Josh Dorfman is the founder and CEO of Vivavi, a retail destination for sustainable fashion, furniture and furnishings, and host of The Lazy Environmentalist, a weekly radio show covering the emerging modern green lifestyle.

Sometimes a great idea is just waiting for technology, know-how and, well, the world to catch up to it. IdealBite is such an idea. Building upon the model made popular by DailyCandy, IdealBite delivers cool and innovative daily email tips for integrating environmentally sustainable products and practices into our modern lifestyles. The traditional environmental movement has faced two major hurdles in its efforts to reach a broad audience: 1) how to educate without preaching and 2) how to break environmental issues down to the individual level where they are less overwhelming and consequently more actionable. IdealBite's formula works because it offers enticing solutions for generating massive results in small, individual increments.

From a business model perspective, Jennifer Boulden and Heather Stephenson, IdealBite's co-founders, are onto something clever. Users sign up to receive daily tips and can also elect to review products and services of companies who want to understand the green consumer. The founders are building a company that enables consumers to be "in the know" about cutting-edge green products and services, while at the same time, they're helping companies gain the critical market research needed to thrive in the green marketplace.

I think this work is terrific, ingenious! It seems that the women who created this care deeply about helping us to make better, smarter decisions. If we start to adopt this learning into our daily choices, we can truly impact a better world for us and our future generations. Those in the know about how to be a more responsible consumer can now teach us to adopt these practices. I am eager to learn more!

Posted by: shari aaron on June 28, 2005 7:03 AM

This terrific-looking business model will obviously benefit not only the conscientious consumers and consientious companies (by bridging the gap between the two) but it will also make an impact on: 1) not-so-responsible companies who think protecting environment is not their job (by showing them that environmentally responsible products are here and we will only see more and more of them in future), and 2) consumers sitting on the sidelines who are not "green" yet but who could be swayed by the right kind of information and research (as is being provided by IdealBite) about better products and cool companies that sell those products.

Posted by: Amit Garg on July 2, 2005 12:40 PM