Let's 'green up' our active lives!  We all love being in the wild outdoors and sometimes we find our adventure-seeking selves traveling to faraway places to get our thrills.  But we can't hide the fact that we're impacting our environment and it makes us sad when we hear about facts like 85% of the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro is gone.

The SF Green Festival just took place with over 400 green businesses and non-profits!  At this conference, 97% of all show waste was recovered, which means only 3% of the waste went to landfills.  It gently reminded us that we should all be making efforts to reduce our carbon footprints and actively 'go green' and eco-friendly.

Here are five themed tips to make our active lives greener:

1. Getting There Green

If you're going on a roadtrip:

• Carpool, it's fun!
• Rent or drive a hybrid car
• Make sure your tires are properly inflated and improve your gas mileage by 3.3%

If you're going to fly:

• Buy non-stop flights, which use less fuel so there are fewer carbon offsets
• Use electronic tickets on your PDA/Smart phone and simply get rid of all paper waste
• Let go of brands and take advantage of last-minute and unfilled flights, hotels, etc. with services like Hotwire:

Then, offset your carbon by using services like Atmosfair (available in English/UK and German).  It will reduce one ton of CO2 for about $17.30USD (the best we've seen), which goes to environmentally friendly projects and provides new job opportunities in third world countries.  A Canadian alternative would be zerofootprint's One Minute Calculator.

2. Do It with Eco-Friendly Style (& BYOB)

Wearing sustainable apparel and bookmark the 'green' sections of your favorite retailer:

For some more specific ideas, bring-your-own bag!  Anything from the Patagonia Carry Y'all Bag, REI Organic Canvas Tote Bag, Hugger Mugger Recycled Paper Yoga Mat Bag, to a GoLite Backpack constructed with recycled ripstop nylon.

It's not just what's on you but what you put in you.  When you're back from being 'out there', slap on some organic Badger Sore Muscle Rub. Feel good putting it on because 10% of Badger Balm sales goes to healthcare & welfare of children charities (including environmental education).

3. When You Can, Reduce & Rent

Reduce and reuse by renting equipment for your adventures. We can help save natural resources, energy and water!  Plus, you really can't have everything in your sports closet.  Demoing is also a great way to reduce the impulse buy & ditch gear syndrome.  You can rent almost anything outdoorsy from:

Here are a couple of great new startups (high five!) that are helping to us go green by providing online tools for us to rent directly from friends and local businesses:

NeighborhoodGoods help you do good by sharing and renting stuff with friends.

RentCycle helps rental business owners go online by offering an online interface for them to track and rent things out.

4. Keep Your Activities Clean!

Remember to leave no trace and 'take only photos, leave only foot prints'.

If you're camping:

• Pack your trash and carry it out for disposal
• Use reusable cutlery and kitchen tools, such as the GSI Bugaboo Camper Cookset:

• Avoid soap or use eco-friendly soap, such as Dr. Bronners Organic Liquid Soap:

When outdoors:

• When hiking and approach trails exist, use them!
• Backcountrying?  Step lightly, avoid breaking branches, and stepping on plants.

Are you a pet owner?  Consider this interesting (and perhaps controversial) article, How green is your pet?  We can't live without these furry guys but we should be conscious about their outdoor whareabouts, remember to properly dispose of their faeces, and train them not to attack wild animals.

5. Educate the Little (& Big) Ones

On that note, it's not only you who can make a difference.  Educating people about the values of environmental sustainabilty and heathy lifestyles goes a long way.  Get kids started early with an Idbids Starter Kit, which include colorful storybook, field guide, backpack, plush toy, and reward certificate.  Adorable!

You can lead by example, such as joingin forces with the Sierra Club campaign to end mountaintop removal coal mining.  This distructive practice damages and destroys nearly 2,000 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of land by 2020.  Learn more about this initiative and write a letter in support!

Last but definitely not least, watch the movie 'Home', a beautiful carbon offset movie directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand:

That definitely inspired us to be more senstive about our environment.  A few other sites offering great tips include TheGreenAthlete, GreenDiscovery, and Goodlife.

Team Skimble realizes going green doesn't happen over night but we've consciously made startup efforts to be startup eco-friendly:

• we run in the cloud and rent virtual datacenters
• when we can, we'll web conference to reduce travel impact and costs
• our snacks are mostly all organic and contained in eco-friendly packaging
• we're pretty paperless, opting instead for massive whiteboards
• we bought some of our work furniture off craigslist
• we do not (yet) have an office, but we do have a portledge :)
• we remind ourselves constantly with a green logo!

Seriously, we're always looking for more ways to actively go green - please let us know your tips.  Keep it green & active!