Green Options

Ever forget your wedding anniversary? Your spouse’s/partner’s birthday? Perhaps forgetting the anniversary on which you started blogging isn’t quite the same, but after six years and thousands of posts, I felt like a total dolt when I realized today that July 10th (not today, the 12th) was sustainablog’s “birthday.”

That’s right: six years (and two days) ago, I created a new Blogger account, and started wrestling with this concept of sustainability that I’d only recently discovered. There’ve been lots of twists and turns since then, but it’s really gratifying to look back and see the growth and development of my little blog in that time.

While most of us associate birthdays/anniversaries with gifts and celebrations, these dates are also the perfect time for expressing gratitude, and looking forward (as well as back). I owe many people thanks for their support, including

The folks at Green Options: sustainablog’s always been a little unique in the GO network: rather than narrowly focusing on a niche within the green world, we’ve always done a little bit of everything. That has its ups and down, and I’m grateful to my friends at GO (and new parent company Virgance) for their patience with and support of our model.

The green blogosphere: You can’t blog in a vacuum… or, at least, you can’t blog in a vacuum and expect to build much of an audience. From early on, sustainablog’s received a ton of support from both big and small players within the green online media space. Special hat tips to Grist (one of the first big sites to link to us), Treehugger (for the writing gig and frequent linkage), Worldchanging (for frequent early linkage and some guest posting opportunities), Triplepundit, HuffPo Green, Green, Inc., Greenbiz, Lighter Footstep… I’m just getting started. Whether you’re listed or not, know that I appreciate your support.

February was a big month for GO Media — we celebrated our first anniversary in business! Of course, there were also the usual celebrations: Valentine’s Day, Presidents Day, and Groundhog Day (hey, that’s celebrated…!).

Here at sustainablog, we were keeping an eye on broad developments related to sustainability (as always).  From business to religion to the presidential primary season, we found many great stories to share… here are a few of them.

February 2008

• Chad Crawford dug into the green evangelical movement.
• Carol McClelland shared an overview of cleantech trends and opportunities presented at Cleantech Forum XVI.
• I took a look at “low hanging fruit” approaches to sustainability, and their potential to oversimplify our environmental impact.

April 26 marks the 22nd anniversary of the 1986 nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Slavutych, Ukraine. That one incident resulted in hundreds and possibly thousands of deaths, lingering health issues, radioactive contamination of a wide swath of land, property losses and on-going clean-up costs totaling billions of dollars.The Ukranian-American Environmental Association sent out a release reminding everyon of the risks of nuclear power.

I spoke with Kenneth Bossong, co-director of [...]

The Green Options Media Network that Green Building Elements belongs to started out as a group blog called Green Options a year ago today. I was one of the green building writers on board when it started. In the course of that first year, and all the changes we’ve gone through, Green Options has become a network of related blogs, and I’ve moved to now be the lead writer for an entire blog devoted to green building and sustainable design. (It’s perhaps also appropriate that Green Building Elements got its new look just in time for this anniversary.) It’s a big enough field and there’s enough interest that we have four people (so far) writing about green building.

Writing about green building gives me a chance to explore and find out about new developments and new products. When I went to the Greenbuild 2007 Conference, I walked through the exhibition hall and saw numerous manufacturers whose products I had already written about and who I was familiar with. In some cases, I got to ask more detailed questions, or to see products in person that I had only read about on websites up until then. There were a number of instances, though, when I could tell the rep in the product booth, “I’ve written about your product.” Nothing else has given me as strong a sense of being in the forefront of something much larger.

When I got bored one summer and decided to start a blog about renewable energy and private sector leadership, I never imagined it would open up such a wider world of blogging and lead me down this wonderful road to Green Options. This site has allowed me to explore the online world as much as the energy world, and that’s been just as exciting (I’m finally getting into del.icio.us).

My background is in energy policy, so what I’ve learned over these past 12 months is not so much a broader understanding of energy solutions but a better understanding of what people around the world think about solutions. Almost everyone wants a new, cleaner, more efficient energy system. And while we may differ as to whether that will include more wind power, less nuclear power, or research into ocean energy, I believe the agreement and willingness for change is there. This has translated into my posts in which - for the post part - I haven’t been as intent on getting out my opinion as trying to foster a conversation about the best routes to take and the larger questions about reaching that ultimate point.

A year ago today, Greenoptions.com went live to the public for the first time. Jeff remembers those first exciting hours of our launch, but I trace the most important moments back to the start of a parallel timeline.

In the early days of our little startup, it was sometimes hard to tell exactly where we were going. We knew that Treehugger had built a successful content model by catering to the significant number of people who self-identify with that term. We wondered if it was possible to do the same, but with a brand and content focus that would help draw ordinary people towards a more conscious mindset, by meeting them where they are.

With that in mind and no funding secured, I attended the 2006 SF Green Festival as just another festival-goer, passing out user surveys to help nail down our demographics. Without a booth, I was quickly asked to stop or leave, but I vowed to be back next year, with both a booth and a greater sense of purpose.

What do you do when your website marks it’s first anniversary? Celebrate, of course, and that’s what’s happening here at Green Options. It was on February 5, 2007, the GO site flickered on and the Internet had a brand new, exciting portal for dissemination of all things sustainable.

To mark this occasion, we asked two of its founders, Publisher David Anderson and Senior Editor Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, to talk about the genesis, growth and plans for [...]

I can still remember the moment of Green Options’ public launch like it happened today: I was watching a Skype chat window as the lead of our contract development team started counting down. “Three… two… one…” … then nothing. Then “Sh*t.”

We laughed, and then got the site up about two minutes later. Three executives and ten writers had started a journey to empower a mainstream audience with green news, guidance and community. The rest of the day went swimmingly… we even managed to get all of those first posts on the front page of Hugg (ok, not a huge accomplishment at the time, but we felt great about it!).

In the year since, we’ve had a number of moments like that first one: I’d imagine all startups have their share of stories illustrating efforts that didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned. Despite those hiccups, I’m feeling a lot of pride and gratitude as we reflect on our first year online.

It’s tempting to go into details about our development over the year, or to even a brag a bit about our accomplishments, but I’m most interested at this point in saying “thank you” to the many people who’ve contributed to Green Options, and the Green Options Media blog network.