Beautiful Planet

More from the annual Initiatives in Arts and Culture conference in NYC where many fashion companies presented interesting information about what they are doing to 'green' their businesses. I will discuss some of these initiatives in a live radio segment of How Green is Your Closet? on Wednesday, December 17th and post the show in several podcasts over the next several weeks. This week I'd like to give props to Macy's for Beautiful Planet.

Macy's is hosting a shop-within-shop concept in the cosmetics area called Beautiful Planet with an online catalog as well. My colleague and I made a trek to the Herald Square location and we were quite pleased overall. Beautiful Planet brings together many environmentally friendly beauty brands: Terre d'Oc, Origins Organic, Care by Stella McCartney, Pangea Organics, Farmaesthetics, Burt's Bees and Organic Apoteke.

The shop is created with environmentally friendly materials including renewable bamboo, recycled post-industrial eco resin, recycled steel and aluminum, low VOC paint, rescued tree limbs and renewable coconut shell tiles using sustainable construction methods to install the shop as well.

Packaging and marketing materials are produced on recycled paper. On our visit we found an exceptional sales person staffing the shop. She was well-educated (self-study of pamphlets and talking to the brand reps) on each of the brands. She discussed each brand story with us, suggested some wonderful products for each of us and pointed out some nice gift options.

There is a nice article and a picture of the Paramus shop on nj.com for your viewing pleasure.

Macy's is a huge company with many opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint. This is a positive step in the plan and you will hear more about their plan next week on my podcast.

till next week -- Restore, Refresh, Recycle and Renew