
{"id":20202,"date":"2011-08-11T14:48:17","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T18:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=20202"},"modified":"2011-08-11T14:48:17","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T18:48:17","slug":"getting-the-green-business-thing-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/08\/11\/getting-the-green-business-thing-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the green business thing down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>RECENTLY . . .<br \/>\nBy Valarie Schwartz<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nSo, you think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153green\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thing covered. You regularly shop at the farmers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 market, where you buy organic, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153slow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d food; you recycle everything that Orange Community Recycling will accept; you buy products made of hemp and other natural, organically grown materials; and you drive a fuel-efficient vehicle. What more, you may wonder, can you do to help sustain our environment?<\/p>\n<p>What about that couch or chair you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sitting on \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have you ever considered where the products for your furniture come from? Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Susan Inglis has done more than think about it; she has become part of a movement to help us minimize our carbon footprint while furnishing our homes. Inglis is the executive director of the Sustainable Furnishings Council (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainablefurnishings.org\/\">sustainablefurnishings.org<\/a>), and has been a long-time supplier of sustainable home furnishings. <\/p>\n<p>Raised out in the country of Chowan County, Inglis moved to Chapel Hill in 1975 and earned a degree in anthropology. Both of her parents were amateur craftspeople \u00e2\u20ac\u201c her mother a weaver and her father a woodworker \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who taught their children how to create things with their hands. Inglis started a knitting business that supported her and her two children when her marriage ended and she moved to Dogwood Acres in 1989. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I got a knitting machine and began to make custom sweaters,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I started selling the sweaters to stores.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sweaters from her line, called Susan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Sweaters, were sold here at the former Chinaberry Craft Gallery, and eventually she had sales reps in markets across the country. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But the fashion industry moved so fast, I was looking for something more gently paced,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Inglis said. She became involved in an economic-development program in West Virginia with women making knitted pillows and sofa throws, which led her to transition her business into home textiles. <\/p>\n<p>Next for Inglis came From The Mountain, which she started in the Himalayas of eastern Nepal in 1994. The company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first new products, after those sweater-like pillows, were placemats and table runners made of a native nettle that villagers processed and wove into fabric.<\/p>\n<p>From The Mountain has become a brokering business focusing on handmade and sustainably manufactured products for home, fashion and gifts. It provides examples of how remote villagers can use their indigenous materials and knowledge to support themselves while providing sustainable products to others. <\/p>\n<p>But back to that comfy chair where you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sitting \u00e2\u20ac\u201c let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assume that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made of leather. Inglis says that much of the leather in furniture comes from the cows of Brazil. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The hides are exported to Italy, where they are tanned into beautiful leather, then sent to Asia, where they become leather chairs, then sent to California for distribution to all of the U.S.,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Inglis said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your leather chair made a trip around the world before you did!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Since 2006, when she helped found the Sustainable Furnishings Council, Inglis has been committed to educating the industry and consumers. She has been invited to speak at the New York International Gift Fair from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Monday. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be having a discussion with Susan Szenasy, editor-in-chief of <em>Metropolis Magazine<\/em>, about helping businesses operate in an environmentally sustainable, as well as an economically sustainable, manner,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n<p>For those of us staying closer to home, a free webinar will be available on Monday from 1 to 2 p.m. Register for it at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nyigf.com\/Buyers\/ShowRegistration.aspx\">nyigf.com\/register<\/a>, and keep thinking green!<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Valarie Schwartz at 923-3746 or valariekays@mac.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RECENTLY . . . So, you think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153green\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thing covered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-recently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20248,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20202\/revisions\/20248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}