Sustainability? FUN!

The best thing about Dan Maher’s Sustainable Exchange shop on Novato’s Grant Avenue may be that there’s a “best thing” for almost everyone whether doomsday preppers, enviro-chic parents, or ordinary folks who want our earth to thrive. If you’re asking, “Who’s doing cool stuff for my future?” Sustainable Exchange can be an oasis for your green journey.

“I don’t want people to come in here like, ‘I gotta put up with a hair shirt for The Cause.’ No,” says Maher. “You can get a shirt here that’s 30% the carbon footprint of what you’d get elsewhere.” At the same time, “There’s a reason my motto is Delightful, Affordable, then Green. Green is almost a bonus, so it slips into the mainstream.”

Delightful

T-shirts printed with old-time Novato establishments’ logos. 100% organic cotton, fair trade kids’ clothing featuring abstract and nature-themed art inspired by Picasso and The Group of Seven. A hand carved walking stick with built-in flute and compass. Locally sourced body care products, ceramics, paintings, jewelry, dog treats, and more. Woke coffee beans from a cooperative that is majority Black, brown, queer, and trans worker-owned. Medicinal teas from a women-owned San Rafael herb store and healthcare clinic. Vegan snacks, such as American-made mushroom jerky based on a family vegetarian Buddhist recipe. For adventurous souls, Maher suggests a San Francisco company’s sustainable carnivorous snacks with grasshopper protein because they’re “easy, just chocolate balls. The mealworms, man, they’re hardcore, but they’re like toasty little Rice Krispies.” On the other hand, local treats that you might not be able to stop yourself from scarfing down include jars of a Novato-made Sonoma recipe for umami-loaded sautéed onion-tomato-anchovy sauce, or a vegan snack that’s a grain-free, nutty explosion of nutritious crunchiness created by a Marin health coach originally for a cancer-stricken friend. And so on…

How does Maher source products? He hears about them and tracks them down. Then, he does deep dive chemical and waste stream analyses to see if they meet his sustainability standards.

Maher’s environmental cred has deep roots. In 1993, he was one of the first 44 protestors arrested in Clayoquot Sound, Canada, for blocking logging trucks. “I was doing Adbusters work, drove by, asked what it was about, and didn’t leave for months. We thought no one would care.”But the protests attracted worldwide attention. “I did ten days in jail.” He was vegan. Veganism had another decade to go before being formally endorsed by North American dieticians. He and fellow vegans were able to get a vegan diet, however, perhaps because they were in “Canadian jail.”

Maher went on to work in the solar industry and teach university-level environmental science. “During last year’s power outages I ran the whole store off this battery and this charger,” Maher says, pointing. I was out on the sidewalk, charging people’s phones for them.” He considers retail to be a welcome change of pace. “If you’re going to teach sustainability, you can get burnout from confronting the grimness. This store is my retail therapy. It’s my activism.”

Affordable

Can you get it cheaper at Costco? The question compares apples to oranges. “I focus on stuff you can’t get elsewhere.” Maher is excited about making fair trade sustainable goods easily accessible and mainstream. 

 If you measure the cost only in dollars, mass-produced goods at big box stores can be unbelievably cheap. Unemployment is skyrocketing and incomes are cratering, so cost is understandably important to many. Often, however, there’s a high price to ecologies and the people who make those amazingly cheap items. Maher’s June blog post asks, “How much would you be willing to pay for American-made hair and skin care products that contained only a few recognizable, pronounceable ingredients? What if they were also cruelty-free, vegan, septic & reef-safe, scented with premium essential oils, and you could refill your used containers with them?” More and more, financially comfortable people are thinking about life cycles of the products they use and how that influences their buying. 

Green

How can you be sure that Sustainable Exchange purchases really support healthy ecologies and people systems? How does Maher’s business model mesh with sustainability?

Maher uses his Environmental Science background to vet everything he brings into the store. And he’s open about how much there is to learn about doing sustainability better, even for him.

“It’s a standard retail model, with the addition of refill stations. They’re an emerging trend.” COVID has caused changes. The first Novato Music/Makers Festival, an event that he co-organized to launch in May 2020, had to be postponed. After a moral quandary about shipping’s carbon footprint, he set up an online store for many ship-able products and now offers carbon offsets with every online purchase. Local delivery and curbside pick-up is available for bulk refillable household cleaning and personal care items. (Who’s up for biodegradable dental floss?) You can buy bulk hand sanitizer here in sizes from little refillable glass bottles to gallon plastic jugs.

Maher’s practices are a model for a cleaner future. “Everything that comes through the door is sustainable. It’s all delivered to our customers in an electric car.” Can Maher tell a customer about any product’s entire supply chain? “Yes. I did Sustainability Audits professionally. Some things are cloudier, so I have to bring them into the store for final checks.” Some non-local 100% organic cotton products, for example, have come wrapped in petro-plastic. The supplier hadn’t made that clear. Maher won’t buy from them again. “As I become better at sourcing, the store’s total stock and operational footprint moves closer to zero-waste, plastic-free status. It is around 95% on both counts at the moment.”

But Maher also aims to help regenerate local economies by supporting local makers. “Sometimes I have to make compromises to keep it local.” Plastic is easier packaging for small producers, who may be just getting off the ground.

Lawmakers and big business leaders, by contrast, are the most effective pressure points you can influence for collective action. Still, individual actions can also help you create new norms. Maher advises, “Your first line of defense is, don’t bring it in.” 

Top 3 Sustainability Tips for Individuals

1. “Refill your empties.”

2. “Buy used clothing. There’s so much clothing. Used, you can get good deals on quality. I regularly get practically new Merrells for $30, for example.” He suggests checking ThredUp, Poshmark, and if you want Vuitton-level designers, The RealReal.

3. “Reuse it or send it back.” There’s a TerraCycle take-back station for many personal care packaging items close by on Grant Avenue, in sustainable beauty store Beauty Heroes. For packaging that you throw “away” — which we now know ends up polluting somebody’s home — you can always call companies, Maher suggests, to ask if they’ll take back their packaging. If they don’t, your call tells them how consumers want them to do better. If you must bring petro-plastics into your home, make it only #1 or #2 plastic. 

Any suggestions for people comfortable with their level of sustainability know-how? “Are you closing that loop? Even Patagonia’s having a hard time closing the loop.” 

Is he still vegan? “I’m waste-free. My 9-year-old’s not vegan. I finish his food if he doesn’t eat it.”

REGENERATIVE FUTURES

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed with the enormousness of the task of overhauling systems that are making the problem worse. Take heart from Maher’s perspective, based on years of environmental activism: “You keep making your demands known and have a goal you’re working toward. You make incremental progress. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.”  If enough people take action, today’s kids might think of sustainability as normal by the time they’re parents themselves.