Green Living gets a makeover

Green Living magazine has had a makeover. Gone is the eco-fashion and beauty, replaced with a greater emphasis on smarter eco features and more depth. The website has also been redesigned and relaunched, with the addition of eco guides for Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa. The new issue will be available Wednesday, in time for the forthcoming 3rd annual Green Living show at the Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place in Toronto April 24-26

Apparently, despite the recession, the magazine has more or less held its own in advertising. According to Kirk Simpson, vice-president, sales and business development, revenue for the spring issue was nearly on par with last year. And the magazine has picked up advertisers it hasn't had for some time, including Toyota, Lexus and Honda, plus a DPS from RBC.

Editorially,the repositioned magazine is a blend of service articles (“20 Ways to Green Your Life...” and narrative features, e.g. “The New Human Power” by Bruce Grierson and “Divine Intervention” by Zoe Cormier). The magazine also has a new logo.

Our vision was to provide great solutions for sustainable living, as always, but to compliment that with great stories that delve a little deeper," said editor Lindsay Borthwick. "We also wanted to create a magazine with a bolder voice--one that firmly asserts that green matters. My feeling is that our readers have a shared desire to learn about the environment and to use that learning to shape a more sustainable future. Green Living is now designed to address both of these. We've aimed to tackle the complex issues and innovative ideas in sustainable living, translate them into engaging stories and distill them into effective strategies.

"In short, the practical, actionable advice the magazine is known for is still there, but it is diminished and recast in favour of greater exploration of the issues, ideas and trends at the centre of sustainable living.

The new editorial and art direction was a collaborative effort of editor Borthwick and art director Ben McCammon, backstopped by consultants Kim Pittaway (edit) and Gary Hall (design).

Green Living started life as Enviroguide, an annual digest about environmentally friendly goods and services. It became a bi-annual in 2004 then was redesigned and renamed Green Living in 2005. It became a quarterly last year. It is owned by the not-for-profit environmental organization Environmental Defence and is published under licence by Green Living Enterprises, a division of Key Publishers Company Ltd.