Going green always seemed like an expensive and difficult change to me. Organic this and eco-friendly that seemed like a great idea but I always felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. This was true until I started looking into revamping my home office. The more I looked into office supplies, the more it was evident that the hippest, most useful and cheapest supplies were all of the eco-friendly variety. So why not go green? I no longer have excuses and neither do you! It is more fashionable and better for the environment, not to mention you’ll be saving a pretty penny. Check out some of my favorite things to make your office a bit more eco-friendly. 

Four picks on ThisNext lists is not a complete and total groundswell – not yet – but it sure is nice to hear that some of the hype you hear out there might really be true. Such is the case with the Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicles that seems to be getting a lot of good press, here and elsewhere. ThisNexter Benjamin Kuo says, quite simply, “ Excellent mileage. Great statement.” Recently retired high-profile pro skier Kristen Ulmer admits that,  “What it says about my integrity alone is worth the extra $10K. Plus mine is black like an evil spaceship,” while adolfo f. says, “Low emissions, great gas mileage, so fresh and so clean clean.” Meanwhile, fitness authority Tom Rutlin sums it all up with, “It’s fun to drive and easy on the earth and my wallet. It’s the first real Twenty-first Century car.”

Few of us are actually building whole structures on a regular basis…but a whole lot of us find ourselves paying – directly or indirectly – for new sidewalks in front of our homes. Green Building Blog suggests looking into sidewalks made from rubber when it comes up again. As he says, rubber sidewalks offer a way to recycle some of the estimated 290 million tires thrown out each year in the U.S., and they do not constrict tree roots the way concrete slabs do.

Steve, a blogger from Sweden, has a great name for his blog: Inventing for the Sustainable Planet. But he freely admits he’s swimming upstream: most of the information he’s seeing makes him less than optimistic about the short-term survivability of the current society. He recommends The Long Emergency as a key book about the “converging tipping points” that may very well affect us all – not hundreds of years from now, but today, and day after tomorrow. (And the blog is filled with other references, ideas, predictions and – occasionally – even a little hope.)

Mark Brandon, a partner at First Sustainable, a green investment company and the force behind Sustainable Log, points out the Dell – once an “environmental pariah” in environmental computer manufacturing, has not become a world leader.  Dell is the first computer-maker to offer so-called cradle-to-grave recycling for its products. It doesn’t require a new purchase or payment – it’s any Dell product, no questions asked.  “Like many who live in Austin,” Mark says, “I once worked for Dell, and am proud of their new outlook, as it certainly differs from their environmental stance while I was an employee.”  You can read more on this and a great many other green issues on this thoughtful blog, including a fascinating essay on the ethics of turning food into car fuel while millions starve.

Of course there’s money to be made in green living.  That’s pretty much a ‘given’.  And Sean Gunther, who calls himself a “hybrid entrepreneur, environmentalist, and all around big thinker” has a lot to say about how that works in Musings of an Eco-Entrepreneur – and the people (like him) that are making it happen.  Shea founded Zoom Culture in 1999 at the age of 20, Renewable Choice in 2001, Skye Creative in 2005, recently soft-launched OffsetMyLife.com He blogs about green business, marketing, technology, and whatever else randomly catches his eye…including marathon running, and his friend VC-guy Brad Feld and his amazing treadmill-training machine the treadputer.  Great, wide-ranging information and positive energy here.

Irani of Green Diary has spent years gathering news about the worsening environmental profile of the planet…but she also brings a global and surprising perspective to issues, like this recent list of “green fiction” that runs the gamut from children’s books to T.A. Barron’s The Great Tree of Avalon Series.  (She also sneaks in some cookbooks and how-to’s — all to the good!).  Which makes Green Diary a good place to get information and inspiration.

Laura, Mattie, and baby Maxie put together a daily dose of great green products for urban living in this busy and straightforward blog.  Up right now: a hot beverage cup made from all-natural materails with a lining made from a bio-plastic made of renewable resources.  (And the used cups break down into water, carbon dioxide, and organic matter.)  Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and International Paper just announced it, and Urban Eco is one of the first to make it known.  Of course, they’re always one of the firstest with the mostest, greenly speaking.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s all well and good to say you’re going to build and maintain an organic garden…but how do you actually do it and have a life as well? Check out Earth Friendly Gardening. Here are the down and dirty details, from plant selection to mulching, from a Caroline Brown, a “freelance writer, rat race refugee, and gardener-in-training” in Rhode Island, who is documenting her own process of discovery about sustainable gardening and all that implies. It includes her about “the interconnectedness of people and their gardens with the earth, water, and sky. Here, I hope to share resources and information on how to garden in a more ‘earth-friendly’ (sustainable) manner. And you’ll also read a lot about sustainable farming and living.” You’ll find all that and more in this useful and rather touching blog.

Enriguqe Gili is a freelance writer about LOHAS, and in the process his blog, commonground, has become a nexus of good information on green living all by himself.  His clean, fast blog is a treasure trove of info and articles on the practical, modern-day effects of global warming, the changes in business, government, and living that are making things better (or making them worse), and suggesitons on what you can do about it.  And it’s not just the same-old same-old.  Recent entries have covered everything from Levi Strauss’ new organic cotton jeans to the disapparance of frogs to the re-emergence of the organic hot dog.   “Despite a pending crisis, we do have options,” he says.  “There are a plethora of steps we can take in this increasingly networked and technology- driven world to improve people’s lives and save the planet. Commonground provides links to news of people, places, and events trying to make a difference.”

Low-energy windows, the environmental nightmare of the Yangtze dam, an interactive map of hydrogen filling stations across the U.S., new of the world’s first toy car powered by hydrogen…news of the advances (and retreats) of alternative energy worldwide – hydrogen, solar and nuclear — are displayed regularly on IfEnergy, including info at the widest international level to practical apps that can improve your green living quotient right away.

Plenty Magazine, a group blog on all things green, covers everything from green beer to  to enlightening events…like World Water Day and this rather surprising exhibit on Alternative Power at, of all places, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.  (Bob Petersen, who started the Museum a few years ago, was the founder and publisher for many years of two-thirds of the world’s car-worship magazines, from Motor Trend to Hot Rod to Circle Track and back again.)  Maybe we really have reached a tipping point, if Petersen himself is looking at alternatives with anything other than disdain…

Part of green living is green eating, and Life Begins at 30 (despite the name) focuses on the connection between the two: eating foods grown locally and in-season.  This is the perfect time of year to do it, with rare and precious summer fruits available all around us.  And it’s a great time to learn about the Eat Local Challenge,a group blog written by authors who are interested in the benefits of eating food grown and produced in their local foodshed.  Life Begins at 30 is a major participant and proponent.

Here it is: a smart car that can actually get 60 miles to the gallon.  No, really.  This time it’s true.  Powering Down points out that theMercedes Car Group and DiamlerChrysler AG have just announced that the ForTwo  smart car will soon be available in the United States. And this isn’t a new piece of tech; the ForTwo is already in 36 markets worldwide and ahugely popular car in Europe.  “We are talking about a car that gets 60 miles per gallon. It also meets U.S. Dept. of Transportation safety regulations and fits 2 to a parking place,” Powering Down says.

 It’s about time…

Leading a mindful life — doing and not-doing, buying and not-buying intentionally — is all a matter of information. Stephen Filler, a NY-based attorney, has a blog that is literally crammed with information on living mindfully, from the larger issues of legislation and funding for green industries to the personal issues of single-house solar conversion. GreenCounsel says it’s all about “using the law to promote renewable energy, environmental business, and sustainability,” but it’s really more than that: it’s about access and right living.

GreenCounsel is also one of many green bloggers who strongly recommend Michael Pollan’s new book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as an awesomely eye-opening book about the mega-agri-world we live in. Pollan’s last book, The Botany of Desire, was a classic. His newest is, if anything, even better.

“Manufacturing” as a concept has earned a rotten reputation in the U.S. But the idea of building things is as old as humanity, and for a couple of centuries the United State built the best things in the world. There are number of socially concerned, mindful engineers and businesspeople who think we can do it again — and do it right, in a way that is supporting of the environment, intellectually elegant, and socioally responsible (big ideas!)

This movement goes under the rubric of “Lean Manufacturing” or even “Lean Thinking”. To quote LeanBlog, “One way of defining lean has two parts:

1. Eliminate waste and non-value-added activity (NVA)

2. Have respect for people”

The term began to Toyota, with their unique approach to design and management; now it’s an actual movement…with plenty of intelligent and insightful bogs that explore the field. Some of the best include LeanBlog, Got Boondoggle?, Evolving Excellence (from the editors of Superfactory, a Lean-thinking publication), and Seth Godin’s Blog. Seth is a writer and marketing consultant who’s a major proponent of ‘lean’ thinking and just plain common sense, as well as the author of the wonderfully named All Marketers are Liars (I can say them, I’m a marketer!).

“Lean” is just getting beginning to attract attention on the ‘real’ world. These are great places to start learning — and leaning — yourself.

As we’re all trying to make intelligent decisions about major purchases in general, a hybrid car seems like an obviously mindful alternative…and I’ve heard repeatedly that there are TAX benefits as well as good value (and good values) to be gained. What I didn’t know until greenr told me is that the tax benefits are temporary. This well-built little site gives frequent updates on living simple and smart — news and solutions on everything from wind power to hybrids to peak oil to renewable energy sources and more.

Greenr is the one who told me that the IRS tax credits are still in effect — contrary to some recent reports— but that after t he 60,000th hybrid is sold by your model’s manufacturer, the credit value starts getting reduced rapidly. As an example, 41,779 Toyota/Lexus hybrids have already been sold, so time is running out (and the discounts aren’t small — they’re in the $2,000 - $3,000 range).s

Norene’s Five Percentt is a gentle, thoughtful and useful site where San Franciscan Norene tracks her slow and well-meaning conversion to sustainable living. But she’s also put together a long list of really wonderful “calculators” — web sites that, with just a little prompting, will do everything from measure your footprint to tell you the level of waste caused by gourmet coffee cups to ten things in between. A whole new way of looking at: Carbon Use, Coffee Cup Waste, Commute Cost, Commute Impactm Ecological Footprint, Energy Star Savings, Energy Usage Impact, Greenhouse Gas, Home Energy Saver, Paper Grade Comparison, * Personal Transportation Impact, Pesticides in Food, Recycling Habits Impact, Tuna Safety, Water Usage Impact. An unexpcted but effective way make your life matter.

Sometimes the title is enough to get you interested all by itself, and A Suburban Treehugger certailnly caught my attention.. And when that’s followed by a description like “A feminist writer and pantheist Pagan on the path to self-sufficiency and sustainable living”…you gotta read on. Turns out that Kate West of Puget Sound really is all of the above, and offers great advice for becoming an activist, biodiesel fuel, and a great spot for free trade coffee. And she does it all in a personal and even charming way.

Now here’s a blogger who is truly committed and connected to green business. A marketing expert, a green business consultant, a committed participant of his own, Ivan’s clearly one of the “connectors” — somebody who knows everybody, and can hook you up pronto. How can you NOT like a guy whose three guiding principles are “hire smarter than yourself” , to simply “leave things better than when you found them”, and “design ecstatic experiences”…and who titles enthusiastic coverage of a recent green biz networking event as “One time, at Wine Camp” …