A Web site that lets San Francisco homeowners type in their address and get information on how much money they could save using solar power will be completely operational this month.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports the site will make the City by the Bay the first in the world to be completely mapped for its solar power potential. By entering their address, residents or business owners can get an estimate of the cost to install panels, and the savings they could generate, the paper reports.

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Climate change, developers, and logging are blamed

Since the winter of 2006, when a state of emergency was declared for 18 counties in the state, Western Washington has experienced increasingly dramatic annual flooding episodes creating a state of emergency in growing numbers of counties each year.

For the past three years here, the number of roads, farms, buildings, and houses damaged or destroyed increased—helped along by the landslides that usually follow in the wake of such flooding. Although with this year the number of landslides has been somewhat constrained, the total area of flooding has increased from the previous two years (several sections of Interstate 5 remained shut down as of Saturday night, Jan. 10), and tens of thousands of people have had to be evacuated over the past 10 days. The governor declared a state of emergency in late December, which has only abated in the past couple of days.

It would seem that a “trifecta” of reinforcing factors is to blame: climate change (an extra heavy dose of snow, followed by several days of heavy rains), upland forest clear-cutting (leaving less vegetation to soak up water and hold the soil in place), and over-development in flood plane areas (leaving too many people’s houses too low in the face of rising rivers) …all of which set the stage for the current state of emergency. The damage is still being tallied, and although the heavy rains have largely abated, repairs to roads and highways will take months if not a full year (and with state budgets so tight) or more.

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The US Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of its most wanted environmental criminals, many of whom may be ‘armed and dangerous,’ and wants your assistance in helping to hunt them down.

The list is published on a new EPA website, which also contains photos of the accused, summaries of their alleged environmental violations, and information on each fugitive’s last known whereabouts. It is hoped that the site will enable the public to help in tracking down fugitives accused of violating environmental laws and evading arrest.

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Not only does your web site offer you a chance to market your company, it’s also an opportunity to exercise your commitment to sustainability. One way to green your marketing is to make the web your primary advertising focus. Through e-mail newsletters, online ads, and promoting your domain name on all company correspondence, you can drive traffic to your web site and cover a lot of marketing ground without having to waste paper. Focusing your advertising efforts on the internet means less printed advertising, which means less paper waste and fewer pollutants released (the printing process and ink pigments create a lot of them).

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I’ve always liked Flock for its focus on integration of social media functions into the browser itself: right now I’ve got one-click access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The Eco-Edition adds a one-stop shop for green news and blog hounds: the “Green” page that loads when the browser starts features feeds from most of the web’s top destinations for information and opinion on sustainability and environmentalism (including sustainablog — thanks, Flock!). The refresh button even features the ubiquitous recycling symbol — a nice touch! As our friend Michael d’Estries at Ecorazzi noted, this creates a seamless experience: the best of the green web is right at my fingertips. Combined with Flock’s integrated social media and blogging tools, the Eco-Edition provides an efficient interface for all of the steps we green bloggers go through in writing, publishing and promoting our work.

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Your might remember Rodale’s Organic Style Magazine, which ran from 2001 to 2005, acting as a vital source of information for consumers during the early stages of the second coming of the environmental movement. Bought by sustainable flower innovator Organic Bouquet in May of this year, I interviewed Organic Bouquet’s CEO Gerald Prolman not long after the deal was made public. Launched just a few days ago, Organic Style is primed to become a top eco-shopping destination.

“All the products sold on the site will be either certified organic, transition to organic, bio-dynamic, sustainable, Fair Trade or a new category we call ‘not certified but worthy.’ To help get the word out, we plan re-launch the Organic Style magazine in the second quarter of 2008. We plan to initially publish the Organic Style magazine quarterly and offer it as a free OrganicStyle.com customer benefit. We want to give our customers information that will be valuable in their lives, that will help them make informed decisions about a balanced and responsible way to live and celebrate life,” said Gerald Prolman in our August interview.

As expected, Organic Style offers a breathtaking variety of flowers, wreathes, and plants - my personal favorites are the charitable bouquets, which give a percentage of each purchase price to each bouquet’s non-profit organization. The holiday section offers seasonal gift baskets, wreathes, and gifts for your favorite canine (hopefully they’ll had some feline offerings too). As a bit of a sweets fiend, I was instantly drawn to the organic holiday sugar cookies and organic gingerbread cookies gift baskets. If gift baskets are your favorite way to give gifts, make sure to check out the gourmet section of Organic Style, which has nearly 30 different eco-combinations.

Even after the holidays have passed, Organic Style is a bookmark-able shopping destination for green wardrobe, gardening, and bed & bath goods (I’ve already got my eyes on their beautifully colored organic blankets). With my eco-fashion business focus, I couldn’t help but be impressed by their apparel category that offers non-nonsense, well-designed garments and accessories.

Though most of us don’t need an extra incentive to shop, Organic Style has a built-in eco-points program. Every time you make a purchase on the Organic Style site, your earn eco-points (1 point for each dollar spent). For every 10 points your earn, you can use them for $1 off a future purchase. Upon reaching a few hundreds points, you can also redeem your eco-points for free flower bouquets to help brighten your (or someone else’s) day.

Do you have a favorite online green store? Share your choice shopping destinations in the comments section and they will be considered for the next installment of Green Shopping Spotlight.

We’ve still got some tweaking in the works, but no matter: sustainablog, the sustainability blog I launched in July, 2003, has a new home here at Green Options. I’m eager to get back to my blogging routine, but before I do that, I wanted to share some of the other changes that you’ll see in this new version.

• Multiple bloggers: As regular readers know, I’ve toyed on and off with the idea of bringing on more writers to sustainablog. With the move to GO, sustainablog will become a group effort: my fellow GO writers will be contributing here as the spirit moves them. sustainablog is still mine, though, so I’ll continue to do my thing (with much more regularity!).
• Regular features: Over the years at sustainablog, I discovered a number of topics about which I’m particularly passionate: greening the college scene, new green business ideas, appropriate technology, and, of course, poop to power (yeah, I know … that’s kind of weird). I’ll be turning these into regular features. I may not go quite so far as a set editorial calendar (this is a blog, after all), but I’ll make it easy for you to identify these particular topics.
• Less crap on the sidebar: Yeah, yeah … I tend to get starry-eyed over the latest blog gizmo. As the tech team at Green Options Media will be handling such things, you’ll no longer have deal with my penchant for the latest badge, button or script …

While I’m still the Senior Editor for Green Options, the one thing I don’t plan to change is keeping sustainablog unique in terms of voice and content — sustainablog is now partnered with GO, but still a separate blog. Obviously, I’m pretty happy about the way we’ve developed our content at GO, but want sustainablog to continue as a distinct space within the green blogosphere.

Thanks for dropping by … I hope you’ll continue to do so.

PS: The original site still exists, and will for the foreseeable future (though I won’t be updating it). All of the content has migrated over here, so I hope you’ll change your links to point to this new version.

On October 15th, many of your favorite blogs will go green.

We’re talking about sites which aren’t usually focused on environmental issues, including many of our faves here at Lighter Footstep: Lifehacker, Copyblogger, Web Worker Daily, ChrisG, Problogger, ZenHabits, and GigaOM.

It’s all part of Blog Action Day, an event organized by a trio of power bloggers which aims to unite thousands of sites for a day of articles and fundraining on behalf of the environment.

The idea behind Blog Action Day is simple: on October 15th, participating bloggers will post an article which deals in some way with green issues. A financial blog might address eco-friendly investing. An automotive site could choose to focus on hybrids or plug-in vehicles. It’s all about the Earth — and diversity of opinion.

As well-known blogger Brian Clark points out, the initiative is certainly a "call to action worthy of response." And while we don’t really think of Lighter Footstep as a blog in the strictest sense, we’ll be joining Blog Action Day here and at our sister publication, ecoTumble.

In addition to our online participation with Blog Action Day, Lighter Footstep will donate an amount equal to our one-day advertising revenues on October 15th to The Nature Conservancy, one of Blog action day’s designated environmental charities.

Don’t have a blog? Feeling left out?

In honor of Blog Action Day, we’re going to take the wraps off an initiative we’ve been kicking around for a while. We call it the Green Blog Incubator.

At Lighter Footstep, we think the more green voices, the better. So if you’ve ever thought about starting your own green blog, we’d like to help. And we’ll get you up and running before October 15th.

Details on how this is going to work are coming next week. In the meantime, pencil Blog Action Day onto your calendar.

See you there.

Editor's note: As many of you know, we often do a Weekend Web Review, but decided we'd wait one day to introduce you to MakeMeSustainable.com, which launched today.

So, you've installed CFLs, started walking instead of driving on those walkable trips, and set your hot water heater at the recommended 120 degrees. You're doing your part to help fight climate change, and that's great. But, do you ever wonder how much impact you're creating with these actions? Or, do you want to know how your actions compare to others? The newly-launched MakeMeSustainable.com provides a set of tools that will help you do just that.

The site is the brainchild of CEO Benjamin N.S. Brown, COO David Delcourt, and Chief Creative Officer Adam Schrader-Brown. I got the chance to talk to Ben and David just over a week ago as they walked me through the site, and told me a little bit about their mission. One word really sums it up: empowerment. The team at MMS want to empower users with the tools and knowledge that will help them actively reduce their carbon emissions, and connect with others who want to do the same.

MMS gives users a number of ways to set and meet goals for reducing their climate impact. When a user registers with the site (which is free), s/he provides information on his/her home and car. That creates a baseline carbon footprint — the system tells you how much carbon you emit in a year from home energy use and driving. You then have the opportunity to choose from a predetermined set of actions that can lower that footprint. For instance, on setting up my own profile and choosing actions I'd already taken, I figured out that I'd installed CFLs in nine light fixtures around my home. I plugged that information into the designated fields, and then told the system that I'd completed that action. It, in turn, told me what kind of reduction this created in my overall carbon footprint. And, after you've taken the actions that are relevant and affordable for you, MMS also offers the opportunity to purchase Native Energy carbon credits to further reduce your load.

Numbers are nice, but MMS goes a further step by providing a user with a graph that shows the difference between the baseline and the reduced carbon footprint. Each time a user completes an action, his/her impact is reflected accordingly.

My profile… : with evidence that I have work to do!

MMS doesn't just stop with showing individuals the difference they can make, though: it also provides a range of social networking tools that allow them to connect with other users in groups, to create a group themselves (so, a company or organization, for instance, could track all of its employees' or members' carbon footprints individually and collectively), and to patronize local businesses that are also working to lower their footprints. Maps can be created within a user's profile to find nearby businesses; if there aren't any listed, you can even invite businesses that are doing good by the planet to join.

For a site in public beta, MakeMeSustainable is awfully impressive. There are certain limitations at this point: you can only figure your carbon footprint for home energy use and transportation — of course, that's the lion's share of it for most of us! There are a couple of other action choices I'd like to see available in addition to those the site has included — I can't get credit for using my reel mower, for instance. These are minor things, though… overall, the site provides a robust set of features for measuring the impact of what we do… or even what we don't. And the MMS team has more in store, so keep checking back… or, better yet, create a profile and start taking advantage of these tools.

Imagine this, business owner: what if you could have an icon next to your company's title when someone Googles you that shouts: “ This is a sustainable business!”, or “This is an all organic restaurant!” Would that make you proud? For those of you who aren’t quite there, would this give you an incentive to go even deeper with the responsibility of your practice? On the flip side, what if the Google results for your restaurant shout "This place failed their health inspection!" Would that give you an incentive to clean up your place in order to stay in business?

We recently got word about a new plug in/download, Palore.com, that allows you to receive more content with your search results via small icons. Palore provides icons next to your search engine results that indicate certain third party ratings including Fair Trade, green, wifi, Kosher, handicap access… The benefit is that you can evaluate a place before visiting it. But, does this take the romance out of happenstance?

For the most part, I am indifferent about whether or not I like having access to this much information. I think overall the Palore plug-in is a positive service for business owners. It allows them to advertise responsible/ sustainable activity within their business practice. It also reveals to us consumers what businesses are doing unsustainable and unhealthy things, i.e. failing health inspections. As of yesterday, this information was sometimes hard to get, as was positive information difficult to evaluate and judge.

As pointed out by Greg Sterling, a well-known web reviewer, this opportunity is “branding in the context of search results, which is right now not otherwise available”. Palore results do not change the order of your search results, but it does allow a business to stand out!

Currently, the beta version is up and running. This version is only available for Internet Explorer users but Firefox will soon be added. When the alpha site launches, it should operate with most web browsers. Additionally, the service is currently available for local searches only, yet the concept is applicable nationwide if not worldwide. Palore works with Yahoo Local, Google maps, Windows Live Local, and AOL local. Try it out, see if you like to learn that much information about a place before seeing it, and test the claims!

Screenwerk: Palore Adding Content Layers to (Local) Search
Palore: Green Business

Web sites and online tools for swapping used items seem to be springing up on a fairly regular basis, and that’s a good thing sustainability-wise: why throw out a used item if someone else can get some value out of it? The newest addition to this group is SwitchPlanet, and founder Chris Samarin has come up with a pretty unique model for facilitating the trade of items that current owners don’t want, and others do:

Use more…waste less! The idea is simple but the end result is amazing. Members save money by trading the things they already have but no longer use to get the things they need. One person gets rid of something taking up space in their home and another person benefits by filling a need…so everyone wins.

Most importantly SwitchPlanet was built to help an even greater need. Because SwitchPlanet is free to use members are given the option to donate any amount they choose every time they receive something for free on the SwitchPlanet Network. These donations are put into a SwitchFund that is then distributed among selected charities and non-profit organizations.

“I want this thing to be huge so the positive impact it has on society is also huge,” states Founder, Chris Samarin, “If we can get millions of people using the site and donating on average $1 per month, wow, we can sure help a lot of people if that happens.”

The donation idea is a new twist, at least to me. Users pay to ship items they’re giving away, but get items they request for free, so SwitchPlanet encourages them to contribute what they’d normally pay (even if it’s just shipping and handling) to one of the charities with which the company’s partnered. Think of it as “paying forward…”

Additionally, SwitchPlanet uses an internal currency: users “pay” for items with SwitchBucs. A user earns the credits for sending out items, and “pays” for things s/he wants with the currency. Users don’t have to trade actual items this way, and “refunds” can even be issued if a transaction doesn’t go as planned.

SwitchPlanet is currently in private beta, but Chris tells me it will be going public very soon. If you’d like to get in on the tail end of the private test, let me know, and I’ll pass your information along to Chris — he’s told me sustainablog readers are welcome to try out the system before launch. Right now, the system is only set up for CDs, DVDs and games, but other items will be added to the mix shortly.

This looks very cool! Guess I’ll need to dust off some of the things I don’t use…

Categories: swapping, trading, barter, switchplanet, web, donations