View from Mt. Tam

This month Marin Magazine goes green.

We have devoted much of the issue’s editorial content to coverage about sustainability and other environmental topics. More important, beginning this month Marin Magazine will be printed on 30 percent post-consumer waste paper. Our supplier, West Linn Paper Company, estimates that putting this once-discarded paper back to work again will save 184 trees, 10,000 gallons of water and 45.3 tons of greenhouse gas emissions with every issue. We believe each of us can take steps to improve the environmental health of the planet. This is our small contribution.

Inside the magazine is an array of stories as environmentally friendly as the paper they are printed on. We search for the greenest car in Marin and find plenty of options for eco-minded motorists—hybrids, fuel-stingy gas models, even a Honda that runs on natural gas.

Greenness can also be next to godliness, as P. J. Bremier finds. She takes us inside the new convent built by the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, where the power is solar, the floors concrete and the lumber environmentally certified. Green homes should have green cleaning products, and for those we look at the success story of Method, a growing company with Marin connections whose biodegradable home care products do the job on dirt without doing the same to the environment.

When it comes time to throw stuff away—don’t. We introduce you to iReuse, a Sausalito company that connects businesses, individuals and nonprofit agencies in order to keep what you don’t need out of the landfill. Finally, we’re running the list of 171 Marin Green Businesses on page 115 in recognition of their being certified as eco-conscious by the County of Marin.

Our other major features include a beautiful package of spring fashion photographs by Sasha Gulish that use the beauty—and the fun—of Tiburon as a backdrop, and a Journey piece by writer/photographer Ben Davidson on Siena, where he discovers the simpler side of Tuscan life.

Two Marin authors add to the mix. In Conversation, we visit with Isabel Allende and in Books, we discuss Grace, Eventually, the latest work by Anne Lamott.

As always, our wish is for your good reading. Enjoy Marin Magazine, as we continue to celebrate this extraordinary place!

Lisa Shanower, Publisher
Nikki Wood, Editorial Director
Jim Wood, Executive Editor