Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Oakcally Sourced: An Isolated Exercise?

Alright. My last post, only hours ago, was an effort to steer my purchasing to local more sustainable businesses.

After poking about the internet a bit, I found a few organizations that are trying to connect locally sourced/owned products and services to consumers. The problem is of course, that many people just wouldn't know these organizations existed unless they used very particular search terms. Seriously. They're like, deep internet or something.

There are even rating systems and different support organizations for these kinds of businesses.

And they really matter...

Honestly... they do...

If only someone KNEW about them. Because frankly, they suck at getting the word out. And if the word isn't out, then it's going to be difficult for these things to catch on as far as becoming the new standard.

Maybe this knowledge is isolated in little demographic pockets consisting of aging hippies, edgy hipsters, militant activists, and struggling artists. I'm sort of the last, but hardly any of these other categories. This could be why I didn't know...or why no one I know mentioned these things to me (or maybe these things just slipped their minds - I can give a few of my more adamant socially responsible business type friends the benefit of the doubt).

Now I'm feeling like some time needs to be spent on this... not the way I originally expected, but on discovery and on voicing the projects that are happening on this front. Because if I didn't know (and I consider myself to have at least a toe stuck in this quagmire of crunchiness) then there are a WHOLE LOT of other people who don't too.

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