Home Depot Shareholders Want Green

Home Depot shareholders are asking Home Depot to assess its companywide energy use in its buildings, transportation, and supply chain; set energy use reduction targets; and report findings and progress to shareholders.

“Throughout the country—and the world—there is growing recognition of the need to use energy more efficiently. . . It’s time for Home Depot to step up to the plate,” said Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier.

Corporate energy use and carbon footprint tracking is becoming increasingly important as the cost savings of going green are being recognized worldwide.

In a similar vein, earlier this month the stockholders of Chevron demanded that the company begin tracking its carbon footprint. 

Although carbon footprint tracking seems a daunting task for companies with several locations and divisions, a company called Clear Standards offers software that eases the pain.  The industry leading software also has modeling capabilities so you can "test" different energy-efficient solutions to find the most cost-effective ones before investing in any major changes.  Most importantly, it can also project how much green you will save by going green!

A Coke and a Green Smile!

Coca-Cola, with the help of Ecos Business Solutions, is sharing what it has learned through its own sustainability efforts with restaurant customers to encourage more sustainable business practices.

“Restaurant Solutions” for Coca-Cola customers consists of three tiers of services ranging from education and benchmarking to full audits and multi-year action plans and focus on making operations more sustainable in the areas of energy, water, packaging and facilities.

For their own sustainability efforts, Coca-Cola reduces their carbon footprint with energy-efficient coolers, LED lighting in warehouses, wind turbine installations in Wakefield, England, and solar panels at a California distribution center.
The beverage company also added 185 hybrid trucks to its fleet, for a total of 327, and is completing lighting retrofits at its California facilities, which will save 5.6 million kilowatt-hours annually.

Now that is something to have a coke and smile about!

Cadbury Working to Reduce Flatulence

Cadbury, the confectioner company, in an effort to reduce their carbon emissions 50% by 2020, is working with dairy farmers to lower cow flatulence. Putting cows on a lower-fiber diet so that they "burp" less and release less methane, (a potential global-warming gas,) will help Cadbury lower the 60% of their carbon footprint resulting from milk production for their chocolate.

Some experts consider cows to be the world's biggest single source of methane. In 2005 a scientific report published in California claimed that each dairy cow in the area was producing almost 20 pounds of gas every year (They learned this by putting cows in a bio bubble that measured emissions for two days). The claim by the UN is that cows produce more greenhouse gasses than all the SUVs, airplanes, trucks and cars combined. All this methane gas is produced when the bacteria in their stomachs breaks down plant fibers, the gas then comes out one end when they chew their cud, and the other end in the form of flatulence.

Carbon footprint application for iPhone

Clear Standards, a provider of enterprise carbon management and sustainability systems, introduced “Carbon Tracker,” a free GPS-enabled carbon footprint application for the iPhone.
Carbon Tracker lets users calculate the carbon footprint from daily commuting, vacations, or business trips and it uses the iPhone GPS function while traveling to determine the approximate distance of each trip segment. Users can also set monthly “maximum emission” goals and monitor their progress against personal carbon footprint reduction targets.
Clear Standards says that in the future the product may be expanded to track other activities and may provide a way for consumers to buy carbon offsets.

Contessa manufactures green cuisine

Making "green cuisine", the Contessa Manufacturing Plant in California is the world's first and largest environmentally responsible, LEED-certified frozen-food manufacturing plant.

"Until now, the USGBC has never LEED-certified a frozen-food manufacturing facility," said John Z. Blazevich, president and chief executive of Contessa. "As a leader in our industry, we didn't wait for environmental standards to be established. Instead, we collaborated with LEED and decided to raise the bar for the entire industry and to do the right thing for the long-term sustainability of our environment."

Company officials say they use advanced design and technology to reduce Contessa's environmental impact, such as a water preheating system that saves energy by redirecting the heat used in refrigeration coils to the plant's boilers. In addition, a variable frequency drive adjusts the amount of power supplied to motors at specific times or under specific conditions to minimize energy use and an innovative loading dock prevents the loss of refrigerated air, reducing temperature fluctuation and energy use.

The new $35 million plant is expected to produce up to 150 million pounds of food products per year and at the same time reduce its energy use and emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 65 percent, according a company statement.

In addition to energy savings, Contessa is committed to 'going green' by incorporating recycling in their operations and procedures, using aquaculture and probiotics in their shrimp procurement and contributing to the awareness of turtle-safe fishing practices.

"I am thrilled to be celebrating the commitment of these companies to reducing their carbon footprints,” said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. "They are examples that going green is not only good for the environment but also for business.

Hotel Goes Green With 100% Wind Energy

In a Green Power Partnership with the EPA, the Legacy Hotel & Meeting Centre is proud to be powered 100% by wind energy - bringing their carbon footprint to zero for energy consumption. Hotel guests can further offset the carbon footprint of their stay supporting the hotel’s new Turn On™ program by purchasing an eco-friendly t-shirt logoed with the hotel’s campaign slogan “I Got Turned On At The Legacy!” and by signing up to have their entire room energy turned off during their absence and turned back on 30 minutes prior to their return. The hotel converted its cleaning products and detergents to organic, biodegradable solutions, and offers recycling baskets in each of its 162 guest rooms.

"We are proud of our commitment to both traditional hospitality and contemporary environmental responsibility," says Eric Siegel, ExecutiveVice President of Cohen Companies, the owner group of The Legacy Hotel & Meeting Centre. "We are introducing our 100% recycling policy and hope that our guests will join our efforts to greening their stay."

Avoid being greenwashed!

Spending green going green? Confused about what 'green' means? You are not alone! Polls show that confusion is one of the top reasons why shoppers don't buy more eco-friendly products. To avoid being 'greenwashed', Greenzer.com and GreenYour.com have developed standards to help us wade through the raw compost pile of products and find the fertile ground of green. Both websites help find and compare products that are green certified, use materials or ingredients that are ecologically responsible in nature, or recommend merchants who are who offering products that reduce our carbon footprint (like reusable bottles and low-flow fixtures).

What is your carbon footprint?

What is your carbon footprint? Huh, you ask? What is a carbon footprint and why should I care?

• What - Carbon footprint is a measure of the greenhouse gases we individually produce in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc.
• Why care - Two reasons: 1) Fossil fuels are limited - they are being used faster than they are formed (formation takes millions of years!), so they are referred to as non-renewable. 2) The rate we are burning fossil fuels is twice the rate that natural processes can only absorb, resulting in a net increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases that contributes to global warming. (Why care about global warming, you ask? That's another discussion....)

So, how do you figure out what your carbon footprint is and how to reduce it? Being a database techie geek, I found three notable website calculators, ranked by my preference:
#1 http://www.thecarbonaccount.com/
Easy to navigate. Definite cool factor.
#2 http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
Easy, big buttons.
#3 http://www.earthlab.com/carbonProfile/LiveEarth.htm?ver=14
Clumsy, but good tips.

The EDF launches consumer green website

The Environmental Defense Fund today launched CarbonOffsetList.org to "help businesses and consumers identify and purchase carbon offsets that represent real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."
Full story - http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/carbon-offset-47091002?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=dgr&kw=ist

Leilani's race to save the planet!

Leilani Munter is an amazing woman and personal friend. Check out her Huffington Post blog at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leilani-munter/my-race-to-save-the-plane_b_117066.html