In September, Anderson (with Robin White) published his second book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Planet - Doing Business by Respecting the Earth. This wide-ranging work not only tells Interface’s story in detail, but also provides a blueprint for how a large, well-established company can literally reinvent itself as both a profitable enterprise and a business that learns to operate in harmony with natural systems.

The word “confessions” in the title is very appropriate: Anderson is very frank about Interface’s successes and setbacks in its climb up “Mt. Sustainability” (a phrase he coined). He also discusses the efforts of other companies, and makes bold, and hopeful, cases for environmental and social responsibility as pillars of successful business strategy in the 21st century. The book is an engaging and thoughtful read for business people, environmental activists, and consumers concerned about the impact of industry on the planet’s future.

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Please keep in mind that there are 27 million small businesses in the US and consider these facts from the SBA: Small businesses…

• Employ just over half of U.S. workers. Of 119.9 million non-farm private sector workers in 2006, small firms with fewer than 500 workers employed 60.2 million and large firms employed 59.7 million.
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

I see three distinct public health implications:

Public Health Implication #1: I have a case study in my new book that talks about greening that is recognized by the EPA and OSHA as exemplary and that points out that quality, environmental, health, and safety standards are all intertwined; a company that set and meets the highest health and safety standards is the surest route to profitability and competitiveness. The Ideal Jacobs Corporation, a commercial printing company in NJ, has been recognized by both the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for environmental and social responsibility. One of a few, small independent manufacturers in the EPA’s Performance Track program—a program for companies with the best environmental management systems in the country.

Says Andrew Jacobs, President: “You can’t get the best profits, you can’t even compete worldwide unless you are the ultimate in making as little garbage as possible, having the least amount of it around so your people won’t get sick, and being one of the safest you can be. So by being the best employer, you’re also being the most profitable.”

Jacobs chose to focus on two high-impact areas of his business: solid waste and hazardous waste.

“After working through the EPA application [twice], I realized the correlation between reducing solid waste and higher profit margins. It suddenly dawned on me: Of course, create less pollution and [you’ll] have more end-product…We invited in OSHA, which was unheard of at the time. Then, I realized that the healthier and safer our place was, the more money I was making. Every click we made in terms of quality, environmentalism, and safety, every time we notched up, we made more money.”

Since 2002, the company has reduced its solid waste per dollar of sales by more than 50%. By substituting less toxic materials in its sheet-fed printing operations, the company achieved an 18% reduction in pounds of solid waste per $1 in sales and a 23% reduction in pounds of hazardous materials used per $1 in sales. Ideal Jacobs is proof that good sustainability practices are good for business.

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Life, Money and Illuision: Living on Earth as if we want to stay (New Society, 2009) by Mike Nickerson is a driving tome that reconciles how our economy operates in relationship to the ecological and social systems on which we all depend.

In this second revised edition of Life, Money and Illusion, Nickerson explains that “Life” refers to the biological processes by which living things maintain themselves over time. “Money” represents our economic ideology that claims that as long as the volume of money changing hands increases, all will be well. “Illusion” refers to the fact that these two perspectives are directly opposed in terms of how they would solve current problems.

As one might imagine, a book of this stature and ambition — if providing meaningful analysis and argumentation (which it does superbly) — is not a cursory or a casual read. Running 448 pages, Life, Money and Illusion is meticulously fashioned in easy-to-understand language that makes Nickerson’s arguments and ideas both compelling and provocative. It draws from numerous fields, including ecology, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and, of course, economics.

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Weird, I know.

You see, my dog has a lot of, er… issues. By the time I adopted her, she had lived on the streets of East St. Louis for three months, bounced through eight different foster homes, and had one failed adoption - all before her first birthday.

Dealing with her emotional baggage has become a big part of my life. Since she doesn’t find pets, praise, or ordinary dog treats very motivating, I’ve had to get more creative in my training. One food she finds really motivating are canned sardines.

Before I got this dog, I had never eaten a sardine. Once my pantry was stocked with at least a dozen tins of sardines - an option I knew was more sustainable and lower in mercury than the neighboring cans of tuna - it was inevitable that I would get curious.

I’ve since become a convert, and it looks I’m not the only one focusing on the sardine as a greener seafood option.

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If you didn’t hear yet about Zumbox, you need to recheck your news resources.

In the last couple of weeks you hear about them everywhere - from an announcement on two new clients: the cities of San Francisco and Newark (NJ) that will start using their web-based mail delivery system to an announcement on a partnership with New York City for Five Borough Pilot Program.

So what is exactly Zumbox? according to their website “Zumbox delivers paperless mail online – from street address to street address. What used to only be sent as paper mail can now be sent without the paper. How? We’ve created a nationwide paperless postal system with a Zumbox for every street address in the United States, including yours.”

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Good start — as we walked in and registered the staff handed me a recyclable, biodegradable, compostable lanyard.

The theme for this year’s conference - Sustainability in a Reset World

After admiring our lanyards and breakfast we jumped into packed conversation with Pamela Passman of Microsoft. Of course we considered today’s launch of Windows 7.

The discussion centered on the sustainability of Microsoft. Now, most people will admit that the technology business isn’t the least sustainable or “dirtiest” business. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t press a heavy carbon footprint. Passman discussed that companies need software to track their own carbon footprint.Microsoft may have many ideas for other comanies but they need to look in the mirror as well.

She admitted the two most pressing issues that Microsoft needs to improve in so far as reducing their carbon footprint that includes:

1- Traveling (lots of it)

2 – Data centers — The data centers continue to be electric and water intensive.
Microsoft claims to be attempting reduce the footprint of these data centers.

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The U.S. military has been pushing for the development of alternative fuels for a while now, and nobody paid much attention until the Pentagon finally put a price tag on the oil habit. As reported by Roxana Tiron in thehill.com, last week Pentagon officials disclosed that getting conventional petroleum fuel to remote combat locations in Afghanistan costs a whopping $400 per gallon.

There couldn’t be a more clear illustration of why the “drill baby drill” mentality is a non-sequitur when it comes to energy security.  Regardless of whether petroleum fuels are domestic or imported, they need to be transported to their point of use.  That’s not much of a problem when you’ve got modern seaports, highways and fuel depots, but to paraphrase one infamous former Secretary of Defense, you have to fight the war you have, not the war that’s got the ideal infrastructure to support your fuel of choice.

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Around 1300 c.e. the Yao and Zhuang people of Guangdong Province in Southern China faced a serious problem.  In the Longsheng area there was a growing population, but their mountainous surroundings gave them very little land that could be used for farming.  They needed more food and so they turned to technology for the solution.  What they did was to terrace their mountainsides even up to slopes of 45%. I’m sure that the method was perfected over the 400 years of building.  What they were able to do is still an impressive example of civil engineering, even today.  Using stones and mud they built terrace walls that stand firm even with the torrential downpours that are common in the area.  They used bamboo piping to distribute water to each paddy - some so narrow that they only have room for two rows of rice.  This production system has remained productive for centuries when many other contemporary farming societies around the world simply depleted one area and moved on to the next.  These terraces are called Longji, or the ”Dragon’s Spine” and they now extend over 66 square kilometers.  They are both beautiful and inspiring.

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Mountaintop removal, the hyper-destructive practice of blowing up entire mountains to get at coal near the surface, is in for a rough ride.  Though in technological terms mountaintop removal is downright third-world compared to the high tech sustainable energy industry, it’s still been going nonstop right here in the Appalachian mountains of our own northeastern U.S..  The result has been hundreds of mountains destroyed in one of North America’s richest ecosystems, hundreds of miles of streams buried, and an economic and public health climate that is among the worst in the nation.  Now all that is poised to end.  Earlier this year the U.S. EPA suspended the mountaintop removal permitting process and Raw Story is now reporting that the first permit veto is immanent.

According to Raw reporter Joe Byrne, the Mingo Logan Coal Company was notified this past Friday by the EPA that the mountaintop removal permit in the pipeline for its Spruce No. 1 mine in West Virginia faces a veto due to “a high potential for downstream water quality excursions under current mining and valley fill practices.”  With financial backers like Bank of America cutting their ties with companies that practice mountaintop mining, the impending veto could be a harbinger of more to come.

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Are you planning to have a rewards program similar to RecycleBank’s one in the future?
We’re not planning to offer points for using Zumbox. Instead, we’re focusing our efforts on continuously enhancing the user experience through our relationships with third party mail senders and content providers as well as the development of new features within Zumbox. While reducing paper waste is a key goal for us, we want that to only represent one of many benefits associated with Zumbox.

In the cities where we’ve now launched – San Francisco, New York and Newark – mail is currently being sent from the local governments and other organizations, giving people there the ability to start receiving, organizing and storing their mail online. We’re essentially offering everybody a paperless mail option that’s convenient, secure and environmentally responsible.

What’s your comment on the findings presented in the New York Times by Prof. Randall Stross about the effectiveness of using the stick approach to converting customers to paperless billing?
Well, I think that was a very interesting piece, as it underlined the challenge faced by most billers. Incentivizing people to go paperless has not really moved the needle, but apparently a company can get people to convert faster when a paper bill fee is introduced. However, the stick approach doesn’t always stick (pardon the pun). And as the article points out, T-Mobile had to quickly respond to pressure by putting an end to the paper bill fee, and the company has since gone back to the carrot approach or simply the voluntary approach.

But the real issue here is that the voluntary approach does not work for a reason. Current paperless options are just not cutting it for most people. The notifications that are sent via email typically only include a link to the bill, and having to go to different websites and keep track of numerous usernames and passwords just to view bills is highly inconvenient.

Personally, I think people would respond better to the idea of going paperless if there was a better way to go paperless. With Zumbox we’ve created a secure environment where bills and statements (and all other mail) can be sent as digital files and presented online exactly like they appear on paper. In that way, Zumbox mirrors the experience of receiving paper mail; the bill is actually delivered to a customer and appears the way we’re all used to seeing it, only without the paper.

While the stick approach may work temporarily for some, I believe the real solution to the challenge of getting people to go paperless is to create a better option than what has been pushed on people up until this point, which is a big part of what we’re trying to do.

What’s the percentage of paper mail you think you can eliminate with Zumbox?
We have not done any calculations on this.

How do you see junk mail? Will you provide businesses sending it to use Zumbox instead?
First of all, we define junk mail as irrelevant mail, and we have built our system to increase the relevance and reduce the waste associated with paper mail. Having said that, Zumbox is an agnostic delivery platform, which means we offer all mail senders, including marketers, the ability to send paperless mail.

But Zumbox offers a unique kind of control that lets recipients decide what mail they want to receive. Specifically, if you receive a special offer in your Zumbox from a business you do not care for, you can permanently block that mail sender so we will ultimately only receive the offers that are relevant to us.

What is your plan - are you going to focus in the short-term on collaborations with municipalities (such as San Francisco and Newark) to get people use Zumbox and then move over to the business sector?

After a successful pilot in a smaller market earlier this year, we started the first stage of our national rollout in September, with San Francisco and Newark being the first cities. Over the next weeks and months, we will announce other cities that will be a part of this stage of our rollout, and the municipalities themselves will be involved in most cases.

Simultaneously though, we are talking to several national businesses and non-profit organizations about sending paperless mail to their customers and supporters in these markets, and we are also inviting local businesses and other organizations to participate. The goal is to create eco-systems, if you will, in the rollout markets so there are enough senders and recipients of paperless mail to make it meaningful for both sides.
Meanwhile, Zumbox is already available nationwide so anybody can start using the service right now.

What is the required penetration rate of Zumbox to make it work?I’m not sure there is a general penetration rate required for Zumbox because these eco-systems can be created anywhere, all with different levels of participation. For instance, a community may embrace the service even if there are only a few critical mail senders initially, and most businesses will find Zumbox meaningful as long as they can start reducing their paper usage and the cost associated with that.

What will happen with USPS if you guys win?
While Zumbox is the first paperless postal system and clearly the first all-digital alternative to traditional postal systems, it is not the first competitor the USPS has ever seen. FedEx, for instance, started offering speedier delivery, but the Postal Service still offered a valuable service. Our service obviously represents a more dramatic shift, as we offer digital delivery, but we do not aim to replace the Postal Service and we certainly do not expect to do that. All we want to do is offer people a paperless alternative. We expect the world to be big enough for both paper and paperless mail.
Thank you Joergen!

Why Your Business Should Care About the Birds, the Bees and the Burrs

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” according to a well-known proverb.  Those words seem particularly apt in today’s world of environmental, political, and economic pratfalls.  Fortunately, Mother Nature holds many of the answers to our most basic questions regarding design and equilibrium.  Internationally-known scientist Danya Baumeister will make the argument Oct. 15 at the BuildGreen Conference in Philadelphia that many savvy researchers, designers, and manufacturers would do better to leave the lab and look instead at the 3.8 billion years of evolution everywhere around them.  Baumeister is hardly the first to view the world as an R-and-D goldmine – one that could bring us new products, designs, and services to help both our environment and economy – but she is one of today’s leading biomimicry proponents.  And if you think biomimicry is a new idea, think again.

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Our Global Ponzi Economy

Lester R. Brown

Our mismanaged world economy today has many of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme takes payments from a broad base of investors and uses these to pay off returns. It creates the illusion that it is providing a highly attractive rate of return on investment as a result of savvy investment decisions when in fact these irresistibly high earnings are in part the result of consuming the asset base itself. A Ponzi scheme investment fund can last only as long as the flow of new investments is sufficient to sustain the high rates of return paid out to previous investors. When this is no longer possible, the scheme collapses-just as Bernard Madoff’s $65-billion investment fund did in December 2008.

Although the functioning of the global economy and a Ponzi investment scheme are not entirely analogous, there are some disturbing parallels. As recently as 1950 or so, the world economy was living more or less within its means, consuming only the sustainable yield, the interest of the natural systems that support it. But then as the economy doubled, and doubled again, and yet again, multiplying eightfold, it began to outrun sustainable yields and to consume the asset base itself.

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Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, discusses the use of intelligent irrigation technologies to save water and green your landscaping with Chris Spain, CEO of Hydropoint.

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While biomimicry is helpful in identifying life-friendly materials and processes that enhance (rather than pollute) the bio-sphere, it also embraces a principle that capitalists everywhere can salute: performance.  “In nature, if a design strategy is not effective, its carrier dies,” according to the Guild.  In other words, “failures are fossils.”  From saving money on energy use to cutting down on materials used in products and processes, these earth-first biologists make the point that nature is the original inventor, investor, and lean manufacturer.

The emphasis on sustainable design and manufacturing of new products makes Baumeister’s appearance at the BuildGreen Conference, hosted by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, a natural fit.  The conference will bring together a broad variety of stakeholders, including university materials researchers, investors, green building designers, and policy makers interested in applying sustainable design and local green product manufacturing to boost the region’s economy.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Philadelphia Sustainability Director Katherine Gajewski will all be in attendance at the conference, along with a host of other experts and thought leaders interested in linking the region’s sustainability efforts to long-term economic success.  Innovative research from local universities will also be on display to drive home the point that we’ve already got the right recipe for success: a host of highly-productive institutions of higher learning, a manufacturing base in need of retooling, and political will.  The conference organizers are also arguing that our own particular necessity, the need for more high-quality green jobs in the region, should be front and center as we reinvent ourselves as a powerhouse of sustainable activity and investment.

Necessity is one heck of a mother, but Leonardo may have said it even better: “Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain.”

Photo Credit: hart_curt via Flickr under Creative Commons License

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).

While biomimicry is helpful in identifying life-friendly materials and processes that enhance (rather than pollute) the bio-sphere, it also embraces a principle that capitalists everywhere can salute: performance.  “In nature, if a design strategy is not effective, its carrier dies,” according to the Guild.  In other words, “failures are fossils.”  From saving money on energy use to cutting down on materials used in products and processes, these earth-first biologists make the point that nature is the original inventor, investor, and lean manufacturer.

The emphasis on sustainable design and manufacturing of new products makes Baumeister’s appearance at the BuildGreen Conference, hosted by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, a natural fit.  The conference will bring together a broad variety of stakeholders, including university materials researchers, investors, green building designers, and policy makers interested in applying sustainable design and local green product manufacturing to boost the region’s economy.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Philadelphia Sustainability Director Katherine Gajewski will all be in attendance at the conference, along with a host of other experts and thought leaders interested in linking the region’s sustainability efforts to long-term economic success.  Innovative research from local universities will also be on display to drive home the point that we’ve already got the right recipe for success: a host of highly-productive institutions of higher learning, a manufacturing base in need of retooling, and political will.  The conference organizers are also arguing that our own particular necessity, the need for more high-quality green jobs in the region, should be front and center as we reinvent ourselves as a powerhouse of sustainable activity and investment.

Necessity is one heck of a mother, but Leonardo may have said it even better: “Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain.”

Photo Credit: hart_curt via Flickr under Creative Commons License

Icebreaker’s Bodyfit

Have you ever wanted to meet the sheep that was shorn for your clothes?  Just enter the “baa code” on your label into the Icebreaker website to meet where your sheep lives.

With most of the things you buy, you’re told little or nothing about how they’re made. Icebreaker is different.

We have a deep commitment to animal welfare, the welfare of the people who work with us, and the environment. And we have nothing to hide.

Your unique Baacode will let you see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the merino fibre in your Icebreaker garment, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain. We’re sure you’ll find the experience as inspiring as we do. Enjoy your journey back to the source.

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Today I picked the grapes from my vineyard.  I got 366 usable pounds from my 25 vines even though I lost at least 100 pounds to birds that somehow penetrated my elaborate net system.  The harvest will still give me between 90 and 115 bottles of what I hope will be decent wine - at least as decent as the ‘06 I’m happily sipping right now.

I used the term “Suburban Farmer” as a shameless lure to get folks to read this blog.  To be honest, I’m not a “Farmer”  at all.   I grow grapes as a hobby, and since I am a self-employed consultant, the time I spend growing these grapes has an “opportunity cost” far greater than what the Syrah I bottle will be worth as a reduction in my substantial wine budget.  I think it is great to garden or do home wine making, and I wish even more people had the opportunity to do it.  It is good for body and soul - better than the money I could have made.  But this is still not farming.  I have too much respect for real farmers to call it that.

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Located in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, about an hour from St. Paul-Minneapolis, this Travel Green Wisconsin and Green Routes certified enterprise launched by John Huffaker and Charlene Torchia in 2006 artistically crafts a peaceful refuge to enhance our experiences with nature and allow our inner beings to breathe. Journey Inn is part restoration enterprise and part center for recreating our human soul in more meaningful ways.

I had the opportunity to stay at Journey Inn for a couple days this past September with my family, since we prefer ecotravel-oriented accommodation options. We hiked some of the abundant hiking trails on their sixty-six acre property that includes a spectacularly restored prairie and garden labyrinth. We sipped tea while relaxing in their gardens. We even shared a few of our cucumbers and tomatoes from Inn Serendipity with a couple celebrating their honeymoon there.

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I’ll come back to the Mycotoxin issue soon.  Instead, I’ll talk today about my serious worries about Climate Change.  

People involved in world agriculture have no patience with the supposed “debate” about climate change.  We are already seeing the effects, and the projections for the future are not encouraging.  The most troubling feature of this phenomenon (and one that occurs even if you don’t believe that it is human-driven) is that we are facing increasing variation in climatic events.  The yearly changes in average temperature or even annual rainfall may not be dramatic, but what we are anticipating is that there will be more extreme weather events.  Climate averages are not what matters for crop production - Variation is.  A few days of intense rain or heat at the wrong time can devastate a crop.  A few weeks of drought can do the same.  A single hail or frost event can make all the difference in what a farmer can harvest.  We have always had those risks for farming and only long term data will demonstrate whether there has been an increasing trend as is predicted.  For instance, It isn’t possible yet to say that the current, extended drought in Australia is caused by elevated greenhouse gasses, but some day we will know whether it was by looking back historically.  Of course that will be too late.  Our actions have to come now.  The other huge threat from climate change is that water supplies will be more limiting in many areas that are irrigated today.  Though that area is much smaller than rain-fed areas, it is very important to the food supply.

Some have predicted that “Global warming” and elevated CO2 will boost crop production in certain areas.  There might be some occasions where higher temperatures will enhance some yields in normally cold areas, but if the warmth comes with other extreme weather events, the benefits will be diminished.  It also turns out that plants can’t really take full advantage of high CO2 levels.  Basically,  there is no real “up-side” of climate change for farming.

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]]> http://sustainablog.org/2009/09/27/food-supply-worries-of-an-agricultural-scientist-part-3-climate-change/feed/ http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/27/us-air-force-ditches-toxic-paint-goes-green-with-prekote/ http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/27/us-air-force-ditches-toxic-paint-goes-green-with-prekote/#comments Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:05:22 +0000 Tina Casey http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/27/us-air-force-ditches-toxic-paint-goes-green-with-prekote/

The U.S. Air Force, which has been soaring into the wild green yonder on alternative fuels and other sustainability measures, has added paint to its roster of more earth-friendly maneuvers.  At Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, the Air Force has been easing away from toxic formulas, using PreKote to protect its aircraft from corrosion.  PreKote is a propriety nontoxic base coating manufactured by Pantheon Chemical of Phoenix, Airizona.

The new coating replaces highly toxic and potentially carcinogenic anti-corrosion products based on chemicals such as hexavalent chromium, which the Department of Defense has targeted for elimination throughout the armed forces, using the force of an urgently worded memorandum issued last spring.

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]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/27/us-air-force-ditches-toxic-paint-goes-green-with-prekote/feed/ http://sustainablog.org/2009/09/24/green-talk-radio-smaller-homes-with-shay-salomon/ http://sustainablog.org/2009/09/24/green-talk-radio-smaller-homes-with-shay-salomon/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:00:28 +0000 Sean Daily http://sustainablog.org/2009/09/24/green-talk-radio-smaller-homes-with-shay-salomon/

Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, discusses the topic of the smaller homes living movement, and how downsizing helps you go green with Shay Solomon, author of Little House on a Small Planet and Co-Founder of The Small House Society.

[Courtesy of our friends at GreenLivingIdeas.com]

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While biomimicry is helpful in identifying life-friendly materials and processes that enhance (rather than pollute) the bio-sphere, it also embraces a principle that capitalists everywhere can salute: performance.  “In nature, if a design strategy is not effective, its carrier dies,” according to the Guild.  In other words, “failures are fossils.”  From saving money on energy use to cutting down on materials used in products and processes, these earth-first biologists make the point that nature is the original inventor, investor, and lean manufacturer.

The emphasis on sustainable design and manufacturing of new products makes Baumeister’s appearance at the BuildGreen Conference, hosted by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, a natural fit.  The conference will bring together a broad variety of stakeholders, including university materials researchers, investors, green building designers, and policy makers interested in applying sustainable design and local green product manufacturing to boost the region’s economy.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Philadelphia Sustainability Director Katherine Gajewski will all be in attendance at the conference, along with a host of other experts and thought leaders interested in linking the region’s sustainability efforts to long-term economic success.  Innovative research from local universities will also be on display to drive home the point that we’ve already got the right recipe for success: a host of highly-productive institutions of higher learning, a manufacturing base in need of retooling, and political will.  The conference organizers are also arguing that our own particular necessity, the need for more high-quality green jobs in the region, should be front and center as we reinvent ourselves as a powerhouse of sustainable activity and investment.

Necessity is one heck of a mother, but Leonardo may have said it even better: “Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain.”

Photo Credit: hart_curt via Flickr under Creative Commons License

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