Green Festival Stays True to Its Mission

When you tour the grounds of an eco-fest like the D.C. Green Festival, you're bound to find a few oddities. I'm not talking about the mystical new ager selling CD's of manatee calls and throat singers. Rather, it is the entrepreneurial spirit that inspired some of the more interesting exhibitions.

One charming booth that caught my eye had a large handmade sign with purple letters spelling out " Mr. Ellie Pooh". This company makes paper out of the manure of elephants in Sri Lanka. A helpful illustration on the back of each package explains the process Eat --> Poop --> Boil and Sanitize (in case you like that kind of thing) --> Pulp --> Paper. Made of 75% dung, the paper products were soft, colorful, and decidedly un-gross.

Continuing on, I had flashbacks of the auto show I attended in the same building some months earlier. Is that a Hummer? That's right, the bane of every ecologically-conscious citizen was crammed between the electric bikes and the soy soaps. You might breathe a little easier knowing that this hungry metal beast has been modified to run on biodiesel. This just made me feel relieved and annoyed, all at the same time.

I saw nearly every green contingent represented here. There were companies touting vegan foods and snacks, clothing, technology products, and just about every thing else required to live a greener life. What I didn't see was greenwashing or companies that have only portions of their business considering sustainability. There was not one GM flex-fuel vehicle, not one representative from BP, or even a single company claiming that hydrogen as a fuel carrier is just 5 years off.

I don't know how Green Festival kept the eco-posers at bay, especially in the epicenter of special interest influence, but they pulled it off terrifically. Every food and clothing product was organic and each exhibitor seemed genuinely committed to a more sustainable world.

I felt like I could have closed my eyes and picked up any product off of any table and wouldn't have to worry whether it was as green as advertised. In many ways, this event wasn't just a convention for the ultra environmentally-conscious, but rather a model of what a sustainable marketplace might look like.