So much going on in the 'ville!

In case you missed it, last Sunday was Earth Hour, where you were supposed to turn out your lights for an hour, but apparently the folks down in Australia didn't take March Madness into consideration when choosing a Sunday. Sadly, we did not participate due to the pressing need to watch the Elite Eight games.

Down in Williamson County, the kids at Hillsboro elementary/middle are participating in the Free the Children Water Project. The thought of all the bottles of coke and PowerAde that are not being trashed warms the cockles of me 'eart it does... but they're still drinking water out of bottles:

According to the scorecard, students can save up to $1.50 per glass by drinking water rather than milk, soda or juice and up to $1 per bottle on sports drinks. Every time they drink a glass or bottle of water, they put that savings into a cup. At the end of the two weeks, the money will be collected. (emphasis mine)

I don't know anything about the Free the Children thing, but the project sounds like a good idea to me, at least to raise awareness... but I wish they were thinking about the bottled water part of it as well (see Think Outside the Bottle for why)

In other news, there's finally an answer to the question of what will be done with the old Wild Oats building... a Trader Joe's is moving in! I think I've talked before about how I miss the old Wild Oats - I liked how small and homey it felt compared to the new Whole Foods. Not to say I don't like the WF, but I miss the way things were. I'm excited to see what a Trader Joe's is like, finally, and maybe I'll be going there instead of WF soon.

Also, in case you haven't checked out the Greener Nashville site or you don't get their eblasts, there is a big Green Business expo going on over at Lipscomb today.

That's it for this week, folks! Stay dry and warm, and let me know if you want to buy a condo!

Props to Vanderbilt

I got a please-donate letter from the VU Alumni Association, and I realized that they don't use envelopes with the little plastic windows.

YAY, VANDERBILT!!!!

Thank you so much! I got to recycle your envelope!

my A/C addiction - an addendum (new thermostat)

The delayed post can be entirely explained by the fact that my life is in complete physical chaos due to the remodel/possible move.

Since all I can think about is that, I suppose it's appropriate to talk about something green that we're doing in the remodel (in amongst many un-green things, like floor refinishing and buying plastic tubs for packing).

I'm installing a new thermostat that is programmable. It's most likely that I won't get to see the benefits of it (no heat for me!), but it is DEFINITELY green - it automates the temperature control in your house, so you can set it to be less or more depending on when you're home, and you can schedule it for specific days (like, say you are away from the house from 8am-8pm on Mondays but home by 5 on Tuesdays, you can set it to that schedule)

Not only that, but they don't contain mercury (the analog ones do), and they are supposedly more accurate (because you can set it exactly to 75 as opposed to just turning the dial close to the 75 mark).

Now, if you're really crazy, really type A, or really nerdy, you could pick yourself up one of these puppies. It's a thermostat that you can control remotely over the internet. Sounds like something my brother (who has a remote to control his ceiling fan) would LOVE. Probably those who would get the most use out of it are people who travel on a regular and impromptu basis - perfect for me, especially with the crazy who-knows-when-or-for-how-long travel to Georgia I do. If i decided to stay for a day longer or go home early, i could have the atmosphere in my house be ready for me.

Yes, it's a very high-maintenance sort of thing, but it eliminates the cost of forgetfulness, which is the biggest selling point for me.

I am a little apprehensive, though, because I am intensely slow to learn new devices (there's still stuff my cable box will do that I don't know about). Maybe I can just make my brother be in charge of it - if i got an IP one, he could just manage it remotely all the time! Man, wouldn't that be an awesome way to screw with someone - hack into their thermostat!

Ahhh, what a cool world we live in :)

Another Prius post

Part of the reason I saddled myself with debt to have my Prius was because of the impact I hoped my purchase could have on the development of technologies to further our independence from petroleum fuels.

What I didn't consider, really, was what a large part the 'image' of having a Prius would play in this. Now, I am confident in the fact that my 'image' played no part in the initial purchase - I don't care much either way about how it looks, how I look in it, or what people think of me being an owner... not only that, but the mere fact of getting a new car causes me a bit of embarrassment (because I really cannot afford it, therefore calling my decision-making abilities into question?). There was a Slate article a while back that talked about yuppies buying Prii because they wanted to look socially responsible...

According to a marketing survey [in a New York Times article]... more buyers bought the Prius this year because it "makes a statement about me" (57 percent) than because of its better gas mileage (36 percent) or lower carbon dioxide emissions (25 percent) or new technology (7 percent).

Well, that wasn't me. I don't care what people think about me, I just care that they think.

One of the coolest parts of having it (aside from the mpgs) has been talking about it! When people find out I have a Prius, or see me with it, they ask questions, and I get to explain why I have it (and then plug my blog, heehee).

UC Davis did a study on the effects of image on ownership of HEVs - how cool is that? (thanks, NoImpactMan!) It's about the benefits of owning an HEV that aren't actually benefits of the vehicle, but of what it means to own one. (note a nifty new acronym - HEVs, 'hybrid electric vehicles')

Check this out:

HEVs served as communication mechanisms in all households, either by projecting their images or by stimulating owner evangelism. In addition, for a handful of participants, the symbolic benefits of their HEVs were significant enough to justify substantial functional compromises.

Even when I feel shy about talking about how I think we should all recycle, even a little bit, or we should stop buying so much crap (and I do get shy), I'm totally cool with talking to people about why I think they should buy an HEV. What a funny way to become comfortable with acting 'evangelical'!

grocery bags and the apocalypse

Okay... a little extreme, I know, except...

I have this eerie vision in my head that morphs that 'I Am Legend ' shot of the deer running through the streets of post-apocalypse NYC into a shot of Nashville's Broadway with millions of plastic bags scudding along the empty lanes down into the river. I really must stop watching TV so much.

Anyway, on Monday I went to Whole Foods, and I had once again forgotten my reusable Ikea bag. Problem is, it's so huge that it really doesn't work for my little one-person, two-or-three-meals trips to the grocery. I joked with the checkout girl that in addition to wanting paper bags, I'd take a healthy dose of guilt to go along with them. Sadly, Whole Foods does not stock guilt, but luckily I had my own to pull out. So, upon my return home, I took a few minutes out of my mad dash to do two weeks worth of laundry to sit down and sew together the bottoms of some of my old tank tops (during which I saw the preview for I Am Legend and thus we've come full circle).

I'm going to use these as reusable grocery sacks. I only made two since I want to try them out before sewing up the bottoms of what could conceivably be wearable shirts... and since I rarely use more than two bags at the grocery anyway, this should be a good start. I know I'll need to sew up more, though, given my propensity to completely forget to take my own bags. I'll start with these two and then stock up the Prius with 10 or so.

Good thing I did that, because my lovely Aunt Louise sent a site called One Bag At A Time. Check out their breakdown of the life of a grocery sack! Holy moly!

That's the sort of stuff we need! Hard numbers to calculate impact! That's why I'm so excited about the new curriculum at Warren Wilson (I swear I'll post this next) - maybe we can figure out how to communicate these metrics (look at me with my shiny corporate lingo!) to broad audiences!

scary but cool experience - call your congressman!

Okay, so thanks to the wonders of Facebook (O, Facebook, what would I do without you?), I found out that H.R. 3221 is going to be brought up for a vote this week.

Here's part of the note from the creator of the group 'Advocates for Energy and Environmental Policy' Gabriel Koch...

At some point this week (the specific day has not been set), the House of Representatives will vote on whether to increase fuel efficiency to 35 miles per gallon and whether to use 15% of our electricity from renewable energy sources.

PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES, both where you attend school and where your home is, and ask them to vote for this bill, H.R. 3221. You can find out who your Representative is and what their number is at www.house.gov

If you have a second, pick up the phone and call your Rep.

Davidson County is District 5 (with some of the south in District 7 - check out a map here.), and our Rep is Jim Cooper. I called his D.C. office today at 6:30PM EST and someone answered!

It was a spur of the moment thing, so I'm not sure that I sounded as well spoken as I might have liked, but the guy who answered was really nice, and took my name and address.

I am not sure if I've done anything useful, given Toyota and Detroit railing against it, but it was really easy (if sort of scary - I got a little stage fright!), and felt very green indeed.

So! Go forth and call! And if you can do it with free long distance, even better!

Irritating news from the auto-industry

I just got wind of an article in Newsweek about Toyota and how their actions speak louder than their words when it comes to being green. (Thanks, NoImpactMan, for the link!)

Basically, Toyota is talking a big game (have you seen their Why Not? ads? - if you go here and click on the Advertising navigation link, you can see the commercial), but they aren't fully committed to lowering mpgs.

Toyota—in contrast to Honda and Nissan—sided with Detroit to try to block legislation currently before Congress to boost fuel economy for all new vehicles to 35mpg by 2020, up from 25mpg today. Toyota, in a familiar Motown refrain, says achieving such a hard target is not technologically feasible

I think that "technologically feasible" here actually means "financially feasible." They can't reach the target number for their quarterly earnings if they have to go so high on mpgs. Yet another reason I wish more companies could go "B" (here's info on B-Corporations from a previous post) - because that bottom line is most likely the reason Toyota is waffling so badly. The Prius isn't enough of a money maker (because of the gas-electric propulsion system), so Toyota is also producing vehicles like the 14 mpg Tundra pickup, which has a profit margin of $10K. The thing is, I probably would have paid $5K more for my Prius! Yes, a big reason I bought it was the mpg factor, but another BIG factor was that I wanted to support green technology! So if more money is required, LET'S DO IT! Argh!

I'm sad that my Prius purchase went to a company that is not full-on behind the green movement. I still love my prius mightily (she's getting about 55 mpg right now), but I'm disappointed that the company I thought I was supporting in their efforts is trying to undermine my efforts (which are so small compared to what they can do).

Man, maybe it's the weather, but my posts are depressing lately. I promise posts that are more optimistic soon!

Stakeholder vs. Stockholder - why I'm enamoured with the idea of a B-corporation

Here, at last, is the third corner on the Triumvirate of Why I Keep Leaning Toward Being Green... okay, I'm not fooling anyone, that slogan's never going to catch on, but it did have some nice alliteration and I really like the word triumvirate... anyway, the point is that I keep thinking about the tension between Stockholders and Stakeholders.

I started thinking about this idea because back in May of this year, I heard a story on APM's Marketplace about B Corporations. This guy, Jay Cohen Gilbert, and his non-profit B-Lab, started a movement called B (standing for "Benefit") Corporations. The idea behind setting up a company as a B Corporation is that the corporate governing documents set it up from the outset so that the business is "purpose-driven and create benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders." Back in May, their site was only their logo, but now they've got a full site up and running - check it out for the nitty-gritty details.

When I heard this story, I got to thinking about stakeholders. I'm a stakeholder in a whole slew of things in which I'm not directly financially invested. For instance, I have a big interest in the way The Big Giant Evil Corporation for which I work runs things on a macro and micro scale, but i don't own a big chunk of stock in it so my opinions don't count for much if at all. BGEC is accountable to the people who hold the purse-strings, stockholders who are expecting it to grow their investment. But even though I don't have a big money-covered dog in the fight, I do have my scrappy little this-is-8-hours-of-my-day-and-my-mortgage payment dog in the fight. The thing is, public corporations traditionally don't let that scrappy little one in the ring.

But B Corporations do. The governing documents set the corporation up to survive the marketplace and still do good things for stakeholders - employees big and small, employees' families, the environment, the community, etc., etc.

Sure, you can start out with good intentions and a small little company, running it exactly how you'd like - like how it started here - but then when you're "successful," and BGEC buys you (because everyone has their price), things can change rapidly. Suddenly, instead of being a company that actually cares about an employees's well-being, that thinks about how to make the best partnership possible between employee and employer, it is a BGEC - it's a Wal-Mart or a ConAgra. It's best for the bottom line if the employee is faceless. It looks the best on paper when costs are displaced. Outsource to China, where you only pay $3 a day; cut your ingredients with melamine; use rBGH to make your cows keep making milk. You make your stockholders a whole ton of money, but you make the Chinese factory workers lie to keep their jobs, you make a bunch of well-loved pets ill or dead, you make a bunch of cows do something their bodies aren't supposed to do... and you make consumers complicit in these choices.

So all of these stakeholders - factory workers halfway around the world, pets, cows, the groundwater, consumers, anyone who breathes, kids who are still developing their brains, family farms, government entitlement programs, your body's hormone balance - they are all affected. But that doesn't show up in the BGEC's bottom-line dollar-amount. We're back to the problem of the tragedy of the commons - there's no one owner of the oceans, of the air... so it's not in anyone's dollar-amount interest to steward it.

Phew.

That was pretty intense. Like re-living "SuperSize Me," "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," and "Fat Land" all at once!

What I mean by bringing up all of that - and there are plenty of instances of "big bag business" picking on the "little innocent guy" - is not to bad-mouth big business. I really think that people who have great ideas and a super-natural workethic (Sam Walton, for instance) should be rewarded with financial success. Financial success allows a person to have more choices - and, I think that that's the carrot I'm chasing - the ability to choose how I spend my days. The more financially success I achieve, the more I have the luxury of choosing from a wider variety of ways to spend my time on earth.

But I don't want my choices to take away choice from someone else!

We're back again to my central goal in trying to "be green" - to try to not be so greedy. I would like to think that society has evolved beyond an animalistic scramble for amassing resources. Yes, resources are limited. But they are abundant, too! If we make respectful, thoughtful choices, lots of people can share in them and be sustained by them!

Yeah, these are all grandiose ideas. I feel silly, sometimes, thinking about them. But my ultimate goal is to be a happy soul on this planet, and I think that thinking about my choices can increase my chances of being happy. So here we are, faithful readers. I've got a lot of different choices to think about, so you'll be hearing a lot more from me. I hope I'll be hearing from you!

Ben & Jerry to speak at Vanderbilt Oct. 2

"An Evening of Social Responsibility, Radical Business Philosophy and Free Dessert for All"

Tuesday, October 2, 2007, at 7 p.m.

Student Life Center ballroom

Tickets: Free-$10, available at Sarratt Box Office and at the door

The Ben & Jerry's brand was build on the idea of being a socially-responsible business. Though over the years that commitment has wavered, the founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are well-known for trying to drive social change through corporate practices.

You can check out more info on that here.

While I am inclined to be skeptical of "corporate social responsibility" - because I'm a cynic and because, from what I've learned about publicly-held corporations and the quarterly earnings set-up, I figure that numbers all-too-often trump the quality of those numbers.

Anyhow, Ben & Jerry's is at least talking about being socially responsible, which is a start. And I'd love to hear what they have to say about how to do it.