Description:
Bringing community to your neighborhood. Helping you create community wherever you live. a proud supporter of the Cohousing Association of the United States.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
SBP021 Ray Anderson / Google Video Interview
The personal story of Ray Anderson's realization that businesses need to embrace principles of sustainability, and of his efforts, often frustrating, to apply these principles within a billion dollar corporation that is still measured by the standard scorecards of the business world. While the path has proved to have many curves, Interface is demonstrating that the principles of sustainability and financial success can co-exist within a business, and can lead to a new prosperity that includes human dividends as well.
The video is an interview of Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface. Interface is a maker of carpets, and in the interview Mr. Anderson describes how he was accidentally thrust into the role of leading his company to making sustainable products. Carpets like many products draw raw materials, and I'm sure there are many ways that carpets can be made so that they are healthy and sustainably produced and easily recycled.
The video is very interesting in terms of describing the leadership it requires to lead a company towards producing sustainable products.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
"Fatal flaw" for green technology companies
Hmm, interesting thought raised by Michael Kanellos. Can 'green' technology or business become hip to the extent that people will camp out overnight for a green product launch?
Hurm. He portrays green technology like solar panels as incredibly boring. He suggests that green business is soley about energy generation. Well, energy generation is rather boring and it's especially boring watching a solar panel do it's job because, well, it just sits there. But I find them rather interesting technologies. Maybe that's why I end up with a 'group 4 boarding pass' though I totally have missed the point of why he thinks that means anything.
He suggests this is a flaw of these companies. That because they can't help but be boring, then 'nobody' will pay attention to these technologies, and because they're not ever going to be hip they'll never make an impact. Hurm.
If that's the way things turn out, then it's a sad commentary on human's ability to reason. Supposedly the ability to reason is the great achievement of humanity over other animals. That ability to reason is what enabled our species to win out in the struggle of evolution to become the dominant species of this planet. But we are in a trap created by the technology created by our ability to reason.
It is clear, in a reason and logic way of looking at our situation, that 'we' (humanity) need to change our ways. But to say we aren't going to change our ways because the alternatives aren't hip, well, that says our human brethren are not using their reasoning abilities.
Sigh. Can I migrate to another planet? Please?
Article Reference:
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Applied Materials makes third solar acquisition
Applied Materials is a major supplier of equipment to the semiconductor industry. In many ways the innovations by Applied Materials enables the rest of the semiconductor industry to continue moving forward. In any case they have made a series of acquisitions of companies specializing in solar power manufacturing tools. The latest is Baccini, a European company specializing in manufacturing tools.
Article Reference:
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Green Business gets more real, customers wary
A report titled 'the State of Green Business' is discussed, written by some people from 'Greener World Media'. State that businesses are making progress on environmental issues, however it seems insufficient to significantly reduce environmental threats. Supposedly an increase in companies recognizing the importance of pursuing environmentally sound policies.
Article Reference:
Friday, December 14, 2007
The use-once-and-toss treadmill
It seems the businesses surrounding us, the businesses that fill our stores with products, that these businesses are dependent on ever growing sales. The stock market values companies whose earnings are always growing, and punish those whose earnings are stagnant or declining. But, what does this have to do with "use it once and throw it away"?
It used to be that products were reliable, that they would last for years, that you could repair things, and that people did actually repair things and keep using them for years on end. Today most products are cheaply built, they don't last, they are unrepairable, they tend to fall apart quickly, and many products are meant to be used only once and then thrown away.
If a product can only be used once doesn't this encourage more consumption of products? If your eating utensils are plastic and unwashable, then you have to buy a new set of them after every meal. If your pen cannot be refilled then you have to buy a whole new pen, rather than buying just a refill. If your MP3 player cannot have its battery replaced, if the circuit board is too complex to repair, what do you do when it breaks? It goes on and on like this with product after product.
This makes for an ever increasing flow of stuff being sent to landfills, and ever increasing destruction of the planet to make raw materials. Well, to be precise there is always a constantly increase in products being made simply because the population constantly increases. But I think that compounding the ever increasing population is the higher quantity per person on the rate of consumption, that we are consuming more per person than did our ancestors.
Making any raw material, whether it's a metal, a plastic, a fabric, or a wood, requires taking some sort of resource and converting it to the raw material. For example it might mean mining and smelting copper ore, and the copper ore is gotten by tearing rocks out of the depths of the earth or in some cases by destroying mountains. Producing the copper leaves a residue of many other chemicals and slag left over from the industrial processes. And, then, say the raw material is turned into a product that's used once, and thrown away. This isn't making very good use of the resources given to us by the planet. An ever increasing use of raw material means an ever increasing destruction of the planet.
If a resource is reused multiple times then that planetary destruction rate is lessened. But a use-once-and-toss paradigm hastens planetary destruction.
Our ancestors did a lot of recycling through simply reusing discarded stuff. Recycling and repairing used to be normal, but today recycling seems to be so completely foreign that one almost has to beg and plead with everyone to get them to recycle.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
25 Resources to reduce, recycle and reuse plastic grocery bags
A short, academic essay on plastic grocery bags and their environmental impact: http://www.healthgoods.com/Education/Environment_Information/Solid_Waste/paper_or_plastic.htm Reduce: How to reduce the number of plastic grocery bags used by yourself and your community The main way people seem to be working to reduce the usage of plastic grocery bags is through the use of reusable canvas bags.
...This segment from National Public Radio on the San Francisco plastic grocery bag ban: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8888798 9.... This article discusses California law AB2449 which requires retailers to sell reusable bags and to provide for recycling of plastic grocery bags: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/jul/11/grocery-bags-get-recycled/ Recycle: Here’s information on how and where to recycle plastic grocery bags Many stores now recycle shopping bags.... An article on How to Recycle Plastic Grocery Bags http://www.ehow.com/how_10885_recycle-plastic-grocery.html Reuse: Here are some great resources to give you ideas on how to reuse plastic grocery bags Reusing the bags is an great idea especially if it allows you to reduce or eliminate some other material you’re currently purchasing.
Article Reference:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)