Earth Day Meets Wall Street: Lemon Tree Square Offers Trendy, Eco-Friendly Products While Saving American Jobs

New York, NY, April 22, 2010 --(PR.com)-- With Earth Day celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the grassroots event has become so mainstream that even a major beverage maker is getting in on the act by introducing recycling kiosks at a Times Square event. Meanwhile, President Obama is stopping in this morning at Cooper Union college, near Wall Street, to deliver a speech on financial reform. But who are consumers trusting to deliver on the economy, jobs and the environment?

According to the latest Pew Research Center Study released Monday, roughly two out of three Americans feel that banks and financial institutions, the federal government and large corporations have a negative effect on the country. Inversely, among all institutions considered, small businesses received the highest rating as having a positive effect on the country by over 70% of those polled.

While those results hardly seem surprising, one of the bigger surprises of 2009 was in sales of eco-friendly products. According to Mintel, a leading market research company, during one of the biggest economic declines since the Great Depression, sales of environmentally responsible products rose slightly, as consumers continued to see value in terms of long-term costs to their health and the environment. As consumers recover from the economic crisis, Mintel predicts double digit growth in green sales over the next several years.

Counting on consumers' comfort with environmentally friendly products, newly launched ecommerce site Lemon Tree Square, added another major prerequisite to its eco-friendly product line-up: every item must be made in the USA.

"About the time I was ready to launch the site, I just kept hearing more and more about Wall Street's role in the economic collapse," says owner, Michelle Huffaker. "I knew I wanted to carry only environmentally responsible products, but I had just read about the movement to move your money out of big banks. I was in the process of switching over to a credit union and realized that my business had to reflect these same values."

Huffaker decided that in order to make a difference in the economy, she needed to buy only products that helped the American worker. "It's not that I have anything against China, but if I sell a product that's made of organically grown U.S. soy, for example, what type of carbon footprint am I making by shipping the material to China? And which country's workers are making a living? I decided that I needed to be the change I wanted to see. This is what I can do to help save the environment and American jobs."

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