During the Thursday morning breakfast, Zhang Yue, chairman and CEO of China-based Broad Air Conditioning woke the crowd up as he spoke through an interpreter. A few minutes before that, I found myself asking a colleague “Who is this guy?” After 10 minutes, I changed my mind. More people should listen to this guy. True, I haven’t done due diligence on his company but if his company does half the things that he says they do then I’m on board. Yue created China’s first “non-electric chiller” and insists on showing consumers how triple paned windows will reduce their need to use air conditioners. Consider that their business revolves around making air conditioners.

Read more of this story »

Mass production has been used since the industrial revolution as a means of creating large quantities of standardized products. It has many advantages over one-at-a-time production. It reduces coast and provide interchangeable parts.  Its disadvantages are that it can over produce and it dehumanizes labor.

Mass production will often continue to build inventory in spite of an economic slump. Large inventories can lead to massive layoffs. Unemployment reduces consumption and a viscous circle ensues.

Read more of this story »

I learned of A Distant Village when it introduced what it calls “the world’s most environmentally-friendly labels.” Called Pure Labels, these are adhesive-backed inkjet or laser printer labels made of wild grass paper. They are not only produced with 100% recyclable materials (including no HDPE or other plastics) but are manufactured according to what the company calls “the strictest adherence to socially responsible business practices.”

Read more of this story »

We had a chance to put together a Way Basics shelf recently. It really was as easy as they represented - at least it was for Woody the wonder dog and my two daughters Mary and Jessie.

I read about Way Basics and was intrigued. I needed some simple book shelves and figured I’d just go to a garage sale and find something, but it just hadn’t happened yet - didn’t realize how prized these things were! So, I was thrilled when they sent me a sample to play with.

Read more of this story »

Read more of this story »

GE’s hybrid locomotive battery

GE partners with New York state to create a $ 100 million manufacturing facility for a new sodium based battery technology in the Capital region.

Who imagined that ordinary table salt could be the secret to storing energy?

GE is once again bringing the notion of a technology based economy home, this time with ordinary kitchen ingredients like table salt. Today, the company announced a plan to locate a new, sodium battery manufacturing facility in Upstate New York’s Capital Region.

The sodium battery was developed in GE’s Global Research Center. Made of ordinary table salt and nickel, the sophisticated technology already has about 30 patents blocking the intellectual property in its space.

GE has already invested more than $150 million to develop advanced battery technologies, including this high energy density, sodium-based chemistry battery that is designed to store huge densities of energy in a relatively small space. The first application will be GE’s hybrid locomotive, which will be commercialized in 2010.  The investment in sodium battery technology complements GE’s investment in A123, a leading supplier of lithium batteries for plug-in electric passenger cars.

A public-private partnership in New York State

New York Governor David Paterson, is intent on making his state, the capital of the global clean energy economy. He and Dennis Mullen, President of the Upstate Empire State Development Corporation, have shown strong support for GE’s sodium battery project from the outset.

Read more of this story »

Kelly Blue Book Video Review of the Ford Focus

Earlier this week, Ford announced that they are retooling their manufacturing facility in Michigan, which previously built SUVs, to now produce the small and fuel-efficient Ford Focus in 2010, and the battery-electric Ford Focus by 2011.

With this investment of $550 million worth, Ford continues the track to deliver its promise to bring four new electric vehicles to the U.S. by 2012 and will support approximately 3,200 jobs.

The Inspired Economist interviewed Jennifer Moore, Corporate News Manager at Ford.  Here’s what she had to say.

IE: Why is Ford making over an SUV facility to manufacture the Ford Focus?  Will Ford completely halt….or merely downsize its production of SUVs and Lincoln Navigators?

JM: The retooling of this facility to make small cars and the battery electric vehicle is a part of our overall transformation plan to convert some of our truck plants to small car facilities, leverage our global assets and produce smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles for our customers.

We have not halted production of the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition - production was transferred to our Kentucky Truck plant. We still believe there is a market for large SUVs for customers who desire the size and capability of the vehicles, but we recognize that market will clearly be smaller than it was in the past.  As part of our transformation, we are balancing our product portfolio and that is the reason we are retooling the Michigan Assembly Plant.

Read more of this story »

TerraCycle

Soyeon is a classical concert pianist, with an impressive Julliard, Carnegie Hall performance history who may be the first to bring the eco-cause into the world of classical music. In her effort to bring classical music and environmental awareness together, she turned to husband and garbage-to-gold entrepreneur Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle to help design the new CD cover for Reinvented. As it turns out, he had just come home with a sample of new composite board made from - yup, you guessed it - tossed out Frito Lay bags!

They thus created the first garbage-inspired, Frito-Lay CD cover. I have one and you can even see the name Frito on one of the tiny shreds!

The music is beautiful, but the real inspiration is the marriage (pun intended) of eco-clever re-use of garbage and musical artistry.

If there were a contest for eco-power-couple of the next generation, I would vote for these two.

Read more of this story »

Green to Gold author Andrew Winston attended the summit, and listed the following commitments and statements that came out of it in a blog post at Harvard Business’ “Leading Green” blog:

• Supplier commitments: All suppliers will sign new agreements indicating compliance with environmental laws, starting with Chinese suppliers to the U.S., UK, and Canada in just 3 months. Over the next 3 years, all suppliers globally will sign.
• Audits: Wal-Mart will “strengthen” its surprise and third-party audit program
• Supplier goals: The top 200 suppliers will achieve 20% energy efficiency improvement, and most importantly, “By 2012, all suppliers that we buy from directly should source 95% of product from companies that have the highest ratings in audits.”
• Product goals and quality: Zero defective merchandise returns by 2012. Lee Scott connected quality to sustainability in very funny, specific terms: “Customers want a sock that will not fall down even if washed.”
• Transparency: Suppliers must reveal the name and location of every factory they use to make a product, as early as November for apparel, then home goods, toys, and others by the end of 2009. As [Wal-Mart's Vice Chairman Mike] Duke said, “If you sell us tennis shoes, we expect you to know and tell us where it was made and which sub-contractors were involved…If you don’t pose these questions, our customers will…in this age of YouTube there is no trust without transparency.” (Wal-Mart will have more insight into what’s going on at factories than ever before thanks to the work of Ma Jun who runs an NGO that has compiled compliance data on every factory. See his group’s stunning water pollution map here.)
• Dropping suppliers: Wal-Mart will work with suppliers that fail to comply, but “if after a period of time, the supplier does not improve, we will move our business.”

Read more of this story »

The world economy might be in recession, however, carbon emissions are at an all time high. According to a new analysis by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) U.S. power plant CO2 emissions jumped 2.9 percent in 2007, the biggest single-year increase since 1998. More than ever, companies need to commit to taking steps against global warming.

The $700 billion bailout package recently issued by the U.S. government favors supply-side economics. The bailout package included tax credits for renewable energy industries most notably for wind and solar energy manufacturers. The general view is however that larger utilities will benefit as opposed to smaller renewable energy players that remain dependent upon project financing.

Read more of this story »

The letter from Corey Brinkema, president of the FSC-US, to FSC certification holders is reprinted below. The letter is reprinted from the Print Buyers Online Green Content section.

Dear FSC Certificate Holders,

I have important news to share with you. On September 10th, the Forest Stewardship Council – United States (FSC-US) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government, the first-ever legal action in our 10-year history. I’d like to take a moment to share why we undertook this action and why I believe it matters to all those who value responsible forestry.

Our lawsuit against the U.S. Trade Representative stems from the Canadian Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) between the U.S. and Canada. In September 2006, the SLA settled trade litigation between the two countries related to the 30% duties the U.S. imposed on imported Canadian lumber in 2002. The SLA settlement awarded the U.S. $1 billion. One of the settlement provisions required Canada to “donate” $350 million of this $1 billion to two U.S.-based forestry foundations — the newly created U.S. Endowment for Forests and Communities and the American Forest Foundation. According to the SLA, monies were to go to “meritorious initiatives” in the name of sustainable forestry and forest communities.

FSC-US believes that this enormous disbursement of funds was both illegal and a violation of the American public trust. The law required that these funds be first deposited in the U.S. Treasury and then left to Congress to decide how to spend any funds.

Read more of this story »

What about standards for all this great stuff we find here on FeelGoodStyle.com? What about clothing manufacturing, which by the way is traditionally a pretty harsh industry on the environment? What about other textile products, great green designed kitchen gadgets, and what about all those awesome accessories - green bags/purses, belts, jewelry, shoes!?!

I found one promising standard system . . .
BuyGreen.com seems to have a rating system that works. It is a flexible system and offers an opportunity to become more educated about certain types of products and their inherent characteristics in terms of their basic product life cycle. It also seems to lend itself well across a very diverse range of products from clothing, to toys and yes, accessories! They even offer office products.

Read more of this story »

Earthster is an organization that helps to make Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) more accessible to all users worldwide.  In addition to offering the benefits of LCA without a lot of capital or time investment, Earthster’s web portal provides a market benefit to these organizations, as well as links to resources for environmental and social improvements. Companies will have the option of reporting current performance, year-to-year improvement, or both. This ensures that all companies can participate, even those starting off with poor environmental or social performance. The tools developed for the project are free and open source, and where possible will take advantage of the Semantic Web. Project funders at a minimum level will have the opportunity to beta test the tools, provide input into features and development priorities, and pilot the tools within their supply chain. The tools enable many functions at various levels during the development:
* Environmentally preferable product purchasing (EPP)
* Process and/or product optimization
* Corporate benchmarking, metrics for continuous improvement
* Publishing cradle to gate Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data for downstream purchasers
* Publishing cradle to grave Life Cycle Impact (LCIA) data for downstream purchasers
* GRI and CSR reporting Table 1 outlines the development stages.

Read more of this story »

Product brand-owners are interested in decisions related to product design, while end-of-life management is typically the responsibility of local governments that have no say in design. State and federal policies often subsidize inefficiency, while many local governments inappropriately assume responsibility for end-of-life product management.  As a result, consumers lack accurate information in prices and elsewhere about the real costs of products.

Read more of this story »

The Design for the Environment (DfE) Program works in partnership with a broad range of stakeholders to reduce risk to people and the environment by preventing pollution. DfE focuses on industries that combine the potential for chemical risk reduction with a strong motivation to make lasting, positive changes. DfE convenes partners, including industry representatives and environmental groups, to develop goals and guide the work of the partnership. Partnerships evaluate the human health and environmental considerations, performance, and cost of traditional and alternative technologies, materials, and processes. As incentives for participation and driving change, DfE offers unique technical tools, methodologies, and expertise.

Last week Timberland announced the availability of its first factory-specific sustainability report to all stakeholders, industry leaders and consumers. The Facility Report details baseline performance information for the company’s Dominican Republic factory in the areas of global human rights, environmental stewardship and community involvement.

Timberland’s goals for facility-level reporting are threefold: (1) Build on the company’s commitment to local accountability, (2) Focus on community engagement and continuous performance improvements at the local level and (3) Provide the foundation for a stakeholder dialogue between Timberland, its Dominican Republic factory and the factory’s stakeholders.

Read more of this story »

The value added of the Initiative are:

• To provide reliable information in an accessible format;
• To support good business practices;
• To contribute to continuous improvement;
• To prepare industry for better informed consumers;
• To ensure worldwide applicability and dissemination.

A pioneering program to offset shipping-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions, Carbonfree™ Shipping, was launched on Monday, according to Carbonfund.org.  The program was designed in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University’s Green Design Institute. It involves a breakthrough method for calculating shipping-related carbon dioxide emissions. The first four companies to participate in the program are BetterWorld.com, Evogear, 3r Living, and alonovo.com.

Read more of this story »

Sharp Corporation’s state-of-the-art Kameyama Plant No. 2 became operational in August of this year.  This LCD manufacturing facility uses 8th generation glass substrates, the world’s largest (2,160 X 2,460 mm), and the 52V- and 46V-inch LCD TVs using panels produced from these substrates were introduced simultaneously around the world starting from October 1, 2006.

As a Super Green Factory with a high level of environmental performance designed to minimize impacts on the environment to the greatest extent possible, the Kameyama Plant features an energy supply system based on integrating diverse power sources distributed within the plant into a single large-scale system independent of the utility power grid. These power sources include the world’s largest photovoltaic power system and one of Japan’s largest fuel-cell and cogeneration systems.

Read more of this story »