Green Options

I’ve heard this conversation a number of times at the small-to-medium sized enterprises (SME) I work with:

Green Vendor: “So Mr. CEO, how many of my carbon neutral, biodegradable, BPA-free whoozamacallits would you like to purchase?”

Here are my own personal steps to becoming a “green being”:

1} Try to stop driving exclusively gasoline powered automobiles. Carpool at least
once a week. Ride Public Transportation when you can and encourage Public Transit to
utilize/purchase alternative fuel buses (bio-deisel, natural gas, electric, etc.)

Terri Bly, president of The Nature of Beauty, LTD, and former clinical psychologist, offers 6 tips for overhauling your green beauty routine without going crazy.

Renewable fuels company Sustainable Oils shared the results of a life-cycle analysis of jet fuel created from proprietary Camelina seeds. According to the study, renewable jet-fuel made from Camelina reduces carbon emissions by 84% percent compared to the petroleum-based counterpart.

A team at Michigan Tech University based their research on Camelina grown in Montana and then processed into bio-jet fuel using “UOP hydroprocessing technology”. Next generation biofuels are true hydrocarbons and in the molecular aspect are indistinguishable from fossil fuels, which makes Camelina oil a good candidate to quickly reduce carbon emissions produced by aviation.

One of the oldest buildings in New York is set to be one of the greenest. New York’s Empire State Building is about to have a green makeover, putting it in the top ten percent of America’s greenest buildings.

North Carolina church goes green and holds to their traditions of cherishing the Earth. How’d they do it?

I really want to talk to Colin Coon’s parents. I want to know what they did to raise a kid who would take on a project like this. I want to learn from them. I want my boys to learn from Colin.

Colin Coon is high school senior at New Gate School in Sarasota, Florida. He’s converted a diesel powered vehicle to run on Waste Vegetable Oil and began a two month cross country trip in his Green Machine that he’s named Norm. He wants to show people that alternative fuels work and that anyone can use them.

He’s also documenting the whole thing on ColinsGreenMachine.com with a blog. As of today, Colin is on day four of his trip and on the first three days, he’s done a blog entry at the end of the day. I like the entries because he’s being honest about how it’s going (not always so great) and it’s so obviously written by a teenager. “I look to where the plug goes in to the blcok and sure enough it is arcing and spewing flames and sparks everywhere.  Poo.”

Why is Rush Limbaugh — who is neither a plumber nor an economist — front and center in the opposition to Obama’s stimulus package?  I’m not knocking Limbaugh.  He’s a great entertainer and all that.  But if my toilet was clogged, Rush Limbaugh is not the first person I’d think of calling.  Ditto that for figuring out how to fix an economic crisis of epic proportions.

The answer to the mystery is simple.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.  And brother, can Rush Limbaugh squeak!

According to Environmental Leader, via the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), thirty-three percent of consumers plan to buy greener gadgets over the next two years. The report is based on an online survey of over 900 adults. I wonder if any of them are mayors?

This is a guest post from Glenn Croston, author of “75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference”,

At the Opportunity Green conference held at UCLA November 8-9, many themes related to the growth and changing direction of the green business movement were discussed by the great variety of green leaders present.

One particularly interesting theme was about the mixed feelings some green entrepreneurs have about going big with their business.

Everybody is eager for success, but green entrepreneurs often fear that scaling up products to reach the masses requires compromises that would negate the benefit of what they are doing and hurt the brand in the long run.

Most green products today are still niche products, perhaps as a result of this fear. At the conference Josh Dorfman, author of “The Lazy Environmentalist”, said that contrary to what many are saying, “Green has not gone mainstream.” Some products are starting to change this, like the Prius and Green Works cleaning products from Clorox, but even these successes represent a small percentage of the overall market. Organic food is big, but it’s still only about 3% of the food we eat.

Do products have to be small to be green? Do they sacrifice something in going big?

Generation Green: The Ultimate Teen Guide to Living an Eco-Friendly Life by Linda Sivertsen and her teen son, Tosh, is a great guide to help teens go green. It offers practical advice in an easy to read manner that doesn’t preach or talk down. This is a great way to get your teen on board about going green .