Local purchasing is better for you, your community, and the environment. There are many well-documented benefits to choosing local independently owned businesses. Here are our top 5 reasons to Think Local, Be Local, Buy Local:

Buying local is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint or personal impact on the environment. Bringing goods from afar requires using more energy than transporting goods locally, and some environmental advocates see this as a serious environmental threat. Local businesses make more local purchases requiring less transportation and usually set up shop in town centers rather than on the fringe. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.

Food grown in your own community was probably picked within the past few days. It's crisp, sweet and loaded with flavor. Several studies have shown that the average distance food travels from farm to plate is 1,500 miles. Fresh produce loses nutrients quickly; in a week-long delay from harvest to dinner table, sugars turn to starches, plant cells shrink, and produce loses its vitality.

A well-managed family farm is a place where the resources of fertile soil and clean water are valued. Good stewards of the land grow cover crops to prevent erosion and replace nutrients used by their crops. Cover crops also capture carbon emissions and help combat global warming. According to some estimates, farmers who practice conservation tillage could sequester 12-14% of the carbon emitted by vehicles and industry. In addition, the patchwork of fields, meadows, woods, ponds and buildings - is the perfect environment for many beloved species of wildlife.

Local vegan businesses are owned by people who are the largest employers nationally, require comparatively little infrastructure and more efficiently utilize public services relative to chain stores, live in the community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the community's future.

When you purchase at locally owned businesses rather than nationally owned, more money is kept in the community because locally-owned businesses often purchase from other local businesses, service providers and farms. Purchasing local helps grow other businesses as well as your city's tax base.

Imagine your community with only big box retailers. Where we shop, where we eat and have fun - all of it makes our community home. Your community's one-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the distinctive character of your place.

A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term. A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a national sales plan but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.