Green Options

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As the environment continues to gain more and more attention, so does the need to stay green and environmentally friendly. We’re seeing these qualities become more and more relevant and important in a variety of fields; from automotive to architecture.

The latter has long been a focus of the green development. One need only look at the mass of stories coming out of the Middle East and Asia to see that a green focus on design and architecture is now more important than ever.

Environmentally Friendly Biofuel?

A Swedish bus company is marketing it’s use of environmentally friendly biofuels by depicting humans drinking from petrol pumps.

Needless to say the Swedish Poison Information Center is up in arms over the Flygbussarna Airport Coach company’s advertisements.

Though being green is all the rage in the US, one needs to look beyond our borders…well beyond, to find countries in which consumers act truly green. Not surprisingly, those consumers in the developing world, impacted the most by environmentally harmful behavior, tend to be the greenest.

The recently completed National Geographic/GlobeScan “Consumer Greendex,” rather than measuring the overall “greenness” of each nation looks specifically at consumer behavior and tells a different story than that of traditional measurements of sustainability by country.

The US, still doesn’t fare very well

The findings show that consumers in Brazil and India tie for the highest Greendex score for environmentally sustainable consumption at 60 points each. They are followed by consumers in China (56.1), Mexico (54.3), Hungary (53.2) and Russia (52.4). Among consumers in wealthy countries, those in Great Britain, Germany and Australia each have a Greendex score of 50.2, those in Spain register a score of 50.0 and Japanese respondents 49.1. U.S. consumers have the lowest Greendex score at 44.9. The other lowest-scoring consumers are Canadians with 48.5 and the French with 48.7.

Some scary truths about consumers’ assumptions could lead to a “green” backlash concludes The Green Gap Survey, released this week by Cone LLC and The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship.
We in the business of making environmentally friendly and natural product know that little regulation exists around the terms, “green,” “environmentally friendly,” and “natural.” But, consumers don’t and are, perhaps naively, trusting.

• 47 percent trust companies to tell them the truth in environmental messaging
• 45 percent believe companies are accurately communicating information about their impact on the environment
• 61 percent of Americans say they understand the environmental terms companies use in their advertising

Warning: so, as the video and Oprah’s darling du jour and guerrilla closet warrior Peter Walsh so clearly outlines, our pack-rat habits are making us chubby. They can also be a barrier to us going green. Not surprising, did you notice that your lean and toned friends also tend to have pretty darn spotless, sustainability-forward and organized homes, while your plumper friends tend to lavish in “chaotic creative” spaces. Hmmm…

An http://www.greenprinteronline.com dispatch.

When companies make the shift to reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chain, paper is one of the first – but perhaps most overlooked – ways to shed those office carbon pounds.

But the carbon, environmental and cost savings benefits of switching from virgin paper to more sustainable paper didn’t escape Sustainable Business Design - a consulting firm that provides carbon footprint, greenhouse gas audits and “The Low Carb Corporate Diet” ™ [...]

Welcome TreeHugger Readers!

Today I received a very nice surprise. The exact kind of surprise a new business owner and fervent blog writer loves to receive. Our company made it onto TreeHugger!

For anyone who has not seen the article, you can read it here.

I have been a long time reader of TreeHugger, and saw the post that Tamara had done on a similar site in Europe, Erento.com - but I was sure happy to [...]

iRent2u.com & Saving the World, or Bart Simpson?

On August 13th I posted some information about the new podcast I am doing, GreenTech.fM. It is a bi-weekly interview between myself and a Topanga green architect who not only shares a love for new technologies but also has some incredible innovations of his own. We have received a great response to the show since its launch. We hoped people would like the show, but little did we know that we [...]

Welcome to iRent2u.com!

With our impending press release for my new podcast, GreenTech.fM, I am sure we are going to see some fresh visitors to this site. For all of you let me appease your curiosity by explaining what iRent2u is.

What is iRent2u.com?

iRent2u.com is “The Online Rental Marketplace”. A place that allows everyone to get more from what they already have. It is recycling on steroids. It is a concept [...]

New “green” podcast series covers revolutionary companies changing the world using sustainable and clean technologies.

GreenTech.fM, a podcast series with entrepreneur & co-founder of iRent2u.com, Tim McCormack, and renowned green architect Robert Mechielsen, is now available online. So far 3 shows have been published (shows zero, one and two), with new shows to be announced every second Tuesday.

The series focuses on current and future environmentally friendly technologies that have the potential to correct and [...]

What if everyone could get more value from what they already have?

This is the question we asked ourselves last October when we began putting this company together.

How many things do you own that you don’t really need? In our survey many people told us they own multiple items that for most of the time just sit around collecting dust. Maybe its a stationary bike that you bought during a healthy kick, but now hardly use because you go jogging [...]