisions.
For those struggling … how do you justify spending more to help the environment. Especially when there is only so much to go around?
I keep telling myself this is something I’ll tackle when I’m out of debt and in the meantime, I dry clothes on the line and don’t run the water when I brush my teeth, but I rarely buy anything specifically because it is green.
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I second Patrick. I’ve worked directly with Energy Star through work and find them to be more than helpful. Perhaps their employees actually find value in what they do and enjoy it more because of that…?
The tools on that website are really helpful in considering “total cost of ownership” which is a concept that every consumer should become intimately familiar with. It’s why I’ll never buy a major appliance that isn’t Energy Star rated.
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The Local Harvest website looks great! It seems every day I long more and more to purchase good quality foods that have not traveled half way around the world to get to me. This site should help me find those types of foods.
As for the energy star, whenever we have purchased appliances we have purchased the most energy efficient models we could afford. Having moved into this house exactly 1 year ago today, we have some terrible energy suckers! The dishwasher, oven and furnace are all very old and barely running. We don’t currently have the money to replace them. The AC, we found out this summer is way too small for this house, therefore it uses a lot of energy to not really cool the place.
For Courtney, it isn’t so much about spending more to help the environment. You might spend a little more up front, but you will save energy using it. An energy star appliance doesn’t just use a better form of energy, but it uses less energy than other appliances, therefore saving you money each month on your energy bill. A plus is that it helps the environment.
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As a financial planner I see first hand the amount of paper and energy wasted on printing and mailing statements and prospectuses to account holders. If you’ve not already done this, go to the home page of your investment account custodian’s web site. You should be able to find a link or tab regarding your “mailing preferences.” Many investment companies, such as Vanguard, offer this and reduce or remove fees charged to your account for doing it.
Save trees, energy, and money all at the same time! It only takes a few minutes…
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I went and took the “quiz” to see what my planetary footprint would be, but I must say, I am a little disappointed by it. I ended up with a 2.7 earths rating, but there was very little immediately available to help me figure out to lessen my impact. Sure, it gave me what the “numbers” were for each of the categories, but I could find no immediate link of connection between those numbers, & what they were derived from.
With very little change to my eating habits, that was at a 5. On top of that, they included all meats together, ignoring the fact that different meats take up VERY different amount of resources: Compare a cow to an equal amount of farm raised salmon! Normally, I’m all for including fish in with the “meat” rating, but in this case, it’s one of the times to separate it out. It also did not give a place where one could comment on food being grown by yourself, as compared to shipped to you.
In addition, it had a blanket term for “organic or locally grown.” While this may have been very similar even 3 years ago, as Biggies like Wal-mart or Whole Foods start to included “mega organics”, these can and are starting to be shipped just as far from their locations as non-organics, thus reducing or removing many of the ecological benefits, per resources.
From a technological/web-site standpoint, I very much dislike when a website is entirely flash-based. Slower computers (EG house-holds with typically larger “foot prints”) would not be able to run this site, and this is something that should REALLY be addressed.
A side note, I just remembered: given their statement that multi-dwelling buildings were “better,” this would imply that those who live in the country are “hurting” their environment. This seems a very urban-centric point of view, and actually upsets me.
I guess i feel let down, since this kind of resource could be SO very useful to those of us trying to change our habits.
I am at work, so could only give a cursory glance to one of the other sites, that of the Energy Star, & once again, I was struck with the same feeling i had when i last tried to look at this site, coincidently about the time this website started: They don’t have much, if anything, to say to Renters.
In my area, at least, renters for the most part pay their own utilities, and the landlords are under NO compulsion to change the efficiency of their properties. Most (almost all) of the tips on the Energy star website seem to be tailored to those of us who have A) Lived at a location for more then one year, and B) can change things like the windows, the furnace, even the shower heads, &c. It would be nice if they could look at the numbers, and realize that a VERY large percentage of the population still rents!
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Courtney brings up a good point. There is on the surface a dichotomy between frugality and being kinder to the environment. Do you buy the more expensive environment friendly item or do you get the free / cheap item that works just as well but hurts the environment. In some cases it is easy like the Energy Star rating on appliances. Of course you are going to buy one that has the star cause it is a double whammy, its good for the environment and it costs less to operate. But more difficult choices are the Prius or the new hybrid vehicles. or even the CFL and the issue with their mercury disposal (which turns out to be just be careful in handling them when they break.)
I would suggest on the big ticket items making sure that it is in your plan. i.e. make sure you aren’t saving the environment while you are drowning in debt. Sort of like the instructions on the airplanes about putting the oxygen mask on yourself before assisting your children. However while Priuses are over priced there was a 3 month window where the frugal shopper could have gotten one for a pretty good steal. At least in Southern California the Toyota dealership over ordered and had trouble getting them off the lot. So if you keep your eye on frugality and have done the research you can still do both help the environment and save money.
The idea is that you have to have values in conjunction with your frugality. If environment is one of them then you align your frugality to try and take advantage of both.
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I also tried the “Consumer Consequences” site. After getting what I thought was a dismal score, I went back and played again, pretending that I’m a single person who lives in an apartment building, pays meager bills, walks to work, and is as environmentally conscientious as possible. The score? 1.2 Earths. You just can’t win.
On a more positive note, since I hardly ever leave comments, I’ll take this opportunity to say that GRS is a wonderful, abundant, and seemingly endless resource. Thanks, JD!
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The Energy Star website has a lot of great information on it, but not much of it is applicable to apartment dwellers like myself. I have no control over the insulation in my walls or the kind of appliances in my kitchen. Is there a good resource for apartment-dwelling conservation tips?
~Q
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“Don’t let that target audience fool you — there’s lots of good stuff here for everyone.”
This is true. My parents have had a Consumer Reports magazine subscription for awhile now and I had a chance to look through this magazine when it arrived over the weekend. It fits well as a “shopping magazine for women”, but there is something for everybody really.
It was also kind of unsettling (but in a good way) to not see any advertising (or samples) of any sort in the magazine.
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Apartment Therapy has a bunch of sister sites (my favorite being The Kitchen) and one of their newest ones is Green.
http://green.apartmenttherapy.com/
They cover articles on green construction, green products (CFLs, reuseable bags, recycled furniture, non-toxic paint, etc), and also tips on how to incorporate “green” into your life, no matter what your budget. Often, the best tips are from the reader comments, especially if you like the eco-friendly couch but not the price tag. Readers will chime in with more wallet-friendly alternatives or how to find something cheaper that’s equally eco-friendly. One great tip was looking at Habitat ReStores, which sells surplus inventory from Habitat for Humanity projects. Items aren’t thrown away, you get a great deal, and the funds go to help future projects.
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I agree with Courtney, it is sometimes very hard to make the most environmentally friendly choice as a consumer when you are living a tight budget. But everyone is capable of making very small adjustments to their purchasing habits, and all the small changes add up.
Also, I agree that as a renter it is very difficult to make my space more energy efficient. I can change the light bulbs and shut off appliances that are not in use, but other than that it is pretty much out of my control.
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I am also an environmentally conscious renter, and can understand the frustrations of other renters who feel that they cannot control the energy efficiency of their space.
However, if it helps ease your frustration, I will relay something that once helped me (It was a letter to the editor in newsweek a while back — wish i had the whole thing!): compared to homeowners, (apartment) renters are energy efficient by default. We use all of our neighbors for insulation. Instead of 4 sides of our properties being exposed to hot and cold elements outside, we only have one or two. We and our neighbors have only one lawn that needs to be mowed and fertilized. And so forth.
If I can find the whole article, I will post it. It was great!
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I find that the web in general is a great way for me to save on shopping, mainly in terms of gas use in my car. I live in a small town that is 80 miles from the “big city” if I want something beyond basic groceries or what the local hardware store has I have to drive round trip about 200 miles (including the driving around the city from store to store). I frequently use the web to “pre-shop” to make sure stores have what I want so I don’t waste a trip to a store when they don’t have what I want in the first place. Online shopping also saves money as shipping on small items is usually way less than the cost of a tank of gas.
I was reading the comments on energy star appliances. I recently bought a house and it needed basically all new appliances. Most of them I got off of craigslist for real cheap, but the refrigerator we decided to buy new. I really wanted to buy energy star, but the nearly $300-$400 price jump from a non energy star refrigerator was just too much. I realize total cost of ownership is probably lower, but we just don’t have that kind of extra cash up front. I wish I knew why energy star costs a premium for some things and not for others. (energy star power supplies for computers or energy star monitors are not that much more expensive and are actually becoming the standard, where as energy star refrigerators or washer/dryers can be twice as much as the basic model)
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I worry that the magazine will struggle to find it’s niche – with no adverts (and quite rightly to avoid bias) it may struggle to survive, given the plethora of shopping comparison/voucher sites out there available for free.
The emphasis here on green issues makes me wonder if their target audience might be ‘women over 30 with enough money to pay the extra that going green often needs’
How useful would this be to someone spending frugally?
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i read about local harvest and found 3 farms in my area who together were offering “shares”. for 25 per week throughout the summer, i got an abundance of locally-grown food–most of it organic. another great resource for me has been freecycle.org. there are local ones throughout the u.s. now when i want to get rid of something i can post it and pass it on to someone who needs it. i have also received many nice things that have helped me out a lot! things don’t go to the landfill, it encourages recycling and saves money for everyone. and, it builds a nice sense of community.
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I’ve been reading “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman (very well written and informative, not to mention cool as all get out, highly recommended!), and one of the biggest things I’ve taken away is from the chapter on plastic.
For those not familiar with the book, its basically an exploration of what would happen if humanity just disappeared. What kind of a mess would we leave behind, and how long would it take the Earth to recover, if it could recover at all? The chapter on plastic really hits home with a very good look at how all the plastic we create doesn’t go away. Literally every piece of new plastic we have made is still here, somewhere. Whether it was recycled as many times as possible or simply chucked, it’s all still here, not breaking down, not being dissolved, just piling up in the oceans and the food chain.
I’ve always been an environmental sympathizer, but I’ve never really been an activist or made a real stab at living a green life. But this chapter scared the crap out of me. I’ve heard it before, but reading about the Africa-sized plastic trash heap floating in the Pacific in the doldrums above Hawaii… that made me stop and think about all the disposable plastics in my life: the coke bottles, the grocery bags, the strawberry boxes, the sandwich bags. How many of these could be replaced with older methods of storage?
I’ve found a few sites, like PlasicFree, but everything seems too extreme for me. Maybe I’m not hardcore enough for a no plastic lifestyle?
Sometimes I just feel so helpless. No matter how drastically I decide to change my life, I’m still just one person. Even if I manage to save a hundred pounds of plastic, it doesn’t mean that plastic I’m not buying isn’t being made, used, and dumped. I guess I just wish the world was smaller sometimes. At least when I make sacrifices for my personal finances, I can see the progress towards my goals and it keeps me going. But when I try and give up conveniences to live green, it’s so hard to stay honest. I just can’t feel like I’m making a difference.
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I’ve recently been reading ReadyMade Magazine (http://readymademag.com/). It’s a magazine “for people who like to make stuff,” but they’re very environmentally conscious and I find that their articles inspire me to find new ways to use old stuff, or show me how to build items we need instead of buying more stuff, thus saving money.
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Looking at the Local Harvest site reminded me of an excellent book I received as a gift a few Christmases ago, “In Praise of Slow” (website at http://www.inpraiseofslow.com/slow/index.php and apparently, the title is “In Praise of Slowness” in the US). The concept of Slow Food from the book talks about purchasing in season locally grown produce, and even though Local Harvest doesn’t cover Canada, it did serve as a good reminder that I need to get in gear and start buying locally grown.
I’m big into environmental construction concepts as well, in part because in Canada, colder winters mean that good stewardship also impacts the bottom line — bad insulation and bad windows means a lot of wasted energy when it hits -40°F outside!
I have to agree with Courtney @4; it is a huge challenge balancing environmental attitudes with frugal living. I had a very difficult decision this summer when a condominium townhouse I rent out got hit with a special assessment for stucco remediation. I had no choice on the special assessment, but along with that I was given the option of spending several thousand dollars more to get windows and doors (both the responsibility of the owner in this complex) replaced with modern stuff, so the whole outside envelope would be sealed and modernized. I went with the additional expense, but have been struggling a bit since. Still, I think that this was a worthwhile investment, especially since I plan to boot the tenants and move back into the townhouse when I get married. I’ll appreciate the cheaper utility bills!
jp @10: I think the point of the Consumer Consequences is that the majority of the people on the planet manage to get along without the luxuries of even your hypothetical walking single apartment-dweller. In most of the developing world, lots of people would be crammed into that kind of space, and economies of scale start to kick in in a big way. I think you’re right, that we can’t win — maybe the point is to reconsider the way we live as a culture.
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It seems like Shop Smart is removing one of the big strengths of Consumer Reports by narrowing their information down to single product recommendations. Part of the advantage of CR is that the ratings can help consumers identify the products that are better for their specific needs. One person might really need a vacuum that’s very quiet (maybe they just had a baby and don’t want to wake it while cleaning), while another might think that the strongest suction is the most important feature (because they have lots of pet hair in their carpet). The ratings show you the various advantages and disadvantages of competing products and let you make an educated decision about what’s best for your given lifestyle. And considering how widely varying lifestyles can be, it seems foolhardy to make claims about what’s best for “everyone.”
I suppose that by lumping “women over 30″ together as their target audience, they’re hoping to mitigate this problem. But I’d rather make an informed decision about what to buy myself than let someone else tell me what my best option is with only the knowledge that I’m over 30. Even though I trust the parent company, my goal is to be an educated consumer, not an automaton.
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@Ella: I agree with you on ShopSmart losing the focus of CR. I think that picking up a magazine just on the promise of great buys only suckers you into buying things that you didn’t need in the first place.
Personally, I fell sucker to that with the Mac software promotion site maczot.com. It offers substantial discounts on software, but looking back on what I purchased, I hardly use any of it. It’s basically just money wasted. I still occasionally hear of a great deal being offered there, and I’m almost always tempted to pick it up. I haven’t caved yet … nor have I felt I needed that sale software so bad that I’ve gone out and purchased it afterwards.
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I love the Energy Star website. We just bought a house and had to buy a houseful of appliances. Energy conservation was a huge factor for us, we already had high efficiency A/C and furnace so we wanted to make everything else efficient as well.
We are also having energy star rated low e windows installed in a couple of weeks.
I am hoping to keep our recurring energy costs as low as possible.
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[...] Rich Slowly gives 5 Eco-Friendly, Wallet Friendly sites. There are some great stores listed in here to get everyday needs the eco-friendly [...]
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I really hope that magazine was at least printed on recycled paper! Also, I think the target audience of any magazine sold at the grocery store checkout line is women. Am I wrong?
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I have been so blessed by FREECYCLE and criags list. i have been able to give MANY numerous items away as I don’t oft have the time to deliver them to Goodwill or Salvation army myself. I have been able to get great items for cheap also. Thanks.
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I highly recommend Ideal Bite’s website. While many of the tips aren’t directly applicable to me, I still learn things that may be useful to me or someone I know in the future. My mom has signed up for the email after sending her a good tip. YOu can also save your favorite tips in one place so that you may reference them in the future.
I’m a Craigslist fan all the way. In the last year I’ve bought a washer, a dryer, and a table, and have sold several small items. It’s a win-win for both parties!
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thanks for links and tips to be eco-friendly while being easy on my wallet. some things are way overpriced and makes me have to decide the lesser of 2 evils…
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[...] photograph Don J. won a nature print from photographer Andrea Gingerich. Don will be able to browse Andrea’s [...]
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Wheather it last or not, I hope that the idea of magazines like ShopSmart starts building momentum in the consumer buying cycle.
“I’d love to see more ‘green ideas’ that veer away from the need for raw material production and product transportation.
Two of the things that I’ve seen are:
Growing your own Xmas tree (www.ourgreenhouse.com) and CallWave’s idea of replacing the fax hardware with software AND planting a tree(www.callwave.com/landing/other/plantATreeProgram.aspx).
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How can anything that’s produced for advertising be labelled, ‘No Hype’, ‘No Ads’? I guess anything that’s written to help consumers get the best deals has got to be a good thing. The fact that they also have loops to companies that are environmentally conscious is an added bonus.
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