As featured on the Discovery Channel’s Greenovate, E! Entertainment’s Chelsea Lately, and the TODAY show with Matt Lauer, Ron & Lisa Beres, cofounders and owners of Green Nest LLC are showing home owners and companies across the U.S. how to green their “nest” and create a healthier, environmentally friendly lifestyle.
Greening Your Home for Less
“When it comes to living at home, it’s so easy,” said Lisa Beres in a recent conversation with GreenConnected.com.
After a news segment on “Greening Your Home” for less than $250 dollars, Lisa and Ron Beres addressed thousands of home owners for whom health continues to be a strong catalyst for change.
“It’s incredibly accessible,” said Lisa, “Greening the home has been a stronger catalyst than energy efficiency or resource conservancy for the individual. Putting in a solar system is going to cost you thousands of dollars, but filtering your air or changing your mattress will only cost a few hundred.”
For many, the most important issue inside the home remains air quality. With the rise of asthma and respiratory problems quadrupling in the past few years, Ron Beres noted that “cleaning products, pesticides applied, or the VOCs in paint and other building materials all affect air quality.”
Corporations Going Green in Their "Nest"
The stakes are high and the incentives enormous for making the change to a more natural, chemical-free workplace. Lisa and Ron are shocked by a number of statistics that get into the amount of sick days lost due to a poor working environment.
“This is a major incentive to green the workplace,” said Ron. “There’s always a fine line between people paying more for the long-term health benefit. For us, it’s about educating consumers and saying, ‘Yes,you may pay a little bit more up front, but what is it worth to you to avoid putting these chemicals in your body and subjecting yourself to potential harm. ’”
Speaking from a health perspective, Ron exclaimed that “it’s a question of 'what shade of green do you want your company to be?'”
GreenNest.com’s Website and Products
The top-sellers on GreenNest in terms of volume are shower filters and air purifiers. Baby products are popular with young mothers. Lisa and Ron just consulted with Trista Sutter from ABC’S The Bachelor and helped to green her child’s nursery.
“We used low VOC paints, a Baby’s Breath air purifier, and organic bedding,” said Lisa Beres. “In fact, Trista also uses our organic blankets for her child when she travels to hotels with crib sheets that are not organic.”
In Greg Horn’s book Living Green, he notes that a major source of out-gassing resides in bedding and mattresses, which are treated with flame retardant chemicals. The problem is: Organic mattresses must often be ordered from outside the U.S.
Lisa explained that all her mattresses meet U.S. federal standards “because they use organic wool, which acts as a natural flame retardant.” Greennest.com’s completely organic bedding materials are either 100% organic cotton, 100% natural latex, or virgin wool.
When asked how organic mattresses hold up against conventional mattresses, Lisa and Ron spoke about their elite ‘Sleeptek Sleep System’ which can be special ordered and customized for weight and sleep preference.
“We recently demonstrated how to put it together on a piece for the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green,” exclaimed Ron.
“It really is the “Mac-Daddy” of beds,” said Lisa.
Nest Education
Passionate to get out and spread the message of the healthy “nest,” Lisa, a green correspondent on Sally Jesse Raphael’s XM radio station, speaks on various topics each few weeks. When visiting their website at www.greennest.com and clicking on “Press Room,” many are reading and watching Ron and Lisa give tips on various television stations and publications about how to change their own house and office environments.
Lisa’s picture book, MY BODY MY HOUSE, reaches out to children ages four and up. “It’s about the relationship of a little boy with his house, and how the decisions he makes affect his health.”
They also created an audio CD, Learn to create a Healthy Home. “This CD takes adult listeners through a journey of how to identify and eliminate dangerous toxins and create a healthy home,” said Lisa. Ron and Lisa have another children’s book set to be released in 2008.
Visit GreenNest's profile in the GreenConnected.com community by clicking here. Also, check out their products and transform your home into a healthy "Nest" at GreenNest.com.