Going green isn’t easy. That’s why Viv keeps up with the latest and greatest of eco-friendly products to make things easier. Although we don’t currently offer the product featured below, we thought it could be useful in changing up that conventional cleaning cycle of yours. Check out the Bissell Steam Mop:

Via NPR “Eco-Friendly Inventions”: The Bissell Steam Mop does a great job on all floor types—the thick green mopping pad is well-suited for vinyl, ceramic tile, hardwood, and laminate flooring. It uses water and turns it into superheated steam to clean surfaces. It is capable of removing tough and sticky messes from hard surface floors. It is easy to put together, and even easier to operate.

So, what’s the big deal? At an average price of $79.99, slightly steeper than your common Swiffer Wet Jet, the Bissell Steam Mop offers an eco-friendly, chemical free solution for cleaning up after any mess.

Another Bissell Steam Mop review says: “no waste, nothing going to the landfill, no chemicals to wash down the sink, it’s a super eco-friendly way to clean your floors. The Bissell Steam Mop takes the work out of mopping.”

This may be an investment with a lot of returns for both your office and home!

*Disclaimer: We were not asked by Bissell to promote this product—we found out about it all on our own! Enjoy!

Take a look at the Bissell bio below:

Lucky number 25.

Viv… is… growing… like… a… weed. We are now in 10 new states in less than 4 weeks!

Check out some of the cities you can find Viv businesses today

It’s one of the few times I will refer to a weed in a good way.  Then again, they are green?  We do like green…

To the rest of the U.S., here we come.

Boxers. They’re quick & punchy. So is our Viv newsletter. Check out our May edition online.

Wait, you didn’t receive it? Sign up for our newsletter here. Share the link with a friend if you like. Don’t be bashful. Boxers aren’t.

A shout-out to boxers everywhere. And an old-school video game. Nintendo’s Punch-Out. The little guy wins with a KO punch.

We like the green mat. Very eco-friendly.

If you didn’t already know, we like the color green. Oh yeah.

Reused is better than Recycled which is better than Trashed. The team has been collecting items at Viv headquarters (HQ) for a donation run and to get some “reuse” from things collecting dust: old clothes, printers, cables, and a ton more.

The team hurried through lunch and bounced over to the local Salvation Army for a drop.  A big bonus: the California sun was out with blue skies!  What a day to stretch the legs.  With arms full of boxes and bags, we even reused some “old-fashioned” food packaging to bundle up the loose clothes.

Jenny with her hands on a giant Quaker Oats box... oats, yum-yum!

Having an (eco) excuse to get out of the office never hurts.  I admit… I had to make a “green” reference somewhere.  Anyways, did you ever think you’d see such a big smile on someone carrying a giant box of oatmeal?

This post is actually inspired by my mom. She rang me up the other day and told me about a whole slew of eco-friendly changes she’s started making in her life.

Some of them are incredibly simple and almost all of them can be applied to both your home & office. As such, I thought we should do some sharing. Here it is – straight from a Viv Mama:

1. “We haven’t used paper towels since Christmas”
2. “I’m not buying paper napkins anymore; we’re using cloth napkins and I just throw them in the laundry”
3. “We’re using recycled toilet paper; I really don’t mind it at all”
4. “I’m actually noticing that we’re recycling a lot more too; I’ve even been rinsing out tin foil and those plastic containers that lettuce and spinach come in and putting them in recycling. Raleigh actually takes a lot of stuff”
5. “I’m even breaking down my Cheez-It boxes!”
6. “I’m trying to cut back on tissues, but that’s gonna be hard…”
7. “I almost always bring re-usable bags to the grocery store (even the Indian Grocer!). I try to keep them on the front seat of the car so that I remember them”
8. “We’re also buying more organic… and cage free for eggs. I was watching this clip from this movie that showed some of the chicken farms. It starts out with these baby chicks on a conveyor belt… and they’re going along… going along… and then they get to the end of this conveyor belt and then there’s this shoot and they slide down it… except they’re all tumbling over each other and everything down this shoot – i really was not ok with it”
   • “Also, they were talking about chickens and how they can take a chicken from birth to slaughter in 7 months now. And how everyone prefers white meat, so they’re breeding these chickens that have such enormous breasts and such weak bones, that they can only take a few steps before they topple over. It’s really pretty sad.”

So I’ve been reading quite a few articles (see Greenfudge or The Pitch highlighting innovative London based grocery store, Unpackaged.

If you haven’t heard of them yet, it’s a novel (though strangely traditional concept) through which the market sells completely “unpackaged” goods. You bring your own container, and Unpackaged fills it with whatever groceries, produce or good you’ve purchased. To quote the store:

“…bring anything you like, there’s nothing to date that we haven’t been able to refill (even our lovely friend who likes putting lentils in old water bottles!) Bring glass jars, tupperware, old takeaway cartons, brown paper bags, plastic bags, old packaging.. if it’s heavy, we’ll weigh it first, if it’s light then just refill and we’ll weigh at the end.”

After reading about Unpackaged, I thought we should give a similar shout out to Green11 (a SF based Viv Supply partner) who focuses on allowing local SF residents & businesses to refill their empty cleaning product bottles with Green11′s biodegradable green cleaning products.

The store, located in Noe Valley, is quite lovely, and as you can see is filled with hand soap, dish soap, shampoo, body wash, multi-purpose solution, detergent, etc – giving locals the opportunity to top off with just a quick pump & squirt.

If you’re a resident in the area, it’s a must stop. If you’re a business in San Francisco, Green11 delivers, so don’t be a stranger.

And re-use those bottles!

You may (or may not) know that we just launched VivBizClub.com a few days ago. There are still a few kinks to be worked out, so if you don’t mind, please bear with us on those; and if you would like to share any thoughts or feedback, we’d love to hear from you – please email us at partners@vivbizclub.com.

As such though, we want to introduce you to the site, the Viv Business Club, and how to get the most out of your experience through a series of posts regarding “How to Best Use VivBizClub.com.”

#1 – The Savings Calculator:

You’ll notice on both our home and products pages a widget called the Savings Calculator. This widget is designed to help you estimate your annual savings when you switch over to purchasing your green products from Viv suppliers.

For the time being, we’ve listed about 20 of the most popular products carried by World Centric, Office Depot, and Green11. Simply:

1. Select a product from the drop down
2. Punch in your cost today (per case)
3. Enter the number of units in the case you currently buy
4. Enter the number of cases you use each month, and
5. Hit Calculate

The calculator displays the Viv price per case and then calculates your estimated annual savings. (it will also automatically adjust for any differences in the number of units in your case v. a case from a Viv supplier).

A few quick notes:

– Just enter numbers; no need for any commas or dollar signs
– We’re going to build our full product list into the calculator soon; please be patient with us as we get that up

Let’s run an example:
Say you’re a local restaurant owner with 3 stores; each store uses biodegradable trash bags in the kitchen. Those bags can be a bit pricey and you’re currently paying $95.79 for 90 garbage bags (the big ones – 39 gallons). Note: this is a real price based off the top result on google when you search for 39 gallon biodegradable trash bag. Lastly, you go through about 3 bags each day per restaurant, so 9 total per day for your 3 restaurants; that’s 270 bags across all your entire business each month.

Product = 39 Gallon Trash Bag
Cost Today (per case) = 95.79 (remember, no $ needed)
Units per case = 90
Cases Used = 2.7
**Calculate**
Viv Price (per case) = $112.2
Yearly Savings with Viv = $1,467.72

(if this math looks a little funny, that’s because cases of 39 gallon biodegradable trash bags from World Centric contain 200 bags each; don’t worry though, the Yearly Savings number has already accounted for this case unit difference).

So as you can see, we believe you’re going save big on your eco-friendly supplies when you start buying with Viv. We’ve gotten some large discounts on a wide variety of green products from our suppliers and we hope you’ll run a few numbers with our Savings Calculator and see the savings first hand!

With all the work going on, we took a break– only about five seconds really– to celebrate our 50th store joining Viv.  After all the hours logged in the last month alone, it felt great hitting the half-century mark.