Here are links to some of the best sustainability websites with great information, apps and fun!
Contents
Know Your Personal Footprint
Take this quiz to find out your Ecological Footprint: How much land area does it take to support your lifestyle? Discover your biggest areas of resource consumption and learn what you can do to tread more lightly on the earth.
National Geographic Water Calculator: Take a tour with us through your home, yard, diet, and transportation and consumer choices. Then, pledge to cut your water footprint and help return more water to rivers, lakes, wetlands, underground aquifers, and freshwater species.
Climate Culture: A fun and personal utility to help you make smarter choices that reduce your impact on climate change and save some cash.
No Impact Project: A project to empower citizens to make choices which better their lives and lower their environmental impact through lifestyle change, community action, and participation in environmental politics.
Make Better Choices
Shopping
Good Guide: Find healthy, green, ethical products according to scientific ratings.
Greener Choices: Launched by Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, this is a web-based initiative to inform, engage, and empower consumers about environmentally-friendly products and practices.
Eating
Eat Well Guide: Find local, sustainable, and organic food.
Seafood Watch: Choose regionally, ocean-friendly seafood wherever you live or travel.
Local Harvest: Find local farmers and farmers’ markets.
Farm to School: A program that connects schools (K-12) and local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting local and regional farmers.
Traveling
National Geographic Guide to Sustainable Travel: 50 real ways to journey responsibly—and still have fun.
Building/renovating
Database for State Incentives for Renewable Energy: DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility and federal incentives and policies that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.
US Green Building Council: USGBC is a non-profit organization; they created and run the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building rating system.
Energy Star: A joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.
Global Green USA: The American Arm of Green Cross International which was created by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to foster a global value shift toward a sustainable and secure future by reconnecting humanity with the environment. In the United States work is primarily focused on fighting global climate change through green affordable housing initiatives, National Green Schools Initiative, national and regional green building policies, advocacy and education.
Recycle (After You Reduce and Reuse)
Earth 911: Recycling is a simple way that you, as a consumer, can help out the environment, create a profitable market for recycled goods and help preserve natural resources from being depleted.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Collecting used bottles, cans, and newspapers and taking them to the curb or to a collection facility is just the first in a series of steps that generates a host of financial, environmental, and social returns. Some of these benefits accrue locally as well as globally.
Learn About Green Business, Investing, or Get a Green Job
Opportunity Green: Opportunity Green is a yearly conference that inspires a collaborative culture of new thinking and unconventional ideas that pushes change in unexpected ways.
Net Impact: An international nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire, educate, and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.
Global Reporting Initiative: A network-based organization that pioneered the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework. Goals include the mainstreaming of disclosure on environmental, social and governance performance.
Green for All: Dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through a clean energy economy. Work in collaboration with the business, government, labor, and grassroots communities to create and implement programs that increase quality jobs and opportunities in green industry – all while holding the most vulnerable people at the center of our agenda.
Investing
Acumen Fund: Mission is to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas. This is where dignity starts – not just for the poor but for everyone on earth.
Social Venture Network: Connects, supports and inspires business leaders and social entrepreneurs in expanding practices that build a just and sustainable economy.
Investors Circle: A network of over 150 angel investors, professional venture capitalists, foundations and family offices who are using private capital to promote the transition to a sustainable economy.
Green jobs
Get Involved in Your Community and Vote
Sustainable Communities Online: Initiatives and resources selected to help you learn about ways to make your community healthier, safer, greener, more livable, and more prosperous.
Institute for Sustainable Communities: Gives passionate, committed people the tools and skills they need to inspire active citizenship, protect the environment, and take on climate change.
Social Justice Learning Institute: Dedicated to advancing social justice by empowering communities through education, training and programs that help to address their needs.
Local Governments for Sustainability: ICLEI is an association of local government members committed to sustainable development, provides technical consulting, training, and information services to build capacity, share knowledge, and support local government in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level.
USA.gov: Contact information for state and federal elected officials, let your representatives know what you think.
Smart Voter: Provides nonpartisan information on elections and voting. Goal is to offer the complete list of all contests on your ballot including local offices.