Super Eco

Photo credit: Boho magazine

I'm addicted to magazines. I savor curling up in bed at night with cup of hot tea and a huge stack of print (which I resell, share or recycle, of course). Among my favorites are fashion magazines, which can provide weeks of eye candy—but I'm not so crazy about the environmental footprint of what's inside. So I'm revelling in the first anniversaries this fall of not one but two eco-fashion magazines, and I'm rejoicing at the discovery of yet a third green fashion mag for eco-chic readers down under.

Leading the pack is Boho magazine, the first fashion magazine printed with 100% recycled paper, packaging and inks. Editor-in-Chief Gina La Morte, a former stylist and face behind The Style Doctor, has created a publication the eco-chic can flip through with nary a whit of eco-guilt. But is the fashion high-brow enough to satisfy fashionistas of the non-green persuasion? "Sorry, Boho, but green fashion magazines will never get off the ground unless they start featuring clothing that isn't dirty-crunchy-hippie-granola-Olsen-twin-chic," opines U.S. News & World Report's Money blog. "Long, flowy skirts, center-parted hair and jute bags will not fly in the workplace. Though Boho's not exactly trying to be one-size-fits-all, it could certainly diversify the styles featured in the magazine."

In the land down under, the eclectic Peppermint magazine makes no attempt to hide its green roots. Peppermint brings Australia and New Zealand a mix of cutting edge and old-fashioned, new and old, high-end and hand-crafted. Like Boho, it's also on 100% recycled paper.

The online Coco Eco Magazine is the highest fashion of the three magazines, but does its online flipbook format limit its audience? I have to admit that while I spend as many nights in bed Stumbling on my laptop as I do with a pile of magazines, I don't mix the two—and in terms of satisfying my appetite for eye candy and re-readability, the magazines I can hold in my hand win by a long shot.

Still, we admire Coco Eco's outlook on curbing consumerism. "We’re not suggesting you accumulate new eco-friendly things to replace the conventional items you already own," writes Editor-in-Chief Anna Griffin. "In fact, quite the opposite! Being eco aware calls for a review on how we’re living and how we’re spending. Take inventory of your life and choose what you can live without, and be brutal with yourself. Realize that everything you purchase came from somewhere and has to go somewhere. And in that new space, start choosing something positive." Encouraging words indeed.