Green Options

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About two weeks ago, I was in San Francisco attending Craft Con, a business development conference for the indie craft community, where I had the pleasure of meeting fellow CAGW writer Kelly Rand for the first time! The weekend entailed various sessions and panel talks about a myriad of subjects ranging from the meaning of craft, to computer social networking, and everything in between. I gave a presentation on the environmental impact of crafting, bringing together of months of research and new ideas for solutions. Next week, I’ll be taking off to California once again to give this talk at Maker Faire. The lovely folks from Etsy asked me to write an article about it for The Storque, which is being published in 2 parts leading up to Earth Day. The following is Part 1, syndicated in it’s entirety.

That’s one of the major findings of the recently-released 2007 National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS), sponsored by the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, and research firm Rockbridge Associates, Inc. This is good news for ecopreneurs, especially since the survey also notes that many consumers want to buy “green tech” products, but can’t find what they want:

…while 83 percent of adults said they wanted to protect the environment, and 59 percent said they like trying new technologies to help the environment, about 42 percent said such technologies were hard to find.

An ideal situation for ecopreneurs? Perhaps… both for new companies, and for those that want to market green products better. Both P.K. Kannan, director of the Smith School’s Center for Excellence in Service, and Charles Colby, president of Rockbridge, offer some tips for effectively tapping this market:

A recent survey (pdf) found that 87 percent of Massachusetts residents say they are now “more likely to support Cape Wind” in the wake of the recently issued draft environmental impact statement (EIS) that found no major environmental harms resulting from the project. It seems that the growing public consciousness of climate change is actually producing measurable shifts in the public mood. Time is clearly running out for Cape Wind opponents. And despite the recent 30-day extension of the public comment period granted by the U.S. Minerals Management Service (at the behest of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound), it is my firm belief that this project will soon get the federal stamp of approval it has been seeking (to go along with the federal approval it already got back in 2004). In what should make for a pretty entertaining roadshow, the MMS is beginning a four-night run of public hearings starting on Monday March 10th in West Yarmouth, MA. The hearings will then rumble through Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard before concluding in Boston on March 13. If you are not lucky enough to attend, what will certainly be “spirited” events, you may submit an e-comment no later than April 21.

1. You care about wellbeing, but you still smoke. Give yourself 1 point.

Over 40% of Korean men smoke. And this is the good news. Before the recent wellbeing trend, the number was almost 60%. Smoking seems less common among Korean women.

2. When you eat cow you call it cow. Give yourself 1 point.

Koreans love meat and the don’t mince words when talking about it. You’re not eating “steak” and “prosciutto;” you’re eating “cow” and “pig.” Especially popular are variations on galbi, which ranges from Korean BBQ to stir-fried meat and hot peppers. There are, however, a modicum of vegetarian and even vegan restaurants in Korea.

3. You ride the bus and the train, but you still love Hyundai. Give yourself 2 points.

The best way to find out how important the environment is to Korean youths, I thought, is to ask them. Luckily, I happen to know a number of Korean youths: they’re my English students. Ah! A captive audience.

So, I handed out strips of paper to each student and asked them to anonymously mark the answer choice that they agreed with. On the paper were three lines:

• Protecting the environment is very important to me.
• Protecting the environment is a little bit important to me.
• Protecting the environment is not important to me.

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 [...]

Do You Need to Buy a Gift for the Person Who Has Everything?

You all know who I am talking about. Often it is some guy you know, or maybe someone you don’t know. How do you buy a gift for someone who has everything?

Recently we have had a lot of people contacting us about the option of giving rentals away as presents. Some of our readers have had great comments, and we thought it was worthy of a whole post.

Rentals [...]

Being environmentally conscious at the workplace can be a challenge, especially if your employer is resistant or doesn’t readily see the economic benefits of going green. However, on the flip side, many employees aren’t doing all they can either. By taking a few simple steps each day, everyone in the office can do their part to help the company become more eco-friendly.

A recent survey found that 73% of people believe it [...]

What Do You Want to Rent?

One of the neat things about creating an open platform where people can rent out anything they want, is watching what people have to rent out. Of course we are a bit early to start telling you what people are renting, since we haven’t even launched yet, but we can tell you about some of the more interesting requests and comments we have seen.

Below is a listing of some of the items recommended to us [...]

I am happy to say that our survey has blasted through the 500 barrier, well on its way to hitting that exciting and elusive 1,000 responses mark!

This weekend, after Pepperdine university so kindly sent out the survey to a bunch of our old graduating classes, the survey blasted by 500 all the way up to hitting 544 responses. Once again the responses have been great. [...]