The Living Green Expo: May 3rd & 4th, 2008

The Living Green Expo is an annual event that provides information and products to help Minnesotans improve how their day-to-day lives impact the environment and society.  The Expo features over 200 exhibitors of products, services, and information, as well as workshops on a variety of sustainability and green living topics.  There will be music, art, food, demonstrations, and activities for youth and children at this free event.  Of particular interest, along the lines of our recent post about Green Homes, would be the Living Green Expo’s workshops, exhibits, and attractions which revolve around the home. 

In regards to building and remodeling, your own home provides the ideal location for practicing sustainability on a personal scale. We probably spend more time in and around our homes than we do in any other environment, except for perhaps work.  The Living Green Expo has home building and remodeling workshops, exhibits, and attractions which highlight good choices for building our living spaces and making them comfortable and healthy.  This includes the materials we use, the technologies we select to heat, cool, and ventilate, and decisions about where we live relative to where we work, go to school, and play.

Resources such as sunlight, water, and wind are managed to create diversity and abundance in a sustainable landscape. In a terrain such as this, plants, soil organisms, and animals do most of the work for you.  As designer and steward of the land, this is your place to create your own strong and healthy ecosystem in your own backyard.  The Living Green Expo showcases yard, garden, and landscaping workshops, exhibits, and attractions.  Here, you can learn how to create beautiful and productive lawns and gardens in ways which are conservative and which minimize any earth-unfriendly impacts.

Energy use, outside and inside the home, is one of the areas with the greatest potential to improve your impact on the environment and save yourself some money.  The Living Green Expo has several energy-related workshops, exhibits, and attractions which revolve around making good choices, using less energy, and shifting away from nonrenewable sources.

The Living Green Expo is a family-friendly event offering products and educational resources to inspire people to lead healthier, more sustainable lives, to improve the environment, and elevate our quality of life. The Living Green Expo is a collaboration of government agencies, non-profit groups and businesses seeking to promote sustainability-oriented products and behaviors in Minnesota. The Prevention and Assistance Division of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is the main coordinator of this collaborative effort. Key staff are drawn from a myriad of environmentally oriented businesses, non-profit groups, government agencies, and associations.