Tropical Resorts Missing Out On Lucrative Wind+Solar Business Opportunities

A few years ago when I visited Caye Caulker in Belize, I was appalled to learn that the island burns dirty diesel fuel to generate its electricity when the weather is either sunny or windy or both almost all of the time.

I just got back from Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja, Mexico and I'm sorry to report the same type of gripe with this resort community (though I don't know whether they generate electricity specifically via diesel fuel or via Mexico's other mostly dirty or land-altering sources).

In Cabo's hot climate, resorts have air conditioning blasting in virtually every occupied room 24/7.  Yet there is nary a solar panel or wind turbine to be seen (aside from one isolated green housing community that a hotel manager told me about when I asked her why they don't use solar).  What a waste of expensive, dirty fossil fuels that generate huge amounts of heat-trapping carbon pollution.

Could there be a significant missed business opportunity here -- both for Cabo's resorts to cut their long-term energy costs and for major solar companies to secure lucrative qualified sales leads?

One that comes to mind stems from resort owners' aggressive sales of time shares to pretty much all vacationers.  For example, we hadn't even left the lobby after checking in before a time share salesperson stopped us, offering the "all inclusive" meal/drinks plan for $40/day instead of the normal $77.

After talking it over with my wife, we decided to take them up to secure the savings they were offering.  For good measure, I also negotiated in a 50 minute massage for my wife and one for myself, and another $50 in benefits.  All we needed to do to secure these perks was visit another resort (which we wanted to check out anyway) and take the 1.5 hour time share tour with their sales associate, who we knew would offer an aggressive sales pitch to buy in.  We took the tour with a very nice Canadian gentleman, enjoyed our free private taxi rides and Mexican breakfast buffet, declined the timeshare pitch, and walked away with $500+ in perks.  From the standpoint of a conservation scientist, I was more than happy to let a $billionaire real estate developer subsidize our vacation.

That said, what if the sales associate also offered us a major discount on a home solar installation -- one that was almost too good to turn down?  What if in exchange for resorts marketing a solar company's services to vacationers, the solar company would provide them with rooftop and on-site solar electricity and/or hot water installations? This type of arrangement could dramatically cut resorts' huge electricity costs and carbon footprints.  Another way the resort industry could approach this type of clean energy program is to generate qualified sales leads that it could then sell to vacationers' local solar providers in exchange for money or services.  Certainly there are ways to refine this idea, but you get the gist.

What do you think -- why should all these tropical resorts, located in hot, sunny climates in windy coastal locations, NOT be getting their electricity from local solar and/or wind installations?

Don't Let the Naysayers Get You Down

As you put in the hard work to drive the innovations needed to advance conservation and sustainability, it's inevitable that you'll hear resistance from those who are not comfortable with change -- who like things the way they've always been done.  Let's see how their record looks in this brief historical timeline:

What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches? - The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825)  

Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.  - Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1838) Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College, London    

The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it. . . . Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient. - Dr. Alfred Velpeau (1839) French surgeon  

[W]hen the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.  - Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University  

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. - Lord Kelvin, ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist  

Radio has no future.  - Lord Kelvin, ca. 1897.  

That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.  - Scientific American, Jan. 2, 1909  

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.  

There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home. - Ken Olson, 1977, President, Digital Equipment Corp. 

Clearly, even your smartest, most accomplished detractors aren't always right.

If the inventors of the game-changing technologies described above succumbed to their doubters, we'd still be riding horses to work and sailing to Europe!

Think carefully about what this means for where we're headed on clean energy, clean transport and sustainability as a whole.  We ARE going to make this happen.

Remember: as you strive to intelligently and strategically innovate, burning the midnight oil to bring your visions to reality, don't let the naysayers get you down.

Joining the Heavy Hitters in Re-Imagining Your Inputs

Ten years ago, the new green business trend was just getting off the ground.

Having recently completed my Ph.D. qualifying exams at UC Davis' Graduate Group in Ecology, I'd have laughed in your face if you'd have told me what more and more major corporations would be doing in 2011 to green their products and services.

Why is it so important when corporations like Ford, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart green their supply chains?  It's not just that their huge purchasing power can quickly influence a supplier to change to greener materials and practices -- sometimes with dramatic measurable reductions in environmental and health impacts.

It's also, as this piece by Ford's Director of Sustainable Business Strategies notes, the power of peer influence: "if a 109-year-old car company with one of the most expansive and established global supply chains in the world can re-imagine its design process, any company can."

The author advises:

"The next time you're faced with supporting an option between a traditional process and a more sustainable and innovative alternative, know that by making the more eco-friendly choice, you're not only making an immediate impact, you're sending the message that you recognize the importance of environmental considerations in the design process -- from a product's development until the end of its life. And your employees and customers will support you for it."

Why shouldn't your company aim to join Ford in realizing these important business benefits?

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Global Weirding: Nature Can't Save Us From Ourselves

Some who refuse to accept that that heat-trapping carbon pollution poses significant risks to human well-being, not to mention ecosystems and biodiversity, claim that more CO2 will be good for us.  Plants will grow more, it will be warmer, and more plants in a warmer climate will absorb more CO2, helping to stem heating.

Is this true?

Huffington post reports on a new study from Northern Arizona University, published in the esteemed journal, Nature, which throws some surprising cold water on to that idea:  

The study -- a meta-analysis of dozens of separate studies of soil emissions in variety of ecosystems, including forests, farmland, rice paddies, grasslands and wetlands in North America, Europe and Asia -- found that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide causes soil to release methane and nitrous oxide in amounts significant and sustained enough to reduce the overall cooling effect of increased biomass by nearly 20 percent. 

What's going on? Organisms in soil, it seems, thrive on both nitrate and carbon dioxide. These microbes also produce methane and nitrous oxide, which are, respectively, about 25 times and 300 times more effective at trapping heat than even CO2. As humans pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, these organisms pump out more N2O and methane.

The body of literature on this effect suggested that it varied in degree from one ecosystem to another. This variation made it difficult to determine whether, on the whole, its impact on the global climate was significant or merely a wash. Yet the new study provides a clear answer: the effect is significant.

Climate scientist, Ken Caldiera, summed up the implications of this study quite concretely:

"To solve the carbon-climate problem, we need to transform our energy system into one that does not dump its waste into the sky," Caldeira said. "Land plants help. It looks like they won't help quite as much as we thought they would. Clearly, we can't expect nature to solve our problems for us."

The bottom line: as much as scientists know about how human activities are heating the ecosystems that sustain civilization as we know it, untold numbers of surprises await us if we continue to mess with the stability of our climate.

Do we really want to find out what's behind those doors?

Or do we want to choose the door that we KNOW what's behind: a clean energy technology revolution that creates exciting new industries, creates millions of new jobs, saves the public $billions per year in health costs of dirty energy-caused air pollution, cuts off the flow of oil money to terrorists, and gives America the morale boost that our economically hurting citizens so badly need?

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Businesses Getting into the Ecosystem Services Game

Following up on yesterday's post about Asia's lessons on the value of ecosystems, how are businesses getting involved in protecting and restoring ecosystem services? And why should they?

This excellent piece on The EcoInnovator provides some answers, noting that:

"a growing number of leadership minded companies are realizing that correctly pricing nature can inform smarter financial decisions and lead to real business opportunities.  This is why Dow has chosen to invest $10M with The Nature Conservancy to incorporate the value of ecosystem serices into the company's decision making; specifically starting with three of Dow's manufacturing sites.  Similarly 14 leading companies chose to road test the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's Guide to Corproate Ecosystem Valuation.  It is worth noting that these companies are not waiting for a top-down governmental mandate but instead (are) leading the way to a world where business decisions are aligned wit the laws of nature."

"So how does an individual company get started?" the authors ask.

A good first step, they say, is to assess which parts of your business are materially impacted by or dependent upon ecosystem services.  Is your business or supply chain prone to drought? Are critical inputs dependent on pollinators?

They emphasize a business case for ecosystem services that we'll be hearing more and more of as our civilization increasingly bumps up against "Peak Everything": Focus on benefit to your company. How might more sustainable practices help you increase resource and energy efficiency, boost your brand's reputation and sales, and reduce business risks -- including those increasingly associated with global weirding (e.g., floods, droughts, wildfire, severe storms, insect infestations)?

If companies such as Coca Cola and McDonalds are realizing the benefits of asking these questions, why shouldn't your's?

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New Research: Protecting Forests Will Deliver Economic Boom for Southeast Asia

Are forests more valuable to humanity left standing or for what's produced when they're cut?

More and more, we are learning just how much value healthy, intact and sustainably managed forests provide to society.

According to this post on Mongabay.com, for example, this lesson is being realized in Southeast Asia, where tropical rainforests face a range of threats, including conversion to palm oil and rubber plantations, illegal logging and poaching, and slash and burn agriculture.  It turns out that ecologically unsustainable practices are proving to be economically ruinous:

• The Rajawali Institute for Asia at the Harvard Kennedy School of government estimates that by eliminating its natural capital for negligible gains, deforestation caused losses of $150 billion to Indonesia between 1990 and 2007
• An investigation by a task force set up by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono found that clear-cutting and conversion of forests to palm oil is so widespread that it's drastically reduced the availability of wood to be cut, costing the Jambai province, alone, 76,000 jobs in the sector.
• "According to the Rand Corporation, particularly intense forest fires in Indonesia and Malaysia have increased deaths by 22 percent.  Bad air quality can also send people to the hospital and increase asthma attacks, lowering productivity.  One of Southeast Asia's challenges is attracting global companies to locate high-level executive headquarters in the region, in part because of the intense air pollution exacerbated by forest fires."

Clearly, the economic impacts of "unsustainability" reach far beyond agriculture and forestry sectors, influencing public health, safety and economic competitiveness.

Conversely, more sustainable practices are being found to confer wide-ranging socio-economic benefits:

• Studies have shown that coastal mangrove forests can reduce tsunami flow by as much as 90 percent. During the infamous 2004 tsunami, villages that had cut down their mangroves were often wiped out while those that maintained them fared much better.

So how do we incorporate the conservation value of intact forests, such as the mangroves described above, into our economic system?

In most cases, the only option for landowners to earn income and feed their families is still extractive: clearing, logging, farming, grazing, mining or otherwise converting their forest plots.  The Natural Capital Project, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) and The Partnership for Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem services (WAVES) are among those making progress developing systems for valuing ecosystem services and compensating landowners whose property provides them. 

But at a time of increasing financial hardship and budgetary constraints, will we be able to deploy these new payments for ecosystem services systems quickly enough to restore and protect the world's remaining hot spots of biodiversity?

If there were ever a time for the emerging field of sustainable business to help conservationists entrepreneurially innovate, this is it.

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Counting What Counts in the World of Sustainable Business

Yesterday, I talked about the benefits to consumers offered by the radical transparency tool, Good Guide.

In the world of sustainable business, "radical transparency" -- being forthright about the health and environmental impacts of your products -- is, a rising trend as well.

No doubt, the hard work that enables transparency is important for fostering customer support for products that are healthier for ourselves and the ecosystems that human well-being depends upon.  It's definitely helping Conservation Value, Inc. client, Spaldin Sleep Systems, build trust with its customers.

What else can businesses do with all this information to boost their profits and productivity?

The important thing to remember, says Jim Hartzfeld in this insightful post, is that "putting your primary efforts where they can have the best environmental or social impact will have much more impact in the long run. Sustainability reporting has an important role in guiding your strategic decisions, but you have to count what counts."

What does that mean?

In Hartzfeld's words:

The general perception is that “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” which is absolutely appropriate in day-to-day management decisions. But just because you can count something doesn’t mean it counts. As Robert F. Kennedy once said about the gross national product, it “measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” And in strategic decision-making, intangibles like innovation and employee and stakeholder engagement factor very much into your success.

The MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston Consulting Group’s 2011 report “Sustainability: The ‘Embracers’ Seize Advantage” (http://bit.ly/gxUsJo) offered seven practices to learn from “embracers,” those aggressively implementing sustainability-driven strategies. The report highlights this seeming contradiction in leading companies who seek to measure everything (and if ways of measuring something don’t exist, start inventing them) and the ability to value intangible benefits seriously.

Then focus on the things that really make a difference to get ahead.

Once you have established a baseline and used the gritty detail to chart your course, prioritize only the aspects that will create the most material changes and focus your energy there. 

The results, as more and more companies are learning, include improvements in energy and resource efficiency (and thus reduced costs), reduced risks, and boosts to brand reputation and sales.

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I'll Take Clothing Without Toxic Chemicals, Please

GreenPeace Image from Grist.org

I don't know about you, but if I found out that there were toxic chemical residues in my clothing, I'd be worried about what's touching my skin all day.

A recent GreenPeace study tested products made by 14 top clothing manufacturers and found traces of toxic chemicals harmful to the environment and human health.

The chemicals found, known as nonylphenol ethoxylates, break down into substances with "toxic, persistent and hormone-disrupting properties."  Would you want to wear that?

How about impacts to water quality?  When GreenPeace looked at the wasterwater from two factories that makes clothing for these brands, they found that:

"Eight samples of wastewater from two factories in the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, identified as suppliers for the brands, contained "a cocktail of hazardous chemicals.'"

Do you think the executives of those factories would let their children swim in the water near these factories?  Maybe that would be a good water quality test to implement...

If you want to support companies that offer solutions to this mess, how can you find them?  Is organic really clothing better?

Clothing made from organic fibers (organically-farmed; e.g., USDA organic-certified) means that the crops (e.g., cotton) were grown without the use of synthetic pesticides.  Since still more chemicals are used to process raw fibers into a textile, USDA organic certification of fibers is not enough to protect you from the types of chemicals found by GreenPeace.

For full protection, you need to look for organic textiles - those certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) to be made with (1) organically grown raw fibers AND (2) organic fibers that have been processed into a textile without harmful chemicals.

I talk a bit about this subject in my posts for Triple Pundit about how to purchase a green mattress.

It's great that GreenPeace is publicizing the importance of green clothing, which is clearly the better choice for the health of people and ecosystems alike.

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The Forest (Ecosystem Service) Companies of the Future

As efforts grow to better align our economy with our ecology (due to very real biophysical limits of natural resource availability), businesses and landowners are exploring how to generate income via the valuable ecosystem services produced by their property.

The Guardian reports on how forest companies are making the transition from solely extractive-based revenues to diversified revenue streams that capitalize on conservation value:  

Climate change, population growth, and soaring demand for food, energy, water and other resources are changing the way the world sees and values forests. A vision is emerging of a new kind of company – the forest services company. 

Our vision is being propelled by new markets that are emerging for forest services such as carbon storage, wildlife preservation, recreational facilities and watershed protection. This trend is creating huge business opportunities for forest companies with the foresight to reinvent themselves and look beyond the traditional equation of forests equal timber. 

Forest companies of the future will expand their business model beyond delivering products to providing an array of crucial services to communities. Timber revenue will still be important, but successful companies will have supplemented their income from the fast-growing new markets that emerge from the increasing scarcity of ecosystem services.

Sounds rosy. But is this just more unrealized happy talk about the future potential of ecosystem services markets?  I was pleased to find some real-world examples of these types of changes actually happening now -- both at home and abroad:

Sveaskog, Sweden's largest forest company, is doing exactly that. Approximately 15% of annual net sales comes from biomass for energy and non-timber services such as windfarm leases and hunting and fishing licences. In addition, Sveaskog is managing one-fifth of its land for conservation and promotion of biodiversity. The company is also experimenting with ways to maximise carbon uptake through different forest management measures and plans to sell the additional uptake to carbon markets. In 20 years, Sveaskog expects its current sales share of 15% from biomass and different kinds of non-timber services to have doubled. 

Other major companies are similarly shifting focus to incorporate services. Plum Creek, the largest US private landowner, has about a third of the company's 7m acres of timber lands under revenue-generating conservation and wildlife protection agreements. Mondi, a leading international paper and packaging group, recently identified opportunities to tap into growing markets for biomass and ecotourism through a review of ecosystem services at three of its South African plantations. 

The shifting nature of forest companies is a win-win opportunity for governments as well, creating new jobs in struggling rural areas and improving the quality of life for urbanites.

One question I'd love to explore: are these ecosystem services-oriented revenue streams being designed in conjunction with neighboring landowners as part of regional-scale conservation planning efforts?

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Carbon Nation: The Surprising (and Common Sense) Benefits of Cutting Heat Trapping Carbon Pollution

Would well-designed legislation to stabilize our increasingly weird climate and free America from our dangerous oil dependence really wreck the economy, as media pundits and GOP policy positions warn?

Fortunately, as America seeks ways to create millions of jobs and revitalize our national morale and qualify of life, the answer is a resounding "no!"  The story of why is told in the new documentary, "Carbon Nation", according to GreenBiz.

The movie's directors paint a wonderfully positive and non-partisan picture of the promise offered by 21st century technologies and practices that are already helping companies thrive.  They tell the story of how:

"We learned that Dow Chemical had spent just under $2 billion on energy-efficient programs since 1994 and had saved nearly $10 billion so far."

In another story, based in Texas, farmers banded together to form a cooperative that allowed them to establish new income streams via wind energy:

Now, farmers who were solely dependent on their hit-or-miss cotton crops had a steady source of income, derived from the turbines: a royalty that ranged from $3,000 to $15,000 per year, per turbine. This changed lives.

Who wouldn't be happy with this kind of financial boost? On top of the money, of course, these good Americans get bragging rights: they're helping lead America's way off of our dependence on dirty energy like oil and coal.  I'm sure their friends are proud of them!

This is the kind of morale boost America reads right now - and a majority of Americans are ready.  As Carbon Nation's director states:

We know, from hundreds of conversations across the nation, that we are not a polarized country. Especially when it comes to energy efficiency, national and energy security, and even clean energy. There is great agreement for healthy solutions in the middle. It’s just that we’re constantly being told we’re a polarized country, mainly because our political leaders are polarized and TV networks make more money selling the idea of a polarized country. And good people are believing this stuff, and acting as if we are polarized. The old self-fulfilling prophecy.

But when you get down to it, listen to people, respect their opinion, and be open-minded, you will find, as I have, that the middle 60% of the U.S. would be on board if they were hearing the right stories. We’ve been lucky enough to find the right stories while making “Carbon Nation.” The folks in our film are heroes. If enough people hear from them, see them in action, then we can achieve our biggest aspirations: to have this movie influence lawmaking, to inspire companies to tie life-cycle costs to all purchases, and to push clean energy so that it simply becomes cheaper than coal. That would be huge.

Cheers to the folks who have brought us Carbon Nation -- the more folks hear these types of stories, the more the movement to revitalize our economy via a job-creating clean energy revolution will gain momentum.

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Spring Course at UC Berkeley Extension: Principles of Green Purchasing and Sustainability

What's really 'Green'?

What does the latest science say about the real benefits -- to our environment, economy, health and quality of life -- of green products and services?

How are people and businesses improving their personal and financial health by using green products?

How can you know which 'green' products you can trust to provide such claimed benefits as:

• reduces emissions of the heat-trapping carbon pollution that causes climate change
• protects our natural heritage and its wondrous biological diversity
• reduces toxic pollution and waste (and helps protect YOU from toxic chemicals)
• protects our health and the safety of our children
• supports green jobs and our transition to a more secure clean energy economy
• reduces our dependence on oil and other dirty energy sources
• improves our national security

Find out the answers to these questions and more this spring at UC Berkeley Extension, where I'll be teaching a weekly evening course titled 'Principles of Green Purchasing and Sustainability".  It runs from Tuesday March 29 - Tuesday May 31 2011 at the San Francisco campus.

Spanning multiple product categories, this course pulls together years of my research -- as both a conservation scientist and sustainability expert -- to help you and your company gain a foundational understanding in green purchasing.  The course description reads as follows:

A good understanding of the principles of green purchasing is important to limit the impact that businesses, governments and corporations have on natural resources,  ecosystems and human well-being. This course is intended to provide sustainable business enthusiasts with an important foundational overview of the environmental information underlying sustainable purchasing. You will learn how to access, understand and evaluate the information that you need for green procurement.   Evaluate business cases that illustrate how companies can boost profits and productivity by using and selling sustainable products.

Many problems with sustainable business reflect a need for managers to become better versed in the technical environmental information underlying sustainability.  Each week, you will explore a new aspect of green procurement and learn how to distinguish those products that credibly limit impacts on the environment – and people too.  You will become well versed in the environmental information underlying sustainable business, and learn how to distinguish between different green certifications and identify those that are credible.

Click here to sign up now to gain valuable expertise in green purchasing.  Tell your friends and peers about this class (use the 'share' button below).  Thank you so much -- you're the best!

***

FREE COURSE PREVIEW -- A SPECIAL INVITATION

Advancing the Green Economy: Achieving Impact from the Office to the Ecosystem

Thursday March 17, 2011, 6:30–8 pm
UC Berkeley Extension: Golden Bear Center

1995 University Ave, Berkeley, CA

Join scientist and sustainability expert Jonathan L. Gelbard, Ph.D., as he explores the connections between choices made in the office and the health of ecosystems and people. Hear stories about how businesses are learning to boost profits and productivity by using and selling green products. Gain valuable tips on how to identify the products, partners, and certifications that can help your company achieve measurable positive impacts and advance the green economy.

Jonathan L. Gelbard, Ph.D., principal at Conservation Value, Inc., is a researcher, writer, speaker, and educator. He has taught at the World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Camp workshops; appeared in the 2009 urban forest documentary, Dig It; and served as an educational producer for some of America’s largest green music festivals.

EDP 426320
1 meeting
Reserve Your Place Now
extension.berkeley.edu/enroll

Packaging That Grows Native Trees: Sustainable Brands 2010

Packing products in boxes and shipping them long distances gets a big rap as "unsustainable" because of its triple whammy of using cardboard that comes from trees, generating heat-trapping carbon emissions via shipping, and generating waste if the cardboard isn't recycled or composted properly.

The Life Box™ offers companies and consumers alike a sustainable solution to all three of the above problems.  Best of all, you know it's a solution you can trust because it was invented by mycologist, author and founder of Fungi Perfecti®, LLC, Paul Stamets, along with co-conspirators David Censi and Katie Birkhauser.  As an environmental scientist, Stamets knows what it takes for products to offer credible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and waste.  According to the company's web site:

The Life Box™ suite of products builds upon the synergy of fungi and plants by infusing spores and seeds together inside of packaging materials that can be planted.

How does it work, and how do Life Boxes address shipping's triple-whammy of unsustainability?

First, each box comes from 100% recycled paper, and is therefore tree-free to produce.  Second, to offset the heat-trapping carbon pollution generated by shipping, each box contains 200-400 different seeds of 10 different tree species, which are dusted with mycorrhizal fungi -- symbiotic organisms that boost the young tree's ability to take up nutrients and water in exchange for carbohydrates (produced by CO2-absorbing photosynthesis) provided by the tree.

To eliminate the waste created by improper disposal of cardboard boxes, you can literally plant the box to create trees!  When you're done with the box, you have two options.  The easiest is the "let nature take its course" option: between October and January, simply tear up the box into approximately 6x6" bits, moisten them to stimulate the seeds to germinate, plant them, and let nature take its course.  Keep the seeds watered and you should start to see seedlings after a couple of months.  The other is a bit more complicated, but is also more fun since you get to watch your planted Life Box seeds germinate in a tray during their first year and transfer them into individual pots for their second year.  After two years, simply transfer the potted trees to the place of your choice -- for example near your office, in your yard, or in a neighborhood park.

To track the beneficial impacts of Life Box™ trees, the company asks users for their email addresses and locations:

When you plant your trees outside in their permanent home, send us an email with the address—or better yet, the GPS coordinates—of your planted Life Box™. We will collect this data and eventually post the locations on a map of the United States. In the future, we hope to create an interactive Web site so customers can share their experiences. Stay tuned!

How do you know the trees won't become ecologically harmful invasive species?  To start, the company chose a continental mix of tree species that is acceptable to all Departments of Agriculture in every state in the U.S.  (for now, Life Box™ products are only available in the continental U.S. -- not yet Hawaii)  The introductory seed mix includes white birch and sweetgum from the eastern U.S.; lodgepole pine, water birch, sycamore and blue spruce native to the Rocky Mountains; mountain hemlock native to the Pacific Northwest; and northern white cedar (arborvitae) native to Europe.  If the company can grow the business to a sufficient level, Life Box™ plans for its products to become zip code-specific -- to provide customers with trees that are native to their bioregion.  For example, if you're in the New York City area, your Life Box™ products may contain familiar species such as red and sugar maple, eastern hemlock and white birch. However, customers in the Bay Area of California might receive giant redwood, coast live oak, and bay laurel.

No matter where you are located, each tree that grows to be 30 years old will suck an average of 1 ton of CO2 from the atmosphere during its lifetime (more on moist and fertile soils, less on dry, rocky or otherwise infertile soils):

Each Tree Life Box™ may some day qualify for up to one ton of carbon credits!

Why?

We estimate that 1 tree in 100 will survive to 30 years. On average, a 30-year-old tree can sequester 1 ton of carbon.

Still more exciting: Life Box™ plans not only cardboard products for shipping (click here to view currently available boxes, which come in three sizes).  The technology is also being used to make tree-generating custom wine boxes, CD and DVD covers, pizza boxes and sleeves for coffee cups -- all coming soon.  Don't live in a place with a lot of native trees?  Planned future Life Box™ products will contain native grassland and meadow wildflower species.  Don't live in the continental U.S., but want Life Box™ products?  The company is working to offer products world-wide.

If you'd like to learn more about Life Box™ products, come to their break-out event: the upcoming Sustainable Brands 2010 Conference, happening June 7-10 in Monterey, CA.  Founder, Paul Stamets, will be on hand for a presentation titled, "Rethinking the Box".  Stamets' lecture is just one of literally dozens of presentations by a superb line-up of sustainability innovators who are advancing business practices that benefit both the earth and their bottom line.

Please join me in beautiful Monterey (where I'll definitely sneak off one evening for a hike to visit the otters, sea lions and seals at Pt. Lobos State Natural Reserve).  I'll be at Sustainable Brands 2010 as both an ecologist and a sustainable business maven, excited to learn more about emerging products and practices that help stop climate change and reverse the destruction of our natural heritage.

The Sustainable Brands 2010 Conference is hosted by Sustainable Life Media.  It is located in Monterey, California this year and will run from June 7th -10th.  To register for the Conference, please visit the Sustainable Life Media website.

Major Investment Bank Completes Uber-Green Renovation Project

When mighty, mega-rich investment banks start going with LEED-Platinum investments to renovate their corporate headquarters, heads turn.

Mine sure did -- here's the good news from The Triple Pundit about Deutsche Bank's newly (and sustainably) renovated headquarters:

Deutsche bank has spent upwards of €20 Million on a complete multi-year renovation project which will earn the company a LEED platinum rating for the million-plus square foot building–a rarity for a large skyscraper and arguably one of the “greenest” corporate headquarters in the world. 

A few facts on the renovation:

+ The thermal concrete mass of the old building is re-used to collect and store heat. This is just the way it was done in ancient times (see your local adobe for more information).

+ Electrical usage will be cut by over 50%. Lighting only comes on when needed and a fascinating intelligent elevator system (the subject of another post) that optimizes routing keeps usage low.

+ Heating energy cut by 2/3. Triple paned windows and excellent insulation combined with a heat exchanger that allows the sun’s energy on the hot side of the building to be transferred to areas of the building that are in the shade. Not only that, but most water will be heated by solar thermal panels.

+ Water use cut by almost 75%. A full greywater system will be in place for the toilets as well as rain catchment.

+ The new building will be 100% hydro powered. (By an agreement with a utility in Austria.)

+ LCD readouts in the elevators will show progress of each floor on meeting goals of energy use. This is especially fun because it allows for poor performing departments to be “called out,” creating informal competition between ares of the bank to use the least resources.

+ Operable windows to charm a banker’s heart. Remember the days when office buildings had operable windows? They’re back. Not only that, but these can be automated from central control if carelessly left open.

+ CO2 reduction will be cut by almost 90%. At the end of the day, an astonishing reduction on CO2 emissions is realized.

As for the payback on the bank’s investment, Noack told us it was definitely sound, but spared us the details on exactly how long the payback might be. That got me thinking that the payback for such an investment is a lot more than purely financial.

Clearly the rest of the return is about image.

There’s a lot of brand value in Deutsche Bank’s twin towers. Selling them and moving – even though Noack mentioned it would have actually been much cheaper to do so – would have resulted in considerable loss to the company’s image and mystique. The company board also saw considerable value in the cachet of being the bank that people might point to and say, “That’s the bank with the green building.” Evidently the value more than justifies €200 Million.

But so what? At the end of the day, one of Germany’s major corporate icons is offering the entire green building movement a huge publicity boost on the back of their own. It represents a great investment in engineering firms, design firms, and construction firms who have now been exposed to greener practices. It’s a real savings of resources and energy, and legitimizes green building in the eyes of the traditionally conservative banking and corporate sectors. Finally, knowing the ego of banks, they’ve issued a challenge for others to follow suit. Will we see Chase and Citibank greening their towers next? Time will tell.

That's my bold-facing above, since one of the most powerful motivating forces encouraging the spread of sustainable practices is seeing others doing it.  I sure hope this high-profile green building turns heads, attracts attention, and generates some copy-cats...

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Food For Thought: Organic Food Worth Buying

The organic industry is running into some growing pains, reports this AOL piece -- especially when it comes to compliance monitoring (e.g.,  making sure that foods are being randomly tested and violators' products are immediately pulled from shelves).  Does that mean that one shouldn't buy organic?

Consider one recent study that demonstrated the potentially significant health benefits of organics -- avoiding what's NOT in them.

And at least one peer-reviewed study has shown that organic foods offer a potential benefit in what they don't contain. 

It was conducted in 2008 by Chensheng Lu, then a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children, who took as his subjects a group of children living on Mercer Island, a wealthy suburb of Seattle.

Over the course of a year, Lu, now at Harvard, fed 21 children ages 3 to 11 conventional fruits, vegetables and juices from nearby grocery stores for five days at a time. Then the kids were switched to organic foods.

Twice daily on multiple days in each of the four growing seasons, he tested their urine and saliva. When the children ate conventional food, markers of organophosphates -- the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II -- appeared in the biological samples. None was found when the children were eating organic.

"The transformation is extremely rapid. Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected," Lu said at the time.

"Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets."

Lu is repeating the study in two different communities. The exposure levels observed in Lu's study were lower than the levels that the Environmental Protection Agency regards as safe. But many public health experts and advocates believe those levels are in fact not safe, especially for children.

That's pretty striking.  In addition to the peace of mind I get from avoiding nasty pesticides (and doing my part to help keep them out of the environment), I also find many organic products taste better. Furthermore, I have seen research detailing how they contain greater levels of several important vitamins, including powerful anti-oxidants.  A new book details many of these benefits, which are also summarized in this Planet Green piece...

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More on the subject from Planet Green>>
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Google Climate Chief: Price on Carbon Will Be Economic Bright Spot

In about a week, the new Senate climate change and clean energy bill is apparently going to be released by Senators Graham, Kerry and Lieberman.  You can be as certain as the sun's rise and set that we'll immediately hear a chorus of such blather as "it's going to wreck the economy" and "we can't pass an environmental bill like this during an economic downturn -- it will cost too much."

Nonsense, says Google's climate change and clean energy chief, Dan Reicher, in this Grist article:

Google is thinking about the big global picture. Reicher told me that, "in general terms, a carbon price will do a lot to advance the competitiveness of these technologies that offer serious climate reductions, help for our energy security, increase our domestic fuels, and can create all sorts of jobs."

But the search-engine-plus is also thinking about its own bottom line. It's already got products on the market that help consumers save electricity.

As Reicher puts it, "putting a serious price of carbon will both get us closer to the serious energy reductions we need to make, but also accelerate the domestic development and adoption of these technologies." It's that last part that's good for business. When government holds up its side of the "triangle of technology, policy, and finance" that Reicher says is essential for green development, it spurs the private investment and innovation that keeps businesses strong.

That's where Congress comes in. The most important policy is carbon pricing. That's what will change the economic fundamentals, augmented by other programs -- like energy efficiency standards and government revolving loans to bring new ideas  to the market. The technology and finance sides are ready and able; but we've been waiting for too long for the policy piece that can complete the puzzle.

Google hopes the Senate will act quickly to jumpstart what it thinks will be an economic bright spot in the current downturn.

Again, if you're against the Senate's climate change and clean energy bill, what are you for?  More drilling and continued dependence on oil?  Good luck with that one -- talk to me in 2-3 years when gas is $5-10/gallon, and I drive by you smiling in my plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle, which I've charged via my home solar system.  I see what's coming in our energy future and I'm preparing.  It will, of course, get cheaper and easier to prepare with the right incentives in place, such as the ones that will be in this bill.

The bill's supporters in the Senate are going to have to step up, though, and make a strong case about why passing it is going to make our lives and businesses better, and benefit our environment, economy, health, security and quality of life alike.  Let's hope they've learned how to do it by now...

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Chemical Reform Safety Gains Momentum In Congress

After having read articles such as this National Geographic expose about the chemicals building up in human bodies, would you be scared to be tested yourself?

I would.  I'm seriously afraid to find out what kinds of toxic chemicals have built up in my body, and what their impacts on my health might be.  Hopefully, though, the answers could be used to help protect me from related health threats.

Fortunately, reports Science, Chemical Safety Reform is gaining momentum in Congress:

Two bills in Congress would dramatically strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) ability to regulate chemicals. The bills shift the burden of proof to industry, which would have to demonstrate the safety of existing and new chemicals. That's a major change from the existing system, in which EPA must prove that chemicals are harmful before it can regulate them.

"This is a monumental sea change," says Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, D.C.

The bill also...directs EPA to create a green chemistry research grant program and establish a network of at least four research centers to help find safer alternatives to dangerous chemicals.

Strong Chemical Safety Reform is not only important for safeguarding our environment, but like Climate Change and Clean Energy legislation (and it's humongous associated health benefits), it is another crucial component of Health Care Reform.  After all, the build-up of chemicals in human bodies is another example of how chemical producers are profiting by deferring the costs of their products on to people -- and our health care providers and insurance companies.

Clearly, passing a strong Chemical Safety Reform bill will offer broad benefits to our environment, health, safety and economy alike.  Health Insurance Companies should be lining up to support it.

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Climate Change and Clean Energy Next? (Or Wait Until It Gets Really Hot?)

Now that a Historic, yet still inadequate Health Insurance Reform bill has passed Congress (incomplete because premium cost controls still need to be strengthened, as Senator Feinstein is trying to do, and as competition from a fairly-priced Public Plan would do), people are starting to talk about passing climate change and clean energy legislation.

David Roberts penned a good one here.

I personally think that the Senate should strategically wait until the weather gets a bit warmer, and the painful Memorial Day weekend gas price spike is felt across America, before taking up the legislation.  It's silly, but it's smart. People are more likely to support the legislation if they're sweating and gas prices are rising, which they will be in June and July.

I also like Joe Romm's new piece a lot, especially the parts about messaging -- on both health care and climate/energy.  Says Romm:

No serious messaging strategy can possibly be built around the phrase “healthcare reform.”  Why?  First, “reform” is a process, not an outcome.  No one serious about moving public opinion talks about process over and over again.  They talk about the benefits that reform brings, outcomes the public cares about.  Second, most of the public likes their healthcare, so the phrase “healthcare reform” is not intrinsically positive and, in fact, is probably negative for much of the public given the more effective conservative messaging.

If you spend half your scarce messaging time talking about “healthcare reform,” while your opponent spends all of their time messaging on negative outcomes that the public worries about, you are fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

Here's a quiz:
1)  What’s worse from a messaging perspective, “the public option” or “cap-and-trade”?  Hint:  Both are process.
2)  Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says is the benefit of passing a health care reform bill.
3)  Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says happens if we fail to pass the climate and clean energy bill.

On health care, no simple, repeated core message exists, so the whole effort is a muddle.

Like the 99% of people who aren’t expert on health care reform, only very recently — 12 months too late — have I begun to develop a clear idea of what this plan is or what it would actually do.  The problem is, many if not most people could probably care less about the uninsured — they just don’t want to join that group — and while people may say they want cost containment, in fact they don’t want their own costs “contained,” they only want their premiums lower.  They do want security about their healthcare.

Again, the single phrase that the Democrats repeat most often is “healthcare reform” whereas the single phrase that Republicans repeat most often is “government takeover.”  Is it any surprise the polling on this bill is so bad?

That's certainly a thought-provoking analysis.  Romm thinks Health Care Security would have been a much better frame for messaging, and I agree.  Here's what he proposes:

A vote for this bill is a vote for healthcare security.  You get to keep your healthcare coverage if you like what you have — and they can’t throw you off of it if you get some expensive disease or get fired.  And you get access to health care coverage if you don’t have it, and they can’t keep it away from you if you have a pre-existing condition.  And this bill keeps whatever healthcare you have or get affordable, so you don’t have to compromise your health to pay for other necessities.

Fortunately, we're doing better on climate change and clean energy, and there's far more bi-partisan support for passage of a strong bill, even if it tends to be for different reasons for Democrats (environmental, health reasons, green jobs) than for Republicans (economic, security reasons).

But we're going to have to leverage the types of lessons Romm emphasizes above to convey to Americans why our lives will be much better once Congress passes this legislation and President Obama signs it.

With Peak Oil also looming bigger and bigger (second link) right around the corner in 2014, you don't even need to think about climate change to realize that if we're to have a robust economic recovery that is also resilient, we've got to get our asses in gear on weaning America off of our dangerous dependence on oil.

It's a wonderful thing when environmental, economic, energy, security and health care solutions of this magnitude are all linked.  Now let's emphasize these linkages and pass bold climate change and clean energy legislation.  It will help unleash the Glacial Lake Missoula-level flood of pubic and private investment needed to transition America to a more secure, robust, and stable clean energy-powered economy.
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Banning Sales of Invasive Species -- A Money-Saving Win for Taxpayers

Last weekend, I made trips to a couple of stores to purchase crops and soil amendments for our spring/early summer garden.  I was dismayed to find that damaging invasive species are for sale in both OSH and Home Depot. 

Shame on OSH for selling the invasive shrub, Scotch Broom, and shame on Home Depot for selling the invasive weed, Japanese Honeysuckle (I'm guessing there were others, but I didn't have time to check).  Both species are on the noxious weed lists of many states and conservation organizations across America.

What are OSH and Home Depot doing wrong here?  These species are or have been classified in many states as "Noxious weeds", which were defined by the 1974 Federal Noxious Weed Act as:

Noxious Weed means any living stage, such as seeds and reproductive parts, of any parasitic or other plant of a kind, which is of foreign origin, is new to or not widely prevalent in the United States, and can directly or indirectly injure crops, other useful plants, livestock, or poultry or other interests of agriculture, including irrigation, or navigation, or the fish or wildlife resources of the United States or the public health.

These plants are injurious and economically harmful!  So why on earth are they for sale, for people to buy and plant in their yards or otherwise on their property?  Is the ability to sell noxious weeds really that important to the horticultural industry and the sales of stores like Home Depot and OSH that such species can't be banned?  Really?

Is it too much to ask for the horticultural industry to show some level of moral responsibility to society and stop selling noxious weeds to typically unsuspecting customers who think they just look pretty?

The result of noxious weeds like this being commercially available to consumers who've probably never even heard of "noxious weeds" is undoubtedly that some plantings escape and become expensive, time-consuming, environmentally-damaging problems for state and federal agencies, environmental NGO's and private landowners.  Even worse, they probably often result in pest control officials using pesticides of questionable or even harmful levels of toxicity to eradicate the infestations.

Why should horticultural companies and stores like Home Depot and OSH get to profit off the sales of harmful invasive weeds at the expense of taxpayers?

This just can't be too hard of a problem to fix in today's day and age of uber-tight agency and NGO budgets.  It's time to ban commercial sales of species legally classified as invasive or noxious.  This is no-brainer conservation action that will save consumers, agencies and NGO's money, protect the public health from pesticide use that can be avoided, and benefit the health of ecosystems and biodiversity.
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The Evolution of Innovative Green Brands

Start off your week with a bit of food for thought from GreenBiz.com -- on how Wal-Mart has changed the game in the Green Products marketplace:

Walmart, being the sensible world-dominating company it is, saw a new twist on green that other brands (both the traditional and uber ethical) had missed. In short, green equalled efficient, and efficient equalled money saving.

From lowering energy consumption to "encouraging" suppliers to cut down their packaging, Walmart introduced innovations in products, services and business models that truly broke new ground.

More than any other entity, Walmart convinced shell-shocked traditional brands that they had to get with this green innovation thing.

Today, we are starting to see the results.

There's still plenty not to like about the mega-retailer's impact on the availability of well-paying jobs in the communities where they displace smaller/family-owned shops (among other things). But backed by Satchi and Satchi S, they seem to be leveraging their buying power to really make a difference up and down their supply chain.  I actually have it high on my priority list to dig deeper into what they're doing (and I'll report, from an ecological perspective, as soon as I have time)...

One thing I don't see them doing is offering many products that are old-school durable, helping us get a better bang for our buck, reducing our resource use and waste over time, and saving us time and money buying and replacing our stuff.  So many common consumer products today -- from computers to cell phones to coolers -- start malfunctioning or otherwise fall apart after a year or two, it's pathetic.  Then we have to recycle them -- if they can be recycled -- and most people then burn fossil fuels to go to the store (or to place an order that needs to be shipped from thousands of miles away) to get a new version of that thing from Wal-Mart that's fallen to pieces after just a couple of years.

What are you going to do about that, Wal-Mart?

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The Pyramid of Energy Conservation

A lot of people ask me where to get started in making their homes more energy efficient.  Thanks to Chris Nelder and Twitter for this interesting graphical set of "instructions:

It's late, so I've got to ponder this energy pyramid a little before I reflect on it.  Check back at this post for some comments, coming as soon as I have some time to give it a good thinkover...

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