Local Green Resources

The following list of organizations and initiatives may be useful resources in the search for greener products and services. We do not seek to promote any one organization or initiative. Please direct any specific questions to the organization.

Finger Lakes ReUse is a nonprofit organization with a mission to enhance community, economy, and environment through reuse. Located in Triphammer Marketplace, they operate a Community ReUse Center open to the public daily, retailing furniture, housewares, computers, electronics, and building materials. While keeping valuable materials out of the waste stream, they also offer job skill training programs in high demand fields, such as computer and electronics repair.

Get Your Green Back Tompkins is a community-based campaign to inspire all 42,000 households and every business in Tompkins County to take meaningful steps to save energy and money in the areas of Food, Building Heat & Lighting, Transportation, and Waste. For information about second-hand shopping, GYGB offers resources in taking this meaningful step.

The Green Resource Hub is a local not-for-profit organization founded in 2006 and located in Ithaca, NY. The Hub’s mission is to expand the marketplace for sustainable living in the Finger Lakes region, while creating a vibrant and resilient regional economy that serves a healthy, happy, and self-reliant community. Check out the Green Directory to learn where you can practice green purchasing.

Ithaca College has “re-framed sustainability as a decision-making framework for continuous improvement. They ask members of the campus community to be mindful about the decisions they make, and to take into consideration the financial, social and environmental impacts of their choices.” In addition to offering many courses related to sustainability, IC strives to make the campus into a “living-learning” laboratory for students, one that models and reinforces classroom learning about sustainability principles and practices. The College seeks opportunities to partner student and faculty researchers and class project teams with operational managers on-campus or with partner organizations in the local community to research and devise solutions to sustainability challenges in “real world” applications. Ithaca College also reaches out to actively share what we have learned so far in order to foster broader embrace of sustainable thinking and practice. IC does not consider sustainability to be a competitive advantage, but rather an educational and operational imperative.

Sustainable Tompkins is a community-based organization whose mission is to promote the long-term well-being of our region by integrating social equity, economic vitality, ecological stewardship, and shared responsibility. The Sustainability Map is a great resource for taking action, as it allows users to locate various components of sustainable communities, including democracy and justice, energy efficiency, food systems, systems thinking and more.


Cooperative Markets support the economy by keeping about 80 cents of each dollar spent reinvested in the local community. Customers of cooperatives can invest money into the business, sharing the risk and eliminating the existence of large corporate shareholders, and often receive benefits such as discounts and a vote in democratically controlling decisions. Cooperatives tend to be motivated by serving member-owners, rather than profit.

 

 

Handwork Ithaca’s Cooperative Craft Store, is a cooperative, owned and operated by more than thirty local artists and craftspeople. Handwork offers an ever-changing selection of fine quality art and crafts in a range of media, as well as a selection of outstanding crafts from around the country.

 

 

People’s Market in Lansing is a platform for local artisans and crafters aged 17 to 93 years to get their goods to the people. It is a co-operative market designed to bring fine works of art to locals whether they live here in the community or are merely passing through our little piece of heaven. The local artisans often use our scenery and Finger Lakes settings to create their works. They offer a wide array of items from alpaca products to pottery and photography to handmade items and local food products. The artists and crafters sell their goods and also have the option to work at the PM 4 hours a month to lower their consignment rate.