Guest post by LED Mavens

Businesses of all sizes are facing a new imperative to reduce their eco footprints. On the one hand is a growing market of environmentally conscious consumers. Purchases, which once revolved around simply getting the best product or service for the lowest price, are increasingly being made based on the new calculus of sustainability. Consumers have shown a willingness to spend a little more for products and services that include carbon offsets, organic and chemical-free labeling, and affiliation with trusted alliances like the FAIR trade movement.

On the other hand, businesses have their own calculus to consider. Energy prices continue increasing, and the economy has yet to recover anything approximating a steady rate of growth to match inflation. The good news is that most businesses have plenty of room to make affordable changes that will increase efficiency and save money, providing a buffer against the possibility of hard times ahead.

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Guest post by Barbara O’Brien

Green or “sustainable” building is the practice of keeping the protection of the environment above all other building considerations. This ideal of environmental concern in building new structures and improving older ones is more pervasive now, and often guides companies and homeowners alike to make eco-friendly construction decisions.

For new structures, the point of being sustainable is not to only use sustainable products, such as bamboo, and recycled and re-purposed building materials. From lights to flooring and from the bones of the new building down to the plumbing and electrical, the top construction leaders are embracing this sustainable movement.

Isn’t Green Building Expensive?

This is one of the most widely held misperceptions in the construction industry. Building green isn’t expensive. Not only in the short-term financial output, say for materials, but for the long-term benefit by saving overall utilities costs.

Habitat for Humanity International (HHI) is one of the first and leading organizations that embraced the green building movement before it became a regular and expected practice. Since the organization provides low-cost homes for those disenfranchised, it recognized the cost-benefit of building green and using sustainable products.

From radiant heat flooring to using recycled glass counter tops, Habitat for Humanity International embraced the green movement because of the cost effectiveness for not only their own building costs, but to provide a house that kept the homeowners’ costs to a minimum.

Building green, sustainable homes and buildings is more cost effective now than any other form of building.

Further, the United States government, specifically the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “rewards” sustainable building by offering tax incentives and grants.

Not only does the EPA recognize the importance and long term impact of sustainable building, so does the United States Green Building Council (USBGC). From city redevelopment, new builds and residential home improvements, the USBGC also provides financial incentive to build sustainable.

Numerous government agencies, private organizations and foundations supplement the cost of building green. Nationwide – even worldwide – these agencies and organizations understand the imperative to provide a clean environment for future generations.

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Guest post by Kate Snack

Fair trade is not the easiest concept to grasp. It has it’s layers, and often the term gets used to describe things that aren’t actually fair trade at all, so you have to be careful. Defined by the official fair trade stamp of approval when a product meets FLO-cert criteria and the fair trade guidelines that are set by international certification programs, adapting to meet these standards in the fashion industry can be both challenging, costly and time consuming. But consumer ethics are stronger than ever and forcing designers, fashion houses and retailers to put sustainability and fair trade at the top of their list of priorities.

Fair trade fashion is a niche market. Garments that are handmade in Africa, Asia, and South America for instance, don’t arrive on your doorstep made for sale to the masses. Pieces are unique, often one-of-a-kind, and above all else, a redefining characteristic of the fashion statement.

Marissa Saints from Dsenyo (an African textile and accessories company based in Boulder, CO.) admits, “it’s hard to resist those big sales at department stores in the mall, but if we all keep buying items without knowing where or how they were made, we aren’t going to see much change.”

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Image via Wikipedia

Going green is not just about new construction and technology, it’s about retrofitting and reusing existing foundations.  The tallest skyscraper in America, the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower), is getting a green retrofit.

Converting just the south side of the 56th floor will generate 2 MW of electricity.  The windows will be replaced with high power density photovoltaic windows.  They produce as much electricity as a standard photovoltaic panel, while still allowing daylight in and reducing heat loss.

The resulting ambiance is calmer and cool, much like a tinted car window.  Only this window generates more electricity than is used within the room.

Imagine the application of this technology on the desert skyscrapers of the middle east, that are baked with direct sun 12 hours each day.  Then again, it’s hard to justify clean energy when you’re floating on a lake of oil.

Source:
inhabitat.com

Related articles

• Willis Tower goes solar (physorg.com)
• Willis Tower to get greener windows (ubergizmo.com)

Earth Hour – it’s about more than just one hour

This coming Saturday, March 26 at 8:30PM marks the fifth annual Earth Hour event where people and organization across the globe are encouraged to turn off their lights for one symbolic hour of unity and awareness about climate change and creating a sustainable future.

Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million people and more than 2000 businesses took a unified stand against climate change by turning off their lights for one hour.

Does simply turning off your lights for an hour once a year really make a difference in combating climate change and creating a sustainable future? In and of itself, no, of course it doesn’t. But “just turning off your lights” isn’t the point. It about creating a sense of unity, that we are all in this together, and in that unity one person can make a difference.

Sure, that one individual act may seem infinitesimal in the face of the problem, but when combined with your neighbors it grows into a significant act. Just as Earth Hour has grown into a worldwide movement, the individual acts of millions – even billions – of people can and do make a difference.

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Here at Hippie Magazine, we like to cover cool gadgets designed and built by new, visionary companies steeped in the concept of sustainability and environmental awareness. It’s the way of the future, if we hope for a bright one.

But realizing a sustainable future depends just as much, if not more, by old, stodgy big-footed industries like, say, car rental companies.

This is all by way of saying that Enterprise Rent-A-Car has recently announced availability of the Chevy Volt EV for rent. People wouldn’t expect a car rental company to be particularly focused on offering alternative-type vehicles. But Enterprise has consistently shown a commitment to sustainability and alternative vehicle market leadership.

Not the kind of corporate-speak you’d expect from a Hippie, but I’ve had the opportunity to chat on several occasions with members of a team devoted to – dare I say it – corporate responsibility. In particular Lee Broughton, director of corporate sustainability for Enterprise.

From the largest fleet of hybrid and alternative fuel cars to a well-received voluntary carbon offset program, corporate fleet management and ride sharing services,  now to the Chevy Volt EV. Enterprise continues its market leadership.

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The following two videos give an overview of an Earthship. Earthship biotecture is the product of forty years of research and development into completely self-sufficient housing made entirely from recycled materials.

The gusher in the gulf continues to spew, the oily sheen and clumpy globules seeping into every nook and cranny of the marine environment along hundreds of miles of coastline. Not a bad time to consider the extent to which petroleum has seeped into nearly every aspect of daily life. Whether it is a product, food or service odds are it was created, packaged, stored, shipped or sold using numerous convenient innovations derived from petroleum or fueled by it.

Disposable plastic packaging, bags and food service containers are just some of petroleum’s many uses. Making the move away from fossil fuel dependency will require substituting renewable materials for oil-based sources we currently rely on in numerous industries. One company working to achieve this move is Michigan-based Fabri-Kal, which produces high quality food service containers called Greenware® and other consumer packaging made from a biopolymer derived entirely from plants.

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“It is estimated that harnessing just 2 one-thousandths of the oceans’ untapped energy could provide power equal to current worldwide demand.”
-Annette von Jouanne founder of the Wave Energy program at Oregon State University (OSU)

With 70 percent of the world’s surface covered by ocean a remarkable opportunity exists to produce clean energy. The sea remains the greatest pool of untapped renewable power on the planet. The wave energy off American coasts alone can provide as much electricity as the nation’s hydroelectric plants.

“Full scale of the wave resource is about the same as the hydro resource, which is approximately six percent,” Dr. Ted Brekken told me by phone. He is the co-director of the Wallace Energy Systems and Renewables Facility at Oregon State University, “the highest-power university energy systems lab in the U.S.”

“The resource will be fully developed when there are five to seven wave parks with each of those generating over 100 megawatts,” he said. The amount of electricity from one park could power several hundred thousand homes.

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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
(reposted with permission)

Some people live off the grid, eat local food, and have an energy footprint so minuscule that even the canniest hunter couldn’t track them down. But the rest of us buy from supermarkets, get our energy from at least in part from traditional sources like coal, and occasionally forget to turn off the lights when we leave the house. For those of us who are still living with one foot in the old energy world, here are a few helpful hints about what you should buy and what the consequences of shifting to “clean energy” sources like natural gas and nuclear energy are.

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