Tourists heading for the theme parks and other attractions near Orlando have yet another green hotel choice. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has certified the Courtyard Orlando Lake Buena Vista Hotel in the Marriott Village as the newest member of the Florida Green Lodging group of hotels.

Florida’s Green Lodging Program establishes guidelines for hotels and other tourist destinations seeking green status, which encompasses water and energy conservation to name a few. To become a designated member of the Florida Green Lodging Program, hotels must implement a variety of green practices. These practices include water conservation, energy efficiency, waste reduction and recycling. (more…)

They’ve sold the candy bars. They’ve sold the wrapping paper. Perhaps they’ve even sold cookie dough (not healthy) or had car washes (not good during droughts). The problem with typical school fund-raisers is that the kids just end up selling more stuff - at a time when the world could benefit from a little less stuff.

Thus, a green wave of school fund-raising efforts has washed across the country, and companies are springing up to meet that demand. Eco-friendly firms will provide everything from stainless steel water bottles to fair-trade T-shirts, energy-efficient light bulbs to recycled wrapping paper as alternative, Earth-friendly ways of raising money.

No small number of them were launched by environmentally sensitive parents who didn’t like what they saw their kids selling to friends and family.

The Green Schools Initiative - a non-profit group in California - has a far-reaching agenda to make schools across the country more environmentally conscious. Co-founder Deborah Moore said that a few years ago she began getting more requests from parents for ideas to raise money and serve a greater purpose at the same time.

“I just tried to collect some information to email the person, tell them there are other kinds of products they could sell,” Moore said. Since then, she said, there’s been a surge in “turn-key” green fund-raising businesses. (She offers numerous links to green fund-raising groups on the Initiative’s Web site.) (more…)

Television manufacturers are using this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to debut new eco-friendly products and designs. In some cases, the new digital TVs surpass the federal government’s Energy Star 3.0 requirements.

Japan’s Sony is unveiling a series of energy efficient televisions. The company says its new BRAVIA VE5-series models (pictured) will offer substantial power savings by using a zero-watt standby power switch, along with motion and light sensors that minimize energy usage.

Irvine, Calif.-based VIZIO is rolling out seven new EcoHD LCD HDTVs that consume less energy and exceed Energy Star 3.0 requirements by as much as 25 percent.

(more…)

Today’s daily catch comes from a thoughtful post by John Livesay over at Saving The World.

He points out how Focus Features has a film in production that is greening up the process in every way possible. I’ve heard of green band productions, such as Radiohead or Dave Mathews, but this is a first for me in the film biz.

Away We Go Green: Focus Features Production Embraces More Sustainable Filmmaking

If you are not injecting this type of innovation (thoughtfullness) into your business, what’s your excuse?

Read more from Tim at SandersSays and at the Saving the World at Work site.

With winter weather at its most aggressive about now, it’s hard not to notice all the idlers in our midst. They’re idling at fast food restaurants, outside offices and schools. You find a business, there’s a car idling outside. Some people take their right to idle pretty seriously. Police cruisers sometimes idle while they lie in wait and will get no argument from me. Ditto crossing guards, for different reasons.

I am not suggesting that we regular folks suffer frozen feet nobly in the name of curbing carbon emissions. I’m all for necessary feet-saving measures. But I have noticed that my car stays warm for a little while after I’ve been driving it. You notice that? Do I really need to idle while my teenager tarries at the bookstore checkout? Reaallly? No, I don’t. Do I need to warm up in the driveway before heading to an appointment? Not anymore. Experts say modern engines do just fine with a cold start. Do I need to keep the car especially toasty, while someone runs into the bakery for bread? No — and neither did the woman I noticed last week in a big hulking truck that idled while someone else got the bread. Humpff!

OK, I agree, this is a little thing, in the large scheme of things. But did you know that two minutes of idling is the equivalent of driving one mile, according to the Consumer Energy Center ?

It might be worth thinking about. A hundred million Americans idling less — and thinking more. It could help.

And while you’re at it, check those tires to make sure they’re properly inflated.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Today’s great catch is fresh from the Consumer Electronics Show:
Moto Goes Green With Entry Level Renew Phone

It’s about time! Up until now, you had to donate your phone via mailing it to a variety of causes (such as phones for soldiers). The rub is that eventually that phone is likely to end up in a drawer, and later a landfill.

This is another innovation on the path to a closed loop system of production.  Let’s hope that all phones can be data deleted and recycled someday when they’ve served their useful life.

Read more from Tim at SandersSays and at the Saving the World at Work site.

President George W. Bush smiles after delivering his remarks on U.S. Ocean Action Plan last September at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. President Bush has now protected more of the ocean than any other president.

Green Right Now reports

President George W. Bush today announced the establishment of three underwater monuments that will protect a vast area of the central Pacific Ocean that spans nine tropical coral islands and their surrounding waters.

The action was cheered by conservationists and environmental groups, including the Marine Conservation Biology Institute and Environmental Defense Fund, which each worked with the administration to establish the protections.

(more…)

Here’s a new feature of my blog: Daily Catch. It’s an article or blog post that I want to share with you.  My first Daily Catch is a collection of The 10 Best 2008 Articles from Green Biz.

If you haven’t checked out Green Biz, do it right away. It’s author, Joel Makower, is one of the greenest minds in the world today and his point of view is keen.

Read more from Tim at SandersSays and at the Saving the World at Work site.

The National Audubon Society headquarters in New York City has distinguished itself as a builder not just of avian habitats, but of green, sustainable office spaces too, earning a LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

In fact, the society’s 27,500-square-foot headquarters at 225 Varick Street received the highest point total of any commercial interior in the world that has been evaluated by the USGBC, according to an Audubon news release today.

The conservation group reports that the redesign of the space, which included a long list of energy-saving changes, cost only about 10 percent more than the upfront price for comparable conventional improvements. And most modifications are expected to pay for themselves within 10-15 years.

“Our new home office demonstrates Audubon’s commitment to providing employees with a cost-effective, productive and comfortable workplace that fits our environmental values and also allows us to concentrate financial resources on our conservation mission,” said Audubon President John Flicker, in a statement. “Most importantly, what we’ve done here is a model of cost-effective sustainability that can be replicated by others.” (more…)

Happy New Year! And while it might not seem quite so happy at this moment — with renewed fighting in Gaza, rising U.S. unemployment and global economic pain — we always are seeking signs of hope on the green front. Trawling for good news over the holidays, we found these encouraging items:

• The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) reports that the coral reefs in Indonesia are recovering rapidly following the tsunami that hit four years ago. “Baby corals” are springing up to replace those lost in the Dec. 26, 2004 disaster, which means that the ecosystems needed to support fishing, as well as tourism, in the area are mending nicely. “This is a great story of ecosystem resilience and recovery,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell, coordinator of the WCS’s Indonesia Marine Program in a news release. In assessing the coral lost in the area, Campbell’s team of researchers discovered that destructive fishing practices (using dynamite and chemicals), in addition to the tsunami, had killed much of the coral. But increasingly, local communities are managing these undersea resources more responsibly, and also are successfully transplanting coral in damaged areas.

• A new wildlife preserve in South America has been established to help protect some 500,000 penguins, fur seals and several species of seabirds. This inaugural protected area in Argentina is expected to save breeding grounds and also offshore habitat for these imperiled animals. Several groups collaborated to create the park, including the Wildlife Conservation Society (the Bronx Zoo-based group’s mission is to restore wildlife around the globe); the National Parks Service of Argentina; the government of Chubut; Fundacion Patagonia Natural and the United Nations Development Programme.

So here’s to Mother Nature, who will find a way, if we provide a path instead of a roadblock.

Now if we could just get the WCS working on that world economy problem…

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

An expectation met is rare enough. An expectation surpassed is a culturally appropriate winter solstice celebration miracle.

So imagine my surprise and delight when reading the miles per gallon readout on the trip computer of the 2009 Jetta TDI during a recent holiday drive over the river and through the woods. The display reads: 43.7 mpg. That’s significantly above the Environmental Protection Agency estimate of 40 mpg in highway driving.

And we weren’t doing any of that 55 mph, coast-down-hills, hyper-miler sort of driving. We were zipping along at 70 mph or so, singing loudly along with the Christmas tunes provided by the satellite radio.

That sort of fuel economy apparently isn’t a fluke. Volkswagen hired a third party, automotive evaluation company AMCI, to test the real-world fuel economy of the Jetta TDI and found it performed 24 percent better than EPA estimates, getting 38 mpg in the city and 44 mpg on the highway.

Such miserly fuel use is one reason the Jetta TDI earlier this year was named the 2009 Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal.

“The Volkswagen Jetta TDI rose to the top as Green Car Journal’s 2009 Green Car of the Year® for some very important reasons,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com.

“Hybrids have dominated the discussion of environmentally positive vehicles in recent years.” Awarding the title to the VW, Cogan said, “shows that advanced clean diesel has arrived and is poised to change this dynamic. With its affordable price point, refined ride and handling, and high fuel economy, the Jetta TDI shows that hybrids now have a strong competitor in the marketplace.”

The diesel cars of today aren’t the clattering, smoky, smelly diesels of 20 years ago. The new vehicles meet even strict California emissions standards, in part because of regulations requiring the development of ultra-low sulfur fuel. Refiners reduced the sulfur content in diesel fuel by 97 percent, making exhaust control systems more effective.

The new, clean-burning diesel cars such as the Jetta are a better alternative to conventional automobiles than even gasoline-electric hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, according to a RAND study.

The study, presented in November 2007 at the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, D.C., examined the benefits and costs of three alternatives to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine for the 2010-2020 period. The alternatives were advanced diesel technology (the kind making its way to dealer showrooms), gas-electric hybrids and duel-fuel vehicles burning E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.