Speakers will be:

Don Carli
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Sustainable Communications

Brian Kozlowski
Director, Sustainable Development
NewPage Corp.

This free webinar will discuss the tools, processes, and success stories that exist to help direct marketers determine not only which media best fit the job at hand but also how to improve the carbon footprint of all channels.

Topics to be discussed include:

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I just got back from three days at one of my favorite ag industry meetings: The Produce Marketing Association “Fresh Summit.”  To those in the industry this is just known as the PMA.   This is an event where the vast majority of the fresh produce and flower industry gathers to show off their products, their new ideas and all the technologies that help process, sort, package and preserve the freshness of the produce.    There are more than a thousand booths and a great many of them offer samples like the one pictured above.  You get to see new and exotic fruits and vegetables, some of which eventually make it into the mainstream (I’ll talk about some examples in a later post).  

So, basically I juist got to spend three days talking to people about produce, traceability, food safety and sustainability - all the while eating delicious produce samples.  If it didn’t cost $700 to get in I’m sure this event would be over-run.  I think they should have an additional week for consumers at some lower cost (maybe with a lottery for who gets to come).  

Anyway, I was encouraged to find that “sustainability” was a major theme this year - far more than two years ago which was the last time I got to go to the PMA.  I could blog for days about what I saw, but I’ll hit some highlights. 

There was a very cool alternative to the traditional cardboard “flat.” Most fresh produce is shipped in case boxes or in “flats” which are the units that retailers put out on the display if they don’t actually transfer the produce into bulk displays.  ECOPACK has come up with something they call a Green Box which is made of stackable flats or trays made of recyclable or returnable plastic that are 1/2 the weight of the cardboard.  The marketing and traceability information is on small sleeves attached to the ends of the tray. The link I will give you is directed to the produce industry, but you can see it’s sustainability focus.

I talked with some folks from  CSX who are involved in shipments of produce by rail.  They have done a lot of work to understand the carbon footprint of their transport and have monthly contests for their train engineers to see who can achieve the best fuel efficiency.  They are working on ways to make rail a more competitive option with trucking, even for fresh produce, by providing points of freight consolidation.  Especially for or those of you who live in places with that thing called “winter,” this is great for increasing the sustainability of your fresh produce supply.

On the trucking front, there was a company called Universal Container Inc. that has developed a refrigerated container technology for fresh produce shipping (could be on trucks, trains or ships) that uses liquid nitrogen for cooling rather than the standard diesel compressor technology.  It consumes little energy and has no carbon, particulate, NOX emissions or noise in operation.  Its only emission is nitrogen gas which is already ~80% of the atmosphere.  There is obviously energy involved in producing the liquid nitrogen, but that is really largely a co-product from companies that are after other atmospheric gases.  I’d like to see a full-blown LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) on this because I’d bet money that this will come out on top in terms of GHG in addition to the air and noise pollution advantages.

There were also some really cool sustainability things in the packaging area.  I’ll put that in a later post.

Perhaps the best example of sustainability innovation by a produce company came from the largest Onion company in the US, Gills Onions.  They put in an anaerobic digester to deal with the waste from their operations and are now generating enough energy to power 460 homes.  

I was encouraged, because even though I met some folks at the PMA who didn’t even have sustainability on their radar, I met far more produce industry people who were on-board with the importance of this issue.   I’m not at all saying that the sustainability challenge has been fully addressed by the fresh produce industry, but I was very impressed with the momentum I observed.

Your are welcome to comment on this site.  You can also email me at feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com.

All images from me, Steve Savage (Not a great photographer).

Not all clean tech companies need to produce more environmentally friendly products in order to make a difference; some are leaders in the industry because quite simply, they change their procedures in order to ensure that their practices reduce their carbon footprint. In this week’s Newsweek “Green Rankings” were released, and many of those higher up on the list include leaders in technology that are trying to make sure that their environmental impact is just that much cleaner.

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But I digress.  Suffice it to say, there are naysayers who don’t want us to live well, to live with a lower carbon footprint by producing our own food.  Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow, co-authors of Raising Chickens for Dummies, can be counted among those that are dispelling these myths and empowering the people. 

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If you picture a grain farmer out tending a field, you might imagine someone sitting on the metal seat of a tractor like the one in the picture above, moving slowly across a field - perhaps the farmer has a straw hat.  That image seems attractive as long as you are not the farmer.  Fortunately, this isn’t the real situation in the developed world or we wouldn’t get anyone in our rapidly aging population to do full-time farming on the multiple thousand-acre farms that are typical of a modern, Midwestern family farm.

Today, a progressive farmer will typically be working in an enclosed, air-conditioned cab with surround sound, a cell phone, and an internet connection for tracking commodity futures or catching up on email.  Increasingly, the tractor is driving itself by computer and GPS except for occasional intervention.  I’ve carried on a number of protracted interviews with farmers who were in just this setting.  I know one farmer that ran much of his state senate campaign from a tractor or combine.  These new, sophisticated, farm vehicles are not just about keeping the farmer comfortable and multi-tasking.  They are important tools for making farming more sustainable.

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John Willoner’s Eco-House at Findhorn (UK). Turf roof, passive solar, solar panel.

“Is it possible to affect the environment?”

That was one of the questions that confronted me on one on-line questionnaire I took over a year ago.

As a naturalist and former instructor of natural science and ecology (grades 1 – 9), I found this questions to be the most provocative of all. My initial response took the form of another question: How do you mean–positively or negatively? From the radical environmental perspective, all we can do is have a negative impact on the ecology/biosphere–just by existing as we do.

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In part one of this blog I acknowledged that I enjoy local food as a special treat in my diet but described three reasons that the true “locovore” concept was impractical:  Limited Food Diversity, Quality Issues, and Water Issues.  I’ll continue.

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I love eating locally produced foods when I have the chance.  I enjoyed having access to fully tree-ripe stone fruit when I lived in Davis, CA. Today I get to enjoy the ultra-local herbs, vegetables and fruit from my garden part of the year, and I make 10-20 gallons of wine from my little vineyard.  I feel that I am fortunate, not noble.  In January our county (San Diego) is one of the few places producing strawberries and I certainly enjoy those, but it doesn’t mean I don’t buy them later in the year when they come from further North.  Local food can definitely be a treat, but to think that it is a noble thing to be a “locovore” is a bit silly and often quite pretentious.  There are plenty of non-local foods that you should eat with no sense of guilt. In this and my next blog I’ll talk about why.

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This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

Having children is the surest way to send your carbon footprint soaring, according to a new study from statisticians at Oregon State University.

The study found that having a child has an impact that far outweighs that of other energy-saving behaviors. More on this story here.

A quarter-century ago, in the wake of America’s first energy crisis, a young scientist named Amory Lovins came to the Rocky Mountains and built himself a radical house based on a radical idea. The country could save both energy and money, he believed, by combining common sense and unconventional technology. More on this story here.

According to this week’s Economist, Britain will soon start to run out of electricity. How long will it be until its lights go out?  More on this story here.

A week ago a leading Indian daily published findings from a government report which assessed the feasibility of providing $17 billion in solar subsidies over the next 30 years. 

The report notes that India will be able to afford the complete expenses of the program which will make India one of the largest producers of solar energy, if not the largest. More on this story here.

The front pages in the UK this week are a-spread with the news of record profits at Barclays Bank, with accompanying bonuses for top bankers. This echoes last week’s story at Goldman Sachs. Given the recent bailouts and government support, the Economist is right to note that ‘such largesse looks cheeky at best’!

Although the two crises have little in common, this obstinate reminder of how little has changed in the financial sector prompts me to deeper pessimism in the environmental crisis. More on this story here.

World Fertility Rate Map

The current world population is approximately 6.5 billion people and growing. By or before 2050, that number will grow by almost 50% to 9 billion. With the availability of birth control and better education rates for women being higher in developed (industrial or post-industrial) nations, most of this increase is projected to come from the developing  world–those nations that are just now making significant progress away from exclusively agrarian societies, and towards full industrialization.

And despite the prevalence of fatal diseases, civil wars, and high infant mortality rates (note: the US has the highest infant mortality rate of any developed country), most of these developing countries continue to show population increases–especially as more effective medicines and health education (via government and private sector programs) become available.

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Why is Green Century Balance Fund’s carbon intensity so low?

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Aora-Solar, an Israeli company, has constructed, licensed and launched the first solar thermal energy (STE) natural gas hybrid electric generator (June 2009). At the time of this post, it is being tested in Kibbutz Samar in southern Israel. Such hybrids can lower the carbon footprint of existing natural gas power plants. The Israeli design is modular and permits small plants that can serve communities without long distance line losses. Florida Power and Light is scheduled to launch their first hybrid in 2010.

As I discussed in a previous post, electricity can be generated by high temperature or concentrated solar power (Solar Thermal: The Other Solar Energy). Basically, solar rays are concentrated and directed to a heat collector that transfers their heat to a heat engine (usually a closed circuit steam engine) that drives an electric generator.

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More Efficient Sewage Treatment on a Small Scale

BIOROCK consists of a modular block, installed underground like a septic tank.  In the first treatment chamber, solids are trapped and digested anaerobically.  The company claims that this chamber requires emptying only every 3-4 years.  The second chamber treats the effluent through an aerobic process.  It contains layers of fibrous rock in netting, which are exposed to air through a natural updraft, or chimney effect.  Aerobic bacteria grow inside the rock matrix, aided by the updraft, and digest the suspended solids.  BIOROCK U.K. reports that the effluent beats European standards for small sewage treatment plants, EN 12566-3 2005 and EN 12566-7 2006.

Sustainable Sewage Treatment

BIROCK’s ease of maintenance, simple installation, and use of recyclable materials helps contribute to a low carbon footprint.  The BIOROCK process itself requires no electricity, and it is designed to discharge effluent by gravity into a waterway.

Sewage Treatment Off the Grid

Sewage treatment is one of the stickiest dilemmas that off-grid building designers face, especially in urban areas.  The BIROCK system offers one solution for sites where a gravity discharge is not possible and pumping is required.  Small scale solar panel and wind turbine components are available to help keep the system off-grid.  The system could also prove useful for off-grid second homes or eco-vacation spots, even when they are not used year-round.  It can be left dormant for long periods of time without damage, and it can be restarted within a day or so compared several weeks for a conventional septic system start-up.

Note:  BIOROCK is not to be confused with the Biorock method of restoring coral reefs.

Image: Ryan Harvey on flickr.com

Over the last couple of years the term ‘carbon footprint’ has become commonplace in our culture. A growing number of people now have at the very least a general understanding of what a carbon footprint is, and for the most part this is a good thing. This has begun to translate into a greater awareness of the life cycle of the products we consume, which is an important step towards becoming a more energy-efficient nation.

But with increased understanding of a concept like carbon footprints comes the likelihood that it will be abused and mis-used. With greater frequency we are seeing reports that pervert the concept, such as the pointless ‘carbon footprint smackdown’ that compares the footprint of one cheeseburger being equivalent to that of 15,000 Google searches.

The climate change finger-pointing hit a new level of insanity when a paper was published recently that links overweight people to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Surprisingly this report did not appear in a sensationalist tabloid or newspaper, but was an article in the respected International Journal of Epidemiology. The logic of the study is relatively simple: compared to the average population, obese people eat more and use their cars more for everyday chores. Since both driving and the production of food create greenhouse gas emissions, overweight people contribute more to global warming than the average population.

It is shocking that this article was able to successfully pass the journal’s peer-review process, as there are a large number of flaws with its simplistic theory. Peter Gorrie of the Toronto Star has done an excellent job of reviewing several reasons why this report can’t be taken seriously.

Of greater concern than the lack of scientific rigor in the study is the precedent that this report sets in labeling a subset of the population as the cause of increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The data and logic can be spun in a countless number of ways such that just about any subset of the population can be made to blame for climate change. As opposed to investing time and energy into questionable and discriminatory studies like the one described here, future efforts should be allocated towards developing solutions to the climate change problem.

Image: Victius at flickr under a CC License

Stephen Boles is co-founder of Kuzuka, a marketplace website that brings a new level of convenience and confidence to carbon offset customers and provide consulting services to organizations that want to assess and reduce their carbon footprint.

1. Cycle:
a.motor b.bi c.water

2. Take:
a.more b.a seat c.action

3. Vehicle:
a.SUV b.C-A-R c.B-U-S

4. Media:
a.TV b.radio c.book/mags

5. Bikes:
a.for kids b.for exercise c.for most trips

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Concrete that maintains itself by healing cracks improves the sustainability of infrastructure through its longer service life and lower maintenance inputs. Now researchers have developed flexible, self healing cement that won’t suffer catastrophic failure when strained in an earthquake.

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Houses built out of hemp instead of traditional building materials leave a ‘better than zero carbon’ footprint, according to new research out of the UK.

Aside from helping to combat global warming, building homes from the cannabis plant could also give a boost to struggling rural economies. That’s good news almost everywhere except for within the U.S., where industrialized hemp is still illegal to grow under federal law.

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Some attempts have been made to calculate the carbon footprint of President Obama’s inauguration. The inauguration had a MASSIVE footprint - over half a million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions! However, the President’s inauguration can basically be compared to a wedding or other one-time event. It is not indicative of a normal year-over-year carbon footprint caused by everyday living and business travel. There have been no apparent efforts to calculate the footprint of the President in an average year - this is a first attempt to provide an initial rough estimate. It is important to note that this carbon footprint is for the office of the President of the United States, not necessarily President Obama. For example, It could just as easily be applicable to former Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Due to the difficulty in obtaining specific data about the White House and the President’s travel detail, certain assumptions have been made which are documented after the main body of the article. These assumptions were kept conservative, yet realistic, and documented facts (such as airplane specifications and carbon emission factors) were used wherever possible.

An important consideration of a carbon footprint assessment is the boundaries - in other words ‘What is included?’ We have included the following items in the carbon footprint calculation:

1. Airplane Travel (all flights associated with a Presidential trip, including official Air Force 1 and alternate Air Force 1, military cargo planes, and advance security missions)
2. Helicopter Travel
3. Automobile Travel
4. White House electricity and natural gas use

We have not included the emissions related to: the Inauguration ceremony, maintenance of Camp David, maintenance of other personal property owned by the President, maintenance of the approximately 18 acres of White House grounds.

Using our set of assumptions*, the carbon footprint of the President is about 41,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year. This is the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of about 2200 American households. This also far exceeds the carbon footprint of any of the European leaders, largely due to the number of additional airplane trips that accompany the President when he travels to provide the necessary security for the Commander in Chief. This level of security far surpasses that of the President’s European counterparts. This includes a second Boeing 747-200B (identical to Air Force One) that serves as a backup and decoy to the official Air Force One. Also deployed are two C-17 Globemaster military cargo planes to move the helicopters and limousines that carry the President at his eventual destination. Finally, there are oftern a number of advance flights made by the military to perform security assessments at the destination before the President arrives.

This carbon footprint estimate is in no way meant to be a criticism of the President. The security of the President is the utmost concern when he travels, regardless of the amount of emissions that are generated to ensure his safety. This article is intended to provide some perspective as to where the Presidential carbon emissions come from. President Obama has received some criticism in the media for the temperature that he maintains in the Oval Office. Whether these concerns are valid or not, it is obvious that automobile use and White House emissions are only a small fraction of his carbon footprint. Given the huge proportion of air travel emissions in the President’s carbon footprint, this is the area with the largest potential for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Even modest improvements in areas such as logistical planning could reduce the President’s carbon footprint by a significant amount.

President Obama has emerged as a ‘green champion’ since he took office. His aggressive promotion of green energy will do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than the massive carbon footprint that his office is responsible for. We recognize that with the need for security and the realities of his office it is inevitable that the President will have a very large carbon footprint. But is his office doing everything (within reason) that they can do to reduce his impact? It is more likely that the American people will act to reduce their own emissions if the President leads by example.

*Assumptions:

Air Travel
Amount Flown (for each plane in fleet): 100,397 miles per year or 202 hours of flight time (2 trips to Middle East, 1 to Far East Asia, 2 to Europe, 8 to west coast of North America, 16 within the Eastern time zone of North America)

Number of Planes Deployed per Presidential Trip: 8

• 2 Boeing 747-200B (Air Force 1 + alternate; fuel consumption data)
• 2 C-17 Globemaster military cargo planes; fuel consumption data
• 4 Boeing 767 (advance security mission flights); fuel consumption data

Air Travel CO2 Emission Factor

Helicopter Travel
Hours of helicopter usage per year: 58
(30 minutes of helicopter use on each of the 29 Presidential trips multiplied by 4 to account for the number of helicopters used each time the President travels)
Fuel consumption data from Sikorsky S-76 model (Marine One is actually a Sikorsky Sea King)

Automobile Travel
Size of motorcade when President travels: 30
Annual distance driven per vehicle in motorcade (in miles): 3650 (10 miles/day)
Assumed fuel efficiency of vehicles in motorcade: 20 MPG
CO2 Emission Factor for Gasoline

White House Electricity and Energy Use:
Square Footage of the White House: 55000
Assumed Electricity Use per square foot: 15.5 kWh
Electricity Emission Factor: 0.62 kg CO2 / kWh
Assumed Natural Gas use per square foot: 0.27 therms
Natural Gas CO2 Emission Factor: 2.146 kg CO2 / cubic meter

Stephen Boles is co-founder of Kuzuka, a marketplace website that will bring a new level of convenience and confidence to carbon offset customers and provide consulting services to organizations that want to assess and reduce their carbon footprint.