It Ain't Easy Being Green in Boulder, Colorado

Conscious Capitalism Videos

Hey Folks!!

Check out CNNMoney.com for a few videos that focus on conscious capitalism. This one is an interview with 7th Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender.

We Are Responsible...

This is what happens when we release responsibility for our impacts on this beautiful planet:

Until we are willing and enabled to make the correct decisions, then the likelihood of tragedies such as the BP oil spill will always loom. We all must work together to ensure that transparency is a legal responsibility of our governments and corporations. In addition, consumers must provide the oversight of these entities. Consumers around the world, especially those of us in resource hungry countries and democracies like the United States, must take charge of information and DEMAND full transparency of activities and decisions which impact us and our health and the health of the planet (the same thing in our eyes). There clearly are those who must shoulder the financial and moral burden of the impact of this global disaster so that it can be cleaned-up and so that we all can learn to avoid anything remotely close to this again. Let's stop passing the buck and assuming or hoping for someone else to do what we are clearly capable of doing ourselves!

It Ain't Garbage!

Even though we may be enlightened businesses or enlightened consumers, there are other areas of opportunity to increase one's sustainability. Since we all eat (except for that Indian mystic who claims he doesn't eat or drink), we all produce food waste. What happens to all this organic matter once we have removed the easily accessed nutrients from it? Most folks send it into the garbage bin or into the garbage disposal. Out of sight out of mind or rather, out of sight OUT OF OUR MINDS!!! Seriously, how can a nation of around 305 million do this??

What disappears is an incredible amount of latent energy that is literally black gold! The power of these food scraps once they are converted into compost is immeasurable! What can we do? For folks with yards and with time they can maintain a compost pile and produce valuable nutrients for their yards. For most folks, they either don't have the time, inclination or space. What to do??

A new service called Compost Cab in Washington D.C. is nearing its launch! These folks will get participants to sign-up for a regular curbside pick-up of organic material which will then be composted! An additional cool thing is that this endeavor encouraging municipal composting as well as linking with other community-based organizations like Engaged Community Offshoots (ECO) to make it work. Agricity is the innovator behind this initiative.

Perhaps this is something that YOUR neighborhood could use?!?

Are You Confused?

In reading this article one can quickly see that there are really no hard and fast definitions that folks can simply refer to when discussing issues of green and sustainability. Although the concepts themselves are perhaps not that complicated, they do become muddied when those who are not committed to the fundamentals begin to co-opt the use of those terms without applying them with purity.

For those of us who understand many of these tenets of sustainability, it is important to raise a voice in favor of making these definitions understandable and accessible. It is also important that we make sustainability a mainstream reality, not by making it easier through cutting corners, but by helping people understand that we will not survive and lead healthy lives if we ignore the urgency to change our habits and lifestyles.

Pointing fingers and making accusations will do little to create the needed changes. Remember how well you reacted to being scolded as a child, did you ever truly understand the reasoning behind the person confronting you, or did you merely toe the line and do what you were told? This is not how important lessons are learned, not is it how people become better citizens. It is only when concepts are clearly understood and absorbed into one's identity, that they become available in a real and honest fashion.

Let's begin the dialogue that will enable us to share these important issues that will make life happier and healthier for all!

What Color is Your Money?

It seems that these dire economic times are stirring up some fears of the future in some of our banking institutions. A green bank movement is beginning to emerge that will have its foundation resting solidly on the concept of a "triple bottom line" approach to finance: enterprise, environment and social equity. Wow, imagine how great things could be if capitalism began to calculate costs using a long-term approach! Here are some excerpts from a NY Times article discussing a recent approach to green banking:

'Green' banks sprout from ruins of economic crisis

The group (e3bank) announced today that the Pennsylvania Department of Banking has awarded e3bank conditional approval for a state charter for its flagship bank in the Philadelphia area. Once given full approval by the state and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the new bank will open as a "green" triple bottom line bank, organizers said. It is already seeking investors and is raising money online.

E3bank joins a small but growing number of green banking centers sprouting as credit markets normalize. Just as the government is stepping in with the fiscal stimulus package with provisions designed to encourage consumers and businesses to go green, the banking industry is launching green incentives of its own.

The model that e3bank is pursuing envisions having loan officers accredited by the U.S. Green Building Council, or USGBC, as experts in its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ratings program. Loan officers would be empowered to customize loans and lines of credit to commercial and residential borrowers planning green building projects and retrofits.

Instead of following the industry standard -- basing loans on a borrower's ability to pay and the up-front costs of the building -- e3bank officers will be authorized to modify debt-to-income and loan-to-value proposals. Financial products would be tailored to account for the up-front costs of more expensive green projects but also factor in cost savings from lower energy consumption that would be netted over the course of the loan.

Baldassarre said the bank would also be more flexible in extending loans for solar installations, geothermal heating and other technologies on existing buildings, knowing that the cost savings the extra energy would bring in affects the borrowers' ability to repay the loan. Loan officers at e3bank could also advise customers on the latest green building innovations and the various options that people with projects in mind could consider.

A long time participant in socially and environmentally responsible banking, South Shore Bank, also has its own envelope pushing intitiatives:

ShoreBank's green bank spin-off, ShoreBank Pacific, was established with the goal of "creating a conservation economy in the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest." It lends to local companies in Washington and Oregon in ways designed to encourage them to use less energy and lumber and reduce waste production and pollution.

ShoreBank's depositors are invited to support their green initiatives directly by putting their money into "EcoDeposits." The company also offers "environmental advisory services" to customers in the coastal Pacific Northwest, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and urban centers where it conducts business.

Let's hope (and participate in) these types of ventures meet with enough success to force the financial dinosaurs into becoming active and willing participants in building and caring for today and tomorrow.

Check out the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire

Here are some additional links to information about green banking initiatives:

www.treehugger.com

Christian Science Monitor

Triple Bottom Line

Sustainable Television

The Sundance Channel will have some interesting shows coming up this month. Take a look below for a small list of programming:

Tuesday, June 10th 9pm est

"Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Business"

This episode visits companies, large & small, in the eco-vanguard: businesses that are doing well by doing good for the earth.

Crude Impact

An award-winning film that details the many ways that oil has shaped the world by enabling humankind to dominate virtually every other species living on the planet.

Check out the homepage at: http:www.sundancechannel.com/thegreen

Going Green, It Computes!

It seems that recent massive increases in energy costs will soon have a positive impact on how energy efficiency gurus interact with IT people and corporate decision makers and government agencies. 

Here's an excerpt from an article on ITworld.com discussing a recent energy efficiency gathering of folks from academia, government & business:

If one message stood out among the others at this week's Green Computing Summit in Washington, DC, it was that going green is no longer just good for the bottom line; it's absolutely necessary. And it's not just the tree huggers who are saying so. Prominent business executives and top ranking federal officials are leading a green revolution that promises to radically change computer technology and the way it is managed.

It may well have been skyrocketing energy prices that first got industry worried about its bottom lines and federal agencies grappling wit their budgets, but concern for the escalating climate crisis was hardly an afterthought. What started as a realization that going green was the easiest way to save money has evolved into a series of federal initiatives jointly aimed at reducing energy consumption and cutting CO2 emissions.

Given industry projections of computer growth, dramatic increases in online data storage and additional floor space that could be required by expanding data centers along with the resultant power and cooling upgrades, energy issues will clearly move from problem to crisis if efforts to bring energy consumption under control are not successful.

Link to the article here: http://www.itworld.com/Tech

New Report: Making Green the New Business as Usual

This week the Environmental Defense Fund released a report entitled: Innovations Review 2008: Making Green the New Business as Usual."  "The report highlights the latest trends and best practices that demonstrate how environmental sustainability efforts are creating new markets, providing competitive advantages and saving companies millions of dollars."

They go on to say that "environmental sustainability is no longer just for eco-brands. It's no longer about complying with regulations or securing good press. It's about saving through efficiency, creating new markets and gaining competitive advantage."

Link to Press Release: 

http://www.edf.org/pressrelease

Link to Full Report in PDF : http://www.edf.org/documents/7904_innovationsreview2008.pdf

This report is no doubt an important step in documenting and sharing the efforts of a wide range of companies to greenify and become more sustainable. Let's embrace these types of changes while at the same time prepare ourselves as consumers for an onslaught of corporate greenwashing! Let's face it, when it comes to claims by companies that they do embrace sustainability and green technologies there really isn't any place to go to verify such claims. We're not just referring to companies outside the so-called green and natural products industries as they are just as susceptible to make unjustified claims in search of the other green! Witness the recent lawsuit filed by Dr. Bronner's in which they assert that many companies are taking advantage of the lack of standards to make false claims about the "natural" ingredients their products contain.

Link to Article on Lawsuit: http://naturalfoodsmerchandiser.com

Visionary Values is working on a comprehensive database that will help answer these types of questions and root out false claims so we, as conscious consumers, can help regulate what companies sell to us. If we don't protect ourselves and work together to ensure collective responsibility, we will always have questions. We do need your help in compiling all this data, so feel free (really!) to contact us for more details. Fight the Good Fight!

Rethinking Green

The June 2008 issue of Wired Magazine has a great article, Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready To Rethink What It Means To Be Green, that questions all those feel good things we do to be green.

Although the article is rather simplistic and doesn't go far enough, the subject is right on and ripe for discussion.

Here's the intro paragraph:

"The environmental movement has never been short on noble goals. Preserving wild spaces, cleaning up the oceans, protecting watersheds, neutralizing acid rain, saving endangered species — all laudable. But today, one ecological problem outweighs all others: global warming. Restoring the Everglades, protecting the Headwaters redwoods, or saving the Illinois mud turtle won't matter if climate change plunges the planet into chaos. It's high time for greens to unite around the urgent need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases."

For more info go to:
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-06/ff_heresies_intro