For all you web-savvy, environmentally conscious readers out there, there is TreeHugger.com. TreeHugger.com is the most popular and successful site related to environmental issues on the web today. Their own words would not be an exaggeration, “Tree Hugger is the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, we strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information.”
The first time you hit the site you are immediately impressed. With a full-color, streamlined design and simple, easy to navigate format, you’ll find yourself totally immersed as you surf around the various pages, reading articles on everything from the latest scientific reports on global warming to environmentally friendly products. There is even a fairly large section of “green” job postings. The lack of glaring and flashy commercial advertisements is equally refreshing.
For many of the site’s fans, the best bits are the blogger pages. Owned by Discovery Communications Corporation, TreeHugger.com was rated the top sustainability blog site for 2007 by Nielsen Netratings. The “Comment Central” section could be called the ‘chat’ page, but if you click on “Forums,” you get to the real blogging, with scientists, teachers and ordinary people writing about the environment and our sustainability within it. Some of the brightest minds in the various environmental fields are posted there. This section also has links to listings of green events, meet-ups and ‘how-to’ guides.
Click on “Newsletter” and you can choose to have their daily or weekly postings sent right to your inbox. “Green Basics” is another useful section, where they tackle all of those nagging day-to-day questions that we all have about sustainability, such as those annoying plastic shopping bags, indoor air quality or your personal carbon footprint. There are many other useful pages as well, like “Food & Health,” “Business & Politics,” “Fashion & Beauty” and so much more. Top it off with viewer surveys, audio & video interviews and links to other important websites; Tree Hugger has just about all that anyone could ask for. Its glossy, accessible appeal is indeed the right approach in furthering their goal of getting the green message out to the mainstream public, where any potential viewer can absorb the goals of sustainability one piece at a time.