It wasn’t really ever a question as to whether we’d go green with Meatspace Tees. I’ve been working as an eco-entrepreneur for the past seven years and a few of our investors do the same- Hank is the original EcoGeek and Muhammad just jumped into the green scene with his excellent WebEcoist.

Going Green for us means using every available green product and resource we can while maintaining profitability. Going Green for us means being a leader and constantly pushing things to be cleaner, less energy and resource intensive, and eventually even environmentally positive. We’re a small shop but we all think big.

Here are the green things we do on a day to day basis:

• We only print on American Apparel’s 100% organic cotton shirts, made in downtown LA by well compensated workers with better healthcare than we have.

• We one print with green ink- the Gen IV ink series from International Coatings does not contain PVC, Phthalates, Organo-Tin Compounds, AZO, Heavy Metals, PCP, APEO, Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls, or Pesticides. It blows my mind that regular (and cheaper) plastisol inks have all of those ingredients.

• We buy wind credits to offset 100% of our energy use from our office and shop as well as from all our travel.

• We include wind credits in the sale of every shirt to offset the emissions used in shipping it from us to you.

• We use all natural citrus based cleaners and supplies in the shop. Our ink cleans up with just water, removing the need for nasty solvent cleaners used in standard plastisol printing.

• Shea’s commute to the Meatspace Office: walking downstairs. Miles driven: 0.

• We only have things shipped to our shop via Ground and we buy wind credits to offset the impact

• We recycle like fiend

• Tidal turbines turns us on.

Do you have an idea for how we can get even greener? Send it on, if we like it and start doing it we’ll send you a free shirt. Email shea@meatspacetees.com.

Photo credit: Flickr user Hamed Saber under a Creative Commons liscence