• Map of Ohio's Counties
• Arboretums, Nature Preserves, Land Trusts
• Beauty and Personal Care
• Clothing, and Related
• Community Supported Agriculture, CSAs
• Eco-Friendly Crafts & Hobbies
• Eco-Funerals
• Farmer's Markets
• Food Products from Ohio
• Food Stores & Coops - Organic
• Free-Range Meats and Poultry
• Garden and Landscaping
• Green Advocacy/Educational Organizations
• Green Building
• Green Consulting
• Green Industrial/B2B Products
• Green Restaurants
• Green Services
• Green/Renewable Energy
• Home Products
• Pet Foods & Supplies
• Recycling: Products, Services, Consulting
• Transportation

About Ec-Ohio

Ec-Ohio, the Green Directory, was created and built by Paula Apynys and Ted Haughawout of TH Design, Inc. Like many people, we wanted to find ways to help the environment; we wanted to explore what avenues are available to us to make a difference. We're not professional environmentalists -- we don't know all there is to know. Conceptualizing this directory came out, in fact, of our efforts to explore our options.

We make lifestyle choices on an ongoing basis, as discussed on our Living Green page. But one of the key principles of living green involves the concept of Buying Locally, and this is where we felt a need. Like any avid web user, our first instinct is always to search things out on the web. Basically, we wanted to know what was available to us, locally and in Ohio, that could contribute to a green lifestyle.

We found that, as is always the case with web searching, if we knew specifically what we were looking for, it was eventually findable, if it existed. But even so, it still took a lot of searching.

But what about things we didn't know about? For instance, maybe it would occur to us to seek out recycled shingles for our roof, but what about green options for insulating our attic? Or recycled products for the kitchen we're renovating?

We found that we yearned for some central place that would give us a good idea of ALL things that might be available to us that were both environmentally positive and (relatively) "local".

The "local" is the kicker. There are many wonderful web-based and other organizations in the country and the world that offer information; there are many green product and service providers around the world as well. And there are many kinds of directories that list green offerings.

But we live in Ohio, and we wanted to know what was available HERE.

The Larger Picture

We were also curious about how our state was doing when it comes to environmentalism. How vibrant is our green business base? What kind of interesting products and services are being provided by Ohioans? What's happening at the Statehouse to support green efforts? What are various counties and municipalities grappling with? How many environmental groups are out there fighting the good fight? How much overlap is there? What areas aren't being addressed?

Those are big questions and not easily answered without a lot of digging.

Those questions, combined with our search frustrations, lead us to the decision to create an Ohio-based green directory, and Ec-Ohio.com was born.

A Work in Progress

Ec-Ohio.com is kicking off in the summer of 2008. We expect it to grow and evolve as we learn more. The process of building our database is continually enlightening and as we gather information we may make adjustments.

Our hope is that this directory will help encourage Ohioans to support Ohio-based green businesses and organizations, and encourage Ohioans to make environmentally positive choices in general.

We all have a part to play in renewing the earth. We can't all be professional environmentalists and we can't all work for green businesses or organizations. But there are numerous choices that we make every single day that can be positive, neutral or negative. This directory is our effort to help all of us make as many positive or neutral choices as possible.