I write the blog for hipandzen at http://hipandzenblog.com, and thought you (and your readers) would like to know not only about the blog, but that blog readers can get an additional 5% off all purchases with a code on the homepage of the blog.

I wrote a post recently about supply and demand for greener products. There are definitely some items you can get affordably, but your commenter is right that to go mainstream, there needs to be a broader availability of affordable green items:
http://workerbees.typepad.com/hipandzen/2006/01/supply_and_dema.html

We also have a pretty good blog roll of what we call hip & zen blogs. I’ll be adding this site (and probably others I find from your list above.)

Thanks again!

As for affordable clothing that is environmentally friendly and fair to the laborers that make the garments…I don’t know that it exists.

Using organic cotton, building factories that are safe and environmentally friendly, and paying fair wages to employees is expensive. They say that if organic becomes the standard and alternative environmentally friendly energy becomes standard then the cost will go down, but in order for those things to happen (and who knows if the cost will go down even if it does happnen) people need to regularly be purchasing “ethical” goods.

I know that design is part of the cost, but not all of it. If we could figure out a way to make simple clothing, that is made according to our standards for the environment and human rights, I would be all for it. I would even design it.

How do you start something like this?

Maybe we should start a company? Sticking to the cheapest socks and under shirts and underwear we can make.