Living green means making choices in our day-to-day lives that are healthy for people and the environment. These practices can save us money and time while improving our health and overall quality of life.
The MPCA living green program provides information to Minnesota citizens about living green though our monthly e-newsletter, the Living Green Expo, the Eco Experience at the Minnesota State Fair, and other outreach efforts.
The big picture
Making green choices in our day-to-day can be complicated. That’s why we provide specific tips and resources for you—ideas that we believe are good choices for the Minnesota environment.
Our tips are based on the idea of low-impact living and long-term sustainability. Low-impact living reduces environmental and social impacts by using a product or service and by adopting a behavior that has the following qualities:
Reduces energy and uses renewable sources
Conserves and protects water
Is less toxic
Is derived from plants
Is organically grown, sustainably produced
Uses reduced packaging
Is durable, reused, designed for disassembly
Contains recycled material
Is locally/regionally produced
Is socially responsible
By living green at home and creating demand for sustainable products, we help our communities move toward long-term sustainability. Two well-accepted sets of sustainability principles—the Natural Step and Cradle-to-Cradle frameworks—establish conditions for how we can develop our products, services, our individual lives, our economy, and our society in a truly sustainable manner. If you are interested in learning more about these principles and how they are being applied in Minnesota, we recommend starting with these sites and organizations.
