Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
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.
[Read more →]Tags: At Work · Briefs · Greener Businesses · Model Projects
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 [...]
[Read more →]Tags: At Work · Briefs · Model Projects
Let’s face it: Solo car commuters increase both traffic congestion and a city’s carbon footprint.
In San Francisco, those gas-hogging lone drivers soon will be get a clear message to switch to greener forms of transportation, such as buses, train transit and van pools. Earlier this month, the city preliminarily approved a commuter measure requiring medium- and large-size city employers to promote — or even pay for — public transit or vanpools for their commuting employees.
It’s likely that many more American cities will follow San Francisco’s lead, particularly those cities that have signed on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (USCPA), and pledged to reduce global warming pollution in their cities by 7 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2012. They will likely be scrambling to usher commuters from their cars and SUV’s and onto mass transit lines, an immediate and proven way of reducing urban smog.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was an early adopter of the USCPA and the city has an ambitious climate action plan, so it’s no surprise that on August 5, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a commuter measure that would require many city employers to promote public transit or vanpools for their commuting employees. The Commuter Benefits ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, would give San Francisco employers with more than 20 workers three options: pay for employees’ transit passes or vanpools; provide door-to-door shuttle or vanpools, or tap into the federal Commuter Checks program, which allows employees to create pretax commuter accounts.
[Read more →]Tags: At Work · Cities/States · Greener Businesses · Other Transport
By Shermakaye Bass
Not terribly long ago, the idea of “telecommuting” conjured a Jetsonian image of people traveling at warp-speed to and from the office. It was the future; the exception, not the norm.
But now, according to statistics from private industry, federal agencies and states like Connecticut, telecommuting is an idea whose time has finally, and [...]
Tags: At Work · Greener Businesses
By John DeFore
All right-thinking computer users want their gear to be put to the best use — handed down to others, resold, recycled — when they’re done with it. But many are dissuaded by nagging concerns like, If I donate my computer to Goodwill, is some miscreant going to unearth the personal data [...]
[Read more →]Tags: At Work · Briefs · Cut Consumption · Greener Businesses
By John DeFore
You don’t have to take the tree huggers’ word for it — now a leading source of information on commercial real estate has demonstrated that greener building practices not only make sense, but earn dollars as well: The CoStar Group, an info-broker that tracks data on more than 2.3 million properties, has released [...]
Tags: At Work · Briefs · Greener Businesses
By John DeFore
Today business-supply giant Office Depot joined the ranks of big-box retailers using their weight to steer customers, however incrementally, in a greener direction. The retailer announced “Office Depot Green,” which judging from the company’s press release would put a useful twist on eco-friendly retailing by applying a uniform brand (as seen [...]
By Harriet Blake
Most of us know to recycle our ink cartridges, but did you know that some stores offer refills for your original cartridges while you wait?
Hundreds of Office Max, Office Depot and Walgreen stores have set up kiosks where customers can have their cartridges refilled at the store, eliminating the need for recycling.
Office [...]
Tags: At Work · Model Projects · Recycle & Reuse
By Barbara Kessler
In many places in the United States, unless you’re locked into a city utility or cooperative, you have some ability to choose your energy supplier.
This freedom, conversely, means that energy companies are on the hunt for you, the consumer, often with a flurry of special offers, rebates and claims designed to catch [...]
Tags: At Work · Briefs · Energy/Water
By Barbara Kessler
If you’re looking to upgrade your home office, then you’ve probably already realized that this is a great opportunity to green your workspace and put some hard-earned cash back in your pocket at the same time.
Computers and printers are getting increasingly energy efficient and the ENERGY STAR program stands ready to help you [...]
Tags: At Work · Energy/Water
By Harriet Blake
Tax time is upon us, but the good news is that the annual IRS paper chase doesn’t have to consume mountains of paperwork. Of course, you need to keep track of the year’s receipts, but most everything else is available online. Bank statements, mutual fund statements as well as W-2 forms and [...]
Tags: At Work · Briefs · Greener Businesses
By Shermakaye Bass
This month, TerraPass, one of the first American companies to put carbon offsetting on the map, introduced a new service called the Carbon Balance Business Program.
[Read more →]Tags: At Work · Briefs · Energy/Water
By Tom Kessler
The battlefield cry “charge” is taking on new meanings. Portable fuel cell systems from SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG won first and third prizes in the U.S. Defense Department’s inaugural Wearable Power Competition, the DOD announced.
Nearly 170 designs competed in the event, which was established by Department of Defense Research and Engineering to “encourage innovation in energy systems carried by personnel during field missions.” The systems, attached to a military vest, were required to provide 20 watts of average electric power, have peak-power capability up to 200 watts and weigh no more than 8.8 pounds.
By John DeFore
Honda is shifting gears in its strategy for hybrid cars. Judging from announcements at last week’s Paris Motor Show, the automaker has decided that the hybrids most likely to succeed in the marketplace are models with a standalone hybrid identity — like Toyota’s Prius, which is not available with a conventional gas engine — rather than those, like Honda’s Civic, that are already familiar in all-gasoline incarnations.
So while Chrysler’s new plan will speed up electric vehicle roll-out by building on existing cars, Honda will now focus on “dedicated” hybrid models like the new Insight Hybrid, which it expects to have in showrooms early next year. (Perhaps confusingly, this new car recycles the name of a previous Honda vehicle, a gas/electric hybrid that was discontinued a couple of years ago due to poor sales.)
The five-passenger car will be followed by two other dedicated hybrids — within the next four years, Honda intends to introduce both a compact similar to its Fit and a sports car resembling the CR-Z. The Insight’s fuel efficiency figures are not yet public, pending full EPA review, but company spokespeople have said its performance should be comparable to the existing Civic Hybrid, which gets a combined 42 mpg.
Though no price has yet been mentioned, in a press release the company boasts it will offer the Insight at “a price significantly below hybrids available today” and therefore expects to sell 200,000 cars a year, with half that in North America.
Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media
Catalog mailings are nearing full swing now, with mailboxes deluged by hefty full-color enticements to get 
that Christmas shopping done by phone.
Obviously, online shopping is more prudent, ecologically speaking. However, at the recent Business of Green Media Conference in Boston, the printing industry showed signs of taking green issues seriously.
Consumers can “take solace” in the fact that many catalogs are recycled and others are certified as coming from sustainable forests, said Beth Reardon, a corporate accounts manager with Appleton Coated, one of more than 30 companies represented at the conference’s Expo.
Appleton Coated, a paper company that sells under the Utopia brand, uses virgin fiber but does not use any fiber bleaching, said Reardon. None of their pulp comes from old-growth timber or rainforests. It’s all 100 percent certified by one or all of the following: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).
These certification groups were created as a result of concern for the planet’s forests. They review companies’ practices to assure that they do not use old growth or rainforest timber, or engage in disreputable forestry practices that can lead to habitat loss or the displacement of human residents. [Read more →]
