April 9th, 2008

Green Apartment Resources

Posted by Jessica Jensen

Many people write to us asking for help on how to make an apartment green. It’s a good question because you often can’t make many of the structural changes you would make to a home when you live in an apartment. But renters, do not despair! There are more and better resources for green apartment dwellers coming out every day.

First, we wrote a piece a while back with lots of meaty tips on how to green your apartment. You can cut your energy & water use, get rid of your junk mail, embrace composting, and much more. Please give it a read.

Another great resource is one of our favorite sites– Apartment Therapy. And they have recently launched a sister site called Re-Nest, which focuses on “Abundant design for green homes.” The latter site does not focus only on apartments, but there are lots of great green ideas in there you can use. If you’re a renter, you’ll want to spend some good quality time on both sites.  And if you’re student, be sure to check out the AT feature on How To Green Your Dorm Room!

Treehugger also did a very good feature on How To Green Your Rental.

Natural Home Magazine has also covered some excellent green apartment features. One is on a green remodel of a New York apartment.  The also covered the conversion of a single-man’s pad into a green lover’s nest in San Francisco.

You might also want to check out the adventures of No Impact Man. Colin Beavan and his family have worked for the past year to make no net impact on the environment– all while living in a 750 square foot apartment in New York City. It’s an amazing undertaking and we all have a lot to learn from Colin’s efforts.

Another fairly new blog we’re watching and hope you will visit is Green Your Apartment.

And if you thought you couldn’t compost in your apartment, here is an excellent video on Apartment Composting 101!

Have other resources we should know about? Please post a comment!