Created by SUST, a sustainable eco-label, the “Sustainability Across America Tour” (SAAT) journey is to discover the roots of the movement, to meet the people who are the motor behind this lifestyle, industry experts, specialty clothing boutiques and friends along the way, which will be shared via social media like Twitter and Facebook as well as at their blog, getsust.
The “Sustainability Across America” tour is co-sponsored by a host of amazing companies from across the United States: EcoSalon, cmarchuska, Indigenous Designs, I love Ryann, Restore Clothing and Guayaki Yerba Matte tea.
The trip will serve not only to increase awareness of the SUST brand, but act as a grassroots marketing effort to create connections at the store level and garner a greater knowledge about how real Americans view words like “organic” and “sustainable.”
In an interview for the website Eco salon, Laura Jones, SUST’s brand ambassador hopes “ this journey will help promote the collaborative energy that fuels the sustainable movement. The movement itself seems like a very high-level, ethereal concept, but the reality is that it’s individual people, working to build and change the way we think and live. This trip is an effort to extend the hand, to engage our community and to build friendships so that together we can all help one another thrive and achieve in our efforts towards a common goal.”
She sees the future of sustainable design as “already going mainstream, continually making inroads into the fashion industry with something that not only feels good and has a sense of style, but is better for the environment as well”.
On Wednesday, July 22nd 2009, “Sustainability Across America” kicked off its national tour with a visit to Indigenous Designs in their beautiful solar powered office space in Santa Rosa, California.
Scott Leonard, CEO of Indigenous Designs explains that Indigenous is not simply a business, but part of a movement that is reshaping the way the world works. Scott has been immersed in the green movement for over 15 years and he gets to business setting us SAAT members on the right path, showing us the ins and outs of the industry.
The first SAAT stop was made at Northern California’s Redwoods National Park. The National Park Service is engaged in an extensive watershed restoration project to increase the longevity of this ecosystem, restoring the hillsides and stream channels to their natural condition before the construction of logging roads prior to the establishment of the park.
Then they went to Crater Lake National park (Oregon), Rogue Breweries (Newport Oregon), Toujours boutique (handmade jewelry and organic cotton hand-spun products) (Nye Beach Oregon). In Portland, they met Aysia Wright of Green Loop to talk about her history with Organic Fashion, they went to Umpqua Hot Springs outside of Diamond Lake in the Toketee Forest, they caught a windsurfing competition in the Columbia River Gorge…
It is just the beginning (Started August 6th), the tour will last 3 months. Haven’t heard any new updates yet, but stay tuned for more as the tour goes on…..maybe SAAT will stop at Green Cotton headquarters in MA?
Thanks for blogging about us! We’d love to swing by your headquarters in MA, it’ll be a bit before we reach the east coast. Here’s an update for you! We’re headed into BC today to interview Renewal2, a green investment firm, Guayaki Yerba Matte Teas, and a founder of Eco Fashion World. Hope you’ll follow along!
Thank you for taking the time out to shine the light on SAAT! RESTORE CLOTHING is very proud to included.
Green By Design has just posted a new blog all about the work that SUST and the Sustainability Across America Tour is doing. Check it out to support the great work that this wonderful group of people is accomplishing!
http://greenbydesign.com/2009/08/26/getting-back-to-our-roots-the-sustainability-across-america-tour/
by encouraging consumers into the design of the products in order to allow better a management of consumption. The consumers become thus actors of their consumption. They are developed by the choices which they make, first of all ethical point of view while acting as agreement with their values, but also from a creative point of view, because they take share with the creation of their new clothing. The specificity sustainable clothing rests on the industrialization of the process of recycling, indeed the fact of recycling. Recycling is thus accessible to the greatest number and thus gives the possibility to all of recycling if such is their choice.
http://thehotlovemovement.com/
http://www.thehotlovedaily.com/