Green Right Now

California this week honored 21 companies and organizations with the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Awards, the state’s highest prize for contributions to environmental issues.

The Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Awards program was established in 1993. Recipients are selected by a large panel of evaluators and the Secretaries of Cal/EPA, the Resources Agency, Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, the Department of Food and Agriculture, the State and Consumer Services Agency, and the Governor’s Office. It honors projects in nine categories.

Here are the 2008 award winners in each category with comments from the California EPA:

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By John DeFore

As more and more individuals and groups set out to re-introduce gardens to urban areas — often citing WWII’s “Victory Gardens” as proof that a large percentage of our food can come from our back yards and vacant lots — the Detroit-headquartered Urban Farming wants to push edible plants into new spaces — like walls.

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By Barbara Kessler

And the greenest state could soon be… No, not California. Not Washington, or Oregon, or Colorado.

It’s Hawaii!

Or at least it could be. Maybe. The islanders have plantation-sized plans for moving off fossil fuels and into clean energy. Their goal: Meet 70 percent of Hawaii’s energy needs with clean energy sources like solar and wind power by 2030. That’s a bigger reach than any other state have taken, or feels able to take.

Across the country, 24 states have set firm goals for adding renewable power to their energy portfolio. Another four states have non-binding goals for their Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), as they’re called.
Most of these look to increase the amount of renewable energy to 10 to 30 percent of the total used by the state by 2015 or 2020.

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By John DeFore

Though it was an odd thing to call a “groundbreaking” — the act involved no shovel stuck in soil, but rather the placement of a panel on a metal stand — a ceremony alongside an Oregon highway this month inaugurated what Governor Ted Kulongoski calls “the nation’s first solar highway project.”

Speaking in a promotional video made at the event, Kulongoski was joined by Transportation Commission chair Gail Achterman, who explained that the solar panel being mounted was the first of 594 that will soon cover 8,000 square feet alongside the right-of-way at the interchange of Interstates 5 and 205 south of Portland.

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By John DeFore

Joining the existing array of programs addressing school bus pollution this fall (the EPA’s Clean School Bus USA, for example) is a new effort bringing the Texas Parent Teacher Association together with the state’s Commission on Environmental Quality.

The project, announced earlier this month, will supply funds to the PTA for bus pollution-control improvements. In a nice “let the punishment fit the crime” twist, those funds are coming from fines assessed to polluters, and will generally be used near the site of the pollution that provoked the fine.

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By Nima Kapadia
As college students make their way to campuses across the nation for the fall semester, many are thinking ahead to future careers in business, teaching, technology or sustainability. Sustainability?
Yes, says Arizona State University graduate student Brigitte Bavousett Hill, who hopes to use her Master’s Degree in Sustainability to help other countries lower their [...]

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By Barbara Kessler

Worried about the stacks of duplicated reports and reprinted Power Points that get passed around at meetings? Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. But as companies assess the carbon impact of their activities, the paper-choked meeting is becoming an issue, and a UK company is in the wings with the solution: an electronic device called MeetingPod.

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By John DeFore

More and more corporate emails these days end with text blurbs urging the recipient not to print messages out unless absolutely necessary. Hard copies of documents are a must in some instances, of course, but they’re becoming less and less necessary thanks to some efforts to finally make good on the computer [...]

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By John DeFore

Not long ago, a City of Austin crew spent the day installing new “No Parking” signs along the streets of my neighborhood. Two big Ford F450 trucks sat outside my home-office window for hours while the men dug holes and planted posts — and their engines ran the entire time.

Not wanting to be the block’s eco-scold, I said nothing as the trucks rumbled. But the waste of fuel nagged at me even after the noise was gone, and I eventually called the city to find out why workers would be allowed to run their engines like that. Surely the city didn’t approve of polluting the air all morning just so the truck would be pre-air-conditioned when workers took a coffee break?

After calls to three or four city departments, I found a public works supervisor with some answers. All work trucks keep their engines running, she told me, because of the LED arrow boards mounted on them which warn drivers to keep their distance. “You can’t turn the engine off and keep the arrows going, because your battery will die down,” she said.

It was easy to see how a safety-based practice might serve as an excuse to keep the cab cooled off, even when running the arrow was unnecessary: In my case, the truck was parked on a dead-end block where no traffic could approach from behind it. The woman I spoke with agreed that conserving fuel wasn’t the easiest topic to raise with work crews. “They’ve been here a while,” she said, “and when I mention this they kind of get, ‘Well, fine, what do you want us to do for safety?’”

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By Shermakaye Bass

While some Americans insist on pampering thirsty lawns and water-greedy flora - and engage in other water-siphoning practices - innovative means of conservation are cropping up all over the United States, out of necessity or sheer eco-sense. Some can be easily applied by individuals; others require input, or even a policy change, from water-service providers.

“In Marin County (CA), where I live, they take a fairly clever approach that’s driving behavior change. They tell you on your water bill how your water usage compares to last year’s,” says Jason Morrison, a water expert at the eco-driven Pacific Institute in Oakland, CA. “It’s information that’s very easy to read. You can also compare your usage to the county average and to the town average. That kind of information motivates people. Those kinds of policies allow people to become actively involved in utilities issues.”

Something else that’s helped California, as it fights to stay afloat during a drought, is the tightening of specs on new construction, for instance, requiring low-flow plumbing for all new homes. (Old-fashioned toilets use 6 gallons per flush, while the smart and modern ones only take 1.6 gallons or less.)

Water utitilies around the country are finding similar opportunities in conservation.

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By Julie Bonnin

If you’re in the market for a custom-built home, there really isn’t a reason not to build green. Who doesn’t want a smaller utility bill? Or to leave a reduced carbon footprint on your corner of planet Earth? FreeGreen, a web site with free green home designs, allows users to browse a listing of green house plans that range from strikingly modern to suburban friendly.

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Even those among us who spend a fair deal of time daydreaming about living in a solar-powered home may stop short of actually shopping for the required equipment. You can’t just hop down to Home Depot and pick up a photovoltaic rig, after all, and we all know it’s expensive.

Happily, some pioneers are making themselves guinea pigs and sharing their experiences with anyone who’s interested.

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