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BY NICOLE TOMLINSON, SPECIAL TO THE SUN
Publish Date: December 24, 2008
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 Rebecca Fry with Green Zebra, a $30 coupon book (think green Entertainment Guide) that features deals at more than 140 sustainable businesses in the Vancouver area. It's distributed through the TB Vets Society.
Photograph by: Mark Van Manen, Vancouver Sun, Special to the Sun
When we hear the word coupon, saving cash is usually the first thing that comes to mind.
But when Shoni Field purchased the Green Zebra Guide this fall, discount vouchers at more than 140 merchants in the Vancouver area were an afterthought.
"It helps promote local businesses, helps people live more consciously, and helps organizations fundraise," said Field, a 35-year-old communications consultant and mother of two. "It's sort of a study guide to ethical consumption."
Originally put together by two parents in San Francisco fundraising for their kids, the book puts an eco-twist on the classic Entertainment Book most of us are familiar with. It offers thousands of dollars in discounts at sustainable merchants. Coupons in the current version, which costs $30, expire at the end of 2009.
The guide was brought to Vancouver in 2006 and adopted by the B.C.-based TB Vets Charitable Foundation as a tool to raise funds for respiratory illnesses.
Merchants in the Canuck version have to meet green standards before their names are inked onto the guide's locally-printed, 100-per-cent post-consumer waste paper, said Rebecca Fry, the book's business development manager.
"We don't pretend to be the green police . . . but we have had to reject businesses," Fry said, adding that those who didn't make the cut lacked the minimum of two of the five sustainability criteria: green, local, community-minded, responsible and wholesome.
Like the Entertainment Book, the discount vouchers are arranged categorically. Sections include Get Nourished, Get Moving and Get Family. But there's only one pass for each business, which gets marked off when an offer is redeemed, saving the need to print several coupons for businesses that offer more than one discount.
The book includes more than a dozen short articles on how to live green in the Vancouver area. Some of these guidelines point to other organizations that are working towards a more sustainable Westcoast, such as the Green Table Network, a group of restaurateurs who are trying to make dining out more eco-friendly.
"We call it the Green Zebra Guide as opposed to coupon book because it opens our eyes to some of the places that are sustainable -- local businesses that we're not aware of," Fry said. "There's information about sustainability that gives people small steps or small ideas. It just makes it easy."
And at a time when "people have become more fiscally conscious", Field says the guide helps close the cost gap between normal items and eco-friendlier products, which usually carry a heftier price tag.
"When it comes down to the crunch of people's pocket books it helps people stick with their best intentions," Field said, adding that her copy of last year's book paid for itself before spring ended.
She also introduced the guide as a fundraising tool for the childcare centre her son attended last year, Happy Corner Parent Participation Preschool. Parents of children at the school have carried on selling this year's version -- which earns Happy Corner $10 for every book sold -- but have had less success, said Lena Umezawa, fundraising coordinator for the childcare centre.
"Ten families were actively trying to sell for two weeks, but people aren't in a buying mood," Umezawa said of the 16 books that were sold for the preschool, compared to about 40 last year.
"If you live in Vancouver I think the guide is definitely worthwhile, but some parents don't live in Vancouver. That was a factor."
Fry hopes to raise the Green Zebra Guide's appeal across the Lower Mainland by adding more merchants from a wider variety of communities in the years to come. Right now the majority of coupons are for businesses in Vancouver and on the North Shore.
But the director of operations for Rio Rain Ecoapparel, a clothing store in West Vancouver that specializes in environmentally friendly fabrics, thinks the store's dedication to sustainability combined with a 25-per-cent-off coupon in the Green Zebra Guide makes the trip worthwhile for residents of other areas.
"I knew our initiatives qualified for the book, and I wanted to get the word out," said Anita Hildebrandt, who recently launched the apparel line with her life mate and named it after their three-year-old daughter.
"[The pass] allows people who care about the planet to access us through the guide. We are definitely anticipating that it will be useful on the retail side."
GREEN ZEBRA GUIDE
The Green Zebra Guide is available online at http://www.greenzebraguide.ca and at select merchants. Part of the proceeds of every book sold is donated to the TB Vets Charitable Foundation.
Copyright © The Vancouver Sun
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