If buying green is something that’s important to you in your everyday life, a new site now in beta wants to be your go-to retailer.
Vine.com is live, and it wants you to “live life green.” All of the products available for purchase on the site meet certain criteria for being labeled as “green,” and they provide free 1-2 day shipping on any order above $49.
Yes, Amazon has a hand in Vine.com, although you probably wouldn’t know that from looking at the site. Vine is a part of the Quidsi network, which includes other category-specific retail sites like diapers.com, soap.com, wag.com, and yoyo.com. While those sites are all about baby supplies, cleaning products, pets, and toys, respectively, Vine.com is all about being eco-friendly. Amazon purchased Quidsi back in 2010 for $545 million.
So, what are those green criteria? Vine has a green philosophy that say any product they carry is “made with healthy, environmentally sound ingredients and materials [and] at its core, is better for you and better for the planet.”
Qualifying green products must meet at least one of the following criteria:
Made from sustainable materials; energy efficient; natural (minimal processing); organic; designed to remove toxins, powered by renewable energy, reusable, or water efficient.
“We also recognize that green can mean different things to different people. On every product page, you’ll find additional information about our products, provided by the companies behind them, so you can quickly shop according to the issues that matter to you,” says Vine.
“This is a site that is not necessarily about saving the planet, though we feel the products are useful in that regard,” site head Josh Dorfman tells The New York Times. “It’s really saying to mom, ‘If you care about raising safe and healthy kids and you feel green products without chemicals can help along the way, we’ve figured out ways to help you do that.’”
One more interesting aspect of the site is a “shop local” feature that allows shoppers to browse green products made within 100 miles of their selected city. Right now, there are only about a dozen cities to choose from, including New York City, L.A., Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and Denver.