So we all or most of us know Whole Foods as the local choice for a sustainable eating. We can probably find the nearest location to our home or work. What if I asked you who is the most socially responsible lender within biking distance from an area you happen to be visiting? Well, with the help of an app I found I could give you that answer in about 5 seconds. GenGreenLife app for the iPhone or iPod Touch (and Android) lets you select an industry, type of service and the preferred method of getting to this service (i.e. walking, biking or driving) and provides you with a map showing all search results based on your selection.
So to answer the above question, I can select Finance > Real Estate and Lending > Walking distance and enter my work zip code and the app tells me that 0.62 miles from my work is ACCION New York. When I click on that it tells me that “ACCION contributes to the economic development of the NY metropolitan region by providing microloans business advisory services to people and businesses that do not have access to traditional sources of credit”. It also provides their address, map, phone number website link and a GenGreen rating. If I type in Biking distance it finds three lenders and Driving distance finds 8 lenders.
You can search either the area you are in currently by letting the device’s GPS take over or you can specify an address.
It also has icons at the bottom for News, Green Tips and Search for green businesses by typing in related categories. (Today’s green tip is is double sided printing at the office).
The application crashed once during my trial run, but I don’t have a problem with a free application crashing once. I really like this an will use it for finding venues that I might not otherwise find.
GenGreenLife contains a database of 65,000 green businesses and aggregates other related information on their site. They have a good blog which covers articles with a national appeal.
-By Noerah
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