Kaiser Permanente is prescribing big doses of sustainability in the sixth season of its $50 million Thrive ad campaign.

Two new ads – Emerald Cities and Connected – reinforce the health care provider’s commitment to the planet by dramatically reducing paper use – no small task for an industry long married to countless charts and forms. For most of us, being ordered to “Fill this out” is as rote as, “Hop on the scale,” and just as painful.

The Emerald pitch describes how Kaiser is allowing patients access to their own medical data via Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, the world’s largest civilian electronic health record.

Not just a handy core tool for patients, the online system is apparently saving thousands of trees annually. And, as of September 2009, Kaiser estimates its members completed six million doctor’s visits without using one gallon of gasoline. Guess they got the help they were seeking by going online.

“We will be entirely paperless by 2010 and these ads illustrate how we are doing our part in some way to help the environment,” I’m told by Lisa Ryan, Director of National Advertising at Kaiser. “Having a healthy environment creates a healthy community that helps individuals thrive.”

In these appealing ads, actress Allison Janney, the KP spokeswoman since 2004, drives home the point in her now familiar, smooth-as-a-surgical-glove delivery:

“By putting an end to paper medical records, we have ushered health into the digital age.”

To paraphrase the tagline: I think that I shall never see, a 62-page medical report as lovely as a tree.

“Our ode to trees talks to the fact that when you have online capabilities and a way to connect, it  does eliminate the need to drive to a facility or to an office visit,” says Ryan.

The Connected spot highlights the convenience of securely e-mailing your doctor, checking your medical records, reviewing test results and booking appointments online. This spares not just trees but the stress of being forced to listen to bad “music” after being placed on hold the second your doctor’s receptionist answer the line.

Kaiser clinicians are digitally connected to each other, which ultimately helps them stay connected to  members. The closing line of the ad summarizes, “At Kaiser Permanente, we believe that if knowledge is power, shared knowledge is even more powerful.”

Personally, I have struggled to attain the elusive power of shared knowledge while advocating for loved ones at hospitals where overworked, impatient doctors seemed agitated when pressed for too much info. Getting them to return phone calls was even harder. Then again, my family doesn’t use Kaiser. Maybe their doctors are more generous.

“Our primary care physicians are at center of who we are and we have great accessibility in person, on the phone and email,” says Ryan. “Ive had great experience with my own doc whom I have spoken to on the phone and through email. All of our new alternative ways to reach out and stay connected really help.”

I was glad to see the green connection extends to its Thrive website, which give readers tips on being “thriving communities” by buying locally-grown food, using fewer shopping bags, making their own cleaning supplies and avoiding exposure to chemicals in the home.

Ryan told me all of this effort, including the ad campaign, has been an extension of proven sustainability practices at Kaiser’s newly-built facilities, such as centers in Modesto and Santa Clara, using solar panels, pavement treatments to recycle run off water and friendly denim material in the walls as green insulation.

“The advertising is a great bridge between the sustainability message and the innovation of who we are,” Ryan  says. “It was a huge undertaking to go digital and to retrain the care staff, but it all speaks to our overall concern with the health of individuals and the community. ”

Prior to the green thrust, Kaiser treated us to daily ads on prevention, reminding our unhealthy nation that the more we exercise, eat well and get screened for diseases, the less we will have to spend on health care.

I think the ads resonate with the radio-listening masses facing poor health along with a poor health care system that has yet to be reformed.

With $50 million invested in the message, let’s hope Kaiser proves to be one of the needed cures.

Images: Kaiser Permanente, Wiki

Not since Scarlett O’Hara upcycled those curtains to make a crazy green velveteen dress have we seen such industrious textile make-overs on the screen.

Yes, Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel is the quintessential tweed rags-to-riches saga, in which a poor but clever French girl and her sister climb the ladder from the orphanage to the chateau by making great contacts at a tavern where they sang a funny ditty, entitled Coco (hence the nickname for Gabrielle Chanel).

I took away much from Audrey Tautou’s brilliant portrayal of the iconic designer, mainly a reminder why monochromatic, pared-down simplicity has always ruled in the chic department, and how this can be arrived at with the three R’s: recycling, reducing and reusing.

Coco’s early homemade ensembles were reconfigured men’s tweed suits and women’s work aprons – a collection you might spot on Etsy or other sites where crafty visionaries are putting their green spin on fashion. She takes an old tablecloth plaid dress and embellishes it with a white ribbed bib and cuffs. Her lover’s suits become her riding clothes. Sailor tops she spotted in Deauville inspire simple, blue and white striped cotton tees.

You’d never know this was the genius who would put quilted handbags, designer perfume and the famous pocketed Chanel suit on the map, becoming the true first lady of fashion.

Any Project Runway addict will love watching the textile transformations in the film which yielded both handsome and hideous results. You can just hear host and judge Heidi Klum snort, “It’s just so Octoberfest!”

Would the early Coco have had a chance on Project Runway? Certainly in a green competition, you know, one of those challenges in which designers are tossed newspaper, candy wrappers or high volume acrylic wedding gowns and ordered to remake them into something Tim Gunn finds has the wow factor.

The wow emerging in the extraordinary executions was the lack of wow, the architectural lines and basic black palette which allowed the most important aspect of glamor to shine through: the woman. That was the magnet for “Boy”, her painfully handsome lover who appreciated her gift, and that is what attracts a recession-strapped audience to the sullen-eyed heroine.

In a decadent and wasteful Edwardian society married to costumed corsets, frills and other excess, Coco proves women of real style can wear curtains and still be the belle of the ball.

Image: Time out

Perhaps the most compelling argument you can make to your teenage daughter about wearing a school uniform is that the pleated skirt looks totally amazing with Uggs. “Your legs look sooo long, honey!” Tell your son girls have always had a weakness for the classics. Google Gregory Peck.

Naturally, there’s a more substantive argument new generations will surely learn soon enough. Doing one’s part in the collaborative effort to reduce consumption outweighs the fleeting thrill of showing up looking ravishing in something new.

From a mom who can’t seem to pry her two fashion beauties away from the bathroom mirror in the morning, those navy blue uniforms associated with prep academies and no-nonsense parochial schools would be a godsend! I repeat, a godsend! I’m as much a fan of fashion as anyone (perhaps even more as a stylist), but it is not the end-all of self-expression. And don’t forget, there’s always the weekend.

While simplicity is my main motivation, public school systems across the country are instituting school uniforms for other reasons. In 1987, Cherry Hill Elementary in Baltimore, MD, was the first public school to institute a uniform policy. In 1994, the Long Beach Unified School District in California followed sailor suit, the first urban district to do so. The driving force was getting kids to concentrate on lessons, not labels.

In 1996, when state laws were being passed to give public schools the latitude to insist upon blazers, khakis and those adorable jumpers, President Bill Clinton applauded the notion in a speech, saying: “If it means that the school rooms will be more orderly and more disciplined, and that our young people will learn to evaluate themselves by what they are on the inside, instead of what they’re wearing on the outside, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear uniforms.”

Three years later, the New York City district, the largest school district in the U.S, adopted school uniforms for its half-million elementary-school students. In a PBS report, the president of the NYC school board was quoted saying the policy is “important to diminish peer pressure and promote school pride.” You go, school board guy. I like the way you think.

Perhaps more U.S. schools need a uniform mentality like the one they have in Japan, where many public schools have boys clad in black pants and gold-button jackets and girls in skirts with sailor tops and matching vests. Sure, those Harjuku teens tweak the ensembles by hiking up the skirts or choosing the baggiest black pants. They go nutty with the shoes and Edward Scissorhands haircuts and knee socks. Meantime, nothing gets lost in translation. At the end of the day, you’re still in a low-maintenance uniform.

Here in America, going green is a new arsenal in the school uniform debate. So what if it crimps your style, dude. It’s like good for the planet. Almost all schools, public and private, encourage the recycling of uniforms, passing on used garments like other hand-me-downs children outgrow. Considering most students own several sets of uniforms, they often fall into the gently-used category, which is especially great for the K-6 population.

Beyond the reuse and recycle angle, there’s a burgeoning organic and fair trade school uniform market. Tesco makes organic uniforms of cotton shirts, trousers, pinafores and polo shirts (above) that schools can opt for and help school children in Kenya at the same time – children who otherwise wouldn’t be able to go to school because they can’t afford a uniform. For each pair of Tesco Save the Children Trousers sold, the company will give a Kenyan child either a school skirt, shirt or pair of trousers.

There, doesn’t that feel better than a rack of new Juicy Couture dresses and Abercrombie jeans? Sure it does. Now turn off Gossip Girl and do your homework!

Okay, when I threaten to send my daughters to reform school, this is not at all what I’m talking about. This fanciful emporium at 3902 Sunset Blvd. (in the hip L.A. Silverlake neighborhood) is earning major gold stars, not demerits, for its forward thinking and commitment to responsible design.

Most girls would be thrilled to go to this ReForm School, a store and web shop founded by Billie and Tootie (see below) who met in high school and dreamed of opening a retail business focusing on the four R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle and rebel. Call it the Breakfast Club goes organic!

The irreverent duo peddles an artful assortment of hot home decor, including embellished vintage pottery by Esther Derkx, soft rocks and felted birds by Tanya Aguiniga and those hemp pillows we adore by mother-daughter team Shelly and Mary Klein of KStudio.

“Sustainable design is a huge focus for us and green living is important to us, not only in business but in our personal lives as well,” say the owners. “We wanted to be eco-friendly without being too in-your-face about it. The last thing we wanted was to be another shop selling all things hemp and bamboo (not that we don’t love hemp and bamboo).”

Featured Below: Improved Pottery by Esther Derkx, who screenprints quirky images onto vintage crockery in such a perfect manner; Handcrafted felted birds by L.A. artist, Tanya Aguiniga; Rain hemp pillow by KStudio; and a tea towel by Third Drawer Down, entitled Trivia’s Pursuit by Karla Pringle.

I also love the reclaimed wooden objects for home, such as the decorative stools by Zaishu made by various craftspeople around the world, and the seriously stylish retro-inspired Magno Wooden Radio by Singgih Kartono, who sculpts from sustainable wood.

Wait, the bell didn’t ring just yet. Class is not dismissed, you naughty kids! I want to let you know that this site also has some lessons to teach on pretty organic scarves, trinkets, bath products and books.

Just remember to bring your credit cards to class. You have to pay the price for the high quality and original design, but you will see, it is well worth the investment when compared to the cheaply made, mass-produced junk at those other schools. I give ReForm School an “A” for Atta Girl! Keep up the good work.

They’re called Eco Started Kits, but they’re more like emergency kits designed to heal what’s hurting our injured planet: greenhouse emissions, energy out the window, water down the drain.

For $97.50, you get a lot more than a Band-Aid. You get essential tools for an extreme green makeover, as well as a method for measuring and monitoring your carbon footprint as your transformation takes place.

What’s the emergency?

“Because of climate change, we need to get people moving as fast as possible,” says Andrea Nyland, the co-founder of Eco Hatchery, which makes and sells the kits. “We have about a 10-year window to make a difference, and all of the tools included are easy to use and will have a big impact.”

Nyland, an environmental consultant, partnered with Adam Borut to package three types of kits (including two new ones being launched next week) that can cut through the green “noise” that creates obstacles for well-intentioned consumers to start conserving and reducing.

The company surfed green websites to research the best products to go place in their kits. “We’re actually putting the tools in your hands, including booklets that list recycling directories,” says Nyland. “If you need to dispose of your old bulbs, we tell you how to do it safely.”

Among the must-have objects in the starter kit: an eco soy candle; reusable filtered water bottle; water quality test kit; two faucet aerators; three leak detectors; an energy monitor (find out which appliances are sucking the most energy); a compact fluorescent light bulb (premium Phillips Marathon 13-watt CFL that replaces a 60-watt incandescent); removable weather stripping; outlet and light switch sealers; water pipe insulation fitting tools; and an Eco Roadmap to help you identify additional savings.

“As you use the products in the kit, you can imprint information online and measure your success as you shrink your carbon footprint,” says Nyland. This is especially true in the home where she says energy use accounts for over 20% of all the carbon dioxide generated nationwide.

Nyland estimates users can reduce greenhouse emissions by two and a half tons per household the first year, saving about $260. In terms of water use, you’re looking at a savings of one gallon per minute.

Still, the kits aren’t geared just for households. Universities, cities and counties are encouraged to work as teams to reduce their impact.

“Energy efficiency is a hot item, especially with the current administration and the recession,” figures Nyland. “Whether you are motivated by the environment or the economy, you are headed to the same place.”

Eco Hatchery has set up the site so you can send the kits as gifts with a message. Among its best customers so far are real estate agents presenting house warming presents to clients.

In a couple of weeks, those thoughtful agents will be able to send a new Green and Healthy Home Kit ($50), which includes some of the items in the starter kit. Another kit being launched is the Energy Efficiency Kit ($60) with more gadgets for people focused on lowering those utility bills.

One of the best selling points is the packaging, which the company has tried to make as visually pleasing as possible, grouping products into sections and categorizing by activity. “Energy efficiency isn’t always pretty,” observes Nyland. “People rarely think of aerators as attractive gifts.”

A nearly $800 billion stimulus package passed by our lawmakers contains incentives for we the people not just to follow our hearts, but also good common sense in preparing for the future that awaits us.

The thinking is reducing energy waste and investing in alternative fuels go hand-in-hand with reviving our anemic economy.

The package goes a long way to target energy waste in federal buildings and homes across the country. $5 billion is set aside to help low-income families weatherize their living spaces with energy saving windows and improved insulation.

Another $4.5 billion is targeted for retrofitting government buildings to make them more energy efficient. According to Reuters, this could save $2 billion a year in lower energy costs. It also provides $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and electricity transmission projects. Renewable energy is energy we generate from natural resources, including sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat. Related to this is the package’s $11 billion in loan guarantees to build a “smart grid” to move renewable electricity supplies and build 3,000 miles of transmission lines ($400 billion less than what Al Gore proposed to make this happen). The package also extends tax credits for producing power generated from alternative sources.

Naturally, hybrids also are part of the picture, encouraging the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles through a tax credit of at least $2,500 for consumers. Car makers are give the nudge with $2 billion to sell advanced batteries for vehicles, and gas station service owners would see a credit for 50 percent of their cost for putting in alternative pumps that dispense ethanol and other fuel choices. Meantime, the research for more fuels would bet a boost from $3.4 billion for fossil energy study and development and $2.5 million for researching renewable energy. And we consumers would receive rebates for buying greener appliances via $300 million in state matching grants.

All of this amounts to converting the lip service of past legislation into real action. According to Wikipedia, investment capital flowing into renewable energy climbed from $80 billion in 2005 to a record $100 billion in 2006. The dramatic surge is attributed to climate change concerns, high oil prices and increased government support – all factors in creating renewable energy legislation that can actually make a dent on our road to recovery.

Image: Hammer51012

I’ve been walking my suburban San Francisco neighborhood for 13 years now, first as a newly married in jogging apparel, then as a new mom pushing a carriage, then one pushing a double umbrella stroller, and now, as an old mom yanking on a pug dog’s leash as I hike the steep hills. I’ve observed a happy change evolving in the landscape, from estates with thirsty sprawling lawns graced with European cottage-style gardens to inventive green designs using rocks or wild grasses as ground cover and gorgeous compositions of the heartiest plants around: succulents.

Who doesn’t love an exotic plant that stores its own water? Guess that’s why more homeowners faced with fat mortgages and recession woes are curbing the sprinklers and opting for low water-use plants.

We often associate cacti with succulents, and while all cacti are succulents, not all succulents are categorized as cacti. Both are native to regions such as the Southwest of Africa and can thrive in many environments and weather conditions. As eCountry Lifestyle points out, succulents are among the easiest plants to grow – and even make excellent potted indoor house plants, when positioned near a sunny window.

Succulents actually prefer small pots, even in the garden, which allows you to control the moisture level since over-watering can cause the roots to rot. A cutting can be planted directly in soil and it will develop roots and flourish.

Naturally stunning rock configured landscapes, such as those by Dane Easter of Mystical Landscapes (below), exhibit newly planted succulents in both shady and sunny settings. These hearty desert dwellers are accustomed to dry conditions and do best with varied soil mixtures, including coarse sand.

The aloe vera plant, sold at sites like Cacti.com, is one of the most familiar succulents since its properties often employed in natural skin remedies. Others include the jade plant, century plant (Agave), snake plant and flowering kalanchoe. They can add variety since they come in so many different colors and textures. They key is learning how to plant them in multiples to produce a balanced design.

For some helpful hints to get started with your own garden, check out Garden Time Online which will lead you down the path of selecting the right plants and placing them in your garden.

Images: breworks, Melir,

They said a dental office had to be a bland and benign, pastel-painted suite, where soothing visuals meant polyester contract furniture, framed school degrees and prints of egrets wading in marshlands. It’s all so relaxing until you inhale the fumes of old decay being excavated by a rotating drill bit and submit to the discomfort and dangers of a full mouth x-ray.

But at least one dentist isn’t taking what the old industry feeds us lying down. Dr. Namrata Patel has established the first serious green dental office in San Francisco, opening wide to the notion of improving the dental office environment as we know it. And guess what? Her patients are biting, all 700 of them!

“Even the air you breathe in the office is filtered,” she tells me on a break between seeing patients. “We have a lot of clients who are sensitive to chemicals, and when you come in you can’t even tell it’s a dental office. It doesn’t have that chemical dental smell.”

Instead, her million-dollar investment in the retail dominated Union Square district adheres to the best in LEED design, which calls for operating near mass transit and having a public parking garage nearby.

The architectural firm of Ruth and Kanieri walked Patel through the process of green modes and codes. The space emerges as a well-appointed, eco-smart Manhattan townhouse with responsibly harvested wood floors and architectural panels made from reclaimed vinyl and eco-resins – all insulated with organic acoustic fibers from recycled denim jeans. You can tell by looking at the hallway and waiting room (above), this is a pretty painless place for kicking back.

“If I’m going to live like this at home, I’m going to make my workplace the same because I spend so much time here,” says Patel, who left her village of eight families in India at the age of five and graduated from USC Dental school with honors. She says a green consciousness was ingrained in her as a child but she didn’t recognize it at the time.

“I thought my parents were really cheap because they wouldn’t throw anything away and all of our food had to come from the farmers market,” she remembers. “They weren’t green but our religion is Jainism and it means everything has value, even bacteria. Even the bacteria you are killing matters and you are conscious of that.”

Patel attacks bacteria with biodegradable sterilization solutions, which are used to clean the chairs after exams. Here are a few other steps she takes to remain sustainable:

Digital imaging technology replaces X-rays to reduce radiation exposure by 90 percent.

Instruments are cleaned with steam-based, surgical-grade sterilization rather than harmful chemicals and water use.

The environmentally-sound disposal of old mercury fillings through the installation of a special water filtration system. This offsets the health hazards from ingesting mercury vapors and prevents further pollution of local waterways.

Going paperless with digital signatures for patient payments and substituting disposable Dixie cups for rinsing with old-fashioned bar shot glasses.

Patel says her fees are in the 70th percentile, but the fact she prioritizes prevention should keep patients out of her office more often. “Not everyone is interested in the detail and care we give,” she says, alluding to her passionate lectures on flossing to offset wasting time and money on oral hygiene.

To that end, she has created a new website called Toothhugger, reaching out to consumers by dispensing free advice on everything from finding natural toothbrushes to battling stains from coffee (she tells us to sip our brew through a natural straw!).

“I got my inspiration in dentistry through my work with nonprofits, treating field workers who were poor and out of touch and experiencing a lot of pain,” she shares. “Being there for them made a big difference. They’d come back with oranges for me or a Kit Kat bar.”

Dr. Patel

It seems Patel is also making a difference in the industry. Will other dentists follow suit? Guess that depends largely upon the demand. I say, let’s raise our shot glasses and toast to it!

Not everyone has the space or budget for a large thermal wine cooler in their pad. Here’s a practical way to chill that organic vino and rescue the dying cork stopper industry at the same time.

The Cork Bark Wine Chiller from Bitters Co. is from and features unglazed terracotta wrapped with an outer layer of natural cork bark ($46). It cools your bottle by insulating it with these layers and lends some earthy style at the same time.

The way of life for Mediterranean cork harvesters has become threatened by the replacement of hand-harvested cork with cheaper, synthetic twist-off caps. So farmers in Portugal are brainstorming alternative uses for their product – like this wine cooler, as a way of salvaging cork production, which is organically farmed.

School children across America, like the this group from Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco, gathered to sing songs like This Land is your Land and watch a historic moment in our history. Cheering, high-fiving and hugging, they celebrated not only the inauguration but a victory they badly need as a generation that has inherited a planet in peril and debt from sea to shining sea. The reiterated message has been clear: If someone with Barack Obama’s beginnings can end up as president, we can accomplish anything.

“When I grew up in D.C. it was a segregated city and today, we are swearing in the first African American president of the United States,” Brandeis Middle School head Neal Biskar told the students and parents crowded in the gym.

Many of those parents, like myself, grew up believing we shared a struggle with Black Americans. Jews were instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, walking arm-in-arm with protesters in the South, and before that, forming the NAACP and Urban League. At the summer camps I attended, songs like We Shall Overcome and If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus were viewed as American anthems. Indeed, we shared a collective consciousness as survivors who have overcome great odds.

A day later, as I watched the national prayer service in Washington the music led me to tears, even though it wasn’t my music. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first woman to deliver the event’s sermon, urged the President to make the right choices, loving God by loving one’s neighbors. “Lead us there, Mr. President, she said. “That is a journey worth pursuing.”

While we all know the economy is his first stop on that journey, our country’s top environmentalists have suggested what should be done in the President’s first 100 days on the job to address our energy woes and move towards a sustainable future The green agenda, provided by Alternet, includes these steps:

• Stimulate the economy through investments in clean energy technology, energy efficiency, green-collar jobs, and training.
• Lay the groundwork for legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.
• Work with Congress to end tax incentives and subsidies for high carbon-emitting technologies and projects.
• Enact mandates that 20 percent of the nation’s electricity come from renewable power by 2020 and at least 30 percent by 2030.
• Instruct the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded companies to disclose the risks and opportunities they face from climate change.
• Institute financial reforms to require honest accounting of the financial risks that companies and investors face from climate change and other sustainability threats.
• Direct the EPA to issue California’s clean car waiver, allowing it and 18 other states to implement stringent fuel efficiency standards.
• Re-engage and provide strong leadership in the international climate negotiation process.

It’s easy to see our President has his work cut out for him, perhaps inheriting more on his plate than any other American leader. Still, we have to think about what those school children will inherit if we don’t get the work done. Loving our neighbors can mean so many things, including caring for the land as a global community and exporting good will and food rather than weapons to those in need. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall be the country we want to be.