Scouting for Sustainability
Sus-out.com is meant to be a little black book of all the great sustainable (and this is a huge category here), organic, reclaimed, salvaged, vintage, and second-hand materials, fabricators, suppliers, designers and inspirations available to us here in Northern California. I go sourcing, talking to people, reviewing their offerings and cataloging them so you can stop here first when looking for local sustainable options.
I’m an interior designer by trade, founder of scout sustainable design, and spent my career being aware of what’s out there in the world of sustainable materials and practices, but it’s been mostly brought to me by people trying to sell it to me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – we’re all in the marketplace, let’s be honest. The problem is when you’re getting “normal” things, like vinyl flooring, being pitched to you as “green”. The big old school companies are trying to make normal products green where the small, local, innovative companies are trying to make green products normal. We’ve got a wealth of these resources locally, but sometimes you’ve gotta know somebody who knows somebody to hear about the local guys in the first place. Well I’m here to be your Somebody who strives to know everybody who’s got a sustainable product or service to offer for the built environment. This is not sales. I don’t have any vested interests in the things I’m writing about. No, I am just a designer doing all the leg work, following all the leads, and hopefully providing a revelation here and there to make your sustainable design project easier to specify and just a lot of fun to create. I love design and designing and I have sustainability built into my DNA, this source scouting is what I was made for!
As I build this list of green Northern California people, places, and things I’ll be scooting to and fro on my Vespa getting 50-70 mpg.
By the way, I am a practicing interior designer. Need a designer with style and sustainable sensibility? (Two thumbs pointing at me) I’ve got great resources…
Certified Interior Designer, National Council for Interior Designer Qualification (NCIDQ)
Certified Green Building Professional (CGBP), Build It Green