Now you can get Mountain Valley Spring Water, Animal Farm Veggies, snacks from Green Plate Kids, and other locally-made food and drink at New Living! And, today, we got in our first shipment of locally made Kickin Kombucha! For a long time now, New Living has been a pick-up point for Green Plate Kids. With their help, we are now offering a wider variety of local products. It’s hard for us to not eat all of these delicious Zuchini-Chocolate Chip Cookies and homemade granola bars, but I think there will be enough for our customers!

Stop by and see what we have! Or, if you make or sell a local, green food product, talk to us about selling your product! We could make a great team!

To help him accomplish this goal, New Living provided helped him choose and install non-toxic flooring materials and no-VOC paint. While paint is very important to indoor air quality, Dr. Warner was especially excited about his new floors. Marmoleum, a brand of natural linoleum, was installed in this dentist’s treatment area. This flooring option contains materials that are harvested sustainably and also help inhibit the growth of bacteria and microorganisms, helping the environment as well as people.

Dr. Warner spoke passionately, stating “I wanted to improve the environment and improve health at the same time”, He says, “and as we know, those two go hand-in-hand”. By taking care of ourselves, we also take care of our Earth, a concept that is a driving force for Dr. Ben Warner, as well as New Living.

So now that you’ve designed and built your dream home, what’s next?

Why not take care of yourself and your home with healthy, environmentally-friendly cleaning products from Branch Basics, available at New Living.

This non-toxic cleaning line is made from all-natural ingredients, and it works wonders without unhealthy and unpleasant fumes. We sell Branch Basics All-Purpose cleaner and a Window and Glass cleaner. The former even comes in a concentrate to save you time and money!

There is a growing awareness that chemical-laden cleaning products may do harm to you, your family, and even your pets. From skin and eye irritation to chronic diseases relating to long-term chemical exposure, the EPA attributes many health and environmental problems to these common household items.

Why expose yourself and your family to harmful chemicals when you could choose Branch Basics?

PHOTO: Courtesy Threebrancheshealth.com

We at New Living (and our friends at The Green Painter) are looking forward to the opportunities of the coming year, and have made the following New Year’s Resolutions.

1. We will continue to connect discerning customers with the best, healthiest, and greenest home and building products on the market. As part of this, we will continue to hold all suppliers responsible for having a positive social and environmental impact, and keep an eye out for new companies and products that do the same. We will continue to believe that business can be better, and that we are all interdependent, as promised in the B Corporation “Declaration of Interdependence.”

2. We will work harder to share our mission with the world. Our raison d’être is to educate consumers about the health, environmental, and social aspects of home and building products, and to help grow the market for quality and holistically responsible products. We will also work with painters, builders, designers, realtors, manufacturers — and anyone else who shares our goals — to create good, green jobs through education and professional development.

3. We want to be a louder and better voice for changing the ways businesses operate. We are for incentivizing responsibility in all industries, and hope there will be a day when all businesses look at their triple bottom line — people, planet, profit.

4. We will take a step back and look at our own operations, and critically assess whether our businesses are run in a way that is good for the community, the economy, and the environment. We believe that small changes can make a big difference, and that this is the aspect of our lives that should “never stop improving.”

5. Finally, we will turn to the large and growing community that works to improve Houston’s health, environment, and community. We will reconnect with old friends and make new ones, collaborating to make next year Houston’s best year ever.

Happy New Year from your friends at New Living!

New Living hosting this pop up., hoping to support new mission-aligned stores in Houston selling local, green, and responsibly-made products.

Settlement Goods & Design will open its doors in January of 2012 at 3939 Montrose, Suite M. Come get a preview between December 16 and 18 at New Living!! There will also be a spiked organic juice happy hour between 6 and 7 on Friday the 16th!

RSVP here!

One of the biggest groups of customers we have is people who have recently purchased memory foam mattresses (such as Tempurpedic). Some of them are able to return their mattresses. Others choose to sell or trash these large purchases in exchange for something purer, healthier, and greener. Here are 5 things to consider before you buy a memory foam mattress.

1. The memory foam in these mattresses is made with petroleum-based chemicals. Many of our purchasers are against supporting these industries and creating a market for these unsustainable products. But many, many more of our customers simply are worried about the health effects of sleeping on a bed of petrochemicals. Think about it: discerning  consumers are moving away from using food wrappers, cosmetics, and other items made with petroleum by-products; Why would you choose to spend one-third of your life lying on one.

2. Walter Bader, founder of Organic Mattresses, Inc. sent a popular memory foam brand mattress to a reputable laboratory and had it tested for off-gassing. (The process by which something emits noxious gasses containing unhealthy Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs) What he found was shocking! He found that the mattress contained 61 VOC chemicals, many of them carcinogenic. Read more here.

3. This off-gassing is most often experienced by customers as a nasty smell. Google the words “tempurpedic smelly” and you’ll see thousands of customer complaints. Remember, of our five senses, scent has the most direct connection with the brain; If you’re smelling something, you are literally breathing in tiny particles of whatever you are smelling!

4. Synthetic materials like those that make up memory foam mattresses are often said to “sleep hot.” This is a very prevalent customer complaint for these brands. This is because synthetic fibers don’t “breathe.” Think of the difference between wearing cotton and polyester!

5. It doesn’t have to be this way! We have a complete line of organic, natural, and non-toxic mattresses for all budgets. We carefully vet our brands to make sure we are carrying the healthiest, greenest products out there, and you can be confident that we work hard to be the first line of defense against greenwashing. Stop by today and see our healthier, greener, non-carcinogenic, not-smelly, not-hot mattresses!

New Living has decided to begin stocking bedding and bath linens again, but in order to make room for new stock, we are selling our current stock at prices that are 30%, 50%, even 80% off!!!

We have luxurious and natural bedding in all sizes – from crib bumpers and baby puddle pads to King sized sheet sets! We are also reducing the prices on all of our instock bath items — wash cloths, bath towels, and bath mats!

Brands include OMI, Coyuchi, Under the Canopy, Nandina, Amenity, LOOP, and Luxurious Organics Bamboo Sheets. 

Many of these products would make great holiday presents for loved ones of all ages — or get spoiled this holiday season and buy them for yourself!

***These products are all unused, not floor models. Most are still in original packaging. In addition to selling many great items to make room in our store, we are selling OMI products that have opened or partially opened packaging. This is not because these items are damaged in any way, but because of the commitment that OMI makes — and we make — to the purity of those products; We can not sell these items at full price, even if the outer packaging is ripped just a little. This is a great opportunity to get these items at a steal as they are NEVER discounted otherwise!***

A Benefit Corporation – or B Corporation for short – is a new type of business charter that allows businesses to prioritize having a positive social and environmental impact. Traditional corporations are legally bound to serve the short-term interests of their shareholders, often making this difficult. While many large corporations in America and around the world have entire departments dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility and giving back to the community, B Corporations actually use their business model to achieve these goals. This idea is clearly catching on across America, with 476 B Corps in 60 industries grossing over 2 Billion dollars a year!

B Corporations are assessed and certified by a non-profit called B Lab, which looks into the business’ operations, products and/or services, and — very importantly — mission. Certified businesses are audited regularly to make sure that compliance is taking place, and that the B Corporation brand is protected. Business owners sign the B Corporation “Declaration of Interdependence”, promising that the business ”is purpose-driven and creates benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.” Several states have recognized the uniqueness and potential in the B Corporation model, and have passed legislation to support businesses making these efforts.

As you may know, New Living is proudly a B Corporation. We were certified in January 2010 and have been working hard to do justice to the certification ever since. We start by offering green, healthy products and services — from our organic mattresses and furniture, to our sustainable and recycled building materials, to our relationships with quality designers, architects, and installers. The Green Painter, a more recent New Living spin off sells non-toxic paints and coatings and houses a Certified Green Painting service. We diligently screen our suppliers and subcontractors to make sure that your projects are as healthy and green as they can possibly be! In our day to day operations, we are also very careful to be socially and environmentally responsible. We recycle nearly everything, support small, local businesses when possible, and have transparent and equitable business practice policies.

Education is also an important part of our mission – and an important part of being a B Corp. We have programs training Certified Green Painters, and we would love to expand this type of training program to other professions. We also regularly hold environmental and health education events for the general public. We are always planning and expanding our educational programming, and have made it a priority to make Houston the most informed population as relates to healthy, green living.

For more information on B Corporations, please see B Lab’s website or just stop by either store. We’d love to talk to you about it!