Green Options » green certification

Dreamscapes Becomes the First Green-Certified Adult Company

Allison Boyer — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:37:39 +0000

Dreamscapes, Inc. announced today that they’ve received Institute for Green Business Certification, Inc. certification, officially making them the greenest company in the adult industry.

Last year, Dreamscapes, LLC introduced the Sex Toy Recycling Program, enabling consumers to mail in their old, broken or used (but cleaned) adult toys. This program offers an alternate option to reduce the improper disposal of hazardous wastes such as motors, batteries, silicones, etc.

“Our Recycling Program is the first of its kind in the United States. We were able to identify the need and work out a way how we could help,” says Vice-President Jean Kozlowski.

The company has a number of divisions, including an adult toy retail sector, photography, sex education, and relationship counseling. In addition to recycling, they also use a water filtration system and efficient lighting. You can read more at their website.

Making greening your restaurant easy, rewarding, and free.

Paul Smith — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:14:59 +0000

There are many ways for restaurants to go green, and nearly as many for them to be certified as a green restaurant. Which way to go? What’s the most useful? Which is valid? Between the numerous regional and national options out there, it can be overwhelming.

What if there was a program that made it simple, was free, modeled after and qualifying you for LEED credits, rewarded you for progress made along the way, and had all the equipment and supplies necessary to qualify available to you through them? Such a program exists, the Certified Green Commercial Kitchen program, through the national restaurant supply company Food Service Warehouse.

Now you may say, is this just a ploy for you to buy their products? Hardly. There’s no requirement that you buy through them to get certified. Though their prices do seem good. And in fact, they have a contest running now, open to any commercial kitchen, where you could win an entire green kitchen, from the oven to the ice machine, with $1000 worth of bio based disposables in there for good measure. Entry details can be found here.

Now what of the program itself? It’s broken down into 5 areas, of which you must accrue a certain amount of points of the total available, similar to how LEED works, in order to qualify in that area. When you do, you get rewarded.

And they’re not paltry rewards, either.

Certified Green: To Be, or Not To Be, That is the Question

Megan Prusynski — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:27:16 +0000

When I decided to start my own business, I knew that I wanted it to be green. Of course, my definition of green could be quite different from everyone else’s. There are varying shades of green, which makes it very difficult to quantify or define. Perhaps this is why there are so many different green certifications, seals, labels, and standards out there. With the dizzying array of options for green and sustainable certification available, it’s hard for a business owner to decide which certifier to use or if it’s even worth bothering at all.

Since I’m trying to start a graphic design studio, I started by searching for a green certification agency that specialized in creative services. It seems that many of the certifiers lack standards for service-based businesses, as most focus on products. The only design specific green “certification” that I found was the Design Can Change Pledge, a voluntary pledge for designers who commit to move towards sustainable practices. The site includes many ideas for going green as well as a great introduction to what sustainability in graphic design means, but doesn’t offer certification for green design businesses. As of yet, there’s no LEED for the graphic design industry.