5 Celebrities Maintaining Their Brands Through Sustainability Initiatives

Going green can be one of the best things you’ve ever done for your image and your wallet—if you’re a celebrity, that is.

Celebrities are among some of the most lucrative brands in the world. Whether it’s Brad Pitt raking in $25 million a year or Al Gore making roughly $4,500 a minute for his green speeches, these stars sure know how to capitalize on their name brands—literally.

Here are five celebrities who are saving both the planet and their public images through sustainability initiatives:

1. Jack Johnson. While Johnson is busy singing about the “3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” he is doing so in his environmentally friendly studio in Los Angeles. The studio is equipped with natural light, recycled shingles, walls padded with old denim jeans and rooftop solar panels.

The Hawaii-native also founded the Kokua Hawai’i Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating schools and communities in Hawaii about environmental issues. As if that weren’t enough, his upcoming “To the Sea” tour through Australia and New Zealand will feature eco-friendly concert merchandise, sustainable food choices and recycling and composting stations.

2. Rachel McAdams. McAdams co-found Green is Sexy with her two friends, Megan and Didi, when the three of them “realized that exchanging quips & tips on ways to make an impact on the environment was becoming daily conversation.” The sustainability-minded women share daily green tips on their website about the green books, places, products and recipes they love, among many others.

3. Alicia Silverstone. Silverstone teamed up with Eco Tools to create her very own design for the environmentally friendly bath and beauty line. Her designs feature roses and lavender printed on natural hemp totes, bamboo and recycled aluminum makeup brushes and tags made with a revolutionary paper that requires no trees. She is also the author of “The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight and Saving the Planet.”

4. Brad Pitt. Thousands of people were suddenly left homeless after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005. When Pitt toured the Lower 9^th Ward of the city two years later, he was inspired to co-find the Make it Right Foundation. His non-profit organization builds homes for working families that are safe, sustainable and affordable to replace the homes that were destroyed by the hurricane.

The U.S. Green Building Council has even declared that Make it Right is building the “largest, greenest neighborhood of single family homes in America.”

5. Soleil Moon Frye. You may remember Frye from her role as “Roxie King” in the television series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Now she is making a new name for herself as the co-founder of The Little Seed, an organic clothing boutique for children in Los Angeles.

“We wanted to create a physical space – and an accompanying website – where parents had the option to purchase stylish organic and eco products exclusively,” says Frye. Aside from its store in LA, The Little Seed clothing line can also be found at a Target store nearest you.

The business of going green—especially for celebrities—is not going out of style any time soon. GlobeScan and SustainAbility predict that sustainability will be one of the fastest growing components for businesses in the next decade.