A high school science class got Maggie Busser interested in animal behavior. She eventually got a degree in biology, but she decided she'd make a bigger impact "banging the drum" for sustainable living as a publisher. She distributes Balanced Life Magazine, free on the internet and at about 1,000 Northeast Ohio libraries, yoga centers, health stores and restaurants.
Busser, a presenter at the weekend conference, says Bioneers represent a $230 Billion dollar share of the American consumer market, some of it right in our own back yard.
Lohas: "It's part of the reason why we tend to either ***** ourselves or know someone who takes yoga, eats organic food. It's this trend of people paying more and more attention to the health of their bodies, the health of their communities, their families and the entire planet."
At the conference, Busser spoke about ways to lighten the environmental load of big life events like graduations, staff meetings and baby showers.
Busser: Basically every decision you make, you can evaluate and say, "can I make this better."
Busser's own wedding last year was celebrated with that maxim in mind. But one detail of what she calls her "big fat organic wedding" didn't meet the standard.
Busser: I love butterflys, so one of the first things I looked into was, 'oh, should I release butterflies?' I had a suspicion that was not going to be an environmentally sound choice. And while it may be pretty it certainly is not a very good choice."
However, her plans for a "green" wedding included making sure her wedding dress was made of natural fibers and could be dry cleaned in an environmentally safe process. She served food that was grown and prepared locally, and the reception was held outdoors at a camp her husband loved as a boy.
Busser says the $25,000 many couples spend on a wedding can boost the regional economy AND help the environment... IF sustainable businesses aim for what she calls a "triple bottom line."
Busser: "Which is people, the planet and your profits, and looking at how you can use your business to benefit people and the planet, and have that feed into your profit."
One such business is Spice of Live Catering. Owner and chef Ben Bebenroth (pronounced BEE-BEN-ROTH) gave a demonstration on how to cook, and how to find, local beef raised on grass. Beef isn't traditionally at the top of many bioneers list for food, Bebenroth admits, but he says where food comes from - including meat -- is a vital environmental and financial concern, even for people who don't eat it.
He says it takes a LOT of oil to raise just one head of industrially farmed cattle, because factory raised animals are fed corn.
Bebenroth: "We've been industrially farming corn since the end of WWII. It takes fuel to fill the tractors, to disc the fields, and seed the fields, and harvest the fields, then you get into the processing of corn and the transporting of it from the field to a grain elevator, to a cattle station down the road. And all of these things involve transport."
Bebenroth says buying food raised close to home eliminates much of the injury to the planet.
Bebenroth: "When we do a wedding for 150 people who are really hip to the sustainable wave, we can do 85 percent of the food from [within] 100 miles of the city, no landfills, this that and the other."
The tradeoff, he says, is that shopping for sustainable goods might cost 10 to 20 percent more.
Bebenroth says meat and vegetables taste better if he knows where they come from. The first hurdle is getting over the instant gratification of having red peppers in December.
Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3.