Green Options

The folks behind Carrotmob continue to demonstrate the power of using your dollars to vote for environmental change, and they’re starting to get some press as well.

The first Carrotmob “reverse boycott” started with a convenience store in San Francisco.  The store owner out-competed a few dozen other businesses by pledging to use 22% of the profits from one day to make his store greener (in this case by installing energy efficient lighting and other green improvements).  Carrotmobbers flooded his store on the appointed day and left the store owner with $9,200, enough to make multiple energy efficient improvements as well as having the best sales day all year.

Carrotmob and their “reverse boycott” system works like this:

• Businesses are contacted and asked how much they would like to bid in order to win over consumers during one massive shopping day.
• Using social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, and other fancy technology, members are asked to vote which store they would like to select.
• One day is selected and the store is “mobbed” with consumers who show up and buy goods they would have purchased anyways - food, beverages, hardware, etc.
• The store is mobbed with consumers who in the process of flexing their food (or goods & services) dollars, bring the store lots of money.
• The store uses the percentage of those sales they pledged to make their business greener and more environmentally friendly, while helping their bottom line AND gaining significant goodwill in the community.

Time Magazine has named the Bionic Energy Harvester, a knee brace that harnesses energy from walking, as one of the Top 50 Inventions of 2008. The 3.5 lb brace works by generating power using the same technology that lets hybrid cars harvest energy from braking.

A long time ago, 50 years or so, I was invited to a party that promised some unusual and tasty snacks, along with the usual supply of beer and other alcoholic libations.

Never one to pass up free food and booze, I showed up at my friends apartment , said hello to everyone, grabbed a cocktail and headed for the snacks. The table was filled with the usual cheese and crackers, veggies, liverwurst and other delights.

The center piece caught my eye, chocolate, lots of it, but not in any form I could immediately recognize. Upon questioning my host, I learned they were chocolate covered ants and grasshoppers.

“Here, try some,” said my host, “they’re delicious!”

I doubt he saw the green leaching into my face as I politely declined, saying I was on a diet.