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Kaiser Permanente Greens its Supply Chain by Switching to Safer IV Equipment
Kaiser Permanente announced that it is converting its IV medical equipment to safer alternatives that do not contain PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) and DEHP (di-2-ethyl hexyl phthalate). Both these chemicals are widely used in plastics but have been shown to harm human and environmental health.
UPS Earns LEED Gold Status for Corporate Offices in Atlanta
Despite UPS headquarters being 20 years old, the company just announced that it has become the first in the package delivery and logistics industry to gain LEED Gold Certification from the US Green Building Council. UPS submitted the building for review in May 2011 (shortly after the appointment of Chief Sustainability Officer Scott Wicker) and [...]
Motel 6: Sustainability Means We’ll No Longer Leave the Light on For You
Accor, a leading hotel chain that owns a bevy of chains including Motel 6, is ramping up their corporate social responsibility efforts. Employee engagement and water stewardship are among the initiatives.
The 10 Emerging Sustainable Cities to Watch in 2012
Whether they benefit from visionary leaders, flourishing social enterprise, or commitment from community activists, the following 10 cities are well worth a visit to experience their transformation and resilience.
Campus Energy Wars: Effective Marketing Campaigns to Change Behavior
Building occupant behavior is the holy grail of energy efficiency. Environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr describes strategies for crafting behavior change marketing campaigns. Several college campuses have successfully implemented similar campaigns to induce their students to more efficient behavior.
Draft Sustainable Land Development Code (SLDC) Chapters Now Available
The first four chapters of the Sustainable Land Development Code (SLDC) were released to the Santa Fe, NM Board of County Commissioners (BCC) and the public at the December 13, 2011 BCC Meeting. The SLDC will implement the goals, policies, and strategies of the adopted Sustainable Growth Management Plan (SGMP), which was approved in November [...]
North Carolina Takes Reins For Green Future
The sustainability movement is making waves in North Carolina, at least that’s the impression one might have gotten from the budding enthusiasm at yesterday’s GreenNC: Building for a Sustainable Future in Durham, North Carolina. Mayor Bill Bell opened up the conference by bragging about his Bull City, which has become a hub for social and [...]
Ding Dong! Avon CSR Report Touts Work on Deforestation, Green Building
Avon’s CSR report, released earlier this week, touts a bevy of achievements and promises to address issues including deforestation, governance and philanthropy.
Greenwashing Labor Injustices in Dubai
Construction projects should not be considered Green or sustainable unless they have applied equal consideration to all resources used. In Dubai, the labor resources are treated terribly regardless of the “green” nature of the development, this can be changed by incorporating fair and equitable treatment of construction workers into existing sustainable development laws and guidelines.
Top 10 Green Building Products
This short list of green building products was selected from a pool of products nominated by our readers and the readers of Sustainable Industries. A panel of expert judges sifted through the nominees to determine the top ten of the bunch. Winners were selected based on environmental performance, scalability/market impact, innovativeness, design aesthetic, value and [...]
Getting Hospitality to See Green
By Eric Flamer The US Green Building Council reports that as of March 3, 2011, 91 hotel properties have achieved LEED certification, with an additional 1100 projects registering with LEED and working towards certification. From my employment experience in the Washington, DC convention hotel market, the truth is that most of the buildings dedicated to hospitality [...]
SunTracker: Leveraging GPS to Radically Optimize Daylighting
In recent years, much has been made of the energy savings and emissions reduction associated with switching to CFLs. What if every moment the sun was out you could go completely without electric lighting? Daylighting is an often touted solution. In my case, having skylights in our office meant hiding from it as the sun [...]
Video Interview: Dave Chen, Equilibrium Capital Group
The assets essential for living are air, water and food. How do we systematically invest in these, our most important assets? In this interview at SOCAP 2011, Dave Chen, the founder of Equilibrium Capital Group talks about directing capital towards management funds in green real estate, land management, water, energy, agriculture and forestry. His group [...]
Green IT – The Other Clean Tech
This post examines U.S. prospects for leading in green information technology, as a growing component of the broader clean tech market.
Must-Read Energy Efficiency Reports for Your Summer Reading List
Two excellent building energy efficiency reports were released last month. The first is from the Environmental Defense Fund entitled Show Me the Money: Energy Efficiency Financing Barriers and Opportunities. The second from the Institute for Market Transformation is a comprehensive look at Building Energy Transparency: A Framework for Implementing Energy Rating & Disclosure Policy
E Cube: The Perfect Marriage of DIY & Affordable Passive House Design?
Something impressive is developing on the green building front in Belgium. And it has nothing to do with LEED or some grandiose skyscraper. It’s a home that does much more than house people. It will enable more people to own their own homes, while increasing their self reliance, and reducing the impact they and their [...]
The Three Green Building B’s: Benchmarking, Best Practices, and (Major) Benefits
By David Jaber Facility assessments (investigating a building’s energy, water, material usage and waste, similar to LEED O+M or other facility greening audits) can provide significant value in multiple ways. For one, when done at multiple facilities of a similar type, assessments allow us to benchmark across these similar facilities in the hopes of identifying [...]
Green My Digs: 5 Most Eco-friendly Apartment Buildings in America
By: Tim Eyre, Extra Space Storage The robust global environmentalism movement has impacted virtually all aspects of American life. And while green building practices have been utilized in single family construction for some time now, developers in the multi-family sector have only recently started taking notice, recognizing that the added cost of implementing eco-friendly design [...]
Earthships Provide Path to Future Self-Sustaining Homes
Rolling up to the Earthships world headquarters in Taos, New Mexico is like stumbling upon an alien planet – a striking, stark desert backdrop with funky colorful bounds dotting the landscape– which as you get closer you soon realize are actual people’s houses. An Earthship is a thermal mass, passive solar home that allows one [...]
HUD and EPA Launch Effort to Build Sustainable Communities
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced this week that their agencies launched a grant program that will help build more sustainably-built and transit-friendly communities.
Net-Zero in Vermont: Putney School a Model for Sustainability
In the unassuming rural community of Putney, Vermont, students and faculty at the Putney School are proud of their new field house. Not only does the new building expand the opportunities for the students at the private high school, it’s also the only net-zero school building in the country, and one of only a handful [...]
Embracing the Economic Case for Sustainable Design
By Ronald C. Weston, AIA, LEED AP The sustainable design and green building movement have made tremendous advances over the past decade to the point that virtually every building project today employs some level of green design. And yet despite the bar being raised significantly there remains resistance in the public and private sectors to [...]
Can Commercial PACE Financing Drive $2.5 Billion in Energy Efficiency Investments?
This post is part of a blogging series by economics students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Joey Christiano Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing is a mechanism that allows renewable energy, water conservation, and energy efficiency projects to be financed at reasonable rates. PACE works by attaching [...]
For the 2012 London Olympics, The Winning Medal is Green
With 15 months to go before the 2012 Olympics begin in London, the mega-event’s organizers have the goal of emerging as the most socially and environmentally responsible Olympiad ever.
Trimming the Fat Off the Fitness Industry
This post is part of a series on sustainability in the health and wellness industry, curated by Becky Eisen, Dana Ledyard, Izabel Loinaz. Follow along with the series here. By: Stuart Walker In 2008 I was terminated from my job as the GM of a 85,000 sq foot, 11 acre, 300 parking spot health and [...]
USA’s First LEED Gold Airport Terminal Unveiled at SFO
Although the aircraft parked at its gates may leave a sizable carbon footprint, San Francisco airport’s newly refurbished terminal two (T2) aims to tread a little more lightly by aiming to be the USA’s first LEED Gold certified terminal. On April 6th 2011, San Francisco Mayor, Edwin Lee unveiled the 640,000 square-foot facility which will [...]
Video Interview: Navigating Green Building Certifications
Dealing with green building certifications, even for building material professionals, is anything but easy. Serious Materials, a company dedicated to building better buildings, is creating solutions to improve energy efficiency and building sustainability. This interview with Brandon Tinianov, the CTO of Serious Materials, is a continuation of our conversation on the new windows of the [...]
Video Interview: Serious Materials on the Empire State Building
Buildings consume over 50% of the energy in the US, and over 50% of building energy consumed by buildings is in heating and cooling. Serious Materials, a company dedicated to building energy efficiency, is curbing unnecessary heating and cooling losses with their window technology while making offices more comfortable. In this interview, Brandon Tinianov, the [...]
FedEx Reaches Company Milestone and Opens Energy Efficient Data Center
A few days ago FedEx Corp. unveiled its Enterprise Data Center-West (EDC-W), located in Colorado Springs, CO, making it the company’s first environmentally sustainable data center. With this grand opening, this now makes EDC-W among the most energy efficient data centers in the U.S. and FedEx hopes the center will become a model of sustainability and efficiency [...]
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Webinar: Feb 17Greening Stonyfield Farm: As a consultant with Stonyfield Farm for the past 12 years, Switzer Fellow Tim Greiner will discuss efforts to broaden and deepen sustainability within the company. He will discuss the company's efforts to track its environmental impacts, barriers the company had to overcome.
Webinar: Feb 29Product Scorecards for Sustainability: Product scorecards that detail and evaluate environmental and sustainability aspects of products are increasingly adopted by leading companies. This webinar covers the best practices in this area and a case study by Seventh Generation.
NY: Mar 19-20Wall Street Green: The longest running and most comprehensive environmental market event in the industry. The Wall Street Green Summit covers cutting edge content, industry developments and features the practitioners and the leaders of tomorrow.
Bay Area: Mar 22-23GRI Certified Training: Demand for sustainability experts is growing rapidly as companies look for proven professionals. For companies, GRI trained employees mean faster implementations and better use of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. Join our partner ISOS group for this two day session. Early bird discounts apply!
SF: Mar 26-28Cleantech Forum San Francisco: The 2012 Cleantech Forum San Francisco will mark the 10th anniversary of Cleantech Forums, the annual gathering of the global clean technology innovation community. Our theme this year is “The Power of Global Partnerships,” an exploration of how strategic relationships are playing an ever more important role in the future of clean technology. For a $300 Discount use code "VIPofTriplePundit " More Info.
SF: April 10-12 Navigating the American Carbon World: The must-attend event for professionals in the carbon landscape. Over the past decade, NACW has consistently provided informative content, thoughtful discussions and outstanding opportunities for collaboration.
Have your event listed here.
Webinar: Feb 17Greening Stonyfield Farm: As a consultant with Stonyfield Farm for the past 12 years, Switzer Fellow Tim Greiner will discuss efforts to broaden and deepen sustainability within the company. He will discuss the company's efforts to track its environmental impacts, barriers the company had to overcome.Webinar: Feb 29Product Scorecards for Sustainability: Product scorecards that detail and evaluate environmental and sustainability aspects of products are increasingly adopted by leading companies. This webinar covers the best practices in this area and a case study by Seventh Generation.NY: Mar 19-20Wall Street Green: The longest running and most comprehensive environmental market event in the industry. The Wall Street Green Summit covers cutting edge content, industry developments and features the practitioners and the leaders of tomorrow. Bay Area: Mar 22-23GRI Certified Training: Demand for sustainability experts is growing rapidly as companies look for proven professionals. For companies, GRI trained employees mean faster implementations and better use of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. Join our partner ISOS group for this two day session. Early bird discounts apply!SF: Mar 26-28Cleantech Forum San Francisco: The 2012 Cleantech Forum San Francisco will mark the 10th anniversary of Cleantech Forums, the annual gathering of the global clean technology innovation community. Our theme this year is “The Power of Global Partnerships,” an exploration of how strategic relationships are playing an ever more important role in the future of clean technology. For a $300 Discount use code "VIPofTriplePundit " More Info.SF: April 10-12 Navigating the American Carbon World: The must-attend event for professionals in the carbon landscape. Over the past decade, NACW has consistently provided informative content, thoughtful discussions and outstanding opportunities for collaboration.Have your event listed here.
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