It’s Easy Being Green Here in The Triangle

The new series, “It’s Easy Being Green”, running on the Fine Living Network (FLN), was produced right here in the Triangle by Distillery Pictures. We stopped by to talk to Executive Producer Scott Meyers who put the show together.

The affable Scott Meyers may not have been a deep green eco-warrior before the production, but he was clever enough to recognise an important cultural trend. And, he admits that he’s been drawn into being much more green since starting work on the program.

Scott says he first started to recognize the trend towards green back in 2004, and had put together his first proposal by November of that year. It wasn’t an immediate hit with network executives, but he kept at it until he managed to hook up with Kent Takano from the Fine Living Network. Kent believed in the story enough to commission a pilot. And after seeing great press from the pilot, FLN commissioned six more episodes plus a celebrity special. The special aired in late April around Earth Day, and the regular episodes will air starting in June.

The initial idea, says Scott, was more to do with green homes, but they kept coming upon such innovative green entrepreneurs, largely thanks to Renée Loux, the show’s presenter, that the team decided to branch out with the program’s theme to tackle a wider range of subjects.

This batch of six episodes covers issues like biodiesel, earth-friendly moving, organic clothing and organic wines. At least two stories from North Carolina are being featured in the series, and there may still be one or two others yet to make the final cut. One is about Piedmont Biofuels who make bio-diesel fuel. The other story is about Enertia the manufacturer of a passively heated and cooled log home that is very energy efficient. The pilot had already featured Triangle-based green businesses Larry’s Beans and the Scrap Exchange.

Throughout the program the prevailing theme is simply that eco-friendly alternatives are here, they are easy and they are increasingly accessible to regular people just like us.

And as for Scott Meyers, he says his biggest learnings from the experience of making the series are that “green can be fun. It can be easy and it can be simple.” Without pausing he goes on, “You don’t have to suffer, or sacrifice. You don’t even have to look that hard to find green solutions these days.” Scott himself has already swapped over to compact fluorescent bulbs and is using only green cleaning products in his home, as well as recycling more and other positive steps. He was pleasantly surprised to have found the efforts to be a lot easier and more rewarding than expected.

Catch the first episode with Paul and Nell Newman on the Fine Living Network June 7th and 15th at 12:30 pm. The second episode, Ultimate Recycling runs at the same time on June 8th, and the third episode, Ulitimate Green Home is on June 14th. See www.FineLiving.com or your local guides for more information.