Fairfield's 'Eco Dude' Opens Online Store For Sustainable Items

FAIRFIELD, CT — Earth-wide environmental concerns, coupled with love for his local community, has prompted Brad Kerner — aka The Eco Dude — to begin a new business venture aimed at improving the planet.

Eco Evolution is a virtual marketplace that brings together dozens of sustainable and conscientious vendors in one place, sparing consumers an arduous search through the internet.

“It’s an online store where everything I sell is good for people and good for the planet,” said Kerner, a longtime Fairfield resident who is also hoping to establish a permanent brick-and-mortar store in town known as the ECOoperative.

The current online store offers a remarkable cornucopia of mindful products, such as eco-friendly doggy-poop bags, bamboo-handled safety razors, all-natural charcoal teeth-whitening powder, and much, much more. Kerner has searched out vendors from all over — mainly to make his own sustainability-minded purchases — and in the process has gathered them under one umbrella.

Along with bringing many hard-to-find items together in one place, the permanent store that Kerner envisions will center on the products of around 60 Connecticut-based creators.

“They’re each going to be renting shelves and selling their products,” he said, emphasizing his focus on local promotion.

Growing up in Huntington, New York, on Long Island, Kerner’s early years gave him some impressionable experiences centered on recycling and reuse, inspiring him to start a recycling program as a high school student, and to later join the Peace Corps, where he learned the skills and values of low-waste living.

“Not only is there a demand for this lifestyle, there is a lot of education that needs to happen,” he said, passionately describing the challenge and importance of breaking age-old habits, such as reaching for a paper towel when a cloth one might do as well.

Kerner has worked as a public health expert with Save the Children, which has sent him throughout the world, learning about the connections between health and behavior, and seeing how the fate of the planet is being severely challenged in the 21st century via climate change and other issues.

“I decided to shift from being hyper global to being hyper local,” he said.

Kerner has amassed many followers in the past 18 months through his blog and his resolution to get plastics out of his own house wherever possible.

“I’m really excited to be a part of it,” said Fairfield fine artist Teresa Rainieri, who will bring drink-ware and other products to sell as part of the ECOoperative.

She said that working with Kerner continues to enlighten her on being conscious where products and peripherals are concerned, such as making her wrapping compostable.

“Little by little I’m trying to evolve,” she said.

Praise also came from Abe Hilding-Salorio, community outreach manager with Sustainable Connecticut, which recently awarded the ECOoperative a $5,000 grant to move its work forward.

“The ECOoperative promotes a low-waste economy while also supporting local artists, creatives and makers,” he said, noting it’s an important alternative to big box stores or online.

Kerner said that when the space is finally settled for the store, it will include a coffee shop as well — one which sends nothing to the incinerator.

“I’m all about waste reduction,” he said.

To learn more, visit https://www.ecoevolution.co/.