Eco-focused retailers in New Orleans´s Magazine Street have recently set up a new Green Light District
A handful of new stores each focused on eco-minded fashion, design and lifestyle have congregated in a walkable two-block stretch.
“These are some of the funkiest blocks of Magazine,” said Nomita Joshi-Gupta, an urban planner by trade who, with business partner Cheryl Nix Murphy, owns Spruce Eco-Studio, a bright, white rectangular showroom focused on environmentally sensitive interior design.
Joining Spruce in the newly formed district so far are the following:
- Branch Out and Green Serene, two boutiques focused on clothing and accessories from sustainable resources, but each with a different spin on the joys of soy-based dyes, organic cottons and recycled plastics
- UP/Unique Products, where Mark Kirk and Heather Macfarlane have been recycling Mardi Gras beads into lampshades, art and accessories for more than a decade
- Zuka Baby, which provides all the essentials — including a healthy dose of hand-holding — for parents braving the world of 21st-century cloth diapering.
While they’re still in the baby-steps stage, the new district plans to hire a consulting firm to help draw up guidelines for what it considers eco-friendly and create an application process for businesses that would want to join.
Green claims are easy to make, and the stores want to ensure that everyone onboard is not just talking the talk. The initial idea for the district came from an unplanned, Karmic concentration of like-minded retailers, all who happened to land in this stretch of the Lower Garden District.
“We didn’t plan for this to happen,” said Menutis of this eco-focused enclave. “But we complement each other. If you look down the street, you’ll see dozens of antique stores all together, and they coexist. We’re all green, but we each offer something a little different.”
Beyond branding, the Green Light District members hope to use their similar focuses to cross-pollinate. Zuka Baby, for example, might invite Spruce’s designer to give a talk for parents on how to create a green nursery.
This is an awesome initiative and while such a neighbourhood may not convince everyone to reuse, renew and recycle, but it’s a fun way to catch attention. Now if only such an area existed in SA…
Do you know of any similar ´Green Light Districts´ in SA, if so let us know in the comment section below.
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