E97: Green Villager, Erik Nefores

In the last episode of Five Dubs: Marketing Pros for 2024, Kevin Berrier from MDDC Ad Services sits down with Erik Nefores, founder of The Green Villager, to talk about how sustainability and technology can work together to create a better future. Erik shares what inspired him to start The Green Villager, a blog and community hub focused on making eco-friendly concepts simple and accessible. He discusses ideas like Earthships, solar punk values, and using AI to create meaningful content and visuals.

Kevin and Erik talk about the challenges of promoting sustainability in a world filled with negativity and the importance of sharing factual, responsibly sourced information. Erik explains how he uses creative visuals inspired by impressionist art to make his content stand out while staying true to his mission.

They also cover Erik's journey balancing his personal and professional life while building a brand rooted in optimism and innovation. Erik shares his long-term vision for The Green Villager, which includes creating sustainable, passive homes that blend modern technology with traditional practices to redefine how communities live and thrive.

Tune in to learn how The Green Villager is making sustainability approachable and why optimism and creativity are essential for the future. Visit GreenVillager.com, follow them on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to their newsletter to stay inspired.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and the Birth of The Green Villager
• 2:00 Earthships and Changing Perspectives on Sustainability
• 5:30 Content Creation and Visual Storytelling
• 13:00 The Role of Technology in Sustainability
• 22:00 Building a Community Through Positive Content

Transcript

Kevin Berrier (00:01.292)
All right, friends, so let's dive in. So today we're gonna learn about an incredible mission-focused new brand that's all about being a dedicated space for exploring and sharing ideas about creating a sustainable future through the symbiosis of technology and nature. We'll be diving deep into the vision and mission that drives it forward amongst the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Plus, we'll get the scoop on how the founder is.

using AI and cutting edge tactics and strategies to both streamline workflows and scale the brand's impact, especially on the visual side of the brand because visuals matter, right? So I'm super excited to get a look under the hood of the creative approach that brings the brand's story and mission to life. And of course, we'll wrap it up by looking ahead to the future and what's next for this growing brand in the eco-friendly space. So let's get.

Erik Nefores (00:51.945)
you

Kevin Berrier (00:56.74)
to it. I'm excited to introduce Eric Nafores, founder of Green Villager. Hey man. How? Yeah man. So full disclosure for everyone. You and I have known each other for like, was trying to do the math and obviously my Carroll County math is not working for me, but it's 20 plus years, right? mean, back to like 2001. So that's like 20, 23, 24 years now. So that's crazy.

Erik Nefores (01:03.435)
Hey, Kevin. Thanks for having me on.

Erik Nefores (01:19.221)
Yeah.

Kevin Berrier (01:26.44)
and ever since I've known you, you've like, you've always had, you've always had passion, for, the environment and the like sustainability. It's always like, it's, it's, that's deeply rooted in you. So I was super excited to, to hear when you, when you were talking to me about, you like starting up the green villager and I'm excited, to see what you've, you know, what you've done so far.

But I want everyone to kind of get an idea of like what inspired you to start this space, this blog style space where people can learn and understand about sustainability and how technology has its place in a really easily digestible way. Talk to me a little bit about how it came to be.

Erik Nefores (02:19.145)
Yeah, so I think it started, I think what finally clicked actually was maybe the hundredth time I had been having the conversation with somebody about predominantly Earth ships was a big one for me. And I just think it's such an amazing thing because there's technology that exists today that can kind of beat the system, you know, essentially.

And B, it can help us be better stewards of the environment in the same breath, right? Like it would save us money. It would be good for the environment and it would still fulfill all the needs that the people today need, know, comfort and accessibility and all of these things. Because I think that's the biggest part of why people don't lean more into sustainable

practices is because they just think they're going to have to give something up. And that's not always the case. Earthships are one of those things where it's a home that is completely passive and it works with the environment, lives and breathes with the environment. And it can keep you a constant 70 degrees year round, winter, summer, fall, spring, doesn't matter, with zero energy costs.

There's much more to them, but I think I was going into depth about them with my therapist actually at the time. I have this conversation with people and I get very passionate about it. And it just kind of clicked where I was like, I'll speak these things, but maybe I'm not reaching the right audience. Some people are passionate about it, some people aren't.

But I felt like this was the most efficient way to get the information out there, to feel good about talking about it. And then anybody that wants to listen can just dial in.

Kevin Berrier (04:21.636)
Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so you, you you get this fascination and dive deep into Earth ships and understand that, like, there's technology that goes in when people think about, I think when people think about being eco-friendly, they think of technology maybe as being like the villain behind that, right? It's like, a la Ready Player One, right? Technology brings on this dystopian world where it's like,

It's not good for the planet, it's destroying the planet. So, you know, I think what I really like about your brand is not only obviously the mission behind it, but the idea that technology is an ally or can be an ally to eco-friendly practices and sustainability to benefit our environment. And being able to educate.

that to people in a digestible way, because your content's very educational. Every piece of content I read, I learn something new. And I feel like it's served to the reader in a very simple way. And I think simplicity is key here. Simple is always best when you're educating. But how do you approach the simplistic nature of how you are getting across the topic that you want to talk about? How do you address that when you're creating the content that you're creating?

Erik Nefores (05:45.737)
Yeah, so I just try to eliminate the fluff. I've been in engineering for most of my adult life, and so I don't like to fluff up any of the information. There's no filler. I just try to get to the point initially and then back it up with data and support and credible evidence of what...

of the technology or whatever, you know, information I'm putting out there. And, and yeah, like the, you know, the narrative that we're presenting is, is definitely a different narrative, but it's not a new narrative. It's, it's actually like a, in the solar punk vein. And if you're not familiar with it, it's, it was, it was presented back in 2014 and it's just, it is a, like you were talking, like you were saying.

a very optimistic view of the future with technology. know, through social media, news, movies, entertainment, you know, we always see this such a bleak output in that dystopian narrative, but there is a movement called solar punk, which is exploring the alternative, which is totally looking at the future in a positive outlook, you know, where AI can help us not take over or hurt us.

Kevin Berrier (07:11.97)
Yeah, Skynet, Skynet shooting the nukes, right? Yeah.

Erik Nefores (07:13.897)
Yeah, absolutely. We definitely, we both grew up in the Terminator era. And that's, all viable things. But, you know,

Kevin Berrier (07:22.988)
Right? Right. Flash forward to like five, like 50 years from now when like that happens, we're going to be like, we were wrong. We'll look back on this episode and be like, well, we were wrong. But

Erik Nefores (07:29.92)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think the odds can always lean in that direction. But I think that back to one of the reasons I'm doing this, and I hope more people are too, is just to be a contributor to the alternative. At least be one voice in that ocean of positivity looking.

Kevin Berrier (07:55.96)
Yeah. Well, think it's, it's admittedly, and why I think your brand is so important is because it's, it's one fish of many, but one fish in an ocean of negative perception of how technology is progressing, how technology fits into fixing environmental issues or practicing.

sustainability, you know, it's, it's being able it's like the feel good, right? It's like we live in a world so much right now, like if it bleeds, leads. And you giving this kind of this alternative view of how technology can play into, to sustainability in a positive way. It's, it's refreshing, right? It's just it's refreshing. And it's it's what people are really looking towards that. And from a marketing standpoint, I know, so I again, I've known Eric for 20 years, and I know, like you,

You're not looking at it from a standpoint of strategy. You're looking at it at the standpoint of changing the world, right? It's, the purest of reasons. The greedy marketer in me looks at it as, you know, you're, hitting a great audience because, there's a large audience that does care about this sort of topic and the idea that you're putting out content, positive content in a world of negative content. People like there's a need there.

I mean, people need that and want that. So it's, you know, I think that's that makes things very viral, you know, to a degree. So that's that's awesome.

Erik Nefores (09:28.715)
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, it's a, the site is a repo, you know, for my, for my benefit, mainly, you know, I'm educating myself in the process of, know, I'm becoming an expert and it's, it's great because I'm doing it like, that's why I love doing it is because I'm learning for myself and in the process, putting it out there for anybody else that wants to, to see the information or is, or is searching for it.

It's like you said, it's not just, that the positivity is a need, but the information is also just desperately needed because there's so much good thing, there's so many good things happening that just aren't being thrown out there or they're being stifled because, you know, if it bleeds, it leads media and everything else is kind of just in the spotlight all the time.

Yeah, just there's so I've been there's so many things that I picked up along this journey that I just wish I would have known, you know, 10, 20 years ago. I mean, there's a there's a browser that that takes, you know, all of their profits and put and put it towards climate change, Ecosia. And I never I never knew about it. It's been around forever. And it's like how and how and most people I talk to about it have never heard of such a thing. And it's, you know.

Kevin Berrier (10:44.836)
Damn, Acogia, yeah.

Yeah.

Erik Nefores (10:55.135)
Well, if you're going to use Google search to find it, it's going to be hard to find because that's their competition. They don't want you to find it.

Kevin Berrier (11:03.94)
Yeah, it's like searching duck duck go on Google, right? Yeah. Yeah, no, I, so I stumbled on a kosher.

Erik Nefores (11:05.831)
Right.

Kevin Berrier (11:12.228)
I think I learned about Ecosia through doing another podcast episode with some affiliate partners of ours at AdCelerant. Shout out to Ben and the folks at AdCelerant. But he said, yeah, there's so many browsers out there and so many search engines, I'd rather, that people can use. And Google has a large audience. But did you know about Ecosia? And I'm like, had no idea. And it's awesome. That's such an awesome tool.

So I think, you know, there was one, so I want to talk a little bit about how you're using AI, you know, how you're beginning to address automations to make things efficient because, you know, you're, you wear many hats professionally and personally. This isn't your only gig, you know, you're an engineer, you're a coder.

computer programmer. mean, it's, it's, you know, you, you're, you're a dad, you know, your husband. mean, there's just, you wear a lot of hats. so automations are always important, but I want to look at all of this through the lens of one of the. Article or one of the blog posts that you put on, on green villager, which, and by the way, green villager.com, everyone, everyone sing along as we're, as we're going through this, but it was one, there's one story that I was like, man.

I had no idea that this was even a thing. The visual that you used captured my attention and such needs to be like, I could tell what the article is about through your visual. And when I look at, so I'm looking at it from a personal lens of like, that's really cool info. And then I'm looking at it from a marketer's lens of like, wow, this is really well done. Like it captured my attention. It is content that's meaningful and impactful. And that interests me to the point of where I shared it out in my community.

My community is, it's, you know, I live near a lake and it's, very environmentally friendly. And I thought my community benefit and it just took off. I mean, it spurred so much conversation on the social thread. It was on, October 23rd, bat houses and earth friendly Halloween project. So bat houses had no idea. you know, the visual that you use that I want to talk, I want to start with the visuals because you have a very specific style.

Erik Nefores (13:33.707)
Bye.

Kevin Berrier (13:42.078)
of thumbnail look at least that you use for each for each article. And when I saw this one, it was like it was perfect story around Halloween. It's got some bats flying around, you know, with this this house up in this like bat house up in the corner. I'm like, what the heck is a bat house? And turns out bat houses are incredibly environmentally friendly. And it's like I want to get one.

But let's first talk about the visuals, because it lends, like you have a consistency in visuals. Talk to me about how you decided on how the images and the creative assets that you're using were going to look on your site.

Erik Nefores (14:26.345)
Yeah, so I love the Bat House post. The visuals, you know, I've always loved Impressionist art. It is just my favorite style. It comes in different flavors. And I just, you know, of course, Van Gogh, I love all his stuff. And I've read a lot of books on him. I just I've always loved the style. And so I knew

I knew that I wanted to do something like that. I also grew up with the New Yorker magazine was always laying around the house as a kid. And I just remember the visuals, all the illustrations were the cover art for the New Yorker. it was not, know, photo, realistic photo journalism stuff is great and it's awesome. And there are photos that I can really, you know, that capture my attention, of course, but I love, I love illustrations of I love.

You know, anime, love any kind of cartoon art and styles. You know, they all draw me in. So I wanted to do something like that. We use GPT a lot for, well, for all the imagery right now, for the feature art. then internally, we use a combination of photos and AI-generated photos.

Kevin Berrier (15:54.2)
So that is so future art is that kind of the right? So like GPT and GPT's really come a long way in creating images. I think it's incorporate. I think it incorporated Dolly into into the mix. But I mean, the images it can create by and large are incredible. Do you think is that kind of the term that you use for it, that you trained it to understand futuristic art or like what would without

giving, I guess, the secret sauce for people to mimic. Like, you know, like there's a dream style, right? There's futuristic, there's cartoon, there's comic, like these are things that GPT understands. Like, what did you tell chat GPT for it to like click on this look where it looks painted in a very unique way?

Erik Nefores (16:50.985)
Yeah, yeah, next time you dive in, just ask it to generate a bold impressionist style painting rather than an image or photo. Ask it to generate a painting for you and see what it does. Yeah, I'm sorry. The veil has been lifted.

Kevin Berrier (17:07.337)
interesting.

Well, because you always think, no, no, well, no. the thing, yeah, the looks under the hood. No, so honestly, and man, it's so totally getting over cold. So the brain fog is strong with me, but I honestly never really thought of like, when I wanted to create an image, I told you, chat, GVT, I'm like, create me an image. And I want it to look like this and it needs to be an image, right? But asking it to create a painting.

for the purposes of it will output an image for you in the style of painting. That's, that's a, yeah, man. Well.

Erik Nefores (17:43.391)
Yeah, that's the beauty of computer science and AI and everything. It'll do what you're telling it to do. Or try to. But yeah, the difference of one word, semantics or everything with that.

Kevin Berrier (17:51.852)
Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting.

Kevin Berrier (17:59.428)
Well now, so, well, so I gotta know, I have to know because your, your wife, Tori Nifores, shout out to Tori Nifores of Nifores Photography. She's probably the best photographer in Maryland, in my opinion. she is, her artistic eye is, is second to none, quite honestly. I've known Tori for a long time. I worked with her at the Carroll County Times way back in the day. She was the, one of the best graphic designers, I think.

our news media and our TMA has ever had amongst a lot of great graphic designers, but how much influence did she have on the vision? Did you go to her and say, I need to pick your brain, Jedi, on this one or how did that work?

Erik Nefores (18:42.997)
You

Erik Nefores (18:51.147)
So, Tori actually does not like the style I chose. And, you know, I think the argument is something, it's very typical to the time where it's people are getting so much AI content in their face that it's a bit of a turnoff. I think I totally see that.

Kevin Berrier (18:56.908)
really?

Erik Nefores (19:20.171)
you know, there's AI everywhere. It's hard to know what to trust with the imagery and the images that you're getting and seeing. So it's a strange time. It's an uncomfortable time to be in. But I think that's why I wanted to lean even more into it, because what we're showing is that, you know, that we're using technology to do this. And it's a positive thing, like even down to the images. Like, we're not trying to misrepresent anything.

And we're using, we're creating these images that I could never paint myself. Like it's way better than anything I could do individually. I can't afford to hire an artist to do it for a thousand dollars. that's, that this in a nutshell, that's what it is, right? A future where this technology can help all of us, the average Joe, the, the handicap, anybody can.

circumvent those things with the way, know, with moving forward in this direction with technology being, you know, more of a partner than an adversary or a tyrant that we need to be cautious of or, you know, like, so yeah.

Kevin Berrier (20:33.774)
That's an interesting way to look at it on like your, your, your leading by example, you know, you're, you're saying, you know, technology and sustainability do marry together well. And look, here's an example, a small example of, know, we're going to use technology in a positive way to create non click baity, you know, but attention getting and very applicably designed imagery to

to the content you create, which leads me to the content you create is awesome. It's not a rinse and repeat of everything else you see. I have an interest in eco-friendly living and sustainability, probably to the level of, I'm seeing it in my reels on social media. I'm getting served some stuff on social media. Like my algo has me tagged probably as a moderately.

interested, eco-friendly and sustainable user. But a lot of it's the same, right? It's like, it's all the same stuff. It's all the same topics, but yours are very, it feels like it's insightful. Like how do you go about coming up with the different content? Like you have, you know, content, you know, on composting, which is a...

You know, which is a hugely interesting thing. Here's how you compost to You know driving a remarkable a Polestar driving a remarkable climate a neutral goal powered by League node, I guess, you know talks about like a lecture electric car manufacturer to like sustainability of transportation It's so diverse, right? I mean that it's it all

hovers under sustainability, there's such diversity in sustainability. How do you refine it down to pick a topic? What's that process like?

Erik Nefores (22:35.433)
Yeah, that's a great question. like that process is still kind of evolving for me and for us. I have one writer that I've been working with, Everett, who's amazing. His posts are light and airy and quick and like perfect for he's a younger guy and just perfect for his generation. Mine are a little more verbose, lengthy and detailed. And, you know, and I have, I think the people that will want to read mine. But yeah, so, you know,

I go with like broad strokes and then just try to dial it down. And typically what happens is I'll find something I'm really, it's really cool. And then I really think I should dive into and then I just do it. And then some posts are just maybe where I don't have enough time to really dive into something. Like I've had a post sitting there for weeks that I just cannot finish because it was much more.

involved and I thought it would be, which is like the top five most sustainable cities in the US right now. you know, there's a few surveys and stuff that have been taken. There's some data out there, but it's very scattered and some of it looks a little misleading. of it's a little, could be biased because some energy companies have produced the data and stuff like that.

So, you know, there's things like that that'll happen where I'll have to shelf a post and I'll have to, you know, go into something else that I wasn't planning on. But everything is related or connected to sustainability in some way, or form. And it's, you know, it involves usually something new, new technology. Sometimes it's old technology. You know, we believe that

sustainable future what that looks like is a combination of the old and the new.

Kevin Berrier (24:29.24)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I want to not only thank you, but I want to call out for everyone that's listening in. If you missed it, one big thing it sounds like is very important to you is your source material and vetting your sources and fact checking. Am I kind of the nail on the head there of you're making sure that the content you're putting out

has been sourced responsibly and has been fact checked. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you, Green Villager, because not many brands akin to yours really do that. And it's very deceptive, right? And it usually is for a very different, like an ulterior motive, right? So if anyone listening has not been to greenvillager.com yet, go now and put your email in so you can get their newsletter.

Even as a thank you for just thank you for sourcing your content responsibly and ethically. It's it's it's itching.

Erik Nefores (25:34.453)
Yeah, no problem. Yeah, it's difficult to find with all of the information that's out there now, which is great. I mean, that's part of the process and it's part of critical thinking on that journey because you get to see, you question all those sources, everything that you're looking at, as everybody should be doing. If you're just relying on your feed on social or something for your information, it's just...

It's a scary thought.

Kevin Berrier (26:06.55)
Yeah, no, it's very akin. There's a very popular podcaster that kind of operates under the same recipe, like, you know, sources, but then talks about stuff that they're interested in. And if they're interested in it, then there will be others that are interested as well. And that like, that seems to be such a such a stable blueprint.

Right. It's just, it's, it's a very good way to go about it. but even before really you are, you know, getting content on your site, like the, the main brand, right. Green villager. and the logo that's behind it know, the logo of a, a light bulb where the, the roundness of the light bulb itself has, you know, looks like the earth, right? It's like, it's, it's very clean.

very understandable, tells pretty much what the brand's about. How did you approach addressing your logo, which is the face really of your brand? What was that process like for you?

Erik Nefores (27:19.091)
Yeah, so that was actually, I used Photoshop for that. And it was one of the concept ideas that it put forward for me to try and play around with. And I don't think we edited it too much from what they had given. We put in our own name and everything. We changed some of the coloring, the color palette on it. But yeah, Photoshop helped us kind of get a logo idea together.

Shout out Photoshop.

Kevin Berrier (27:50.51)
Yeah, sponsor Green Villager also sponsor five dubs marketing pros. So did Photoshop. So I'm not a designer. So Photoshop's not a not a platform I use. mean, what do they have? Do they have a I kind of baked in or so you're giving it you're giving it a prompt and it's giving you recommendations.

Erik Nefores (27:56.968)
Yeah.

Erik Nefores (28:13.795)
Yeah, so we have the Photoshop subscription. Tori, my wife, uses it for her photography and graphic design work. yeah, there's a whole studio now which does have AI baked in. You can do everything from, you know, can insert, you know, a cat on my head if you want. You know, there's stuff that you can do with that, but it also will help you with the graphic design.

Kevin Berrier (28:21.219)
Yeah.

Erik Nefores (28:43.349)
for business cards, logos, all of those things if you need it.

Kevin Berrier (28:48.14)
And that's crazy. That's crazy. I guess it makes sense. know, Canva, Canva has, has their flavor. You know, we're on like the Canva beta program on, on theirs. And there's this pretty good. wonder what like Microsoft paint came up with, you know, like for us back in the day, I wonder, I wonder if they just kind of like bowed their heads and walked away into the sunset on that. So, but that's awesome. Well, that's awesome. So I want to look a little bit ahead, right? You are a young, you're a very young brand, right? You are.

Erik Nefores (29:03.349)
Yeah.

Erik Nefores (29:09.332)
You

Kevin Berrier (29:18.2)
You're at the spot right now and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're at the spot right now where you're generating out meaningful content. You're populating the site. You're pushing your content out through automations on your social channels. Find Green Villager on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to their newsletter. Let's show them some love. what is your, so audience growth, right? Is an

that's a living organism from a marketing perspective. But talk to me a little bit about like, what are you looking to do? Or what are some initiatives that are on the horizon for you for next year? And then maybe like, from five years from now? Like, what's the blueprint look like for you?

Erik Nefores (30:08.489)
Yeah, so for now, I think the biggest challenge is just getting content out there. And unfortunately, this is all new to me. I was never big on social media. mean, I didn't have a Facebook account before Green Villager.

Kevin Berrier (30:27.616)
I know. I was so excited when I saw like Eric Nafores wants to be your friend on Facebook. I was like the dad. I looked up to the moon. I'm like the day has finally come because yeah, Eric was never he was never on social media. I'm like, come on, man. I want to be able to send you funny memes and reels and like do it for me. Finally, finally you got on and I was really excited.

Erik Nefores (30:38.119)
you

Erik Nefores (30:51.499)
Yeah, so I'm learning. I think that's the other goal, I guess, if you can, for the next few years for me and for this brand is just to learn everything we can and to just keep putting content out there. And it's mainly for me, it's mainly for us to just me and my close friends and family to have some great information out there that they can trust. And anybody else that wants it, it's there too. But this is just...

You know, it just feels so good to learn this stuff and then to share it, you know, in a way that is totally passive too. You know, I'm putting it out there, but I'm not shoving it down anybody's throat. And that's awesome to me too. So, yeah, we're just having fun with it for now.

Kevin Berrier (31:37.71)
Right.

So what's the biggest, what do you think is the biggest lesson that you've learned so far?

Erik Nefores (31:46.665)
man, the biggest lesson.

Kevin Berrier (31:48.738)
That's always the toughest one for people in answers. It's like, you know, they're like, do I have to just pick one? You know?

Erik Nefores (31:53.675)
Yeah, no, I think that it's really just that the information, that there is good information out there, that there is positivity out there. I mean, the solar punk movement, I didn't know it existed until I started doing this kind of research. I mean, it encapsulates, like I was always looking for my people, right? Who has the same passions? Who has the same...

beliefs and stuff. it's so it was so hard to find because I was still trying to figure out what that was. Like, I love the idea of homesteading and going off grid and all that. But I also am a huge tech nerd. So I love video games. love doing programming and all of that. Like, I don't want to give that up to live passively. And the solar punk movement encapsulates that. Like, that's exactly

what they're hoping to achieve through art and through conversation, through forums and all of this stuff. it's like, you know, that's what we're aiming at. It's just, yeah, you know, just learning that and finding out what, you know, how to make that possible down to the details, to broader strokes, like in bigger issues, like, you know, housing, healthcare, you know, education, free education.

you know, all of these things that have been found to be working models in other countries and everything, we're exploring those things and, you know, what are the challenges? I mean, we're just, again, just a part of that conversation and to just keep passing it around to anybody that's interested.

Kevin Berrier (33:38.168)
Yeah, it's interesting that when you think about sustainability and just the environment, right? On like, how many areas of verticals, I guess, or just how many areas of our everyday life does the environment play into? And it's like, our economy, our society, it's always within our news, you know, it's the environment itself has its own thing. And what I really love on your site is that like,

you have those, those kind of meta tags already installed, right? If you want to learn about what's going on from the sustainability side economically, right? Or how it impacts our economy, it's there, you know, how it impacts our society and culture. mean, I, I love the way that you've, that you've, organized, the content as well. So let's, so let's, let's, as we kind of, as we kind of wrap up, let's, let's daydream.

so if you could, if you could close your eyes and say, 10 years from now, if, if, know, the hustle and bustle of life wasn't, you know, didn't come into play or just all of these like obstacles and variables that just exist. Like if you could have this one, like I want in 10 years, I want green villager to be at this spot or represent this. Like what, what would that be?

for you. Like, if there were no obstacles, what would you want the green villager to be in 10 years?

Erik Nefores (35:13.971)
Yeah, I think it would transcend the blog. You the blog is a great forum and conversation piece and, you know, repository of information. But I would if I if if there were no stopping points in our way, I would love to build and develop passive homes in the cities and Earth sheltered homes in the country.

and put those options in front of people. Like the, you know, the small or tiny house movement is one that I've always loved. And I love that, you know, people are fighting back in this beautifully passive way, right? Like they're not hurting anybody, but they're saying, I don't want to subscribe, you know, to working 60 hours a week. I don't want to subscribe to burning my life away.

you know, I'd rather spend time with doing things that I'm passionate about or spending time with my family and friends. And this is how I'm going to do it, right? And the tiny house movement is awesome. And you can just take it one step further and use a passive home design, which saves 90 % energy cost. And if it's 90 % more efficient than a normal home.

And then you incorporate features like more sustainability features in these homes like greenhouses where everyone has their own like miniature garden or, know, food, garden, whatever it may be. If everyone did that, there would be such a surplus of food, you know, for there were nobody would be going hungry, right? Like we already have a surplus in the United States, but you nobody would be going hungry. Your neighbor like your neighbors would all have food. Everybody within the community would have food like

You know, we have this image of our front lawns, right, to be these beautifully manicured landscapes of just green grass, right? But why? Why can't it be a small vegetable garden? Our fruit trees, if you don't want to till a garden or do anything like that, then plant fruit and trade the fruit for vegetables to your neighbor who's got the vegetable garden, right?

Erik Nefores (37:34.151)
If we just present a different narrative and a different image of what this could look like, we wouldn't have to rely so much on this capitalist system that we have in place. Capitalism is great, but we shouldn't have to rely on it or we shouldn't have to be forced to subscribe to it on every level.

Kevin Berrier (37:57.048)
Yeah, yeah, no, that sounds, man, that sounds utopian. That would be an amazing place to be. your voice is one of many that's helping us as a community or as just human beings to get there by shining light on that. So thank you for that. So for everyone listening, greenvillager.com, go to Facebook.

search green villager, subscribe to their Facebook page, a green villager, Insta, for, for Instagram. And if you can, if you go, I'm on your Instagram right now and I'm looking at like the lobby with like your main thumbnail stack. It's beautiful. Your Insta is beautiful with the images that you're using. I mean, it is, it's incredibly, attention getting. mean, it's, this is great. You, you definitely are, are,

becoming a master at the marketing game.

Erik Nefores (38:58.764)
Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, I need to get into short form video. think a friend of mine in marketing told me that's where...

Kevin Berrier (39:03.52)
I know some, yeah, mean, yeah, some friend who's been, who's in marketing, I heard has been hounding you to get on short forms. So I'm sure he'll be around to help you, to help you navigate through that because it's such a great cause. Greenvillager.com, go subscribe to their newsletter, read their content, share their content, go on Facebook, follow their page, go to Insta, follow their page.

Join the movement. It's such a great thing that you're doing. It's such great content. keep on keeping on. I'm excited to see where this brand keeps going. You're going to, you're going, I've known you for a long time. You're gonna crush it. I have no doubt about that.

Erik Nefores (39:45.536)
Me too. Thank you, Kevin. Yeah, so much for having me on and I really appreciate it and love talking about this.

Kevin Berrier (39:51.768)
Yeah, awesome. Well, that will do it for today. Thank you everyone for listening in. If you haven't subscribed to Five Dubs, go find our social on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, X now. So many, so many. We're out there everywhere and go follow us. Go follow Green Villager. Follow our page on Spotify.

Show us the love, do all the things. Thank you, thank you. And until next time, see you.