As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the SunriseGuide, we want to send a big thank you to everyone who has helped us get here, loyal readers & advertisers, family & friends, business partners & advisors and Maine’s incredible entrepreneurship eco-system. Creating the SunriseGuide has been a collaborative process from the start, with many loving hands and hearts contributing to its success. What began as an idea on vacation eleven years ago, has since grown into a central resource for Mainer’s looking to support local businesses and find healthy, sustainable solutions for themselves and their families. And we couldn’t have done it without the help of many.
We are grateful to play a role in growing the green economy in Maine, while connecting you with Maine’s best healthy, local and green businesses that help you live well. These businesses put heart and soul into what they do every day to bring Mainers the products and services that that they provide.
In many cases, these businesses are trailblazers in their fields, producing and providing access to product options that empower us all to live healthier lives, while treading a little more lightly on the planet. And many of these businesses are longtime partners. They joined the SunriseGuide in 2006, when we released the very first edition. And they are still with us today. As we celebrate our 10th anniversary of bringing you the best of what’s healthy, local and green in Maine, we would like to say a special thank you to the business partners that have been a part of this community resource every year since the very beginning. And to all of the SunriseGuide business partners, thank you for everything you do to make Maine an amazing place to live. You are awesome! And we love having you in our collective community.
10 years of healthy, sustainable evolution
A note from our publisher
Somebody asked me recently if I thought that Mainers had reduced their carbon footprint in the past ten years. And as I reflected on the question, I was heartened to come to the conclusion that yes, in fact we have. There are many indicators to support this conclusion and in many ways they reflect what we hope to achieve with the SunriseGuide.
As a state, we have made significant progress toward our goal of weatherizing all homes by the year 2030 and we are recognized as a weatherization leader nationally. These improvements have not only made our homes (including many older houses) more comfortable, but they have resulted in major reductions in the amount of fuel burned and electricity used.
Advancement in technologies and decreasing prices have driven growth in the market for energy efficient products such as LED light bulbs, heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, significantly reducing electricity usage in our homes. And a 50%+ price drop in solar, coupled with innovative new ways of delivering it, has resulted in a spike in solar installations.
Today, we are buying more locally grown and produced foods for our homes and institutions, shaving millions of delivery miles—and the subsequent gas burned—to truck our food to Maine. And the growth of the shared economy means that car sharing, tool sharing, office sharing, and even house sharing are becoming common options in our communities. Sharing resources means less need for stuff. And less stuff means less energy to create it and transport it to Maine.
Further indicators can be seen in the growth in bicycling as a means of transport. And more people biking means fewer people driving. We are also seeing more and more electric vehicles (EVs) on Maine roads and planned expansions to the charging station infrastructure promise to grow this even further in the coming years. While Maine has some of the cleanest electricity in the country, Maine EVs are often powered by solar panels or other clean green electricity, requiring no fossil fuels to power them.
So yes, we have made great strides in the past ten years. And the next ten hold promise for even greater advances. The small businesses you’ll find in the SunriseGuide are leading that change. We are fortunate to live in a state that supports and empowers innovation. And there is no doubt that the passionate, talented minds working to create solutions in Maine and beyond will reduce our footprint even further.
Thank you for joining us as we celebrate 10 years of bringing you the best of what’s healthy, local and green in Maine!
-Heather Chandler 
