“Every spring works like a little hand holding your body,” a male voice intones from the darkness. “That level of relaxation can open up all your small muscles, and particularly that of our hip flexors. In Swedish culture, we know that the root chakra is where we store all those emotions or feelings. So once that is open, we can really be our true self.”
I’m not used to hearing the words of a yoga goddess in a clipped, professorial Swedish accent. And normally I would laugh at the assertion that belief in chakras is a Swedish thing, but the bedding salesman’s lyrical patter has lulled me into a helpless, meditative state as I sink deeper into the $400,000 mattress system.
Read moreIt’s been a banner few years for people who hate doing laundry. A slew of brands has arrived promising that you can wear their products for days, weeks, or months straight without ever putting them in the wash.
Read more“Zero waste” isn’t just an influencer meme, it’s a movement whose practitioners share the serious goal of sending as little to landfill as possible. They studiously avoid the plastic packaging, disposable coffee cups, and paper towels that many of us never give a thought to before stuffing in the trash. They are experts in refusing, reusing, and recycling.
Read moreIn 2018, the healthy meal-kit service Sun Basket swapped out their recycled plastic box-liner material for Sealed Air TempGuard, a liner made of recycled paper sandwiched between two sheets of kraft paper. Fully curbside recyclable, even when wet, it allowed Sun Basket to reduce its box size by about 25 percent and reduce the carbon footprint of shipping, not to mention reduce the amount of plastic in their shipment. Customers were pleased. “Kudos to your packaging folks for coming up with this concept,” one couple wrote in.
Read moreIn my snow day fantasy, I’m nestled under a blanket on the couch, my cat sleeping on top of the pile of mending. I’m digging through my box of spare buttons, picking out the correct one and serenely sewing it back onto my favorite sweater, pausing occasionally to sip from a hot mug of tea. So hygge, right?
Read moreCustomers say they want brands to be more environmentally conscious — but eco-friendly marketing campaigns fall flat.
Read moreIf we agree that mass-produced fashion is awful, that garment workers shouldn’t die making our clothes, that rivers should not be poisoned just for a cheap T-shirt, and that 1.715 billion tons of CO2 released a year (or about 5.3 percent of the 32.1 billion tons of global carbon emissions) is way too much, what can we do to change it?
Read moreMy journey down the rabbit hole started with this fact: “The global fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world.” You’ll hear this repeated at panels, on blogs and news sites, and anywhere else sustainable fashion is being discussed. Intuitively, it sounds true. But when I searched for the source, I couldn’t find it. No study, no official report. I asked every sustainable fashion industry expert I knew. Several said they would get back to me. A couple of experts pointed me to the Danish Fashion Institute, which in turn disavowed the fact.
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