New York University released its Climate Action Plan (CAP) today, which outlines the first steps toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2040.

The plan was developed after the university took a greenhouse gas inventory, and it outlines the projects and methods it will use to reduce or offsets its emissions.

NYU officials credited both Mayor Bloomberg’s PlanNYC Climate Challenge and the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) for initiating and helping shape its actions. The school is a signor of the ACUPCC .

The goals:

• NYU will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions per square foot by 30 percent from FY 2006 levels by FY 2017. This plan aims to reduce emissions in “an immediate, ambitious and tangible way,” school officials said.

• NYU pledges to achieve “climate neutrality” (i.e. net zero emissions) by FY 2040 by upgrading buildings through efficiency and conservation, planning for green building, generating cleaner on-site and renewable energy,  encouraging behavior changes and offsetting remaining emissions.

“Across the University – from academics to financial and space planning to sustainability – we are striving to plan for the long-term,” said Michael Alfano, NYU’s Executive Vice President. “This Climate Action Plan fits within that template, relying on a rigorous analysis to point the way toward a 30-year goal of attaining carbon neutrality.”

Cecil Scheib, Director of Energy and Sustainability, noted in the news release that NYU has already made progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting them by 20 percent over the past three years.

“NYU total emissions have dropped from a fiscal year (FY06) peak of 171,000 MTCE to 136,000 MTCE in FY 2009. This decrease in global warming pollution is a measurable component of New York City’s total emissions, and represents a major step toward confronting the challenge of global warming,” Scheib said.

NYU, which is located in Greenwich Village and comprises 14 schools and colleges,  intends to fulfill its CAP by retrofitting buildings to use less energy, and prioritizing those retrofits to maximize emissions reductions.

The school — already the largest university purchaser of wind power — plans to use more cleaner energy by expanding a cogeneration power plant on site, which is expected to mitigate nearly one-quarter of NYU’s baseline FY 2006 emissions. The university will also replace fuel oil used to heat buildings with cleaner energy sources.

NYU is exploring the possibility of adding wind and solar power to its on-site energy plans, projects that it hopes will be financially feasible because of a positive return on investment, buttressed by state and federal incentives.

Whatever emissions the school can’t reduce or eliminate with these methods will be mitigated through local, socially and educationally redeeming offset programs.

NYU’s Manager of Sustainability Initiatives, Jeremy Friedman said that the CAP plan “fuses” the short-term reductions required by the Mayoral Challenge with the broader goals of the ACUPCC.

And the program does not forget the educational opportunities provided by the changing times. NYU expects to foster a campus-wide appreciation of sustainability through expanded course offerings both at the main campus and the affiliated Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

“The size and scope of this problem,” said Friedman, “are equaled only by our collective capacity to confront it together – by reducing greenhouse gas emissions as individuals, and by educating the next generation of leaders in the struggle to create a more sustainable and just world.”

When Ric Richards recently acquired an aging McDonalds in Cary, N.C., he knew the place needed an overhaul.  The 25-year-old store was fraying at the edges.

LED lighting at Cary McDonalds

Richards decided to give these particular golden arches a green touch.

Once he’d decided that the building needed replacing, the decision to go eco-friendly was not difficult. Richards knew it made sense from a business standpoint – it would cut energy costs dramatically – and he figured it would resonate with the educated customers living in the Research Triangle region, especially those interested in lower-carbon living.

“I felt it was the right thing to do,’’ said the owner-operator whose green restaurant celebrated its grand opening this winter. “We all need to be more geared for sustainability as we move into the future. We need to build buildings or live at home using fewer resources.”

Creating the third green-credentialed restaurant in the nation proved just a little easier in the Raleigh-Durham area, because the leading LED manufacturer Cree Lighting is just down the road.

Cree representatives, Richards and architect Logan Luzadr of LMHT Architects collaborated to light the restaurant’s public spaces completely with LEDs, which use less than 20 percent of the energy consumed by comparable incandescent lighting and only about half the energy used by CFL lights.

Virtually all of the restaurant’s lights are LEDs, making the LEED (for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) Gold-rated building a showcase of state-of-the art lighting.

Not only are the LEDs more efficient than other types of lighting, they don’t contain any mercury, which has been a downside of CFLs.

“If you didn’t know the lighting in McDonald’s was LED, you probably wouldn’t notice, but that’s the point. The Cree LED lights in the Cary McDonald’s give off the same beautiful light you would expect from an incandescent but consume just a fraction of the energy,” said Cree executive Gary Trott. “This allows the store to layer in accent lighting for a more pleasing environment while still meeting LEED-certification standards.”

Lighting doesn’t just come from a socket, however, and Luzadr’s design assured that day times at the McD’s would be naturally lit. The building was constructed with 360-degrees of windows in a cupola above the eating area with 19 Solatubes – tunnels that carry sky light – spread across the restaurant.

“Aesthetically the restaurant looks terrific,” said Richards, who explained that lighting was a key focus of the rebuild because it does double duty, saving energy and improving the feel of the cafe.

The other aspect of green building that Richards wanted to be sure to get right was the heating and cooling system. His “green team” of Luzadr, operations manager Tony Myers, green site designer Brian Stoltz of Commercial Site Design in Raleigh and green advisor Skanska USA, came up with an enclosed Hydronic Water Boiler System (available in residential versions)  that cuts energy use, in part, by using humidity to keep the restaurant at an even temperature.

The technologically advanced system gives the restaurant a different tactile feel, Richards says.

“I own seven restaurants and I can tell the difference. I just built another one (with the) same style and design, very aesthetic…and it’s energy efficient, but it feels different.’’

Richards estimates his return on the green energy investments will be just five years. Figuring the ROI on the other green changes will not be an easy mathematical formula, but the improved aesthetics and environmentally sensitive changes are tangible but immeasurable rewards.

Among the other features in the LEED-certified builiding:

• All the seating and cabinets and other décor elements were glued together with lower VOC adhesives

• Table tops are made of wheatboard and sunflower seeds (recovered from food processing) or bamboo, a renewable source.

• Countertops are Vetrazzo, which uses recycled concrete and glass.

Speaking of concrete, the concrete from the demolition of the predecessor store was sent out for recycling. The concrete that was installed in the parking lot is recycled stock. While the green team was pondering the heat island effects of being encircled by concrete, an inevitable outcome of being a drive-through restaurant, they added areas for vegetation to curb runoff and mitigate heat effects.

One day someone on the team muttered that they should think about putting in a couple places for electric vehicles to plug-in. Heads snapped. Of course they should. So they did, partnering with NovaCharge in Florida to install two charging stations, which have already been used.

Inside, energy and water savings continue with low-flow faucets and toilets that use 1/10^th of a gallon to flush, a vast savings over even the going green standard of a 1.6 gallon flush.

Topping it all off are placards throughout the restaurant that explain the changes, as well as an electronic presentation of how the building was constructed.

Now, as for that McDonald’s food…it’s being prepared with EnergyStar appliances. But it bears acknowledging that, in all honesty, a big burger is not the poster food for the green movement.

However, a recent  sustainability report by the fast-food giant shows that McDonald’s is well aware of changing tastes, as well as pressures on the food supply. The report noted that 98 percent of the whitefish used in Filet-O-Fish sandwiches came from fisheries with “favorable sustainability ratings” and that healthy sides for Happy Meals are offered in the top McD markets. Those sides include fruit bags, cherry tomatoes, corn cups and “Apple Dippers.” And there are those salads and parfaits. So those who eschew burgers, can at least chew something else.

The report also said that 80 percent of the cooking oil used in McDonald’s in Europe is converted into biodiesel. The EU has a stronger biodiesel network than the U.S. But more and more U.S. restaurants are recycling their cooking oil, including the Cary McDonald’s.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Walmart announced a plan to reduce carbon emissions across its global supply chain today, saying it intends to shave 20 million metric tons off its greenhouse gas emissions   through 2015.

Walmart CEO Mike Duke annoucing carbon reduction goals

The reductions will come from Walmart’s own operations and  from “the life cycle of the products we sell,” said Walmart CEO Mike Duke, adding that the savings would be the equivalent of taking 3.8 million greenhouse gas-emitting cars off the road for a year.

“It’s a very sizable goal, as we often do here at Walmart,” he said.

Calculated another way, the reductions represent 150 percent of Walmart’s anticipated carbon growth over the next five years.

The reductions will be done as Walmart works with suppliers and will come from reduced energy spent on manufacturing and transportation; from products redesigned to consume less raw material or last longer; from the reduction of disposable products and the increased use of recycled goods, Duke said. “All of this is part of the life cycle of products.”

“We will be the leader in retailing because we will be the first to look at the supply chain on a global basis,” he told an audience of partner groups, reporters and suppliers during the webcast announcement from the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark..

Duke explained that Walmart sees these carbon reductions as compatible with business growth.

“There are millions more customers around the world who really do want to save money and that Walmart could reach. We do plan and want to continue to build stores. We want to add square footage, that’s the reality of our business. Yet we know we need to get ready for a world in which energy will only be more expensive. And there will be a greater need to operate with less carbon in the supply chain,” Duke said.

He said he expects that the efficiencies found as suppliers reduce their carbon emissions will result in continued lower prices for customers. “Like everything we do around here at Walmart, this commitment ends up coming down to our customers, and helping our customers around the world save money and live better.”

More sustainable business practices also can help shield customers from high energy costs in their own lives, Duke said.

“That is why America needs comprehensive legislative policy that addresses energy, energy security, the country’s competitiveness and reducing pollution.”

Several environmentalists and advisors, including Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp, joined Duke and Walmart executives for the announcement.

EDF has set up at office in Bentonville, Ark., near Walmart headquarters.

The retailer also has worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council and World Wildlife Fund to develop its sustainability plan.

Tree Hugger and Planet Green co-sponsored the webcast. TreeHugger founder Graham Hill helped kick off the news conference by remote, with a video lesson on greenhouse gases, which he likened to a blanket that’s getting too thick and threatening to disrupt the climate humans are adapted to. He discussed ways products can be more earth-friendly, alluding to paper towels that can be ripped off in half sheets and proper sizing of food portions.

TreeHugger Editor-in-Chief Meaghan O’Neill talked with an invited panel about how business and sustainability can interact. A FoxHome Entertainment executive showed off a DVD package that has less plastic and Paul Kelly of Walmart-owned Asda in the UK talked about how more sustainable products can be low cost.

“You can decouple business growth from carbon growth,’’ said Asda exec Kelly.

Walmart, once widely derided as a merciless profit-seeker and crusher of small businesses, has in recent years taken a variety of steps, from using fuel-efficient trucks to buying more local food and daylighting its stores, to reduce its carbon footprint. Lately, it has been pushing its suppliers to operate more sustainably, and already gives points to products that come with less packaging and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Critics says that Walmart’s push is more about squeezing out costs than greenhouse gases. But others, including some leading environmentalists, vouch for Walmart’s sincerity and believe its scale gives it an incredible podium.

“Walmart is looking at the big picture,” said Krupp, by leveraging its vast vendor network to achieve change.

During a mock interview with a Walmart executive during the webcast, Krupp said Walmart is showing leadership by acting in advance of government mandates to reduce carbon emissions and also throwing out a challenge to consumer products companies around the world.

“What’s sensational is that you’re (Walmart) going to launch a process, a race, a treasure hunt among your suppliers to find ways to cut carbon pollution and cut their energy costs.”

For more information, see the Walmart Fact Sheet on how it intends to reduce carbon emissions.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Restaurant organizations of all sizes are hungry for greater efficiency in their operations, the survey found.

From Green Right Now Reports

Sustainability practices that minimize the impact of restaurant operations on the environment appear to be gaining momentum as the foodservice industry finds ways to measure the return on its investment in green systems and technologies, according the results of a new benchmark survey from RSR Research.

The study, “The Better-Run Restaurant: Environmental Sustainability in Restaurant Retail 2010,” finds restaurant organizations of all sizes hungry for greater efficiency in their operations, particularly those solutions which cut energy costs, reduce wasteful packaging, and can be leveraged to “tell a green story” to diners. While the industry is still struggling to correlate top line revenue with green investments, it does recognize the bottom line benefits of cost savings from energy and waste management.

Notably, 58 percent of respondents said sustainability is a strategic initiative in multiple departments of their companies, and 54 percent said they expect a return on their investments in sustainable technologies or practices within three years.

The findings are based on a survey of 124 restaurant retailers conducted in late 2009. The report was produced in partnership with Nation’s Restaurant News.

“There are three reasons for restaurants to enact environmentally sustainable practices, according to our report: to save cost, to reduce waste, and to build a greener brand,” Steve Rowen, managing partner at RSR and co-author of the report, said in a statement. “In fact, the best performing restaurateurs believe green-minded consumers care enough about a brand’s environmental positioning to factor it into ‘where to dine’ decisions. As momentum builds, this creates a genuine opportunity to gain new business.”

Among the report’s more significant findings: a majority of respondents said they have either already incorporated green initiatives and technologies at their business or have them budgeted for 2010. These sustainable practices for 2010 include:

• 79% recycle raw materials
• 68% regulate energy use in their stores or facilities
• 67% promote eco-friendly items or ingredients in-store
• 65% reduce take-out/send-home waste
• 64% feature green processes such as ethically sourced products
• 60% incorporate green construction practices into new facilities and stores

When asked where they thought their biggest cost-cutting opportunities lay, respondents cited the kitchen, food preparation and packaging as offering the best-case scenarios. In fact, the larger the operation, the greater the cost-cutting opportunity perceived. Approximately 50 percent of those operating 100 restaurants or more cited this area as having the most potential, versus about one-third of smaller operators. Among those operating three to 10 restaurants, the opportunity to reduce transportation and delivery costs was ranked as most important.

If you had the money and connections, you could build a snappy green house these days. Sink a geothermal heat pump to tap Mother Earth’s energy, slap up some solar panels, finish it out with non-toxic drywall, cork floors, denim insulation, recycled glass countertops and floors made from sunken ship decking.

Green house (Image: Axepin/dreamstime.com)

But does a green house a green home make? The answer to that is….of course not. Green builders, and those who live in green houses, soon bump up against what some land planners have known all along: It takes a village to bring green to its fullest expression.

Sure it’s cool that net zero houses can push the meter backward. But it is far better to have that household ticking away in a neighborhood where the kids walk to school, mom and pop hop a train to work, and gramps shops for pickles down the street – when the community garden’s cukes have been exhausted. The whole works would be powered by clean energy, connected to local food sources and friendly to local wildlife.

This is not a vision that most of us live, or even recognize, especially those of us in sprawling suburbs, where the tomatoes come from diesel trucks, work is over the horizon and our ‘hood was built to the unwritten specs of tract housing — build first, ponder later.  We are stranded us in spots that fail to take advantage of solar or wind power, in subdivisions isolated from basic services; where getting to the “corner store” can require a two-mile drive and you couldn’t get there greenly anyway because no one saw the need to install a bike lane, trolley or bus system.

But new, more sustainable living arrangements needn’t be unattainable. We can’t roll up the suburbs. But with the right community leadership, open-minded homeowners and creative developers, they can be reshaped to be more green, and we’re not talking about the lawns. All these engines of change are engaged in hundreds of projects across America that will — if circumstances favor their development — create new paradigms for the 21^st Century of community sustainability.

The very best designed green neighborhoods may still be on the drawing board, evolving, but striving projects are on the ground right now.

Suburban green, bringing it home in St. Charles Maryland

Head south of the nation’s capital into Maryland and you see a rolling mix of  rural communities and tract housing  interspersed with McMansions encased by private turf fiefdoms.

About 22 miles south of the capital off U.S. Highway 301, an aging middle-class development of traditional houses appears. This master planned community launched in the 1960s and known as the St. Charles community has neither the glitz of the mansions nor the quaint appeal of surrounding towns, but its density, once something shunned as suburbanites spread their wings, has made it prime for new life as a green town.

The St. Charles plan calls for large work zones and schools close to housing

Developer ACPT is building an adjacent community of 11,000 new homes that will be green from the ground up, while also offering the existing 13,000 homeowners energy retrofitting assistance.

This grand vision byACPT calls for new housing units to be connected to centralized solar and geothermal power stations and form the center of one huge affordable, regenerating oasis of sustainability.

Make that salable sustainability, too. CEO Steve Griessel wants to provide something average Americans can afford, and he’s nearly certain that customers won’t be able to resist the triple appeal of reasonable upfront costs combined with ongoing energy-savings, enhanced by nearby schools and work centers.

“Until now, everyone looks at this stuff, anything green — the first assumption is that it’s interesting but expensive and people are not willing to pay the premium,’’ Griessel says. “Our entire thesis here is to say that’s just not true.”

Actually, St. Charles is joining a list of green building enclaves, some more green than others, that are finding that eco-friendly can be wallet-friendly, from the spare but elegant homes replacing lost houses in parts of New Orleans to the prairie versions popping up in Greensburg, Kansas.

Griessel’s determined to prove the economics can work. He’s worked out a plan that will save the development money by recycling natural resources at every turn and employing the latest technology. Dirt from prepping house sites will be folded into road beds instead of being trucked out. Felled trees will be chipped and reused on site. Software for the entire project will streamline the building process, helping contractors avoid costly mistakes and duplication. Just the new software alone will save 22 percent on what builders call the “horizontal infrastructure” costs – the initial phase of putting in the houses’ foundations and setting plumbing access, Griessel says.

Sketch of a home planned for the St. Charles community

Homes will be built by known builders in the area, such as Ryan Homes and Richmond American Homes and frankly, won’t look much different from other suburban dwellings. Some green building experts would say that ACPT is missing a beat by not orienting the houses to passive solar building standards that can absorb and retain the sun’s heat.

Michael Kinsley, a development expert with the Rocky Mountain Institute says that every municipality and developer should be looking at orientation today, or risk muffing an opportunity to conserve energy. When sustainable siting is not considered “that’s a deficiency on the part of the developer and the local authority” that is “committing the residents to much higher energy costs for generations, when a very simple regulatory change could have avoided that.”

Kinsley, however, speaks highly of communities that pursue retrofitting of homes and businesses. Greening the community is win-win, he says, because it “plugs a leak” in the local economy by putting the building trades to work and keeping more dollars in the pockets of homeowners. “Any community where the building trades are out of work, they should be emphasizing energy efficiency…the markets are right there. You have a low risk, high return opportunity and it’s largely ignored by economic authorities.”

From that perspective, St. Charles’ above-average energy aspirations will help provide. The community will need just about every trade and building expert imaginable to finish the gargantuan neighborhood which will be powered by a 75 acre, 10 MegaWatt solar farm, an underground geothermal plant, and a nearby natural gas plant (which Griessel endorses because it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels). The houses will have Smart Meters and Energy Star appliances. They will be LEED-certified and right-sized for families (starting at 1,650 square feet), enabling residents to save money on electricity, commuting and mortgages.

The community will incorporate several schools (up to nine), within walking distance of homes, and a job center where businesses will be offered incentives to congregate. All of this will cut down on the St. Charles community’s carbon footprint, improve the quality of life and reduce commute times and energy costs. Wild lands will be preserved on the community perimeter, adding another livability element, and keeping to the spirit of St. Charles 1.0, it is expected to house 40 percent of the county’s population on two percent of its land.

Master planned communities of the past took some of these matters into account, earmarking spots for gas stations and grocery stores, but rarely, if ever, did they seriously, let alone simultaneously, address energy efficiency, restrain sprawl and pursue work major work centers.

St. Charles will be different. “Ten years from now people will be living in homes they can afford. Their children will be going to school down the road,” Griessel said. “They’ll be closer to work and there will be less need for a second motor car… And this will also come with 50 percent smaller utility bills.”

Snowboarding, skiing and skating will be front and center when the 2010 Winter Olympics open in Vancouver this week. But not far behind is another S-word: Sustainability. Sustainability has generated a lot of momentum, so much so that the Olympic website devotes numerous links to various aspects of the subject.

Pulse’s mobile dashboard will update every 15 minutes.

There we find out that hydrogen-fueled buses will transport people at some of the venues, several of the buildings are LEED-certified and many of the medals are made from recycled electronics. And, energy provider British Columbia Hydro has teamed with a local software company, Pulse Energy, to monitor energy usage at the games.

John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, says these games will establish a blueprint for Olympics of the future; a benchmark for others to follow.

The objective, he says. is to manage the environmental and economic impact of the Games
to create “lasting benefits, locally and globally.”

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has noted that these Olympics will have the greenest venues of any previous games and despite some criticism for the price of the new structures, he believes it has been a good investment.

Helping the Olympic committee track energy consumption at the games is the aforementioned Pulse Energy, a software company that has partnered with utilities company, BC Hydro. Their joint venture, the Venue Energy Tracker Project, will monitor energy and energy management of nine Olympic venues: the Richmond Olympic Oval, UBC Thunderbird Arena, GM Place, Southeast False Creek Community Centre, the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre, the Athletes Villages in Vancouver and Whistler, the Whistler Blackcomb Roundhouse Lodge and Snowmaking Facilities.

Pulse co-founder and CEO David Helliwell says the company has installed their energy management technology in each venue, then built a micro site to communicate the project’s objectives, features and results. The project’s mission is to showcase the green features of the Olympic venues and be the first Olympic Games to track its energy, communicating real-time consumption data.

Olympic visitors will be able to view the games’ energy consumption in real time on screens located in several different pavilions as well as at the media centers.

“At Pulse, we’ve developed software to keep track of energy and see where energy is wasted,” says Helliwell. The company has created user-friendly energy intelligence that allows buildings to save up to 25 percent on their energy costs, ranging from light bulbs to heating and cooling systems. Pulse measures a building’s performance and works with a variety of customers including engineering firms and utility companies, such as BP Hydro.

“It seemed like a natural step when the Olympics came to us and asked to help them be more energy efficient,” he says. Based in Vancouver, Pulse employs 40-plus workers. Their work with the Olympic Committee started in full force last September.

Helliwell points out that over the years, the Olympics have made some progress in sustainability, but the Vancouver Olympics will be the first time it’s been measured. And looking to the future, he says, “The 2012 London Olympics may be the biggest one yet.”

Another demonstration of sustainability at work will be the hydrogen fuel cell buses that will transport spectators at the Whistler venue. Developed by the Vancouver company, Ballard, the buses have around since 1991 and are operated by British Columbia Transit.

Fuel cells, says Ballard’s vice president of operations Paul Cass, have no emissions except water vapor because they make electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen without combustion.

“These buses,” Cass said in a recent interview, “tie-in to the sustainability theme of the Games, . . . this is a real, live demonstration of green technology at work.”

The traditional gold, silver and bronze medals will also have a “green” component. The Canadian mining company, Teck Resources, has discovered a way to retrieve the gold, silver, and bronze from the circuit boards of old computers. They then have it melted down and recast into new Olympic medals.

The Vancouver Olympic Committee has a number of sustainability stories detailed on their website. One features an out-of-work man living at the Salvation Army who was trained in the CORE (Construction Orientation to Retain Employment) program and eventually became one of the many carpenters who helped build some of the Olympic structures. Another story chronicles an outreach program that partnered with the Aborigines of Canada to establish an official licensed merchandising program to showcase Aboriginal arts, culture and enterprise.

Basketball court at the LEED-built Richmond Olympic Oval

The Olympic Committee also recognizes their “sustainability stars” on the website. The 62 organizations or structures include:

• BC Hydro and Pulse Energy as well as Canadian Pacific Locomotives which moved game equipment and goods by train.
• Coca-Cola for its waste diversion program that will recycle 95 percent of waste materials and divert them from landfills.
• Panasonic for co-sponsoring a youth digital video contest and presenting an eco-ideas exhibit.
• The Richmond Olympic Oval, a LEED silver- targeted structure which was built by the City of Richmond with help from the Canadian government and is best known for its one-of-a-kind “wave” roof made from pine-beetle salvaged wood.
• The Whistler Olympic Park, also targeted for silver LEED certification (which can take more than a year to verify), because it is reusing wood waste, issuing contracts to Aboriginal companies, protecting local surface water through high-quality wastewater treatment and creating a sport and recreation legacy.

Meanwhile, as green as these games hope to be in terms of the environment, “green” is not something the Olympic Committee wants to see on the ground. The Winter Olympics typically are a snowy series of events.

But if global warming skeptics need any further proof that climate change is a reality, they need only check out the current forecast for the Vancouver games. A city that regularly gets 48 centimeters of snow annually, has had one of the mildest winters on record. According to Environment Canada’s meteorologists, the average temperature in January was 44.9 degrees, much higher than the average of 37.9 degrees. It should be pointed out that compared to past Winter Olympic host cities (Calgary, Nagano, Salt Lake City, Lake Placid), Vancouver is probably the warmest of all. Currently the forecast is for mild temperatures and rain, not snow.

To combat the lack of snow, a massive snow-lift operation has been put in place. Canadian Air-Crane is using helicopters to dump between 13,000 to 15,000 pounds of snow from higher elevations into the Cypress Mountain bowl, the site of the snow boarding and free-style ski competitions.

Thanks to the snow-lift operation, Tim Gayda, vice president of sport for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, says, “I am 100% confident that the events will take place and we’ll have enough snow to get the job done.”

The two weeks of winter sport competitions will end Feb. 28. The population of Vancouver will go from 3.3 million back to its usual 2.2 million. And what happens to the Olympic villages and venues?

Perhaps the most important element of the Vancouver Olympics is the legacy component, says Helliwell. “These buildings will be utilized 50 years into the future,” he says. Oftentimes, venues that were built specifically for the Olympics, remain empty following the games, he says. “Beijing [the site of the 2008 Olympics] has a lot of empty stadiums.”

Which brings us back to that S-word: sustainability. It’s what the green movement is all about.

Copyright © 2010 | Distributed by GRN Network

By Frances Moore Lappé

We humans create the world according to ideas we hold. Our biggest ideas, our frames, determine what we can see and what we can’t. Ultimately, they will decide whether we can turn our beautiful planet toward life…or not.

Two frames I increasingly hear are “Because growth is killing the planet, we need no-growth;” and “We’ve hit the limits of a finite earth.”

Hmm.

“Growth” sounds pretty good to my ears, especially when I consider the opposite: shrink, shrivel, decline, decrease, die. So it’s hard to visualize excited crowds waving “No-growth NOW!” placards!

The danger in this frame goes far beyond its lack of sex appeal. The real danger is what it leaves unchallenged: the assumption that today’s economy is in fact defined by “growth” — ever-expanding abundance.

It keeps us blind to the truth that our current path is much more about waste and scarcity than abundance—for many now and for many more in the future.

In 1969, squirreled away in the University of California–Berkeley “ag” library, asking “why hunger?,” I discovered that our “efficient, modern, productive” U.S. food system is actually a waste machine. It funnels sixteen pounds of grain and soy into cattle to get back one single pound of steak.

Wait, this crazy ratio has to be an exception, I thought, only to learn that our food system’s gross inefficiency is the rule. Energy analyst Amory Lovins and his co-authors argue in Natural Capitalism that 6 percent or less of the “vast flows of materials” that go into production to make our goods actually end up in products we use. Fifty-six percent, on average, of all energy in the U.S. economy is wasted.

Let’s call it like it is. Let’s call what we’ve been doing an economics of waste and destruction that stymies growth and quickens death. Growth then becomes that which enhances life — generation and regeneration; what our planet needs more of.

And “we’ve hit the limits”?

It encourages us to see the problem as “out there” — in the fixed quantity that is Earth: its limits are the problem. More usefully, the limit we’ve hit is that of the disruption of nature we humans can cause without catastrophic consequences. In this frame, attention shifts to us.

The limits frame conjures up the notion of an overdrawn bank account. The solution?  Cut back what we withdraw.  But if most of destruction is designed in, then we could cut back and still be massively disrupting natural regeneration. What if farm runoff, say, were killing sea life in “only” two hundred instead of over four hundred dead zones worldwide? Still way more than ecological rhythms can absorb.

So let’s shed “no-growth” and “limits.” Let’s reframe the challenge as that of aligning with the laws of nature to enhance life; and from there ask, What are the frames about human nature that drive the current waste and destruction within an economy driven by one rule, highest return to existing wealth? From there, fear eases, as we work to align with nature, including human nature.

About Frances Moore Lappé

• Frances Moore Lappé is a democracy advocate and world food and hunger expert who has authored or co-authored 16 books. She is the co-founder of three organizations, including Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé. In 1987 she received the Right Livelihood Award (a.k.a, the “Alternative Nobel.”) Her first book, Diet for a Small Planet, has sold three million copies and is considered “the blueprint for eating with a small carbon footprint since long before the term was coined”. Her most recent book is Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad. You can hear an interview with Lappé about the book with Talkback’s Managing Editor, Francesca Rheannon, here. Lappé’s forthcoming book is Liberation Ecology.

(Re-posted with permission from the Corporate Social Responsibility wire service.)

It’s too bad that that term “tree hugger” has become such a term of derision in mainstream society.

A similar thing happened to the word “feminist”; it became so associated with strident protest voices that later generations shrugged it off as polarizing. The next generation of women often said they were “for equal rights” for women, but they weren’t “feminists.” Of course they were feminists because they believed in equal rights for women,  they just didn’t want to get on a podium about it. They didn’t want a hot button label. Now leaving aside the argument over whether the new approach has been effective for them, let’s return to the topic of “tree huggers”.

Today, many people I know use this term as a sort of mild verbal parry, usually aimed at me, or some other green-leaning person who makes them uncomfortable. Oh so you’re one of those “tree huggers”? they mock. Usually this is all in fun, and prompted by some minor revelation like the fact that we don’t use pesticides on our lawn.

But let’s take a look at tree hugging. It’s a term that evokes a love of nature, but also a willingness to protest on behalf of nature, and that’s where the shades of negative meaning creep in. (Wikipedia:  A slang, sometimes derogatory, term for environmentalists.)

The term became infused with multiple meanings, including being a descriptor for people who actually climbed into trees and lived there, to prevent their destruction. Usually the tree dwellers had some sympathizers, but they were also scorned.

But rather than fret about the meaning of the words, a better question would be: Why does our civilized world fail to appreciate  flagrant displays of love for nature? Well, that is a deep subject. Too deep for here. Go see James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar. Get a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. This is a question for the ages.

All I can tell you is I’ve seen many neighborhoods where most of the trees were bulldozed to make way for the houses, and then the developer replanted some of the trees to make up for the illegal bulldozing. Ya think they probably knew that nothing much would happen to them when they razed the place? At least cities are demanding reparations.

But trees often don’t get enough respect. (Except for those marching, monster ones in the Lord of the Rings movies.)

Where am I going with all this? Well, I just watched the Copenhagen talks dig deep and come up mostly empty handed. And I was thinking, while the world tarries over a unified agreement, that let’s face it, will be elusive, why not run as fast as we can individually, or as communities, toward some immediate solutions.

Then I happened to see the movie Avatar, and I thought, hopefully, maybe we can learn to link back up with nature; to become a life-affirming and less destructive species. See this romantic, visionary movie if you can. It’s the first green movie I’ve seen with great mass appeal.

Meanwhile, here’s a cool video about reforestation and what trees can do.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Hollywood’s feature films are greening up their productions thanks to the Producers Guild of America (PGA) Green Committee. Founded in 2008, the committee is reaching out to productions worldwide, reducing their carbon footprint and leading the industry in the fight against climate change. They are replanting trees, keeping Styrofoam out of their catering services, and recycling costumes, paints, props and fabrics.

“The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is a national non-profit trade group committed to protecting the rights and credits of producers in film, television and new media. Given the current climate crisis and the significance of the environmental impacts of film production, a movement is growing to support sustainable production practices,” said Amanda Scarano Carter, Co-Chair of PGA Green Committee West.

While it is the producers who have joined forces to encourage people to limit their environmental impact, they are getting some celebrity help. On the set of “Knight & Day”, Cameron Diaz has been proactive. She made sure there were no plastic bottles on the set, and that recycle bins were placed all around. “It makes it a lot easier when you have someone as influential as Cameron Diaz setting the tone,” said Fred Baron, Chair of the PGA Green Committee.

The committee’s website provides tools for industry professionals to exchange ideas and make suggestions about greening the filmmaking process. In the near future the committee’s website will become an environmental portal for the six major studios and film industry as a whole. It will feature a carbon calculator and a green marketplace where sets, costumes, and movie accessories can be exchanged. “I am very excited about the direction we are going,”  Baron said.

The PGA Green Committee also is taking their sustainable efforts off the set. This past Saturday, they joined with the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles to green up a Lynwood, California community. The project will put up LEED-certified houses.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

GreenTown: The Future of Community is a one day conference that aims to help small, medium or large communities become more sustainable.

Featuring speakers like Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and hosted by Columbia College Chicago and sponsored by the City of Chicago, GreenTown will take place this Thursday in downtown Chicago at the Film Row Cinema. The conference, which is put on by a5 inc. and Seven Generations Ahead, is in its second year and is a carbon neutral event.

The purpose of GreenTown is “to bring together the public and private sector to discuss and determine ways to create sustainable communities. We have mayors and city managers, city council members and public works directors mingling with planners, architects, landscape architects and providers of product and services that can make healthier communities,” said John Harris with a5 inc.

The conference will feature five key environmental aspects, largely based on the climate action plan, including:

• Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
• Transportation
• Adaptation to Climate Change
• Design and Building
• Waste Reduction

This event showcases national and local leaders who are at the forefront in sustainable urbanism, transit-oriented development, brownfield and riverfront re-development, green building, renewable energy, municipal food scrap recycling, zero waste schools, local food systems and more.

The event’s key speakers include:

• Richard M. Daley – mayor of Chicago, Illinois, that began Chicago’s environmental movement in 2006 with increased rooftop gardens, park space, and renewable energy use.
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – named one of TIME magazine’s “Hero’s for the Planet”, currently serves as the Vice Chair and Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Riverkeeper and Chairman of Waterkeeper Alliance
• Bob Dixson – mayor of Greensburg, Kansas, the town that was wiped out by an f5 tornado two years ago that is aiming to be the model green community by sustainably rebuilding.

It is not too late to register. GreenTown Chicago is open to anyone. There are discounts given to companies that have more than one person attending, as well as non-profit organizations, and students.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Greenpeace followed up the release this week of its latest Carting Away the Oceans scorecard with a friendly and fishy demonstration outside Trader Joe’s stores in San Francisco.

Greenpeace members, two of whom dressed as orange roughy and others who parodied Trader’s by wearing Hawaiian shirts mimicking the store’s trademark uniform, handed out information on why its important to select and buy seafood that can be replenished and also asked prospective customers to sign petition postcards to privately held grocery company.

California-based Trader Joes is a grocery with more than 300 stores that caters to people looking for natural and organic and specialty items at reasonable prices. It prides itself on selling “unconventional and interesting products.” But Greenpeace has ranked the store dead last among national grocery chains for its conventional approach to selling seafood, specifically its lack of attention to seafood sustainability. The advocacy group says Trader Joes (which ranked #17 on the seafood scorecard) has no apparent plant to assure it is buying reputably fished and farmed seafood and sells “Red Listed” fish that are endangered by overfishing or habitat loss.

Orange roughy are on Greenpeace’s Red List, which includes several jeopardized fish that marine experts have identified as needing time to recover from over-harvesting and whose populations are at risk of collapsing.

Trader Joe’s has not replied to a query for response.

To keep the heat up on the chain, Greenpeace also opened a website, called “Traitor Joe’s” where a cartoon pirate welcomes people to his “one stop shop for ocean destruction.” The site further explains Greenpeace’s seafood campaign.

Greenpeace is urging consumers to buy from stores that are trying to minimize their impact on the oceans by selling sustainably farmed or caught fish. It’s new rankings released this week commended Wegman’s, Ahold USA, Whole Foods and Target for doing the best job to maintain an eco-friendly seafood counter. Safeway, Harris Teeter and Wal-Mart also received acceptable marks. But Greenpeace listed nine grocery chains, national and some regional, as doing little to help save the oceans and urged consumers to not buy seafood from those retailers. (Trader Joe’s was last among national chains, with three regional chains ranking lowest on the 20 store list.) For more details on Trader Joe’s response to Greenpeace’s seafood campaign, see the listings on the seafood scorecard.

The company responded to Greenpeace’s query for information on its seafood practices by saying its policy is guided by “listening to its customers” but declining to give any more information, according to Greenpeace’s report card. Greenpeace concludes in its report that the chain is not affiliated with any conservation groups, has no discernible seafood policy to reduce environmental harm and in addition, that signs posted in some of its stores suggesting that its seafood is environmentally friendly appear to be mere marketing ploys.

The company’s stated reliance on customer input helped shape Greenpeace’s decision to have Trader Joe’s customers sign petition postcards asking for strong seafood policies, a spokeswoman explained.

(Photo credit: Greenpeace, San Francisco.)

When you fish for seafood at your local grocery, it can be difficult to tell whether you are supporting sustainable fishing practices.

Was the snapper you selected caught using legal, sustainable fishing practices? Should you even be buying it? Is the Chilean Sea Bass you just purchased on the “Red List” of jeopardized marine species? Does the grocery you’re patronizing buy seafood certified by the Marine Stewardship Council?

Greenpeace is trying to help you sort it all out – and assure that groceries do not ignore the need to keep our oceans and fisheries healthy.

The worldwide conservation group published its third “Carting Away the Oceans” scorecard on Tuesday, outing several grocery chains that flout efforts to support sustainable seafood methods and lauding the stores that are helping conservationists.

The group is calling on customers to stop shopping for seafood at the lowest ranked stores, which have made little or no effort to support ocean ecosystems by selling sustainble seafood, including such large chains as Costco, Publix and Trader Joes.

The scorecard assessed and ranked the top 20 U.S. grocery chains on their green seafood credentials, giving top marks to Wegmans, Ahold USA, Whole Foods, Target, Safeway, Harris Teeter and Wal-Mart. These stores have all made strides toward responsible seafood buying and selling, though they may be innovating in different ways, Greenpeace reported.

Wegman’s, which was ranked number one on the list, for instance, has created a public sustainable seafood policy and supports a variety of initiatives aimed at supporting practices that preserve ocean ecosystems. The New York-based chain’s seafood policy dictates that wild-caught fish be properly reported and that capture methods meet certain standards; the store also buys from aquaculture groups that aim to avoid using pesticides, antibiotics and wild fish as feed. It actively seeks out items that have been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council and has removed several red list seafood species, though not all, from its inventory.

Privately owned Wegman’s, which operates 70 stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, provides in-store information to educate customers about seafood sustainability.

Ahold, listed number two on the Greenpeace list, operates as Stop & Shop, Giant and Martin’s Food Markets and is owned by Royal Ahold of the Netherlands. It deserves good marks for developing the “Choice Catch” program under which it avoids buying illegally caught seafood and takes ecological impacts into account, Greenpeace reported.

Ahold also gives preference to farmed seafood that is pesticide and antibiotic-free, but could do a better job of in-store education, according to the score card. Ahold has announced they will no longer sell Chilean sea bass, orange roughy and shark (they already have stopped sales of bluefin tuna and Atlantic halibut) but still sell other jeopardized seafood, the report said.

Whole Foods and Target (third and fourth on the Greenpeace list) also have worked to eliminate many unsustainable items from their inventory, though fast-growing Whole Foods, which previously ranked number one on Greenpeace’s seafood score card, continues to offer “a tremendous amount of red list seafood options.”