City Tree - Sustainable Living

An Urban Ecology Center in Tel Aviv

Tami Zori
972-3-604-0871
tami@citytree.net

• Tami has an open-house every Friday which gives visitors a chance to see how she lives.
  
• On the first Friday of each month she has a guided tour of her house.
  
• She offers workshops about diverse issues from drying food and composting, to homemade paints.

01. The idea

City-Tree is an urban ecology center utilizing both online and real-world tools to empower anyone who is starting to consider a change towards environmentally conscious lifestyle, by demonstrating the "green" alternatives, offering practical guidance, and building a support network. City-Tree is putting urban people in touch with nature within the city and in their hearts. We spread ideas and information at our physical center and through our website, campaigns and social events we organize.

Located in a beautiful historical area of Tel Aviv, in an original building from 1925, the center will bridge the original values upon which the story of Tel Aviv is based (pluralism, solidarity, vision and culture) with futuristic life style of simplicity and environmentalism. The center will act as a gallery of ecological ideas and a showroom of easily adoptable tips and tricks for the urban ecologist, including green products and a pull of green consultants, artists and designers who will demonstrate their capabilities at the center.

The website (www.citytree.net) provides a growing group of contributors ("gardeners") with personal blogs ("branches"), where they joyfully share their daily ecological choices. We evangelize sustainable lifestyle concepts such as considerate nutrition and friendly transportation, asserting immediate practicality and bliss, rather than guilt or sacrifice. Our guiding vision is: what's good for the environment is good for me - saving the world is only an extra bonus. The online activity is linked with green projects such as community gardens and ecological apartments. We offer workshops on nutrition, aromatherapy, composting and other topics, organize social events where people connect and exchange ideas, and participate in local fairs and exhibitions.

Right now we are renovating the apartment in Bialik circus to become the demonstration center and are in the midst of fundraising for our first year of activity in our new location. There will be a functional urban garden, an organic kitchen, a local cooperative, a mid-size compost project and a creative recycling space. This urban ecology center will offer workshops and tours, while functioning as a real living space.

The next steps:
A. Build a network of small, local ecological businesses, providing them with web presence, marketing tools and an online shop. We will sell locally produced goods using bicycle delivery service only.
B. Growing new "City-Trees" in other cities in Israel and the neighboring countries, to be nurtured by local people.
C. Open up a communication channel with the city so that urban ecology is recognized and supported by the local authorities.

02. Moment of obligation

Three years into my career as a multimedia art director, I felt my possibilities were limited in Tel Aviv. In 1996 I headed to the place of "unlimited possibilities", where I became a new media recruiter and lived the Internet hype, taking full advantage of the extravagant parties, expensive meals and all the shopping NYC had to offer. Slowly, my eyes opened to the cost this lifestyle had on my own physical and mental health, as well as how destructive it was to the environment. I started cooking my own food and spending more time in the park. In 2004, I moved back to Tel Aviv knowing that possibility await me right where I was born. At home, to my dismay, I found that shortsighted habits of limitless consumption and poor health were now embraced by my fellow Israelis. For a while, I walked the streets of Tel Aviv seeing catastrophic visions of the future, missing the values of the "little white city in the sands" I was brought up on. Then a calling emerged, to use my marketing and communications skills together with my internet experience, to connect the people who see what I see, and to create a platform that will enable us to make a difference in our own life and in our city.

I developed a complete ecological lifestyle in my rented two bedroom apartment and started to give workshops and lectures about Urban Ecology, emphasizing health ("considerate") nutrition and the closing of the cycle: composting. At the same time I designed and built the website to carry the message farther to wider circles and invited other urban ecologists to contribute and write about their own experience.

03. The need for City-Tree

"Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living" (The Earth Charter). With 1,200 death cases in the greater Tel Aviv area directly connected with air pollution and a yearly 5 million tons of Israeli garbage, encouraging car sharing or composting as I do is easily justifiable. Wholesome wellbeing and positive outlook might be less measurable but are emphasized throughout my work.

Since launching in April 2006, City Tree was visited by 16,000 unique visitors – relying only on viral, word-of-mouth marketing, and without selling any product. Our visitors comment on the site, send us enthusiastic messages and join our growing mailing list. A random message from my inbox: "I would like to sign up for your urban ecology workshop. Ecological life is not an option for me. It is life itself. This is why I have to learn more." In our events, attendees' eyes are brightened with the joy of connection and the power of a new-found consensus. With no PR resources, we gained attention from mainstream media, including several appearances on national TV. Clearly City Tree provided a missing link and fosters a community that was not there before.

04. The root cause of the problem

Many Tel Aviv dwellers are well aware of the ecological crisis but do not see the power each one of us possesses to make a difference. This power is concealed by layers of messages projected via mass media. Our current system identifies "success" with consumption powers, but as The World Charter beautifully states: "Human development is primarily about being more, not having more." Agenda 21 calls us to "reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption".
There is a growing number of people in Tel Aviv who are starting to feel uncomfortable with consumerism. Others, who simply don't have the buying power, are feeling increasingly deprived. With the information about the alternatives not easily accessible in Hebrew and with no local support group, both groups feel lonely and powerless to make a change – in their own life and in the world around them.

Many citizens are waiting for the change to come from the top, but without a true grassroots movement acting from the bottom up – our government is slow in applying desperately needed new environmental policies.

05. Long term desired outcome

There is no magic wand and I do not believe in massive reconstruction. Far from it, I would like to promote organic, low-cost, gradual change - like growing a garden! It will take some time, but I see Tel Aviv becoming a world leading "green" city, with many community gardens and ecological apartments, nurtured and enjoyed by the poor and the rich, under the support of the city. Small, local, ecological businesses, including the traditional shoemakers, corner shops and tailors (now on the verge of losing their businesses) are prospering again. City Tree websites and centers are opening up in other cities in Israel and the neighboring countries, connecting different communities under the shared search for environmentally harmonious life. Every new ecological apartment, community garden or even a life change is reflected and recorded on the local website by the people experiencing the change and running the projects. This is not merely a measuring system, but an expending network of inspiration for new projects, working in a ripple effect.

06. Innovation

City Tree is the first website dedicated to Urban Ecology in Hebrew. It was easily rated first place in Google under those key words, simply because there was nothing there before! There is one other Israeli website which fosters an alternative living community, www.beofen-tv.co.il, However it is not local, non-urban, targeting mostly families and is "off-centerish" by design. City Tree targets the urban mainstream, designed pleasingly to reach a wide range of people.

Internationally, many websites promote ecological living, but I couldn't find one that connects online activity with local community in quite the way City Tree does. "Green Options" for example is a collection of blogs, however like many content sites, it works on a wide scale to successfully serve ads. City Tree is ads-free, and it connects people and projects in the real world. Community gardens for example are new to Tel Aviv. When I started City Tree there was only one young garden, and now there are four, two of them in unprivileged neighborhoods, all being documented on City Tree by active members. They use the site to tell their story and reach new members. City Tree has helped catalyze this phenomena.

07. My background and skills

Throughout my life I've found myself in leadership roles. As a kid, I was the one negotiating with the school principal, representing my classmates. In the military service I was hand-picked to become an officer. Barely escaping that path, I volunteered in a development town, where I was chosen to manage the community tea house. I was a 19 year old, managing suppliers, organizing shifts and schedules, and taking the project out of debt.

In 1994, after graduating the Bezalel academy of art and design in Jerusalem with a BFA in graphic design, I was recruited to manage a multidisciplinary team at an emerging new media company. In 1996 I was (unknowingly at the time) one of the first designers in the world to own her own domain name and build an online portfolio. In NYC I joined the founder of a start-up recruiting firm and became the first recruiter in the world specializing in artists for internet jobs. I became a partner in the company mentoring and managing a team of recruiters. As a designer and producer for an independent 3D animation film, I set up a studio fully equipped for production, all sponsored by hardware and software companies. Back in Israel I started City Tree, and soon appeared on the first page of the country's most respected newspaper as an Urban Ecology pioneer.

As an urban-bio-phobic-turned-nature-girl, I believe I can relate to every step in the transformation City-Tree suggests. I have a lot of compassion to anyone playing the urban game and the difficulties they encounter when considering a change. Hearing my story they are impelled to follow my footsteps, maybe more so than those of a nature guide disgusted by the city pollution, or a pure environmentalist who never went shopping.

Ultimately, I envision City Tree growing in every city in the world, but I planted the first seed in Tel Aviv because this is where I was born, where I live and where I can have the best influence.

08. A word about financing

The first 16 months of City Tree were financed by me. I used the money I received from selling my old domain name to a NYC company, to fund my dream project, and test it. I freed myself of all previous commitments and worked full-time designing, building, and maintaining the website, managing the group of writers and running urban ecology workshops. At this point I believe City Tree had proved its necessity and effectiveness and is ready for new funding. To be more precise, without help it will not be possible to develop City Tree further to its full potential and ultimately make it financially independent. A complete business plan and budget is I the works and I am happy to share it with interested parties.

Thank you!

Tami Zori
972-3-604-0871
tami@citytree.net