By GinGer BrAshinGer P
icture yourself in a green cape and tights with a gigantic “EC” for EnviroCitizen on
your chest, flying over Mother Earth and saving her from certain ruin. That’s an image that everyone should be able to relate to, according to Mike Valenti, founder of
EnviroCitizen.org., an online source of, well, everything eco-friendly. “I think it’s important that we all
become involved because we need to realize we have a responsibility to our generation and to future generations to leave the earth a better place than we found it,” Valenti said. Sound like a tall order? It’s not, if
your first step is to take a gander at what EnviroCitizen has to offer. With a website reminiscent of the
Whole Earth Catalog, conceived by Stewart Brand in the late 1960s,
EnviroCitizen.org grabs its visitors with a virtual surround sound of information and purchase options, all designed to help us “live more lightly on the earth.” The message is lightly given, as
well. There’s not a “You should,” but there’s definitely a “You can” attitude. Everything from composting
supplies to batteries to RVs to cleaning products and anything
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imaginable in-between is offered in eco-friendly terms. And it would be fairly easy—and just as lucrative, no doubt—to stop right there. But Valenti and his wife Theresa have taken the company to another level, offering to educate the consumer through featured articles, links to local “green” providers, and databases, to name a few. In 2008 they decided to “create a
comprehensive e-commerce website combining robust commerce, content, and community.” Research had shown them that although each of these existed in isolation on the net, no one had effectively brought all three together. “We thought it would be neat if we
could feed and clothe our kids and save the planet at the same time,” Mike Valenti said, “with the three ‘c’s’ all under one web address.” While the product line and
resources definitely cover the commerce and content, an EnviroCitizen forum offers a hearty sense of community. Visitors can tap into EnviroCitizen through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well. Valenti, who has gone out into the
community to talk to students about sustainability (“The second graders are the toughest, but they get it.”), walks the walk when it comes to living an eco-friendly existence
himself, but he is totally realistic about getting everyone from point A to point Z. “It’s not too late for anyone,”
Valenti said. “There are people feeling guilty about how they’ve lived their lives who want to atone. That’s why we have such an emphasis on education. People are hungry for information about what they can do, but they’re not always sure how to execute it.”
EnviroCitizen.org offers an
opportunity online to quantify your carbon footprint for any number of activities and then calculate how many carbon credits to purchase in order to offset that footprint in an affordable way. “I’m not meeting a lot of brides-to-
be who get excited about a virtual wedding,” Valenti laughed. “But, with the carbon credits, they can walk down the aisle knowing they’ve done absolutely everything possible to have a green wedding.” The Valentis feel they’ve done
everything they can to allow visitors to their website to engage in an eco- friendly existence in a realistic, meaningful way. “This is an entirely self-funded business,” Valenti said. “We basically took our entire financial existence and put it on the line. And you only do that if you deeply believe in it.”
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