+ Climate Counts launches their 2nd scorecard

It's easy to get discouraged about sustainability, but Climate Counts offers hope that change is happening- and faster than you might think. Yesterday they released their 2nd annual company scorecard, and showed that 84% of companies surveyed have improved.

"Business is being pushed by consumers to do their part to solve the climate crisis," said Gary Hirshberg, chair of Climate Counts and CEO of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm. "The Scorecard allows consumers to make good climate decisions in their everyday purchases,and it's having an impact."

Google, Anheuser-Busch and Levi Strauss had the largest score improvement among those scores, each jumping over 20 points. Improvement was broad however, with the average company score improving 22 percent over last year. Nike passed last year's high scorer, Canon, to as the top scored company.

"Company transparency is critical to allowing consumers to make good decisions," said Wood Turner, Project Director. "The time for companies to just say 'trust us, we're good on climate' has passed, consumers want to see the proof behind the green claims. They want to know it's not just marketing talk, but real substantive action."

Visit their site for more details, and stay tuned!

+ Leisure & The Workplace

Back before the dot-bomb, businesses added foosball tables, Playstations, and exercise rooms to help increase productivity and improve company culture. While this isn't as popular as it was ten years ago, there is still a push to get the most out of our office space.

They're a couple years old, but Steelcase created some great ideas for collaborative and shared office furniture. I'm inspired to learn more about how leisure fits into the workplace and how our environment can help shape that.

Check out the Time magazine article on Steelcase's work here.

+ NFL Draft

In our study of Leisure and Entertainment I’ll be focusing on professional football as a form of entertainment and leisure for fans.



In about 24 hours, the 2008 NFL Draft will commence. Fans will follow their favorite college player’s fate, and/or their hometown team’s future.

NFL fans have zero input into draft decisions (for obvious reasons) but we don’t mind, arguing about draft picks is a form of leisure and entertainment all in itself.

Sports writers and broadcasters conduct mock drafts every year, and fans follow it as intently as they do the real draft.

An interesting spin I found to the draft is the involvement of the fantasy football world. NFL.com itself brings this idea to the table.

“What if general managers and head coaches made their first-round selections based on how it would affect fantasy football?”
Click here to read the full article and draft report from NFL.com.

If this idea were to ever really happen, it would turn a leisurely form of entertainment into a full-time job for some fans – and I don’t think we would mind!

+ MediaPost reports on Gen Y's demand for eco-fashion

Echoing many of the things we heard in our interview with green fashion pioneers Nau, MediaPost reports that Gen Y consumers are driving demand for environmentally and socially conscious clothing brands higher than ever:

For years, clothing has lagged behind other industries. And it's hard to deny that "green fashion" is oxymoronic: The environmental police demand that consumers reuse and recycle, while the fashion cops urge shoppers to cast off anything left over from last season. So it's hardly a shocker that the government estimates that each American throws away about 68 pounds of clothing and textiles each year.

"After all, the entire fashion industry is predicated on planned obsolescence," says Ian Yolles, VP/brand communication for Nau, a Portland, Ore.-based clothing company launched last year by a group of former Nike and Patagonia executives.

Full article here

+ Design can Change: the Graphic Design community takes a pledge

I frequently visit Eric Karjaluoto's site, ideasonideas which is a excellent collection of essays on design. (Eric is a Partner/Creative Director of smashLAB, a Interactive strategy & web development agency in Vancouver, Canada.)

His latest essay grabbed my attention, Reflections on Y13: Seeds of Change. Needless to say, I had to check out their initiative he mentioned in the essay, Design Can Change. It is a resource and commitment of a group of Graphic/Interactive Designers who seek design solutions that encourage sustainable design. I look forward to seeing this promising initiative grow.

So, please go check it out.

+ Coroflot talks about networking

To follow up on our interview with Steve Nielsen, there are some great articles over at Coroflot's blog Creative Seeds. For those in creative careers, Carl Alviani discusses the new ways people network and find jobs.

What we're really talking about here is a two-way process, unlike the one-way "siege" that once characterized the job search. Even while the job-seeker is finding ever more ways of contacting employers and finding opportunities, those employers are discovering more ways of finding out about their applicants.

Check out the full article here.

+ Social Networking and Business

CNN Video reports on how social networking sites are evolving from sources of entertainment into opportunities for business. The Mobile World Congress took place in Barcelona last month, and people from all over the world descended on the city, creating a temporary social and physical network. This kind of temporary, 3-day event is an ideal opportunity for these new forms of digital media to offer business advantages.

One company highlighted is Gypsii, which uses a mobile phone webtop to connect real life experiences with virtual ones.

Check out the video article here.

+ Dangers and Remedies for Multitasking

We were having a discussion the other day in the office about the real dangers of multitasking. We were all kind of drawing a blank. So, I went back and found some information to share with you. I’ll tell you why it is bad for you, and I know this will get your attention; it wastes time and money. Two things that I'm willing to bet are important to you. It wouldn’t be fair of me to make that statement without following it up with some remedies. Please check out this excellent article by Jeffrey Strain of TheStreet.com, Why Multitasking Wastes Time and Money, and get back to work you slacker.

+ Surf community launches a wave of sustainability initiatives

We covered Project Blue and Reef's Redemption program earlier, but a whole bunch of other, new eco-friendly surf products are in the works as well. It's really impressive to see the surf world rally around sustainability, and it's trends like these that show that, as fragmented as it might seem at times, it really is a community working together towards something bigger than any of us.

Thanks to our friends at Empire Ave for the info.

Rip Curl's bamboo fiber rashguard
"Rip Curl have developed an ‘eco-friendly’ polyester based material which they are using to make rashies. The fabric combines the natural fiber of bamboo with 65% recycled PET bottles.In addition to the eco materials, the Classic Bamboo rash vest has some great performance benefits including improved thermal properties and reduced odour (anti-bacterial). The vest that John West rejects (sorry couldn’t resist) will be available in July."

Element Eden
"Element Eden are giving one customer the chance to make a difference to their chosen wildlife society or conservation issue. Simply purchase one of their ‘Save Us’ tees, hoodies or bags until the end of June this year and fill in an entry form to go into the draw to win. The winner gets a donation of AU$5000 to the wildlife or conservation organisation of their choice."

Simple's eco-shoes
"Simple is working with famed photographer Joe Curren on some sweet looking eco-shoes. The shoes are made with eco-friendly materials such as recycled car tyre outsoles, organic cotton linings and the fabric is made from recycled water bottles."

Billabong's plastic surf shorts
"Billabong has discovered a way to churn recycled plastic bottle (yeah, your coke bottles) into top of the line, comfortable and durable surf shorts. Made from a fabric called Eco Supreme Suede, approximately ten bottles are needed to make on new pair of boardies."

+ Weblogg-ed urges teachers to get tech-savvy

As The Greener Grass focuses on communities, we see education as an opportunity where we can make an impact and start a dialogue on how to solve some of today's problems. One issue that seems to constantly stifle our education system is the use of technology in the classroom. For example, the use of laptops in classrooms can be both a learning tool and a distraction, as discussed in this NPR article.

One person taking on this challenge is Will Richardson. Will hosts Weblogg-ed and speaks to teachers on how they can integrate technology like blogs and wikis into their curriculum. One of his recent posts is on 21st Century Skills for Educators:

...if you’re not doing at least a little bit of social, networked learning and publishing that I can tap into and track and engage with, I’m just not as inclined to buy in when you’re talking about reforming education with or without technology...if you want your ideas to resonate with me and to be taken seriously, don’t just talk. Engage. Publish. Converse. Add your voice to the network of people who are living these ideas every day.

Check out the full post here.

+ Polldaddy becomes searchable

Mashable pointed me to some interesting new features at a service called Polldaddy. The website allows you to create free online surveys and polls, or pay a small fee for added features and support. The important part is that this data becomes searchable by all who contribute.

As a product development company, we use both qualitative and quantitative research to evaluate and test ideas. While Polldaddy data won't be appropriate for every project, it adds another dimension to what we can do with projects that have small budgets or tight timelines. What excites me about Polldaddy is that it may be able to connect us with people who are normally hard to access.

This is just another example of how strong a tool technology has become in forming and understanding communities.

+ Online Communities

With the introduction of the internet, virtual communities began forming. From the early BBS to today's MySpace and Facebook, we've found ways to form social networks with people all over the world.

One of the best resources for information about social networks in Mashable. These bloggers cover everything from the mainstream to the most niche upstarts, giving them an extensive archive of social networking news. If you're interested in this subject at all, be sure to check it out.

For a critical look into what's happening between social networking rivals LinkedIn and Facebook, check out Mashable's breakdown of the trendy personalization features new to each site.

+ Making Good Ideas Work

Very often great ideas and good intentions run into the unavoidable roadblock known as the real world. Without funding it difficult to achieve goals or even begin to initiate realistic strategies. Rather than being defeated by lack of means or fortune, one way that communities with emerging economies are enabled to make sustainable progress is through the use of microcredit. The concept of microcredit began with Professor Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh with a $27 loan. Since then millions of lives have been improved. Dr. Yunus was awarded the Nobel prize in 2006 and his Grameen brand is now grown well beyond banking. The beauty of this amazing story is in it's simplicity and effectiveness:
http://muhammadyunus.org/content/view/93/123/lang,en/

Another trend in effecting positive change is the growing influence of social entrepreneurship. Nonprofit organizations are adopting for-profit business models to become more self-sustaining. These hybrid ventures are able to achieve a greater scale of success.
It is exciting to see how far a good idea can go:
http://muhammadyunus.org/content/view/99/123/lang,en/
http://www.epals.com/

+ Strategy+Business on "The Google Enigma"

As part of our discussion of family & community, we'll be looking at the effects of technology. Whenever technology comes up, one of the names that's sure to be mentioned is Google. To be sure, they've transformed the way we do business, find and process information, and the radically increased the speed of communication. But, as this article points out, their success isn't as straightforward as it might seem. Furthermore, it can be problematic to look to Google as a way of establishing best practices and takeaways that can be applied to other businesses.

Whenever a company becomes wildly successful in a brief span of time, it naturally becomes an object of fascination for corporate executives and even the general public. More than that, it comes to be presented as a new model for business success. Reporters and scholars scour its history and its practices, looking to distill general lessons for other firms to copy. Google is no exception. Over the last two years, the workings of the company’s “idea factory,” as Business Week describes it, have been dissected in cover stories in all the major business magazines, and business school professors have published studies documenting how the company organizes and manages its product development efforts. In his new book, The Future of Management, London Business School professor Gary Hamel calls Google “a modern management pioneer” that “has much to teach us about how to build companies that are truly fit for the 21st century.”

That’s heady stuff, and it’s hard not to get caught up in the hype. But business executives have at least two reasons to think twice before leaping aboard the Google bandwagon. First, for all its success, Google is still a young company, and it has yet to be tested by adversity. We don’t even know whether its approach to management, and in particular its approach to innovation, is a cause of its success or a product of its success — a crucial distinction. Second, we don’t know how well Google’s example applies to other businesses. Google is certainly a different sort of company, but is it so different as to be anomalous? Is the company an exemplar or a freak?

Read the full article here- free registration is required, but it's certainly worth it.

+ Family & Community

As our unit on Energy winds down (check back soon for a few more concepts), our next theme is Family & Community. Here's how Wikipedia defines community:

A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

We define community as a group of people sharing a particular space and common interests. A family is a fundamental form of a community.

We'll be learning about how communities have been affected by technology, urbanism and sprawl, education, and more. Based on our interviews, we'll create concepts every Friday that strive to solve some the problems of today's communities.

+ Energy and Meat

We're supposed to be wrapping up our energy research, but I had to point energy-conscious readers to a great article from last Sunday's NY Times: Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler, by Mark Bittman. As Mark notes:

A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil. It's meat.

Noting that Americans eat nearly 200 pounds of meat a year, Bittman cites data from several academic sources that each of those pounds of meat requires about 16 times as much fossil fuel to produce as the same caloric amount of vegetables. On top of that, it is estimated that 900 million tons of manure are produced each year. Whew!

In interesting side note from the article is that on an energy basis, it turns out that pigs and chickens are far more efficient at converting feed into meat. Mr. Bittman did his homework, and there's a lot more interesting information in this story. Not to mention the usual fine visual charts and diagrams. Check it out before you're next trip to the supermarket.

+ Light Up The World Foundation

We’ve been talking a lot on The Greener Grass about the overconsumption of energy, electricity in particular. An important part of the discussion that we haven’t addressed so far is the parts of the world that have little or no access to electricity. We take for granted what it means to have electricity – access to heat and light (even after the sun goes down), convenient ways or storing and cooking food, communication with the outside world, and much more.

There are many great organizations aimed at providing assistance for people without electricity. One that stood out to us was the Light Up The World Foundation. They are a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Calgary, that aims to provide light to people in developing countries that have little or no access to electricity. Light is a valuable resource, especially for the education of children. So far, the Light Up The World Foundation has lit up more than 14,000 homes in 42 different countries.



The existing method for lighting homes with no electricity is most commonly kerosene lamps. Although they are effective, kerosene lamps have a lot of issues. They are dangerous, unhealthy, pollution producing, and require on ongoing supply of kerosene gas which is expensive and not always easily accessible. Light Up The World’s solution is to provide basic LED lamps to replace the kerosene ones. LEDs provide very bright light with minimal energy input, so little in fact that they can be easily charged using small solar panels.

Watch this short video to learn more about how the Light Up The World Foundation started, and how they are lighting up the lives (and hearts) of people around the world.



Light Up The World Foundation Webiste: www.lutw.org

+ Are Compact Fluorescents the Way of the Future?

Lighting is a major sources of electricity consumption. Incandescent bulbs are known to be very energy in-efficient because they waste a lot of energy in the form of heat. This year has seen a big push for more efficient lighting solutions. Several countries around the world have banned the use of traditional incandescent bulbs including, Australia, Canada and Brazil. In the US, President Bush’s recent energy bill stated that beginning 2012, all new light bulbs will have to use 25%-30% less energy for the same amount of light as today’s bulbs.

There are many energy efficient alternatives to incandescent bulbs, including LEDs and halogens, but so far compact fluorescent bulbs have received the most attention and adoption. Compact fluorescent are currently up to 70% more efficient than incandescent bulbs and last 6-10 times as long, reducing both energy usage and waste. Wal-Mart has been one of the main supporters of compact florescent bulbs, pushing the bulb's sale within their stores.

The main complaint about compact fluorescent bulbs so far, has been the institutional, harsh, cool light that they give off. North Americans in particular, prefer the warm light of an incandescent bulb in their homes. The warm light is gives emotional comfort and a perceived sense of calm.

“To many people, giving up incandescent lighting means relinquishing some intangible, beloved quality associated with home in favor of a ghastly institutional glow.”

The New York Times recently published this article about compact fluorescents. They asked 12 members of their staff to try out 21 different low energy light bulbs (including 14 compact fluorescents) and evaluate them based on the quality of light. Their top choices are summarized in this chart. Their first choice was the Phillips Halogena because it produced “nice, soft, golden light”. The top compact fluorescent choices included the n:vision TCP Home Soft White and the TCP Spring Light/Soft White.

“Although most of the compact fluorescents were deemed unacceptable by the panel, there were several that were found to be not only acceptable but attractive.”

Although adoption of energy efficient light bulbs has been slow, the attention to these bulbs is still new and the technology and education systems around these alternatives is still developing. Tom Dixon is quoted in the article in regards to the quality of light produced by compact fluorescent bulbs, saying “I’m sure there were the same arguments when gas lighting replaced candles. The light’s quality is very different, and it’s going to take people some time to adjust to that.”

New York Times Article: Any Other Bright Ideas?

+ SunTable

Two Brooklyn designers (Devang A. Shah & Michael Low) got together and created an outdoor recreational table with a solar panel top. The SunTable.

SunTable is made to be left outside and used as a part of daily life. It uses the highest quality parts, and is designed from the ground up for sustainability and ease of recycling (90% is reclycable). It is designed and assembled in the USA.



The table can store 13 amp hours, at 12 volts and charges in 3 hours of sunlight. That equals 156 Watts in total. That is enough power to run a laptop for over 3 hours, or a TV for 4.

Designed for intermittent electrical use, it has an LED monitor which will display the charge level of the table. The energy is stored in a battery and accessible with the 12V DC outlet on the side of the table itself. An 120V AC inverter is also available.

+ Scientific American: Coal ash more radioactive than nuclear waste

Things are rarely as simple as they look, and nuclear power is certainly no exception. Check out this excellent article from Scientific American for some really fascinating analysis on the radioactive output of coal (found via Slashdot):

The popular conception of nuclear power is straight out of The Simpsons: Springfield abounds with signs of radioactivity, from the strange glow surrounding Mr. Burn's nuclear power plant workers to Homer's low sperm count. Then there's the local superhero, Radioactive Man, who fires beams of "nuclear heat" from his eyes. Nuclear power, many people think, is inseparable from a volatile, invariably lime-green, mutant-making radioactivity.

Coal, meanwhile, is believed responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions. But it isn't supposed to spawn three-eyed fish like Blinky.

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.

Read the full article here.

+ New Energy Bill from 2007

(This may seem like old news for some of you)


Last December, president Bush signed into law the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The bill will help reduce America's dependence on oil, enhance energy conservation and efficiency and make the largest CO2 production cut in our countries history.

Here are the big bullets but to see the official fact sheet click here::

This new bill will:

+ increase our alternative fuel supply
+ set the national fuel economy standard 40% by 2020
+ provide provisions to improve lighting efficiency
+ set a new appliance efficiency standard
+ promote green building technology

+ The "how to" in going green

Treehugger has an excellent collection of informational 'how to' lists on going green in various parts of our lives. With tips on planning a green wedding, raising a baby, how to green your wardrobe and giving green gifts. They have many many more lists to look through from the basics to the very specific.

If you're interested in taking a few steps towards a more sustainable life check it out. Find a list that relates to you and learn how easy it can be to make simple adjustments that will benefit everyone.

+ Nanosolar Powersheets

Popular Science named Nanosolar Powersheets the Innovation of the Year for 2007. Nanosolar is revolutionizing the solar industry by making solar panels as thin sheets instead of the traditional bulky solar panels.

"The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute."

Up to this point most solar panels have been made out of silicon which require mounting on glass plates, making the panels thick, fragile, inefficient to manufacture and hard to install. Nanosolar's Powersheets do not use silicon and can be thinly printed, decreasing their cost, and increasing the number of possibilities when it comes to installation.

"You can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air."

For more information and an explanation of how the Powersheets work, visit the Popular Science Best of What's New website or Nanosolar's website.

+ Energy Awareness Billboards

Energy companies have been putting a lot of effort into raising awareness about growing energy demands. One way they have been doing this is through innovative billboards. Here are a couple of attention grabbing examples:

1. Use Energy Wisely - An energy conservation billboard by Eskom in South Africa.


2. LED Lights Use Less Electricity - A human-powered billboard by BC Hydro in Canada.


3. This isn't a Billboard. It's a Power Plant - A solar panel/billboard by Pacific Gas and Electric Company in the USA

+ Sharp Solar Systems

Sharp is one of the largest manufactures of solar cells. They have put together a short video that illustrates their vision of the future, where solar electricity is not only powering businesses but also large-scale utilities, neighborhoods, billboards, streetlights and portable electronics.

+ VentureOne

Imagine a car that gets 100 mpg, does 0-60 mph in 7 seconds, has a top speed above 100 mph, and costs less than $20,000. The VentureOne is just that, its a 3 wheeled, 2 passenger flex-fuel hydrid vehicle. This innovative concept tilts as you turns, like a motorcycle and is getting a lot of attention. It is sized similarly to the Mini Cooper, but the VentureOne is narrower. Be sure to check out the video section where you can see a prototype in action. While a release date is unknown, they are taking pre-preorders on their website and production is slatted to start in late 2008.

+ Nokia's Eco Sensor

Nokia's Eco Sensor Concept is a mobile phone paired with a sensing device that will help you stay connected to both people, and your health and local environment. One can also share the data the sensing device collects which is supposed to help increase global environmental awareness. The sensor would be worn with a wrist or neck strap made from solar cells and will collect data relating to carbon monoxide, particulate matter and ozone concentrations, UV radiation, heart rate, noise level, air pressure, temperature and humidity.



The construction of the phone-like device is also ecofriendly. Nokia believes printed electronics is a promising technology which will allow for smaller devices. Bio-materials such as polylactic acid (PLA) are bio-based modifiers and can reduce the use of non-renewable materials and also results in less energy consumption to create the plastic pellets. Plans to make the housing from 100% reclaimed steel make this device very ecofriendly.

+ How will the U.S. Green Building Council L.E.E.D us to a better tomorrow?

The U.S.G.B.C is a group of non-profit organizations "from across the building industry that are working to