Do you remember RecycleBank, the Philadelphia-based company that rewarded customers for recycling? I thought that was a great idea, and I’ve got a similar response to Earth Aid’s new rewards program for energy savings. Rolled out earlier this month in Washington, DC, Earth Aid offers a program to track your energy use and savings, and then to “pay” you for those savings through reward points that can be redeemed at partner companies.
In its press release for the launch of the rewards program, the company claims that its program “…creates a virtuous circle of local businesses providing incentives for households to save energy, and households re-circulating their savings on their utility bills into local businesses - benefiting both the local environment and the local economy.” All of this is on top of money actually saved by consumers cutting their energy use…
Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas’ Editor-In-Chief, talks with David Kram, Energy Specialist for the Rising Sun Energy Center of the California Youth Energy Services about how California residents can get free home energy audits as well as energy-efficient lightbulb replacements and other energy-saving devices.
Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, talks about efficient ENERGY STAR products and the Change a Light Campaign with Wendy Reed, Campaign Manager for ENERGY STAR.
I’m coming to the conclusion pretty fast that just about every hotel will eventually be walking the talk when it comes to going green – though some are walking slowly while others are galloping as if there isn’t a minute to waste.While ecotourism continues to grow internationally, more American companies are grasping that going green can save some green too, which is also a point I make in ECOpreneuring.
A recent trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (to enter a few food items in our Wisconsin State Fair) found my family and I bedding down at the Hotel Metro, a boutique, high-rise luxury 63 room hotel that features numerous green aspects, from energy efficient lighting to a rooftop hot tub spa kept clean by using a salt-water system, rather than chlorine.Metro Hotel is the first Milwaukee hotel to be certified by Travel Green Wisconsin, racking up 67 points in total.
If you picture a grain farmer out tending a field, you might imagine someone sitting on the metal seat of a tractor like the one in the picture above, moving slowly across a field - perhaps the farmer has a straw hat. That image seems attractive as long as you are not the farmer. Fortunately, this isn’t the real situation in the developed world or we wouldn’t get anyone in our rapidly aging population to do full-time farming on the multiple thousand-acre farms that are typical of a modern, Midwestern family farm.
Today, a progressive farmer will typically be working in an enclosed, air-conditioned cab with surround sound, a cell phone, and an internet connection for tracking commodity futures or catching up on email. Increasingly, the tractor is driving itself by computer and GPS except for occasional intervention. I’ve carried on a number of protracted interviews with farmers who were in just this setting. I know one farmer that ran much of his state senate campaign from a tractor or combine. These new, sophisticated, farm vehicles are not just about keeping the farmer comfortable and multi-tasking. They are important tools for making farming more sustainable.
Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas’ Editor-in-Chief, talks with Ross Brouse, founder and owner of Solar Virtualization Technology Group (Solar VTG) and Solar VPS, about green web server hosting for personal and professional applications.
GreenTalk Radio Host Sean Daily discusses using technological components to remotely control every aspect of your home’s energy and security systems with Raj Marya, President and CEO of Amazing Controls.
Staying away from the topics of food and transportation, which are probably the biggest daily products you could green, here is a list of products you use everyday. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sears Tower loomed large during my childhood in the Chicago suburbs. I remember when it opened in 1973. We took a special trip downtown to see it. According to my aesthetics as a seven year old, it wasn’t very elegant and I preferred the John Hancock Tower with its swanky restaurant on the 95th floor and proximity to Marshall Fields. Then the company my dad worked for was bought by Coldwell Banker, a subsidiary of Sears at the time, and his office was moved to the Tower. I spent some quality daddy-daughter time there, and one memorable summer got paid the incredibly generous sum of $8 an hour to take the train to the city every day, do some filing and hang out downtown.
But the Tower, in my mind, never had much to distinguish it other than a great view from the 103rd floor, its height of 110 stories and the convenience of the train station. But now everything is changing.
By the end of the summer, it will no longer be the Sears Tower. It will be called the Willis Tower, named for the global insurance broker. But more importantly, the building will undergo a $350 million efficiency and renewable energy retrofit that will reduce the base building electricity use by up to 80 percent - 68 million kilowatt hours annually or 150,000 barrels of oil every year. The retrofit will also create more than 3,600 jobs in the Chicago area.
Since July 2003, sustainablog has been providing information on environmental and economic sustainability, green and sustainable business, and environmental politics. The blog regularly features environmental leaders, experts in alternative energy and green technology, and real people trying to lighten their environmental footprints.
Do you remember RecycleBank, the Philadelphia-based company that rewarded customers for recycling? I thought that was a great idea, and I’ve got a similar response to Earth Aid’s new rewards program for energy savings. Rolled out earlier this month in Washington, DC, Earth Aid offers a program to track your energy use and savings, and then to “pay” you for those savings through reward points that can be redeemed at partner companies.
Sean Daily, 
Sean Daily, 
