Join Us at the DC Green Festival! October 31, 2008

We’ll be at the DC Green Festival – stop by and say hello! The Green Festivals, a joint project of Global Exchange and Co-op America, are a great way to get involved in the “green community” and to learn more about eco-friendly products and services. At these events held in cities across the country, hundreds of organizations and businesses come together to promote a greener, more sustainable world. With a diverse array of renowned authors, leaders and educators, great how-to workshops, cutting-edge films, fun activities for kids, organic beer and wine, delicious vegetarian cuisine, and diverse live music, everyone is guaranteed to find something of interest.

What’s even cooler is that the Green Festivals don’t just teach you about sustainability – they practice it too. While many tradeshows and conferences are notoriously wasteful, the Green Festivals live up to their commitment to a greener planet by reusing, recycling, and composting 97% of all waste from the shows, leaving only 3% for the landfill. Learn more about the festivals on their website.

Eco-Coach will be at the Washington, DC Green Festival on November 8th and 9th at the Convention Center. Stop by our booth in the Local DC Businesses section to learn more about the services we provide, and to educate yourself on ways to make your life more eco-friendly. Enter our raffle to win green goodies, including green cleaning products and a copy of the recently published ‘Sustainability 101: A Toolkit for Your Business’.

It’s going to be a great event!! More than 350 green businesses and 125 speakers will be featured, including Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute founder Lester Brown, and renowned author Barbara Ehrenreich, as well as green architect Bill McDonough.

If you’re not in the area, check out the schedule below for other Green Festivals near you:
San Francisco Nov 14-16, 2008
Seattle Mar 28-29, 2009
Denver May 2-3, 2009
Chicago May 16-17, 2009

Creative Commuting October 17, 2008

With rising gas prices and a growing concern about the role of carbon emissions in global warming, commuters are coming up with creative new solutions to cut back on their environmental footprint. For outdoor enthusiasts, new trends include creative modes of human-powered transportation such as rowing, kayaking, in-line skating, even unicycling to work. With a bigger wheel, “commuter” unicycles are able to go up to 15 mph. As an added benefit, unicycles are much smaller than bikes, making them easy to transport and store inside the office. The only downside, aside from learning how to ride one, is that the increased speed from big-wheeled unicycles can make accidents harder to avoid.

A safer alternative is to go with a minimum of two wheels on the street at all times. As people try to save money at the pump, electric bikes, scooters (the gas and foot kind, as well as the electric), skateboards, Segways, and motorcycles are also gaining in popularity. Most of these methods of transportation are for relatively short distances, and you definitely would not want to be on the highway or large roads, except with motorcycles.

The many benefits to motorcycles include free parking in many jurisdictions, free use of the HOV lane during rush hour, and the “cool” factor of showing up to work with your helmet under your arm. Although most of the smaller more fuel-efficient bikes are not suitable for driving on the highway, even the larger-sized highway motorcycles still have higher fuel efficiency on average than a car.

On the employer side, new trends in eco-friendly commuting incentives are helping companies stay on the cutting edge. In addition to providing bike racks, change rooms, and showers for biking commuters, one company in Seattle gives its bikers a jersey with the company logo on it. Flexible work hours and telecommuting are also being encouraged in creative ways by employers. Innovative incentive programs, such as offering free phone and Internet — and even a furniture allowance — for employees to use in their home offices, are a great way to encourage telecommuting and keep employee satisfaction high.

Which one(s) of these can you do??

Give a lot, get a lot: Margaret Mead and my 5th grade teacher October 9, 2008

My fifth grade teacher once said to me “Go on about your business, and be a good citizen.” Those words have stuck with me (for almost three decades now)… and you know, she’s onto something- being a good citizen. I now equate being a good citizen with being an involved citizen. The famous American anthropologist Margaret Mead once said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Involved citizenship, or voluntary community involvement, brings together like-minded people, all of whom likely have ideas about how to improve the environment around them. It’s a great example of several minds beings better than one, with a collaborative effort and unique contributions from all. There are a variety of groups involved with sustainability and/or environmental issues. To find projects that interest you, contact your local municipality or county; look on the Internet, your local library, local papers; or set up a project of your own. One can be an involved citizen/volunteer on a local, regional, global, or even virtual (contribute your efforts over the internet) level. No matter what sustainability or environmental issues you’re passionate about, you’re sure to find a group to get involved with that needs your help and expertise, whatever that may be.

Volunteering has many benefits, and among those is happiness. Research shows that volunteering your time leads to increased happiness and greater life satisfaction. Civic engagement also means being part of something greater than your self. So for me the question isn’t why get involved, but why not? I have gone from observer to participant (I recently served on a local bicycle task force). I told my wife the other day that I could not imagine not being involved with something else now that I know how fun, meaningful, rewarding, and effective involved citizenship can be!

So let’s volunteer our time, get involved with local, regional, or global sustainability and environmental efforts… and practice civic environmentalism!

Is your home ready for solar power? October 2, 2008

The approval of a $17 billion bill in tax credits for wind, solar, geothermal and ocean energy system as part of the proposed bailout makes the future of renewable energy look promising to normal residents. Solar, as a clean and abundant resource, is obtaining significant policy support to become one of the major clean energy alternatives of residential use. If enacted, this bill will:

• Extend tax credits by eight years for residential and commercial solar systems.

• Give a 30-percent tax credit to homeowners who install solar systems and businesses that install solar systems.

How can households use solar power?

You may have heard about solar power but thought it too ‘high tech’ or expensive for your own home. Though it can be expensive, there are many instances where it pays to use solar power. As an abundant resource of energy, solar power can be used for home heating, cooling and water heating. Using photovoltaic (PV) energy systems to convert the solar power to electricity can even produce enough electricity for the household to cut your electricity bill. So, how do those systems work for homes? There are several demonstrated technologies you may want to look into:

• Solar Water Heaters – uses storage tanks and solar collectors to collect the solar power to heat the water used in buildings and swimming pools. The most common collector is called a flat plate collector, which usually has a thin, flat, rectangular box on the roof of the building with a transparent cover facing the sun. The plate is painted black to absorb the heat and then is transferred through tubes carrying fluid attached to the box. Other types of solar water heaters include evacuated-tube solar collectors, integral collector-storage systems, etc.

• Small Solar Electricity Systems – also called solar cells or photovoltaic (PV) systems by solar cell scientists, can be a reliable electricity producer for your home. It coverts sunlight directly into electricity and works similar to small solar cells that are used to power calculators and watches. However, PV works to larger extent by combing 40 cells into a single module and 10 modules into a single PV array. Those PV arrays then can be mounted on a tracking device to capture the sunlight during the day. About 10 to 20 PV arrays can provide enough power for a household.

• Passive Solar Home Design – takes advantage of the local climate by designing windows, walls and floors to collect and store the solar power in the form of heat and distribute it for household use in the winter, while blocking sun heat in the summer.

There are currently programs that enable you to rent solar panels and have them placed on your roof. Citizenre is the first company to offer these services but, if proven, others will likely follow suit. In addition, the break even point for solar thermal is less than 10 years – in some cases just 5 to 7 years, so it is increasingly affordable, especially with rising energy costs. The Department of Energy (DOE) provides comprehensive introductions for solar power technologies and guides for consumers on assessment, installation, and maintenance. More details about the technology can be also found on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory website.