The following is a contributed blog post from eBay Green Team member Ashwin Seshagiri. Enjoy!
Cheers,
RBH

When the eBay Green Team opened up to the public earlier this year, 40,000 people signed up over night. There was always a sense that green was important to eBay’s communities of buyers and sellers, but for a long time, no one quite knew exactly what that meant. What many people didn’t realize, though, is that eBay has been facilitating sustainable commerce since day one. By connecting buyers and sellers of used, vintage, and repurposed goods, eBay created a powerful venue for the exchange of products that are ultimately good for the environment. Consumers are not only preventing countless items from entering landfills, they also replace the need for new products, as well as the environmental footprint associated with making and getting them to you. And based on the impressive number of people who have since joined the Green Team—the vast majority of the Green Team’s 100,000 plus members are eBay buyers, sellers, and employees—people get it.

Rooted in the belief that the greenest product is one that already exists, the eBay Green Team announced today that it is teaming up with The Uniform Project, Pop!Tech and MAKE Magazine, and ecofabulous—three great efforts that bring creativity and innovation to used and vintage goods, showing the incredible potential in repurposing the everyday things around us.

The re+purpose campaign kicks off with a collaboration with The Uniform Project—Sheena Matheiken’s mission to increase awareness about sustainable fashion and raise money to support education for underprivileged kids in her native India. Every day, Sheena reinvents the same little black dress with layers and accessories, the majority of which are vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down items often purchased from eBay.

Inspired by the uniforms Sheena wore as a schoolgirl, The Uniform Project is a year-long fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots movement providing education to children in the slums of India.

For every person that joins the Green Team during the next two weeks, eBay will automatically donate $1 to the Akanksha Foundation. Joining also gets new members entered to win $5,000 to shop vintage on eBay. The site also offers several other ways for people to participate, including a fun, interactive application where you can design your own look for The Uniform Project’s classic little black dress. Every time you design a look or spread the word about what the Green Team is up to, eBay will also donate $1 to the Akanksha Foundation.

To design your own look or to learn more about what The Uniform Project is all about, visit the eBay Green Team re+purpose website.