Interview With Graham Hill Of Treehugger

Treehugger is one of the leading environmental consumer publications on the web. With a mix of product review and eco-matter analysis, it’s one of the most accessible blogs on the web - green or not. We asked him a few questions about his blog and his other ongoing concerns.

What do you do?

My goal is to push sustainability mainstream. Two ways to help us get
there
that I find personally interesting are media and product design. So I
count myself lucky that I am able to focus my life’s work around these two things.

In terms of product design, we currently have one product and are
working on a long list of others. Unfortunately, my green design skills were not
where they are now so my first product is ok sustainability wise but is not
an all-star. Fortunately for me, it has done very well and as such helps support
treehugger.com and my new sustainability focused product development.

The product is a ceramic cup. I always loved a particular deli
take-out cup
in New York and one day got to thinking about how such a great design
might be
memorialized since I saw it as a true New York icon. I was doing
ceramic work
at the time so I came up with the idea of replicating it in ceramic. I
built prototypes
and then negotiated an exclusive license to make it. Working with the
help
of my girlfriend, Olga Sasplugas, we have been able to get it in over
70
design/gift/ museum stores such as MOMA, New York City Store, The
Future Perfect,
Mxyplyzyk and Alphabets. It’s done very well for us. I think it works
because
the cup means a lot to New Yorkers and it’s one of few classy and
useful
souvenirs. The site is http://www.wearehappytoserveyou.com.

We’d like to keep our other sustainable projects top secret for the
time being but in short,
they are all sustainable designs with sleek, modern aesthetics and are
being manufactured
by ethical factories.

Tell eco.psfk readers about your site.

TreeHugger has been something that has been germinating in my mind for
many, many
years. I see the environmental degradation of our planet as a serious
problem and
I believe that it will take all sorts of approaches for us to get
things back on track.
Here’s mine:

We believe there are a ton of people like ourselves: shallow and lazy
but with hearts
in the right place. There are two main factors that we believe prevent
sustainability from
crossing over into the mainstream.

The Granola Factor. We love the hippies. They have been
the backbone of the environmental movement
for 40 years. But that market has been served and unfortunately the
term "environmental products"
brings up images of tie-died clothing, dirty dreadlocks and old
birkenstocks. For sustainability to go
prime-time, it has to be modern. It has to be sexy. It has to be hip,
not hippy.

The Convenience Factor. Only the most die-hard enviros
will spend the hours of
research required to find an aesthetically workable yet
environmentally friendly
chair, shirt, renovation material etc… Most of us have good
intentions but most
of us don’t have a lot of time nor patience. Sexy, environmental
solutions need
to be convenient for us to locate and purchase.

So…TreeHugger was created to aggregate sexy environmental solutions
into
a large, daily updated, well categorized, easily searchable archive.

There’s a green revolution happening! We focus on the "YESes"out there
and we keep it fun. We bring reports from the front-lines to the
reader such
that they get a solid green education and find it easier to change
their lives
and inspire others to do the same. And in doing so, we support the

many companies, people and non-profits that make up the sustainable
industry.

How does work and the site overlap?

The cup isn’t of a high enough environmental standard yet that there
is clear overlap with TreeHugger but our goal with new
products/services that
we develop is that they will be worthy of very high marks on
TreeHugger
and thus could be sold or marketed via a separate, clearly defined area
on TreeHugger.

Our hope is that with advertising and some of my highly sustainable
products that we can get TreeHugger to be self-sustaining financially.
It has cost me a very significant investment of time and money
to get it to this point and my hope is that in the next 6 months that
we can get things to break-even and to start paying back my initial
investment.

Treehugger