Melissa HebelerHappy Earth Week!
Eco-friendly celebrities like Jessica Alba and Leonardo DiCaprio have taken their green lifestyles to another level with a variety of environmental initiatives and charitable causes.
The Wolf of Wall Street star, for example, has his own foundation—the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation—which gives grants to charities that improve the environment by providing access to clean water, saving endangered species, protecting our oceans and more.
Check out these 5 eco-friendly celeb causes and initiatives!
1. Jessica Alba's Honest Company: The Sin City star founded her eco-friendly company to "help moms and give all children a better, safer start" by providing information on eco-friendly products, healthy living strategies and tips on how to maintain a clean diet. Alba's site sells products like eco-friendly diapers and wipes for babies, along with eco-friendly laundry detergent and dish soap for parents. A percentage of the sales are donated to Baby2Baby.org, which gives baby supplies to families in need.
2. Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Life: The Clueless star created her Kind Life blog as an extension of her The Kind Diet book. On it, she gives tips and recipes for vegan dieting and vegetarian food, provides editorials on environmentally-sensitive fashion items and fashion issues, and more. The majority of this falls under Silverstone's "Green Life" section on her blog, where readers can get tips on on how to live a greener life.
3. Ian Somerhalder's Ian Somerhalder Foundation: The Vampire Diaries star has made it no secret that he's passionate about environment issues and animal rights. The award-winning environmentalist's foundation aims to "empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures." The organization distributes funds geared towards global conservation, green energy development and educational tools, and creates awareness about the harmful impact of global deforestation among many other things.
4. Leonardo DiCaprio's Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation: Established in 1998, the Wolf of Wall Street's foundation is dedicated to protecting "Earth's last wild places and fostering a harmonious relationship between humanity and the natural world." To carry out their initiatives, the organization teams up with other groups to provide grants for conservation projects and non-profits. DiCaprio's org has helped numerous philanthropic efforts by providing access to clean water in remote parts of the world, and joined a collaborative funding effort called "Oceans 5" to help stop overfishing and establish marine reserves. The thesp also produced and created a documentary called The 11th Hour, which documented the grave problems facing the environment, including global warming and deforestation.
5. Brad Pitt's Holy Cross Project: The Oscar winner teamed up with Global Green to help lead the organization's Holy Cross Project in 2006, which pushed for the redevelopment of New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with the development of a zero energy affordable housing development (five single-family homes, an 18-unit apartment building and a community center/sustainable design). The first home was built in 2008. His Make It Right Foundation, founded in 2007, has since gone on to build energy-efficient, green homes and building for communities in need.