Governor Deval Patrick signed the state biofuels bill that will require a B2 biodiesel blend commencing in 2012. The bill exempts cellulosic ethanol from $0.23 per gallon state excise tax, as well, based on the percentage of ethanol used.

One of the most promising parts of the legislation is the increase to a B5 blend in just two years.

Qualifying fuels must achieve at least a 50 percent reduction of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) over petroleum. All fuels will also be required to undergo a full lifecycle analysis, analyzing the “significant indirect emissions” and land use changes.

Read more of this story »

Doesn’t sound like your bank? That’s because it probably isn’t. The soon-to-be-new e3bank in Philadelphia is positioned to be the first green triple bottom line bank in New England.

From infrastructure to product and service offerings, everything the organization is involved with will be built upon the triple bottom line values of people, planet and prosperity. The bank is mobilized around a green economy and a sustainable environment, as well as supporting growing consumer and business demands around these issues.

“A commitment to the future is embedded in the DNA of e3bank,” chairman Sandy Wiggins said. “The financial industry has a large role to play in the societal shift to a sustainable world. The emerging green economy needs to be fueled by financial products and services specifically designed to accelerate its growth, and serviced by financial experts who ‘get it’ and who understand the urgency of this shift.”

Read more of this story »

Users can search for businesses by name, or they can search neighborhoods for businesses that are on IzzitGreen’s green list. One of the web site’s most helpful aspects is its “Guides” page. From pizza places to used bookstores, IzzitGreen posts information about the percentage of green businesses there are in each category, where you can find the ones that are green, and they go for the dirty details…or clean in this case.

For example, if you own a business in Boston, chances are that IzzitGreen has found out what kind of lightbulbs you use, whether or not you recycle any of the materials your business or your employers use and will have a comment on what working conditions are like. And that’s just the beginning of the list.

A lively discussion forum will soon be debuting on the site. For now, all registered users are listed under the People section with varying levels of contact information.

Read more of this story »

A committee is preparing to submit an application with the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, requesting an assessment of six to seven city-owned sites the panel has identified as possible turbine locations

“I think it’s very exciting,” said Tricia Lederer, the committee’s chairwoman. “It’s important for the town of Norwell to look into this for the cost savings, but also because we need to be looking at more renewable energy in this country.”

Norwell joins a growing list of cities and towns that are taking an interest in locating wind turbines and generating wind power on municipal land.

Read more of this story »

A new study, “Awnings in Residential Buildings: The Impact on Energy Use and Peak Demand,” conducted by the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota, has found that awnings over windows on residences can save energy costs and reduce energy use throughout the year by reducing the effects of unwanted passive solar heating.

The study was funded by the Professional Awning Manufacturers Association (PAMA), and was conducted to determine whether awnings are viable means to reduce energy use and reduce air conditioner usage in residential buildings and homes. The study investigated the energy savings for single-family homes in terms of heat gain, energy costs in heating and cooling and the reduction of energy use during peak periods.

Read more of this story »

Higher fuel prices means more than taking a beating at the pump—it also affects the prices of the foodstuffs you buy. From Brazilian bananas to Moroccan couscous, the price of food is directly related to the energy it takes to cultivate, harvest and transport it.

In an attempt to cut out unneeded costs and pollution, the University of New Hampshire is exploring energy independence with a large grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education (SARE) program.

The $380,000 grant is intended to help discover whether a closed agroecosystem approach to organic dairy farming can help struggling dairy farmers stay in business and keep profits up.

“In a closed system, the only thing leaving the farm is the milk,” says John Aber, professor of natural resources at UNH and the principal investigator on the grant. “The goal is to see whether we can have a closed-nutrient-cycle and energy-independent organic dairy.”

Examples of operating a closed system dairy farm include using cow manure fertilizer in the fields on which the herd grazes and placing sawdust from woodlands on UNH’s 300-acre farm in barns for animal bedding (which is becoming increasingly expensive). Woodland resources could provide fuel for small cogeneration plants. Methane digestion could produce usable methane from manure.

Read more of this story »

A community artist and a South Providence neighborhood will help raise awareness about a health hazard in the community while designing a series of informational signs through a partnership between three state agencies.
Warwick, Rhode Island-based artist Holly Ewald has been commissioned by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts to create a series of informational signs warning residents of the South Providence neighborhood near Mashapaug Pond off Adelaide Ave. about the dangers of swimming and fishing in the pond. The pond has contained unsafe levels of dioxins and PCBs for years—the State Arts Council is working in collaboration with the Rhode Island Departments of Health and Environmental Management on this project to help educate community members and youth of the danger.

I have to ask—wouldn’t the money be better spent on cleaning up the pond? Community awareness about health hazards is definitely a positive step, and I am glad to see that a South Providence neighborhood is getting attention from state agencies and artists, but I think this needs to be taken a step further.

Read more of this story »

The place is called Greenward. It’s popular. So popular that it made the Boston Magazine 2008 Best of Boston Home! list. Not bad for a new business in a major metropolitan area. The shop didn’t just make the cut to fill the token green business spot, either. It walks the walk.

It can be hard to find products with a conscience, and Greenward knows that. That’s part of the reason that they carry nearly anything you can conceive of that has gone green. If you need books, jewelry, bike accessories, stationery, homewares or magazines, Greenward’s got it. If you want clothes, notebooks, tables, candles or speakers…Greenward’s got it.

Read more of this story »

The voluntary REC purchases from UPC Wind will put Bowdoin at an impressive 100% green power usage level—well above the the requirements of Maine’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

“Our primary focus has been and will continue to be switching to lower carbon fuels and increased energy efficiency, but as we seek to become carbon neutral, purchasing offsets are a necessity,” explains S. Catherine Longley, Bowdoin’s Sr. V.P. for Finance and Administration & Treasurer and chair of the College’s climate commitment group. “We are excited that the Mars Hill wind project allows us to procure wind RECs locally.”

Of course, this isn’t Bowdoin’s first step toward a more ecologically responsible approach to the world. In 2006 the college signed the Maine Governor’s Carbon Challenge agreeing to reduce emissions to 11 percent below 2002 levels by 2010. They easily surpassed that goal in 2007.
Bowdoin also joined the EPA Green Power Partner Program in 2006, and the recent move to 100% green power ensures that they will remain in the EPA Program through 2010.

Read more of this story »

When the Internet extended its wiry tentacles to the small town that I grew up in, I had no idea what it was. I pictured it being a room full of wires and lights, like a super computer android version of a phone operator.

As I matured, I realized it wasn’t that at all, but a more mystic existence of floating pockets of digital information in constant flux, existing in digital clouds that were suspended just above the atmosphere.

Of course, neither of those images is or was correct. But as it turns out, I was closer to the target with my first guess. Massive server rooms take up space and energy all over the world, storing the information and websites we web junkies feed on for survival. Luckily, they are starting to go green.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a technology real estate company, has taken a bold step into the green world by renovating a 90-year-old printing facility in Chicago. They have turned the plant into the world’s first LEED gold-certified data center. Not only is this a paradigm shift for future data centers—it may change the way LEED building companies approach renovations.

Read more of this story »

Students in a horticultural technology class at the University of New Hampshire’s Thompson School for Applied Science completed a final project for last week’s Earth Day celebration that brings learning outside of the conventional classroom.

Associate professor Dana Sansom’s grounds management course installed sustainable landscaping around the university’s Putnam Hall, designed to provide low-maintenance beauty throughout the year. Additionally, the landscaped area will be used as a living classroom for the school’s future horticulture students.

Thompson School student Jim Lynn, who designed the landscape with students Henry Hess and Katie Leipold worked with nine other students over the course of the past year to develop and implement the project. The site, which had been largely neglected for a decade, was overgrown and unkempt.

Read more of this story »

Recycled cell phones as art.

Boston, Mass.—In yesterday’s Boston Globe, I came across an article in the Lifestyle/Green Living section that really caught my eye…and my ear. An art student from Allston, Mass. has an installation in Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) that consists entirely of discarded cellular phones.

Rob Pettit, 26, has been spending months collecting, sorting and arranging old cell phones, even using their ring tones and camera shots in some of his pieces.

“It’s just interesting to see what an explosion of products [this is], and realizing that every time you get one, it’s on the verge of being replaced by another,” Pettit told the Boston Globe. “There’s an estimated half a billion cellphones just sitting in people’s desk drawers.”

Read more of this story »

If it looks green, smells green and feels green, it must be green. Right? The answer, it turns out, is more of a maybe. It is common knowledge that green technology has large positive environmental impacts: large-scale energy savings, run-off reduction and heat reduction among their chief assets. But as green builders continue to define the standards and guidelines for sustainable construction practices, different levels of earth friendly products continue to circulate the market. Green roofs in particular are taking a harder look at the sustainability of their component materials.

Make it last
Brad Budde of Conwed Plastics, Minneapolis, Minn., believes the future development of sustainable green roof products lies in the hands of builders. He suggests that as companies continue to understand the commercial concerns regarding the application of sustainable and earth friendly products that the market as a whole will become more educated about their applications, benefits and uses.

His company is a leader of earth friendly, compostible packaging materials as an alternative to traditional plastic bags, as well as biodegradable plastics that don’t leave the harmful, long lasting resins of other industry plastics. “It’s a really great product that solves some of the disposal concerns for traditional plastic products,” he says.

Read more of this story »

Urban greens is a food cooperative on Providence’s West Side with a mission to provide simple, direct access to affordable, local, natural products and to offer a community-based alternative to corporate supermarkets. The cooperative is guided by its values of equal access, local agriculture, local economy, co-operative principles, community partnerships and social entrepreneurship.

Read more of this story »