My wife has a journalism-business idea. Because she’s neither a journalist nor a businesswoman, though, she’s not likely to execute it, so I can share it with you. Her idea is to publish a newspaper that only reports happy stories. Dr. Andrew Weil warned years ago that everyone should take periodic news fasts, as the news tends to depress all of us. My wife’s idea would eliminate the need for such news fasts.

Like the general news, so much of the news in the world of natural products and sustainability is bad. Global warming. Child obesity. The demise of family farms. Big Box stores destroying Main Street. BPA from plastic leeching into our drinking water. Etc. Etc. With this backdrop, I love reading happy news from the world of sustainability. Here are two stories that could be published in my wife’s newspaper if she’d ever launch it.

Happy Story #1. This one comes courtesy of Barbara Damrosch and was originally published in the Washington Post, then republished on KitchenGardeners.org. In an ironic twist, housing developers, frequently responsible for destroying farmland, are becoming driving forces in saving that same farmland. A hot trend among residential home developers is to substitute golf courses with working farms. While home buyers have no obligation to work the farm, they get the right to do so. While few of these communities are fully sustained by the community farms, these farms enable residents to produce an increasing share of their produce as locally as can be, and farm-centered activities are bringing residents of all ages together. And these farm developments, which range in size, are not hippy enclaves. Bundoran Farm, near Charlottesville, VA, preserved 90 percent of its 2,300 acres, including orchards and cattle pastures. Prairie Crossing, in Grayslake, IL, an easy commute to downtown Chicago, has a 90-acre farm and a “learning farm.” Agritopia, in Gilbert, Ariz., is smack in the middle of an urban area, with an ambitious farm project underway. Other so called Conservation Communities are popping up outside Atlanta, in Vermont, in Northern Virginia, and elsewhere. What a great development (pun intended) for the local and farm movements!

Happy Story #2. This one comes courtesy of TreeHugger. In what TreeHugger calls possibly the most effective tax ever, Washington, D.C.’s $0.05 tax on plastic shopping bags has driven down the number of bags handed out by city stores from a 2009 monthly average of 22.5 million to just 3 million in January 2010, a staggering 19.5 million bag reduction. And to make this news even sweeter, the $150K in tax proceeds is earmarked to cleaning up the Anacostia River. A reduction in harmful plastic bag usage and proceeds going toward an environmental cause important to local voters! Can anyone out there argue the merits of this tax?

What good news or success stories have you seen lately in the world of natural products or sustainability?

Me and a mid day treat

Most of us drink coffee – lots of it. (I take mine straight up. Black.) And coffee is a hot topic with regard to sustainability. The sustainability issues cover the life cycle from how coffee is produced to how it’s consumed to how it’s disposed of.

Working backwards, the issues aren’t too confusing. The best way to dispose of coffee grounds is to compost them. Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen and aid bacteria in turning organic matter into compost.

The consumption issue is also relatively easy. The main thing is to drink our coffee in durable mugs, not disposable cups. Carbonrally.com claims that Americans drink 100 billion cups of coffee annually, of which 16 billion are in disposable paper cups. Placed end-to-end, these cups would wrap around the earth five times and weigh around 900 million pounds, equal to the combined weight of 927, 747 airplanes. The estimate for 2010 is 23 billion disposable cups of coffee in the U.S. To make those 23 billion cups, 9.4 million trees will have to be cut down to harvest the 1.4 million tons of wood needed, equivalent to 352 Central Park’s worth of trees. The astounding stats go on and on, but the last one I’ll provide is that it’s estimated that 4 billion pounds of CO2 are released into the atmosphere during the production and distribution of coffee cups. If a single, mature tree can absorb an average of 48 pounds per year of CO2, it would take 83.3 million trees to soak up all the CO2 released in the cup-manufacturing process annually. It’s pretty clear: disposable cups = not good.

But what about coffee production? What should we really care about? Let’s start by discussing 3 common terms frequently associated with coffee. What do they mean?

Organic: The easiest one. Organic coffee is grown without the use of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilizers. It makes for a healthier coffee for us to consume, and it’s safer for the growers and the populations in coffee-growing regions.

Fair Trade: Per Fairtrade.net, “Fairtrade is an alternative approach to conventional trade and is based on a partnership between producers and consumers. Fairtrade offers producers a better deal and improved terms of trade. This allows them the opportunity to improve their lives and plan for their future. Fairtrade offers consumers a powerful way to reduce poverty through their every day shopping. When a product carries the Fairtrade mark it means the producers and traders have met Fairtrade standards. The standards are designed to address the imbalance of power in trading relationships, unstable markets and the injustices of conventional trade.”

Shade Grown: Julie Craves, who blogs at Coffee and Conservation, writes in detail about the intricacies of shade grown coffee. Coffee has traditionally been grown in forested, shaded areas, which, “discourages weed growth, may reduce pathogen infection, protects the crop from frost, and helps to increase numbers of pollinators which results in better fruit set.” Shade grown coffee is also generally believed to taste better, as longer ripening times yield more complex flavors.

In an effort to drive faster, larger coffee yields, some coffee producers have taken to growing coffee in sunny conditions. Beyond the adverse impact to the coffee quality, growing in sunny conditions reduces the biodiversity of the coffee plantations. This has led increasing numbers of consumers to value shade grown coffee.

Organic.  Fair trade.  Shade grown. You decide for yourself how important each is to you.

As Lisa and I share a passion for coffee, we’ll be happy to wax poetic on it more later. For now, kick back with a cup of Larry’s Beans or Zoka Coffee or Cafe Altura and enjoy. In a mug.

It was great to wander the aisles of Natural Products Expo West this weekend. Richard and I spent time with some of our current sellers (Nicobella, Eco-Me, Bag the Habit and others), met some soon-to-be Abe’s Market sellers (I’ll keep you in suspense for now), and spoke with some companies that may or may not sell on Abe’s, but they have great products and inspire me. Of the hundreds of companies I spoke with, here are are a few non-Abe’s sellers that stand out for me:

Preserve A pioneer in the natural products world, Preserve makes stylish, high performance, eco-friendly products. Using innovative methods, they turn used materials into razors, colanders, cutting boards, tableware and more. Cool concept. Great design.

Innovative Kids Books, games, puzzles and toys that help parents and kids cut through the clutter that makes up today’s over-marketed toy market.

Wow Baking Company All-natural wheat-free and gluten-free baked goods. These moist and chewy baked goods pack taste that rivals any traditional baked goods. You’d never guess them to be wheat-free and gluten free.

Vermints  All-natural mints from the Green Mountains of Vermont. Taste great. Fresh packaging with fun design. Organic, gluten-free, nut-free and kosher.

I opened a can of tuna on a backcountry camping trip a few years ago. As I went to drain the tuna juice from the can, a fellow hiker grabbed the can and proceeded to suck the tuna juice straight from it. “What are you doing?” he shrieked. “That’s perfectly good water. This world doesn’t have enough water that you can afford to just waste it like that.”

That’s extreme! Even for a highly environmentally conscious guy like myself.

We talk a lot at Abe’s Market about how to make going green fun. Richard posted on this recently.

I love this TreeHugger piece and short video on Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. The guy rides his bike to work every day. Because he’s a tuna-juice-sucking fanatic? No! His explanation: “I started biking to work for a bunch of different reasons. Ultimately, I bike now because I like it.”I love that simplicity!

Lately, I’ve been gratified to witness a recurring great example of recycle and reuse all in one. Obviously, we recycle everything in my house. We’ve been sending toilet paper rolls, empty boxes, etc. to my 4-year-old daughter’s preschool. Within days, those same items return home in the form of birdhouses, horns and more. It’s fun for us to watch that virtuous cycle in action.

I’ll add some more of my own family’s fun (and simple) green activities soon. For now, I’ll rely on this list from iVillage to get things going.

Do you do anything more than drink tuna juice to make going green fun?

As a longtime marketing guy, I’m fascinated by what drives product successes and failures. Classical marketers will cite the necessary 4P’s:

• Product – needs to be a good product that fills a consumer need
• Price – needs to be perceived as fair
• Place – has to have reliable distribution where shoppers shop
• Promotion – must be marketed in a compelling way that speaks to the target audience

But there’s more. What is it that drives some products to explode on the scene ala Rubik’s Cube, Beanie Babies and, more recently, Webkinz?

While we don’t reveal Abe’s Market sales figures, I can say that we have a runaway hit. Multibox mania is running wild. After quickly running out of inventory on our first order, we compiled a long waiting list of wannabe Multibox customers who wanted to be notified when we were replenished. We just listed the product back in stock a few hours ago and already it’s flying off the shelves.

So, what is it about Multibox that makes it a soon-to-be cult classic? Sure, it easily checks the box on the 4P’s. My kids love it. Parents love it for its combination of design, function and education. Parents magazine coverage certainly doesn’t hurt. And Green Lullaby, maker of Multibox, has a compelling story of a momtrepreneur who develops safe, environmentally-friendly toys and furniture for her own kids, then turns it into a business.

But what’s really driving the mad rush over and above a normal hot product? And why don’t more toys (or toy makers) know the secret formula?