Most people are familiar with the phrase “go green,” but not too many people know what it truly means. Eco-entrepreneur and Point Loma High alumna Adriana Herrera is looking to change that. “To me, green means you\u2019re protecting your health, you\u2019re protecting the environment and you\u2019re protecting human rights,” Herrera said. “We all have the opportunity every day, whether we\u2019re individual citizens or businesses of any size, to have a positive impact.” Creating positive global change is the fabric of Herrera\u2019s company \u2014 Fashioning Change \u2014 which launched online at the beginning of the month. The eco-friendly and ethical e-commerce company\u2019s aims to connect green businesses with green consumers, while eventually selling green products on its website. “It is a company that is merging together technology, social activism, eco-friendly and ethical commerce and corporate social responsibility,” Herrera said. “The company is really working to provide people with tools, information and opportunity to create positive change.” After graduating from Point Loma in 1999 and then UC Riverside, Herrera began her professional career doing nonprofit work in San Diego. She eventually moved to Hawaii and started ERA Communications, a public relations company that worked with organizations that impact the world in a positive way. “My whole goal since I was a little girl was to change the world, because that\u2019s how I was raised,” Herrera said. When her startup company that manufactured eco-friendly handbags didn\u2019t pan out, Herrera went back to the drawing board. That is where she came up with Fashioning Change, which she calls a combination of an eco-friendly version of online retailer Zappos and the fact-finding of a Michael Moore documentary. “Access to information is a powerful thing because it can get people to act and people need tools on a daily basis because they want to go green and want to lighten their impact, but they don\u2019t know how,” Herrera said. “We really want it to be practical, supportive and really understandable by people.” Through online applications and interactions, Fashioning Change will help consumers lessen their impact on the world and bring eco-friendly small businesses to the forefront. “I believe that everyone should have access not only to eco-friendly products, but also to healthy, organic products that we put into our bodies,” Herrera said. “The problem is that people can\u2019t find them because they are small designers passionate about their work and their design, but they don\u2019t have the marketing sense or the business sensibility to get themselves out. So we\u2019re empowering them as small businesses.” Herrera said she has already been in contact with vendors all over the world via Skype, including merchants in Peru, Cuba, Estonia and Australia. The company\u2019s website offers eco-tips and urges visitors to make a green resolution for 2011; the site currently has 83 green resolutions. “It\u2019s the little things we can do on a daily basis,” Herrera said. “If you add up one action at a time, that starts to create something big.” Calling herself a “modern hippie,” Herrera\u2019s unique business practices were featured in the 2010 book “The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success.” She was included in a chapter about not doing things by the book. “I don\u2019t feel like work should ever feel like work, having understood what it feels like to want to bang your head against the desk,” Herrera said. “Why do we need to be in an office or a desk? This is the world that we live in. Shouldn\u2019t we do business and live in it and engage in it at the same time?” To that end, Herrera suggests three local “outside-the-boardroom” meeting places for the open-minded: Sunset Cliffs, the Ocean Beach Pier and NTC Park in Liberty Station. She said she has discovered outside meetings tend to boost creativity. “It\u2019s about taking my team and people out into the world,” Herrera said. “When we\u2019re walking, our blood is flowing. More things are going on in our brains, which means we\u2019re more alert.” Fashioning Change is online at fashioningchange.com and on Twitter @fashion_change. Herrera can be followed on Twitter @Adriana_Herrera. Those interested in making a green New Year\u2019s resolution can visit bit.ly\/green-nyr.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most people are familiar with the phrase “go green,” but not too many people know what it truly means. Eco-entrepreneur and Point Loma High alumna Adriana Herrera is looking to change that. “To me, green means you\u2019re protecting your health, you\u2019re protecting the environment and you\u2019re protecting human rights,” Herrera said. “We all have the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":257387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Point Loma alumna\u2019s Fashioning Change looks to make green impact","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}