A new resource has arrived in Denver. Green Route Denver is a map that showcases businesses and organizations that are green. The map is distributed in downtown Denver retail locations and also available via PDF download on their site.
The organization also offers guided tours of organizations. See website for more details.
Starting to wonder how much impact all that work travel is having? The average American commutes 20 miles a day, that’s about 5,000 miles a year, resulting in just over 2 tons of CO2.
Consider purchasing carbon offsets to counteract the carbon dioxide emissions of driving or flying home to meetings and conferences. A carbon offset for the entire year’s worth of commuting emissions could cost as little as $45. According to the Colorado Carbon Fund, a Carbon Offset means “neutralize,” “balance,” or “cancel out.” Carbon offsets counteract these activities by funding projects to compensate for CO2 emissions occurring at another source. These offsets help fund projects that reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Though there are many organizations that offer Carbon Offsets, the Colorado Carbon Fund and Aspen’s Canary Tags are two great providers that use the proceeds for projects in Colorado.
CORE, the oldest and largest trade association in the Rocky Mountain region dedicated to promoting sustainable business practices and a more responsible global economy, announces that best-selling authors Andrew Winston of Green to Goldand Peter Fusaro of What Went Wrong at Enron will address plenary sessions of the fifth annual Sustainable Opportunities Summit and Expo March 2-4, 2010 at the Denver Convention Center. Top executives from Wal-Mart, AT&T, Waste Management and Miller Coors will also address topics on how sustainable business practices are improving business performance while benefiting the planet.
The 2010 Sustainable Opportunities Summit and Expo features 19 panel sessions and 70 speakers. The Expo opens to the general public on March 2 with over 100 exhibitors featuring the Rocky Mountain cleantech industry. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper will provide opening Summit remarks on “Denver, Gateway to Regional Sustainability” on Wednesday, March 3. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will open Summit activities on March 4th.
The City of Denver will join CORE and the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado in co-hosting the Sustainable Opportunities Summit and Expo. The Summit brings together business leaders, investors and luminaries in academia and government to exchange ideas and demonstrate the competitive advantages available through a strategy based on proactive sustainable business practices.
Most offices have a janitorial or custodial vendor who cleans offices. It is important to have your vendors support your organizations sustainability program.To encourage ‘green’ cleaning ask your vendor for the following;
Use green cleaning supplies. Make sure cleaning supplies are non-toxic and eco-friendly. Seventh Generation and All Green have a great line of cleaning products.
Turn off lights. Ask your janitorial staff to turn off all lights upon leaving the building. This supports accountability with this simple energy saving action.
Provide recycling and waste data. In order to improve recycling and waste management it is important to get data from your janitorial staff on the usage of receptacles along with rate of recycling. Make sure your janitorial staff is managing waste responsibly.
E-mail and scanners have all but made the fax machine a thing of the past, but most offices can’t quite give them up yet.The good news is there are now Online Faxes that allow you all the convenience of a fax machine, but use less paper, and offer other benefits:
Lower Cost
More Efficient Use of Time
More Reliable
Environmentally Responsible
Security
How it works:
Sending: When sending faxes, you log in to the fax website and upload the document.If the document is already a file on your hard drive, you simply upload it like an e-mail attachment.If you only have a hard copy, you’ll need to scan it, save it, then upload it.On the receiving end, the recipient will get a paper hard copy, just like you had sent it via traditional fax (unless they too have an online fax).
Receiving: When receiving incoming faxes, rather than a paper print out, you get an e-mail with an attachment.If you need to print it you can, otherwise you can just save it to the appropriate folder on your hard drive.
All those unwanted faxes, just hit delete – no need to save them to your desktop, waste paper.Need another reason?Most spam fax comes through whether you want it to or not, that means it gets printed, and you have to pay for the paper.
Aveda now has a cap program that will recycle bottle caps, a material that has been in the past un-recycleable. They will accept all screw caps that are hard plastic, usually the #5 in the recycle arrows located on the inside of the cap. This includes twist tops on bottles, flip tops from tube or food products and other screw like-type rigid lids. Please don’t send them any flexible or soft lids on tubs. For more details on the type of caps and where to send them, contact Aveda directly at capcollection@aveda.com.
One more material that we can keep out of the landfill!
The Fresh Ideas Group, a communications company based in Boulder, just launched their 2010 Consumer Trends Forecast. They are calling it the new SHEconomy focusing on the impact of women in the green marketplace. Interesting thoughts on green trends for 2010.
It’s true for all of us. We all want to be more green but each step requires us to do something differently which is not always easy. If we each committed to just one new thing for the year, we would make a powerful difference as a collective in our nation.
We will have more success with our commitments if we are as specific as we can be to the action and behavior we would like to change. Instead of committing to just purchasing less, make a firm dollar commitment. Based on what you usually spend on ‘luxury’ or ‘disposable’ items, make a dollar commitment to spend only $200 for the year, or whatever amount makes sense for you and your family. Then, determine how you are going to track your commitment and have some way to measure it. With the example of purchasing less, you would know by the amount of money you spend.
This year, I have committed to driving less and my goal is to reduce my usual 12,000 miles per year down to 9,000 miles for the year. Although that doesn’t seem to be a lot, that is essentially not driving my car 3 months out of the entire year! My plan is to use a combination of alternative transportation methods such as my bike, the bus and try to carpool more often. How will I know if I am successful? Well, I will track my miles monthly and the goal is to reduce each month by 250 miles. I’ll keep you posted on my progress during the year.
Again, make your new resolution a specific action and determine the way you will track it. When you do this, the likelihood of success will go up dramatically.
Share with me what your green commitment will be for the year.
As the holiday season approaches you may want to add some decorations around the office, as well as at home. One easy way to spread the holiday cheer while saving energy, and some company money, is to switch to LED (light emitting diode) holiday lights. LED lights are an alternative to conventional incandescent holiday lights and are gaining popularity and availability. Though still more expensive than conventional lights, LEDs offer a number of benefits that not only outweigh the cost, but actually may make them cheaper in the long run. Some stores are offering a take back program, where they will take your old holiday lights, recycle them, and give you a discount on new LED lights.
Benefits of LED lights:
90% more energy efficient – saving you money on the utility bill
When one bulb goes out, the others stay lit
Unlike incandescentbulbs, LEDs are cool to the touch
LEDs are more durable and less likely to break
Pricewise, LEDs cost about five times as much as incandescentsupfront. But their life span is 50,000 hours, instead of 1,000-2,000 hours for incandescents. That means if you lit the LEDs for 45 days each year, 24 hours a day, it would take 46 years for them to dim.
Today, business leaders have a chance to get their voice heard on climate change. The University of Cambridge is compiling a list of world business leaders that will sign a statement that will lead to aggressive changes on climate change globally. Business leaders from the Corporate Leaders’ Group will be handing a copy of The Copenhagen Communiqué to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown on December 10, 2009 which will be passed onto the leaders at the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
For more information on climate change visit these websites:
Directories | officiency March 5, 2010 | 
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