Phil Gutis's Blog: Green Enterprise

Empire State Building Glows Green for Forces of Nature

2010-04-15T20:03:00Z

Skyscrapers. Even after thirty years of living and working in New York City, the engineering, the architecture, the majesty all keep me peering upward.

The Empire State Building is, without a doubt, one of the most special of them all. She’s nearly 80 years young and continues to thrill more than 3 million visitors each year.

There’s no doubt that the view from the 86th floor observatories are stunning, but for the environmental wonks around us, what is particularly interesting about the Empire State Building these days is what is happening inside: a $500 million retrofit to improve energy efficiency by 38 percent and cut carbon pollution by 105,000 metric tons over the next 15 years.

Malkin Properties, the company that owns and operates the Empire State Building, is understandably proud of its environmental accomplishments; we’re proud to count the Malkins as long-time supporters.

Tonight, at our annual New York gala, NRDC will honor Anthony and Shelly Malkin along with musician and climate activist Sheryl Crow with our Forces of Nature award.

NRDC Trustee Shelly Malkin is a landscape painter and rock climber who helps keep destructive energy development out of wild places. Tony Malkin is real estate industry leader who is turning the Empire State Building into a model of energy efficiency.

The Malkins helped found NRDC’s Center for Market Innovation to direct private investment toward clean energy. Thanks to their work, more equity firms, institutional lenders, and business leaders recognize that green practices and economic vitality go hand-in-hand.

Sheryl Crow is a Grammy-winning artist and a passionate environmentalist. Recently, she took a model she is deeply familiar with -- hitting the road in a tour bus -- and joined NRDC Trustee Laurie David in a barnstorming campaign through Southern college towns to educate students about climate change. Sheryl attracted people who might not have been concerned about the issue, and then she mobilized them to take positive action.

The Empire State Building will glow green tonight in honor of Shelly and Tony Malkin, Sheryl Crow and NRDC. And as her retrofit continues, she’ll glow green throughout the year as a 102-story beacon of sustainability.

Photograph by Lisa Whiteman

Liquidity Traps and Clunkers

2009-08-06T04:30:11Z

Late last month, we moved fast and became one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who trashed a clunker as part of the government's Cash for Clunkers program. Thanks to the government subsidy, we received more than $4,500 for our 1998 Ford Explorer, well more than the $1,000 we would have received without the stimulus program. And we may have as much as doubled our gas mileage with our new Chevy HHR (pictured below with Max, who apparently likes his new cat toy.)

Increased fuel efficiency. Added economic stimulus. All of that I knew. What I didn't know until reading this week's Economist is that by taking advantage of the government program we may have helped burst what John Maynard Keynes called the "liquidity trap."

According to his theory, consumers may become so worried about the economy that they cling to as much liquid wealth as possible, cutting their spending sharply and thereby triggering precisely the slump they feared.

The Economist endorses the Cash for Clunkers program and says it is a piece of stimulus well worth its salt from an economic perspective. Less clear, the article says, are the environmental benefits of the program, but on this question let's look at the numbers (and related commentary) released by the Department of Transportation earlier this week:

Cash for Clunkers transactions are generating a 61 percent increase in vehicle fuel economy. The average fuel economy of new vehicles purchased under the program is 25.4 MPG, and the average fuel economy of trade-ins is 15.8 MPG. The average increase in fuel economy is 9.6 MPG, or a 61 percent improvement.

Thus far, 83 percent of trade-ins under the program are trucks, and 60 percent of new vehicle purchases are cars. The program is working far better than anyone anticipated at moving consumers out of old, dirty trucks and SUVs and into new more fuel-efficient cars.

Cars purchased under the program are, on average, 18 percent above the average fuel economy of all new cars currently available, and 63 percent above the average fuel economy of cars that were traded in. This means the program is raising the average fuel economy of the fleet, while getting the dirtiest and most polluting vehicles off the road.

We also paid almost $700 in sales tax on the new car. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of car buyers (if the Cash for Clunkers program receives new funding) and the cash infusion into horribly depleted state and local budgets suddenly becomes another powerful argument for the program.

The Economist ends its article by quoting NRDC friend Jack Hidary of SmartTransportation.org, who notes that "car dealers are now advertising the 'total cost of ownership' of vehicles, not just the purchase price, drawing the attention of consumers to differences in fuel efficiency between vehicles and estimating how much it would cost to fill them up with gas each year."

Busting the liquidity trap. Increasing the fuel efficiency of the national auto fleet. And changing the way that Americans look at the lifetime cost of their cars. Where's the downside?

Clunkermania Continues

2009-07-31T16:28:47Z

It felt good, I'll admit, to see the headline on The New York Times website last night. Apparently the $1 billion fund Congress had provided for the Cash for Clunkers program was almost exhausted. In less than a week, more than 250,000 people had traded in their old cars for newer models.

I was pleased, of course, because we were among those who rushed to a local dealership as soon as the Obama Administration finalized the rules for the program. As I wrote yesterday, we traded in a 1999 Ford Explorer that my husband had inherited for a new Chevy HHR. We qualified for a $4,500 benefit plus $165 additional for the value of the recyclable materials in the old car.

We also went from a vehicle that, at best, got 16 miles to the gallon to one that does at least 30 and perhaps even as much as 36 miles to the gallon on the highway.

In the Times story about the program, Congressman Ed Markey, an environmental hero who has been leading efforts to adopt energy and climate legislation, said participants in the Cash For Clunkers program are getting a 69 percent improvement in fuel economy, with the trade-ins being mostly sport utility vehicles, trucks and vans with over 100,000 miles, being replaced with new passenger cars.

“Cash for Clunkers may have run out of cash, but America’s consumers haven’t run out of clunkers,” Markey told the Times, adding that the program should be extended to cover 1 million vehicles, about four times the number covered so far.

In the same story, Senators Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, were quoted as saying that they will insist that any extension of the program require even high minimum fuel economy improvement and that provisions be made for lower-income buyers to trade clunkers for more efficient used cars. Those would be welcome improvements to the program.

All of this is great news for the economy and the planet. As the Cash for Clunkers program demonstrates, connecting economic progress with environmental well-being is what works. Call me crazy, but I believe that's the line of argument that will ultimately convince Congress to adopt clean energy climate legislation this fall.

A Car Named Fred

2009-07-30T16:18:39Z

More than a year ago, I came out of the closet. (No, not that one. I’ve been out of that closet for decades.) I came out as an owner of a SUV, a hulking 1998 Ford Explorer that my husband inherited years ago.

In my confession, I said that we’d had it, that rising gas prices and embarrassment meant that the Explorer had to go. With an average fuel efficiency rating of 16 miles per gallon, the Explorer was costing us a fortune and doing nothing good for the planet either.

Well, I’m embarrassed again to admit that it took more than a year -- and a hefty incentive from the government in the form of the Cash for Clunkers program – but last night we picked up our new more fuel-efficient car. And while a year ago, I said I would never consider buying an American car because I was so angry at Detroit, we ended up buying American.

After much agonizing, we ended up with the modern-day equivalent of a station wagon: a Chevy HHR in a sparkly royal blue. We promptly named it Fred.

How did we end up with an HHR? We thought about buying a second Civic hybrid or even buying a new Toyota Prius. But with our family of 8 (two humans, five dogs and a confused cat) and seemingly endless home renovations, we decided that we needed more space than either of those cars would provide.

And of the station wagon type vehicles, the HHR does fairly well. Twenty eight average city and 32 average highway. This car is unlikely to spend much time in a city so I’m thinking that our mileage will be much closer – and hopefully higher – than the 32 average.

I would have liked to do better mileage and emissions wise, but doubling what we were getting isn’t bad. And we’re going to do our darndest to keep this car in good shape so that if there is a technological breakthrough, we’ll be able to trade it in and perhaps double the mileage again.

As for the Explorer, it is on its way to be shredded or compacted. We did end up getting $4,500 from the government plus another $165 as compensation for the money the dealership is likely to make on selling some of the recyclable pieces of the Explorer.

I’ve never enjoyed the process of buying a car; this year it seemed even worse. The information on fuel rankings and global warming pollution is confusing and hard to find. American manufacturers still lag way behind what’s possible; foreign-made cars often seemed shoddy or, alternatively, way too luxurious and pricey.

Even the clunker program – which, for us, did lead to a bonus of $3,500 off our car because the Ford was only worth about $1,000 in trade in – led to grumpiness at the dealership. (Apparently there were 16 pages of forms that needed to be filled out for each clunker.)

But it is over for now. Since I am, at heart, an optimist, I have confidence that the next time will be easier to do the right thing. Even with the compromises we had to make, I can’t let myself forget that we did make progress. Slow progress, yes, but progress nonetheless.

Google's Schmidt: "Solving Every Problem At Once"

2008-12-02T13:38:05Z

A few days ago, a bunch of us left NRDC's office and walked a few blocks downtown after work to hear a talk by Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt. The event -- organized by NRDC Trustee Wendy Schmidt -- was billed as an opportunity to hear what one of the leading voices in the business world is thinking about the new Big Three: economy, energy and the environment.

Eric is a forthright and engaging speaker. The stories he tells are rooted in experience, "real conversations" as he says. And he grounds his arguments in another reality, the reality that his day job requires him to make money for Google shareholders. Lots and lots of money.

But Google is also known for its corporate enterprise, for thinking big thoughts and pushing really big goals. And as chairman, Schmidt must be in charge of setting the biggest and boldest goals. Here's one:

"Is there a way," Schmidt posited, "is there a way to solve every known problem at once?"

"I'm tired of everyone complaining," he continued. "I've learned something here: do the right thing and you can solve multiple problems."

Let's go through the list: energy prices are too high, energy security, how many wars are being fought over oil now and in the future, what about job creation, especially in the rural areas? What about building businesses that are exportable outside of the United States to create wealth for Americans ... oh and yeah, why don't we solve the climate problem at the same time.

Watch the following video to get Eric's answer. And to hear from Dan Reicher, a former NRDC staffer and former Assistant Secretary of Energy for renewables and efficiency (who is on the lists of possible nominees for Energy Secretary in the Obama Administration). Also joining the conversation is Ralph Cavanagh, Co-Director of NRDC's Energy Program, and NRDC President Frances Beinecke. You can also read Google's thoughts at transforming our economy through clean energy at this Google Knol.

Its tempting to dismiss this audacious goal, as Eric does jokingly, with a big ole "yeah right." But as with so much else that comes from the brains of Google, there's real there there. And that's really good news for Google shareholders, the economy and oh yeah the planet.

Pink as the New Green

2008-11-24T17:05:55Z

The imagery in this news release caught my eye: "the amount of waste glass diverted from landfills could form a two-lane glass highway that extends 1.3 times around the world."

The news release came from Owens Corning, which produces "Pink" insulation and announced that it has boosted to 40 percent (an increase of five percent) the amount of "certified" recycled glass used in its insulation. It also says that the 5 percent increase maintains the company's lead in using the most recycled materials in insulation.

Another "factoid" from the company's release --manufacturing fiberglass with recycled glass requires significantly less energy -- made the release even more interesting. (Also interesting, but completely unrelated to the environment were two additional discoveries from the Owens Corning website: the company became the first to successfully trademark a color -- in this case PINK -- in 1987. Also one of my favorite giggle-worthy cartoon characters -- the Pink Panther -- became the corporate mascot in 1980.)

But what interests me the most about this news is that it points once again to the tremendous opportunity for recycling. Because of the use of recycled glass in its insulation, Owens Corning says that it is one of the largest users of recycled glass in the world and that it is having trouble finding enough to use.

To continue to help the market find additional sources of recycled glass, Owens Corning is leading initiatives with regional recyclers and processors to invest in technologies that will reduce the amount of glass sent to landfills, either because no local recycling programs exist or due to technical limitations in recycling different types and colors of glass. One such program involves Strategic Materials Inc., a Texas-based processor of scrap glass collected from a diverse range of sources including new curbside recycling programs. Once construction is completed, the glass the company will recycle at plants in Texas and Georgia will keep approximately 12,500 tons of glass per month from going to a landfill, and be reused in products including Owens Corning insulation.

That quote reminded me of a Newsweek article from early October -- Saving the World for a Latte -- that describes a program run by RecycleBank that is very much, as the authors wrote, to "a frequent-flier program for recyclers." The article continues:

Perhaps it's a commentary on the woes of Wall Street, but investors are seeing gold in garbage. With rising demand from markets like China and India, prices for scrap material like aluminum and paper have soared, which makes the economics of recycling more compelling than ever. That's why venture capitalists dumped a record $161 million into recycling firms last year, up from just $17 million in 2001, according to Cleantech Group, a green-investing consultant. And RecycleBank is one of the hottest plays, attracting $40 million from backers like Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, former American Express CEO James Robinson III and Coca-Cola.

Recycling has long been one of my major bugaboos. Every morning I watch as the tens of thousands of commuters at Penn Station toss newspapers into the trash (there's a lack of recycling bins throughout the station). And in the evenings, I watch those same commuters dump newspapers, bottles and cans into the garbage on the station platforms (where no recycling bins exist).

And I wonder: just how stupid can we be? And how long will it be before companies like Owens Corning and RecycleBank can save us from our lazy selves?

San Francisco to Detroit: Drop Dead?

2008-11-23T00:53:30Z

On the same day that congressional leaders threw in the towel on a bailout for the auto industry, three Bay Area mayors joined an innovative startup in backing a $1 billion plan to create the modern day Detroit.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the startup Better Place pledged to build the "re-charging infrastructure that must be in place before most consumers would consider buying or leasing an electric car."

The report continued:

Better Place, headed by former high-tech executive Shai Agassi, plans to install about 250,000 charging ports, 200 battery-exchange stations and a control center to service Bay Area electric car drivers. The goal is to have most of the system in place by 2012.

"We need to put together a new industry, and it needs to scale very fast," Agassi said at a press conference in San Francisco. He was flanked by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed as well as Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Perhaps the timing of the collapse of the talks in auto bailout Washington and the announcement from Better Place was simply a coincidence. Or perhaps the press conference with the three mayors was quickly pulled together as it became clear that the congressional talks were going to fail.

Either way, the message is pretty clear: Bay Area innovators are once again ascendant and what's left of the Big Three and a good portion of the Michigan economy is in the bullseye. Anyone willing to bet that Silicon Valley will miss? Not I.

Yes We Can

2008-11-05T14:54:03Z

I'm not much of a party guy so my husband, our laptops and assorted dogs spent last night sprawled around our family room watching the election returns. We'd often speak over the drone of the talking heads to blurt out an interesting statistic from some website or another or to remark on how the evening was going.

But when Barack Obama spoke around midnight, we quietly watched the Democratic candidate transformed into the President-elect of the United States. And when Obama began his "yes we can," I found myself silently chanting along.

I chanted not because NRDC had endorsed the President-elect. As a non-partisan organization, we cannot -- and do not -- endorse candidates for political office. Instead my "yes we can" was aimed primarily at the thought that we now would have the leadership necessary to meet our energy and climate challenges, at building a clean energy economy by manufacturing plug-in hybrid cars, growing dedicated fuel crops and developing clean power sources like wind, solar and geothermal.

I thought yes we can unleash American ingenuity and regain our national competitive edge in this global economy. I thought that yes we can find the solutions to what President-elect Obama called a "planet in peril."

We can do all this through responsible governing and smart planning and by encouraging our new leaders to express an inspiring vision of a better American economy based not on elaborate financial transactions but on the production of cutting edge technology and the delivery of high value services.

And finally, I thought yes we can because I remembered the mailing we received from Rep. Patrick Murphy, our local first-term member of Congress who won wide re-election last night. His mailing featured a huge picture of a wind turbine under construction at a former U.S. Steel site in nearby Fairless Hills in Bucks County, PA. "Quickly," Murphy writes, the abandoned factory "has become a green energy hub, supplying the area with jobs that were lost when U.S. Steel stopped manufacturing at the site."

Over the summer, when chants of "drill baby drill" echoed around the country, many environmentalists were near tears. Being a glass half full kind of guy, I tried to remind my colleagues (or anyone else that would listen) of the often soaring rhetoric we heard from politicians of both political parties about transforming our national infrastructre for the clean energy economy.

Last night, as I closed the laptop and headed off to bed, it felt absolutely wonderful to know that the voters had put into office those who spoke most passionately about seizing the energy and climate opportunities before us. And then I smiled and thought, yes, we can.

Where Do I Sign?

2008-09-12T18:32:34Z

If your husband is a tennis fanatic like mine then your television is going to be commandeered for much of early September as the world’s tennis superstars slam their way through the U.S. Open. And this year, in addition to some really great tennis, we saw a barrage of advertising from IBM promoting its green server business. (We also saw a healthy dose of the US Open itself going green -- thanks to some excellent work by my NRDC colleagues and Billie Jean King, but I'll leave that for another post.)

Now it is true -- as noted on the Green Data Center blog -- that the IBM ads are marketing material through and through, but I have to say that it is some of the best marketing material I've ever seen. The ads (see below for an example) make a strong financial argument that we all need to hear.

The concept is simple: a young woman brings an energy efficiency plan involving the firm's data centers to her boss who all but ridicules her as a tree-hugging, granola-eating idiot. When the boss asks why in the world he should sign off on her plan, she calmly responds: "This plan could cut our energy costs by 40 percent and we spent $18 million on energy last year."

Mr. Bluster can't sign the papers fast enough.

Luckily business leadership is listening and turning marketing material like the IBM ads into reality. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that big computer makers are spotting a trend.

"Rising electricity prices, coupled with new computer servers that run hotter and require more power, has corporate technology buyers looking for ways to cut back," the article by William Bulkeley says. "Power use in data centers -- the large, climate-controlled rooms that house a company's computer servers, storage devices and communications switches -- doubled from 2000 to 2006 and now accounts for about 1.5% of U.S. electricity consumption, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A recent McKinsey & Co. report says that world-wide, the centers' carbon emissions exceed those of Argentina."

And growing quickly. Forbes.com today has a story about Cisco and its plans for worldwide data center domination. "The giants of the Internet--Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Amazon--plus fast-moving Chinese upstarts like Baidu and TenCent, are building more of these giant centers. Microsoft figures it will expand its network of data centers 64-fold over the next few years, just to handle some 200 services, including Xbox online gaming, video and corporate software rented over the Web."

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: Congress will adopt global warming legislation once enough states and big business interests see the "green" light. Until then, sound energy policy will too often be ridiculed as nothing more than good PR.

The Explorer Has to Go

2008-06-26T22:21:55Z

I'll admit it. There's a Ford Explorer towering over the Honda Civic hybrid in our driveway. A gas-guzzling monster of an SUV that my husband inherited years ago. But it will not be there much longer.

Yep, rising gas prices and increasing embarrassment at owning one of the dinosaurs led us to a decision just last week that the Explorer has to go. We're still fighting about what to buy next but given the state of the American car industry, I can pretty much guarantee that it won't be a car from Detroit.

As I've previously written, I'm a big fan of voting with my dollars and I'm way too angry at American car makers to vote for them anytime soon.

That's why I shouted out a big silent "YES" when I saw the editorial in the June 10th issue of Advertising Age titled "A Proactive Detroit Could Have Owned Green Market." (I would have been more verbal but folks tend to look at you a bit oddly when you start shouting on a crowded airplane.)

Now I don't know how long Ad Age has held this position and one can imagine that the magazine has previously supported the actions of some of the biggest advertisers on the planet but the editors now seem firmly in the green camp.

"You'd think Detroit would have learned a lesson back in the 70s," the magazine writes. "It doesn't take an economic historian to remember how Japanese imports got a toehold during the last years of fuel crisis in the states."

In fairness, the editors do point out "that gas-guzzling SUVs weren't driving themselves out of the dealership." And they note that the industry defends itself by saying "they were just giving US consumers what they wanted." (And I will admit that our current SUV isn't the first one we've owned. The first car I actually bought was also an Explorer but that's been gone for years now replaced by the aforementioned Honda Civic Hybrid that I love.)

I also love how the Ad Age editors drive their point home.

"Trucks and SUVs have been one of the few strong areas for General Motors and Ford in the past year," they write. "But it puts us in mind of a group of Neanderthals stumbling across one last herd of wooly mammoths and figuring, 'Hey, we're going to survive after all.'"

Amen. Sorry Detroit, I'll be voting for a more enlightened group of automakers with this upcoming car purchase. But I do believe in evolution so maybe the American car industry will surprise me in a couple of years and I'll reconsider.

But something tells me not to hold my breath.

Nega Whats?

2008-06-18T17:05:51Z

When we purchased our slice of paradise near New Hope, PA, we knew the house had not received much tender loving care. But we did not realize at the time, however, that it hadn't really been touched in the 30 years since it was built by a guy who apparently did not know what he was doing.

So step by step, we're tearing the place apart and slowly but surely, we'll end up building a new house where the old one stands. A few weeks ago, for example, we sadly decided to get rid of the greenhouse that stretched the length of the back of the house. Broken seals and a heating system that stopped working a long time ago meant the greenhouse was little more than a heat bomb in the summer and a refrigerator in the winter. Trying to heat it or keep it cool drove our electricity bills ever northward and our plants never really stood a chance.

And now it is time -- finally -- to get rid of the refrigerator, oven and stove. We're not certain, but it seems like they were original to the house which means that they were manufactured long before Energy Star was even on the drawing board. Oh yeah, and there's the central air conditioner that hasn't been doing much of late as the East Coast suffered through an early summer heat wave.

All of this to say that I'm really getting into energy efficiency. I've long found it a fascinating topic but more on a theoretical level. But now as a homeowner of an energy disaster, I'm really diving in. And luckily for me, my day job also requires that I do a lot of thinking about energy efficiency.

My most recent find was an excellent authoritative briefing from the editors of the Economist, one of my favorite magazines that I rarely have a chance to read when it comes out. This weekend, I had a chance to catch up on reading (and recycling) and found a deep dive on Energy Efficiency. Titled "The Elusive Negawatt," the article quotes many energy efficiency experts such as NRDC's own MacArthur Award winning genius David Goldstein and Art Rosenfeld, the subject of a long article in NRDC's OnEarth magazine a while back.

The crux of the article -- as well as NRDC's advocacy on the topic -- is that energy efficiency has long been known as the best method of curbing the world's increasing demand for energy. And that the term "negawatt" is quickly becoming the preferred shorthand term for energy efficiency.

There is so much in this article to reflect on that that I'll be returning to it in future posts. But the bottom line, according to the Economist, is that "big investments in energy efficiency would more than pay for themselves, and fairly fast ... Moreover, with ample profits to be made, financing should be easy to attract." The amount that needs to be invested, the Economist reports, is in the tune of $170 billion a year until 2020, a staggeringly large number but only 1.6 percent of global annual investment in bricks and mortar and other fixed capital.

I'm persuaded that my home infrastructure investments will provide a speedy return on my dollar. Luckily for our survival on the planet, it seems like business and government are beginning to see the opportunities too.

Turning Buzz into Reality

2008-06-16T15:11:56Z

Has corporate America suddenly seen the “green” light? It’s a question I’ve raised frequently in this space, noting that everywhere you turn, another company is announcing a new green initiative. No matter what their motivation -- whether it’s saving money, earning good publicity, or a genuine interest in running a sustainable, profitable enterprise -- these companies seem interested in changing.

Of course, the clamor from all those announcements can seem deafening. The New York Times Style Section made just that point on Sunday in an article titled: “That Buzz in Your Ear May Be Green Noise.” The thesis of the article by Times reporter Alex Williams is boiled down by a quote from Mary Burnham of San Francisco: “Heck, I’ll come out and say it. I’m a little overwhelmed.”

Hey Mary, I’m a professional environmentalist and I’m confused too. When Williams called me last week to discuss his article, I couldn’t have been in more agreement with his thesis. We all need help reducing the signal to noise ratio.

Luckily I was able to tell the Times about one of our tools for helping cut the clutter. It’s an ever-growing NRDC web program called SimpleSteps where we give clear advice in a “minute, a morning or month” format. In other words, if you have a minute and want to make better choices for your family and the environment, we’ve got a tip. If you have a morning, we’ll take you a bit deeper and -- if you have a month -- well dive on in.

Williams was writing for the Times Style Section. Had he been reporter for the business sections of the Times, though, I would have directed him to another newly launched resource which is designed to build on NRDC’s long experience working behind the scenes to help businesses and other large organizations green their operations.

Building on that expertise, we just launched the NRDC Greening Advisor to open the vaults of our business-based expertise.

The Greening Advisor was developed as a free, web-based tool for small and mid-sized businesses interested in finding ways to reduce the environmental impacts of their operations. It’s full of practical tips that can help any company establish and achieve a green goal. It tackles topics such as energy efficiency, water conservation, waste reduction and paper use, and also points out how environmentally friendly business practices can improve the bottom line.

Does the thing really work? Ask Major League Baseball, the NBA and the GRAMMYs -- they’re just a few of the groups that have already made use of the Greening Advisor. And many many more are working with our experts to get started.

So stay tuned. Maybe someday soon we’ll be able to persuade the business pages of the Times to follow up on this weekend’s excellent Style Section story to help corporations and others turn buzz into reality.

Green It. Mean It?

2008-04-21T14:58:33Z

The following revelation probably won't likely earn me any brownie points with my policy crazy colleagues, but I'm a dedicated American Idol viewer. Amid all the hype and overwhelming commercialism, there's something inspiring about watching a bunch of talented kids gathering up the courage to sing before tens of millions. There's also more than a bit American gladiator each week as those same tens of millions watch someone's dreams crushed on live television.

Last week, however, something more than the annoyingly endless commercials and teary moments caught my eye. The ubiquitous Fox logo that lives in the bottom right corner of the screen morphed into what the network calls a celebration of the planet and a plea -- perhaps demand would be a better word -- that we "Green It." And "Mean it."

Fox, of course, isn't alone in its effort to urge us all to go green. Wandering through New York last week, I came across so many storefront windows hawking so-called green products that you'd think that Fifth Avenue had transformed from a citadel of commercialism to a blocks-long advertisement for NRDC and our fellow environmental groups.

Now I'm probably a bit more believing than most professional environmentalists when it comes to believing the green claims of corporate America. I truly do believe that something has changed in the corporate ether. Sure, thousands of marketing directors around the country have poured over hundreds of public opinion surveys and found that environment is beginning to matter to Moms and Dads everywhere and that folks are desperate for green advice. (We've been hearing the same requests and in response have launched Simple Steps, a special user-friendly guide to help those interested in improving their health and the health of their families and the planet. I'm particularly proud of Baby Steps. If there's a baby in your life, I highly recommend checking it out.)

Or maybe the business magazines are to be believed and corporate America has finally realized that there's hundreds of billions of dollars to be made in dealing with the climate crisis and other environmental challenges that threaten our future.

I wouldn't, however, fault anyone for being deeply skeptical about the depth of this new commitment. After all, its fairly easy to proclaim a new found greenness. But its another thing completely to mean it.

Only time will tell whether Fox listens to its own propaganda and takes the massive internal steps necessary to green its own operations. Early indications are good -- earlier this year, Rupert Murdoch has announced that his News Corporation and all of its worldwide operations will go carbon neutral by 2010 -- but it will take more than a news segment and a few hybrid cars and diesel generators.

Green it. Sure. Mean it? Only time will tell.

Could it be Real?

2007-11-08T22:13:02Z

A few weeks ago, one of NRDC's trustees sent around a link to a site called "Environmental Leader." Described as "daily news for corporate decision makers," the site seems mostly to be a warehouse for news releases from various corporations touting their latest green news. Despite the lack of a journalistic filter -- or perhaps because of the unfiltered perspective -- I find it a fascinating read.

Today's "news," for example, includes the following:

-- Fujitsu Siemens Says Entire Product Line Will Be Energy-Efficient

-- Target To Reduce PVC Use

-- Simon & Schuster Purchases Paper With More Recycled Fiber

-- Kohl’s To Pursue LEED Certification On 80+ Stores

The Simon & Schuster release seems genuine.

Simon & Schuster purchases approximately 70,000 tons of paper annually. At current production levels, the shift to 25 percent recycled fiber will result in saving approximately 483,000 trees annually and reducing greenhouse gases by nearly 85 million pounds, the company reports.
Simon & Schuster says it “will endeavor” to eliminate the use of paper that may contain fiber from endangered and old-growth forest areas. It has set a goal that by 2012 at least 10 percent of its purchased paper will derive from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
The company says it will also purchase shipping cartons made from 100% recycled post-consumer paper (the company expects that it will purchase 1.2 million cartons in 2007), the recycling of all inventory destruction as mixed-use paper, and the use of recycled office materials.

And that's just one release from among the dozens that I've seen over the last few weeks. Even with the "will endeavor" caveat, that sounds like progress. Real progress in fact.

Or am I just being naive?

My name is Phil and ...

2007-09-16T17:46:17Z

I'll admit it. I'm an addict. I'm completely addicted to Diet Coke in all of its many varieties. Regular, with Lime and now even Diet Coke plus with minerals and vitamins added. (I do giggle when I buy those; the absurdity of thinking that I'm getting healthy while getting my daily fix is almost too silly to comprehend.)

Thankfully, I'm also addicted to recycling so I can justify all of those empty soldiers lined up on my desk awaiting the trip to the recycling bin. (My husband never knows what he'll find when he opens my suitcase after a long business trip. Often there are more empty bottles than I'd like to admit stuffed into every nook and cranny.)

All of this is why I was delighted to hear the other morning that the Coca-Cola Co. is building a new recycling facility in Spartanburg, SC. The company's long-term goal is to see each and every one of its bottles shredded -- yes 100 percent -- and returned to the PET supply stream. An admirable goal even if the timeline for achieving the 100 percent nirvana was somewhat squishy. You can read more about it here in an appropriately skeptical story from Cox News Service.

One great factoid from the Cox story: "Currently, all of the PET that can be recovered through bottle reclamation efforts is gobbled up by an avid recycling industry that uses the material for a variety of products, including apparel and carpeting."

One not so great fact that nearly sent me off the side of the road (warning: listening to NPR while driving to work can be dangerous!) was the kicker to the story. Only about less than 20 percent of PET containers are currently being recycled around the country. Twenty percent? I thought recycling by now was an American as American pie.

But later that day, while on the phone with some folks in Knoxville, Tennessee, I learned that their communities do not yet offer curbside recycling. Not of bottles, not of newspapers, not of anything. Those who care enough about the environment to want to recycle have to lug stuff to a neighborhood recycling center. And we can just imagine how often that happens.

I often hear the question about what people who care about global warming can do once they've changed their light bulbs to compact fluorescents.The answer is typically a somewhat less-than-satisfying "urge Congress to get serious about global warming legislation."

Hearing that NPR report and from those folks in Knoxville has planted another thought in my mind. If we are serious about protecting the environment, maybe we need to return to our roots and adopt an aggressive campaign to force 100 percent of American communities to adopt curbside recycling. Anybody want to sign up for that campaign with me?