It’s 2012 - a new year and a new resolution. Mine for this year is to work smart AND hard for a better world.Since making “being the change” my personal goal since 2005, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that I don’t have to do this alone.So I’m thrilled to move the conversation to a new space on my company website where EarthPeople consultants, advisors, colleagues, and friends will contribute to a wider discussion about sustainability.

Our new blog EarthPeople Speak provides thought leadership across the spectrum, from green marketing and sustainable communications to clean technology and alternative energy.  We’ll dive deep into the world’s most pressing problems, as well as the many opportunities available to companies and people who address these challenges. 

Because adaptability is the essence of sustainability, most of our topics will relate to ways that people and organizations are preparing to compete and contribute in a rapidly changing world.  Of course, so much about “being the change” still depends on what people like you and me do on an individual basis.  How we consume, what we support with our dollars, how we interact in our communities, what we teach our children – these behaviors are still favorite topics of mine and will continue to play a central role in my writing. 

Historically I've found it difficult to be earth-friendly during the holidays. Despite my good intentions, something usually happens around December 18 that sends me running to Toys 'R Us. It's as if a switch goes off in my brain that says, "Must buy tons of toys for Christmas morning or the kids will cry their eyes out." This could stem from personal issues. My family still laughs over how I would sob after opening my last gift, devastated that I would have to wait another year before tearing into a pile of presents. But I digress. This article isn't about "confessions of a former material girl" but how we've changed our holiday habits for the greater good.

As the leader of the new green team for St. Bernard of Clairvaux school, I partnered with a national program for our first initiative of our academic year: a greener Halloween.  The Green Halloween® program is a non-profit community initiative to create healthier holidays, beginning with Halloween.

Why “green” and Halloween? It grew out of widespread concern about childhood obesity, the discovery of chemicals and lead in store-bought costumes, and enormous waste generated at Halloween for candy sales and décor. Our school already practices the basics of “reduce, reuse and recycle,” but a healthy planet doesn’t mean much without healthier kids to enjoy it. Here’s some spooky statistics: 

By Anna Clark

One in six babies - over 700,000 each year - are born with harmful levels of mercury in their blood.  Coal-burning power plants generate 54% of our electricity and are the single biggest air polluter and source of mercury pollution in the U.S.

As an author and activist, I’ve tended to focus on the environmental damage caused by coal-burning power plants.  Since being introduced to Creation Care, a faith-based movement for environmental stewardship, I recognize a more immediate moral crisis. Our principal form of electricity is harming the most vulnerable humans: the unborn.

A page from my travel journal:

I’m writing from an oceanfront café in Zoagli, a village on the Italian Riviera just across the harbor from Portofino. On my left, a couple converses in French and Italian over beer and pistachios.  To my right, two boys on the beach wield bamboo sticks in a mock sword fight. Here in this sunny Mediterranean spot, no sane person is passing the day in front of the TV or Xbox.

Georgia O’Keefe once said, “To create one’s own world, in any of the arts, takes courage.” I’m not an artist, but judging from my experience in sustainability consulting, changing the world takes at least as much courage as painting does.

I’ve been amazed to discover that the inability to adapt to change is the most significant stumbling block to implementing sustainability within any organization.  We continue to wrestle with the fact that we live on a planet of finite resources and that our actions are harming the earth.  Even though the scientific consensus has been clear for decades, the political will to change our ways has been less resolute.  Forty years ago President Nixon declared a need for a comprehensive energy policy and we still don’t have one. Scientists have openly discussed the dangers of climate change since the 1970s, yet the debate continues.  This stalemate surrounding our energy use and its harmful effects reveals, above all things, a lack of courage.  

TV legend and solar-energy advocate Larry Hagman brought star power to Dallas’ inaugural Earth Day celebration. 

Most folks think of him as J.R. Ewing, but I remember him as my beloved Major Anthony Nelson. (I used to spend sick days home from school watching re-runs of “I Dream of Jeannie.”)  So I was amused when Larry Hagman told the audience at the inaugural Earth Day Dallas event, “I usually get the same questions, so let me go ahead and get the answers out of the way now.  Yes, Barbara Eden is beautiful, and no, we never did it.”  At 79, Larry Hagman has still got it as a performer. Today, he’s lending his star power to the cause of clean technology as a board member of the Solar Electric Light Fund, a global non-profit that develops solar rural electrification in developing countries.

I meet people all the time who are searching for a way to make a difference in the world.  I’ve been there myself, but I’ve discovered that contributing to a sustainable future isn’t as much work as I've made it out to be. Change – whether in incremental steps as individuals or transformational leaps as a society - begins at home, one family at a time.

Environmental pressures from households are significant and their impacts will only intensify over the coming years. Already, residences account for nearly 20% of energy use and carbon emissions in the United States, and lifestyle decisions related to our homes and families reach far beyond that. On the positive side, we women have a great deal of spending power to wield for the greater good (and our own good, too).  We buy more than 85 percent of all purchases related to the household!  And as mothers, our influence extends into the next generation.  Here are ten ways that we women – and men! – can “work from home” to improve the world, beginning with our bank accounts:

By Nina Vikkula, the "Fintern"

Six weeks in Dallas have now gone by during my internship with EarthPeople.  I have been working on my Master’s thesis on the marketing of sustainable products from the perspective of the American marketer.   When I explain my course of study to people, the first question I get is, “What the heck is sustainability marketing?” Having read many articles on green marketing - and since completing the theoretical section of my thesis - I am now in a better position to explain.

Here is a basic definition of sustainability or “green” marketing: the marketing of products and services that are in continuous development toward an even more sustainable result and already today are greener, i.e., more environmentally friendly, than their conventional counterparts.

Last week I attended a swanky fundraiser: round tables laid with silver and steak, a stage flanked by American flags, dozens of uniformed Boy Scouts, and a few Secret Service agents for good measure. The concentration of power and money in the room was staggering, especially watching America’s elite sitting at the table in front of me. Former President George W. Bush delivered the remarks at the podium while tablemates H. Ross Perot and Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson watched. (You can see the back of Perot’s head in the picture.)   Among the high-profile attendees were oil tycoon Ray Hunt and U.S. Senate candidate Tom Leppert.  The keynote speaker was U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

What was a girl like me doing in a place like this?  I may not see eye-to-eye with some of these folks, but I’m not one to let politics stand in the way of an exciting dinner invitation.  Besides, if I’ve learned nothing else on the sustainability journey, it’s the need to appreciate different perspectives. We see what we want to see.  Keeping this in mind, I widened my scope beyond the WASPy set and scanned the diverse crowd of fathers, sons, wives, and mothers.  Seated together were hundreds of supporters of the Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations.