Green Washing

It's just the height of disgusting that toxic, unhealthy greedy products are being promoted as green in my opinion. I'm not the only one taking offense. There are those who are taking it to the courts: http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1202431342143 Gotta love it.

Lisa

Lisa just finished the Old House Fair in South Park and is on her way back to the store. While I watched her handing out cards this morning, I remarked "you love selling." She told me "I just love talking to people!" And here's the thing: she is telling the complete truth. If you've been here and you've met Lisa, you already know it's the truth. If you haven't met her, you should: she'll socialize with you, talk green products and installation, listen to what you have to say and at some point make everybody crack up. Those of us who know her, love her! With visitors to Olive Branch she is truly in her element. It is a thing of beauty!

Lynn, co-owner Olive Branch

Green behavior

In order to stay alive and keep meals on the table while Olive Branch is just starting to grow, I still have to “work” (although one of the purposes of Olive Branch is to make money to support ourselves, it does not fall in the “work” category because it doesn’t feel like work). With a Ph.D. and a credential as a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA-D) I have to get continuing education credits to keep my license current. Imagine my mood when I went to the recent behavior analysis conference in Phoenix and got all my credits going to presentations relating to sustainability! How could this be? Because, although technology will help us, it will not save us and ultimately it is our behavior that must change; and the behavior change must happen on a cultural level, as when we as a society took action on littering and smoking. The behavior analysts have a lot to say about how this might happen (although they have no simple answers) and I was fortunate to attend presentations by scientists such as the eminent Lonnie G. Thompson (paleoclimatologist) who can tell us what the priorities for change are. Back here in San Diego, I’m now very excited and fortunate to be in a position to find out exactly what people are doing. I would love to hear from anybody who can tell me (1) what behaviors they have changed toward going green and maybe even more important, (2) what motivated the change. For those of you reading this blog, leave a post and let us know what you're doing!

Lynn, co-owner Olive Branch

Our customers

One of our favorite customers, Chris, came in this morning to pick up her recycled ceramic tile and told me she was depressed.  The reason?  She had just come from the mall and was overwhelmed by all the excess and conspicuous consumption.  These are our customers.  They have made us realize that Olive Branch is bigger than us.  We are the vehicle but we are by no means the impetus to the availability of green products.  There are others even more passionate than us that desperately want to move as far away as possible from the throw-away society many of us grew up in.  Lisa has written on our glass board by our desk "thoughtful process not impulse buy."  That describes the people coming into our store perfectly.  They may be coming to learn or to get more information or because they have already done their research and have just been patiently waiting for someone to carry the products they want.  They come with great questions, often that we can't answer (we love that; we are learning too!).  "Our" customers:  it is an honor to be able to call them that.

doing the right thing

Not a day goes by that someone doesn't walk in the store and tell us "we are so happy you are here."  It is so validating and energizing to know that we are appreciated.   People also constantly tell us they hope we "make it."  We do too.  The triple bottom line (people, planet and profit) is driving us.  Things are changing and business is being done in a new way.  Hopefully we are not too ahead of the wave to make it work.  

Opening night

Fun is the word for what we had on Saturday night.  Although a few of our dear friends and supporters could not make it for various reasons, we saw so many old and special friends and could not have asked for better support.  It's a bit anti-climatic today, coming back to the shop after weeks of preparation, regrouping for our next project but it's all an adventure!  We are getting more and more manufacturers contacting us about carrying their products and so our research on investigating the "true green-ness" is cut out for us.  

Here are a few pictures from the opening! 

Finally opening for real!

We have been working so long and so late (in fact it's way past my bedtime right now) but we are finally ready and open for sales at Olive Branch GBS!  We have had the most amazing help. We are so lucky to have found Jamie Huffman our architect/designer for our custom sink cabinets. My dear friend Joel Martens has been our unofficial/official showroom design consultant who is just brimming with creative ideas about making our showroom look awesome (not the least of which is our low-cost and recycled material solution to hiding ugly but energy efficient florescent bulbs) and even as I speak I owe him a dinner.  Our Yolo paint just arrived and they have made us feel a part of their family already.  Other suppliers like our flooring supplier Ada Freed have been just so easy and wonderful to work with.  We absolutely love our new location and our friends have been coming to visit us much more than in our old location, which wasn't far away but was not the entertaining, hip and walking-friendly area we are in now.  So far, the one and only drawback of our location is that we are completely addicted to the incredible food and coffee and company of Linda and Greg at Cafe Forte around the corner!  I guess we'll have to make good on our promise to ride our bikes to work to save lunch money and burn off those calories!