In 2002, I was giving a talk about sustainable furnishings and the impact of products on the environment. I finished the opening statement with the line One green deed spawns another. It was meant to get the audience more broadly engaged in the welfare of our environment; the thought that a single effort might compel someone else to act seemed so simple. For fifteen years, I have closed many other talks with those same five words. If you polled 100 people about whether they wanted to preserve the planet for future generations, you’d get almost unanimously positive replies (there’s always a contrarian in every crowd). Yet, here we are facing an ecological crisis without a united effort to combat it. Green deeds are being enacted minute by minute, daily, annually, and for lifetimes. Not only do we not get to witness all of them, we rarely get to hear about them. I decided I wanted to query some of my heroes who’ve inspired me over the years with their wisdom and commitment to greening our planet, about their one green deed. Sharing green deeds is not only inspiring, it is unifying; perhaps within this collection of engaging ideas are answers for the road ahead.

This book is twofold in origin: the unusual path I followed to become environmentally active brought me in contact with some exceptional individuals. Some are as well-known as celebrities; others have flown under the radar. All of them have equally distinctive stories that have inspired me and influenced my philosophy on our relationship to our habitat and fellow species. This book is a compilation of these poignant moments with my environmental heroes and friends and their insightful ideas, and a tribute to the spirit of Earth’s active stewards.