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Most people know Carol Moseley Braun as the former US Senator from Illinois or as former Ambassador to New Zealand, but for the last 3 years she has been busy building her company, Ambassador Organics, into an industry leader in the field of biodynamic food products.

DS: Ambassador Braun, please give us a little background on how you became involved in this new and unique area of foods.

CMB: I set out to restore a family farm as a biodynamic organic farm, and circumstances morphed that initiative into another one - Ambassador Organics - a food company specializing in biodynamic organic products. Biodynamic farming is the most sustainable agricultural system, using only on-farm inputs and natural herbs and farm products to heal and restore the soil. It is the original organic, and can be relied upon to produce Grade A, authentic organic food.

DS: Please explain the differences and similarities between organic and biodynamic agriculture and the food they produce.

CMB: Organic is the starting point, and biodynamic goes the extra mile in requiring attention to the growth processes and inputs. We believe it produces a more nutritious food product, and it has been referred to as “real nutrition that doesn’t cost the earth”.

DS: You know my wife and I are tremendous fans of your delicious tea, but can you please tell us about some of the other products you are currently taking to market?

CMB: Thank you, we are proud of the taste profile of Ambassador Biodynamic organic teas. We also have 3 types of coffee, 10 different spices, and an organic olive oil. (more…)

Our blog promised interviews with “difference makers” in sustainable packaging and I can think of few who have had more widespread positive impact than Rider Thompson. He has posted several of our articles on his Sustainable is Good and written articles about us, so now it is my extreme pleasure to now be able to interview him and share his work with our many friends and customers.

DS: Rider, can you tell our readers how you first became involved in this area and what prompted you to start your first blog?
RT: The idea to start Sustainable is Good actually came about as a combination of a number of my interests. I’ve always been concerned and interested in environmental issues – things like consumption and waste, use of resources etc. I come from a background with many ties to advertising and design so I’ve been exposed to that piece – Sustainable is Good is a combination of my interests all focused on a topic that brings them together – packaging. Nowhere do the worlds of conservation, design waste and consumption come together better than packaging. Packaging is a tremendous source of waste just look at your weekly trash to prove that point most of it is packaging of one sort or another. I think packaging is an area where companies/manufacturers, environmental advocates, consumers and government are beginning to come to together and this will continue in the years to come. Plus packaging is fascinating it plays such a significant role in marketing and a consumer’s decision to make a purchase. Today with an increasingly larger group of consumers factoring sustainability into their buying decisions – packaging is at the forefront and is one of the main areas we’ll see these issues play out. (more…)

To reduce paper consumption, The ECO-SAFE Foundation offers environmentally friendly printing alternatives for Web site visitors. I recently had a chance to ask ECO-SAFE founder Jason Schultz a few questions about his rapidly expanding program.

1. What is the overall mission of ECO-SAFE?

The mission is to develop and market technologies that help cut down on the volume of paper waste.

2. Your Web site says “We are creating more ECO-SAFE programs, social applications, and web technologies to pursue a greener web. Can you tell us about some of them?

Sure, we have a certified WordPress blog plugin that lets people use the eco-safe delivery methods right from their WordPress powered blog. Also we are finishing up a FireFox extension to give users a button on their browser which will allow them to download, email, or save a PDF version of that given web page. All of the PDF’s generated from the website are dynamic in that they preserve the links, form fields, and other media. This let’s people share the eco-safe PDF and then still interact with the content. We also have other great social networking apps in the works which people can use on their profile pages to allow for eco-safe PDF delivery as well. So, many things in the works. (more…)