Going Green Means…

In response to Eiad’s latest blog post about the LiveSmart checklist (which, by the way, I did 19/52 of the things mentioned only), I found a similar checklist called “Thirty Ways to Get Sustainable At Home“. I think these checklists not only give inspiration to homeowners/general citizens how to conserve energy, but more importantly, it’s a reality check to gauge how well we’re doing in terms of being eco-friendly. Granted, the people who made up these lists probably have higher expectations of sustainability than the average citizen… but still, it makes you realize there are so many little things you could do to contribute to the ‘go green’ movement.
1. Make compost, or if you don’t want to build your own compost heap, give your organic waste to friends.

2. Move closer to work, or work at home when possible. Commuting accounts for more than a third of all car travel.

✔ 3. Reuse paper bags, envelopes, etc.

✔ 4. Maintain possessions instead of discarding them. With a few tools and a how-to book you can save money, resources, and landfill space.

5. Xeriscape with drought-tolerant native species in your yard. Plant shade trees and vines to keep cool in the summer.

6. Build an extra unit on top of your garage, or convert your home into a duplex or tri-plex; it will mean less open space sacrificed to new construction.

7. Install low-flow showerheads. With less water to heat, you’ll save water and energy.

✔ 8. Buy in bulk, and bring your own reusable containers to eliminate wasteful packaging.

9. Take down your back fence. Share garden space and play areas with your neighbors.

10. Use compact fluorescents, which screw into ordinary incandescent light-bulb sockets but use far less electricity. Add motion-sensing switches to turn them off when the room’s empty.

11. Ventilate with air-to-air heat exchangers. They pre-heat fresh air coming in with waste heat from the “old” air circulating out.

12. Plant deciduous shade trees to cut summer cooling bills. Put them on the west and east sides of the house to let light in during the winter.

✔ 13. Bike, walk, and use public transit.

14. Install a solar water heater; they’re often cost-effective even in cloudy areas.

15. Buy efficient appliances with smarter designs, like front-loading washers (they use half the water and detergent of top-loading washers). Check efficiency ratings you could save up to 13 percent of your household energy use.

16. Use non-toxic cleaners. Borax, vinegar, baking soda, salt, and lemon juice are a few of the many natural alternatives.

17. Move to a smaller house. Okay, maybe not right now, but when you do move, re-examine how much space you really need and how close you are to work and the services you need.

✔  18. Tune up your car. Without the required maintenance, it can lose up to 9 percent of its fuel efficiency.

✔ 19. Separate recyclables, and recycle ’em.

20. Landscape with edible plants. Decorative cabbage, fruit and nut trees are lovely in the yard.

21. Upgrade/service your furnace. Newer models are usually more efficient. Cleaning and adjusting your furnace also makes a big difference.

22. Eat lower on the food chain. Meat, eggs, and dairy products require disproportionately more land, water, and other resources to produce than they return in food value.

✔ 23. Carpool and combine trips.

24. Talk with your neighbors. If you find you don’t have time, cancel a trip to the shopping mall or put the TV in the basement.

25. Install faucet aerators. They work like low-flow shower heads; most have an on/off control to let you cut off the water while soaping up.

26. Store rainwater; use your roof as the collector. It’s clean, it’s free, it’s great for your garden or yard, and it doesn’t take energy to pump it to your house.

27. Caulk and weatherstrip, and insulate walls and ceilings. Local utilities will often subsidize bringing older houses up to current standards.

✔ 28. Fix leaky pipes. Even small ones can waste thousands of gallons of water a year, and most can be easily repaired by replacing worn parts.

29. Start a community garden in unused open space. Buy your food from local growers.

30. Install low-flush toilets and drop from six gallons per flush to one and a half. It saves money as well as water, by cutting utility bills and/or septic tank service calls.

Sadly, it seems that my family and I only do 8 out of 30 of these things… I guess it relates back to convenience and how it’s tough for a busy family of 4 to accomplish several of these things on the list because they are time-consuming and incompatible with our lifestyles. Either we need to make living sustainably more convenient, or change the lifestyles we pursue?

A few days ago I read Belz & Peattie’s Sustainability Marketing blog post about the importance of the commitment of employees in building a strong sustainability brands. Having just taught the team lecture with my group about sustainability marketing transformations, I also feel that empowered employees is one of the more important “essentials” for transformations discussed in Chapter 11 of our textbook, because employees represent the company and they are usually who the consumers interact with regularly. Their actions and thoughts must be consistent with the sustainability objectives of the business and they must have the brains and the passion to make the changes towards sutsainability, such as by implementing organizational process or information systems.

Belz & Peattie described a typology of 4 types of employees: Weak links, Bystanders, Loose Cannons, and Champions.

Taken from: http://www.sustainability-marketing.com/2010/09/employees-as-sustainability-brand.html

It seems that the weak links may be problematic for a company, since they don’t understand the meaning of the sustainability brand and they just don’t care. But although bystanders have the a deeper understanding, they aren’t committed to sustainability and they may actually undermine the brand. So how can a company transform and inspire these people?

As Melissa indicated in her blog post about BC’s green economy, the green job market is growing rapidly in BC. I see this as an opportunity but perhaps also a risk. It is an opportunity for companies to renew their employee base because they can recruit those who are seeking sustainability-related careers, often fresh grads who may be the Champions that they are looking for. This group of employees can then inspire and educate the existing employees on a peer-to-peer basis, making the whole organizational culture more ingrained with sustainability. However, a lot of job seekers may also engage in “window-dressing”; that is, they may just be exaggerating or feigning their commitment to sustainability for the sake of impressing employers. Perhaps they are just Bystanders who know about sustainability but don’t genuinely care… so green-focused companies must attract and recruit employees with caution.

Do you remember the classic children’s story “The Lorax” by Dr. Suess?

Well if you don’t… It is tale retold by a lonely Once-ler  to a boy who visits him. He tells of how he used to be an evil Once-ler who started chopping down trees in the forest of Truffula Trees to make his Thneeds, a garment that he insisted “everyone needs.” This is when he encountered the Lorax, who said that he’s there to “speak for the trees, as the trees have no tongues.” But of course, the Once-ler ignored the Lorax and because his business is grew bigger and bigger, the forest continued to become depleted, harming all the fantastical creatures that live there. At the end, the Once-ler chopped down the last Truffula tree. Unable to meet his demand anymore, his factories closed down and he saw the Lorax for the last time. The Lorax left behind a single message engraved on a pile of rocks: “UNLESS”.

Here’s the full clip of The Lorax. I watched the whole thing again, it was relaxing to kick back and watch a cartoon, but also very thought-provoking 🙂

The Lorax is clearly a fable through which Dr. Suess is trying to warn us about the harmful effects of an industrialized society if we don’t preserve the environment. The Lorax is an inspiring green enthusiast. In reality I think there is barely anyone who is truly a Once-ler nowadays, since most of us do care about the environment and are aware that it’s a finite resource if we don’t actively preserve or rebuild it.  But sometimes laziness, naivety, lack of personal responsibility or a profit-driven mindset may blind us from seeing Lorax’s view. What do you think the Lorax means when he leaves the final message of “UNLESS”?

The Once-ler says that “UNLESS” is a faraway thought and tells the boy, “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better”. I think that “faraway” is now – we should take sustainability beyond just a buzz word or something you should know about, but as a personal responsibility that we have to act upon.

FYI: I came across the Lorax when I was researching movies about sustainability.  Here’s the list if you guys have time to watch some of these! http://www.resourcesforlife.com/docs/item626

I was interested in what other countries have done to promote sustainability (plus one of my favourite pastimes is surfing YouTube). I came across a few ads for an energy saving campaign in Victoria, Australia. This is one of them:

Recently, BC Hydro has also been running such campaigns. I think it’s awesome that in both cases, it’s coming from the government which increases credibility. Relating to Tuesday’s lecture on Consumer Costs, these campaigns help to educate or raise awareness to consumers about the “Use” costs, because energy saved also leads to money saved.

A few days ago I was at work (I work at a well-known fashion retailer) and my coworker and I started talking about how wasteful our store was.

Specifically, what sparked this conversation was when we noticed how much paper was in the garbage can. When we receive shipments of clothing (a few times a week), we usually receive a lot of packaging paper or bubble wrap stuffed in the boxes too. The norm of how to deal with this paper is to just chuck it out in the garbage bin, since we don’t even have a recycling bin. My coworker and I have commented on how easy it would be to just start a new bag for recycling but management usually just shrugs it off by saying it’s just easier and quicker to not have to sort our trash. This is not the only instance when I’ve come across a situation at work that has left me feeling confused why we’re not being more sustainable when there are such easy fixes.

I’m sure there are more workers other than the two of us who care about being environmentally friendly, but perhaps we don’t strongly advocate it enough. I think it’s a very good example of how sustainability and important values in large organizations must be communicated from top-down; i.e. top management must live, breathe and speak these values in order for them to trickle down to front-line associates such as myself. I feel as though some employers care so much about sales productivity that they are not making the trade-off to minimize their environmental impact.

Another interesting thing to note is that we provide paper shopping bags for our customers’ purchases, but numerous times customers have “complained” and asked why we don’t have plastic bags because they’re sturdier, easier to carry and won’t get wet in the rain, etc. but I have always replied bluntly (and managing a smile): “Well this is more environmentally friendly” (and in my head I’m thinking “Are you kidding me?”).

I realize I’m ranting a bit here when instead I should be making a change. So I searched up “sustainability in the workplace” and found this site on “Greening the Workplace“. I think I’m already on the first item which is “auditing current practices” – just being aware of what we’re doing “wrong” right now is a big first step. Even though many fashion retailers have sustainability as a section on the website, it’s really time to move away from being “all talk” and aspiring to be sustainable, and instead let their actions speak for themselves.

I was interested in finding out which cities in the world are the most “green”, wondering if there’s any official ranking system since we talked a lot about  “green” brand ranking.

One site I came across posted a ranking in February of this year that ranked the following as the top 5 greenest cities:

This past weekend I was in Downtown and came across some eco-friendly jeans at Levi’s. At first I was intrigued that Levi’s incorporated some “green” in their product offerings (they claim to be the first to introduce 100% organic cotton jeans), but the fact that they had only 1 pair of eco jeans amongst their wide array of denim products was unimpressive.

Source: Ads of the World

After researching about it more on the Levi’s website, I learned that they also incorporate sustainability in their business by avoiding the use of harmful chemicals in the production process, trying to be a “zero-waste company”, caring for its employees, and helping to combat AIDS. But I feel as though all of this is the baseline of what the clothing industry should do anyway… which really drives home the lesson Tamar kept telling us that “you don’t have to be perfect to make change”. They definitely are not the “game changers” of sustainability marketing, but it’s nice they are taking a step towards sustainability. They are “green” for now, like most clothing brands, but perhaps one day the industry baseline will become “greener” and eventually “greenest”.

I’m going to leave this as a short post because this week has been hectic for me and probably for everyone else too. Wish you all good luck on your midterms!

Just this past summer, I visited the Expo 2010 in Shanghai with my Dad. I had a blast there and checked out a lot of different countries’ exhibits, including Canada’s.

I was pretty proud of the Canadian Pavilion not only because I got to bypass the hour-long lineup and go in as a VIP with my Canadian passport, but because of how Canada included sustainability into its Expo theme –  “The Living City: inclusive, sustainable, creative.” In particular, as explained on the Canada Expo website, one of the pillars of Canada’s theme is “Sustainable Cities”, indicating that our cities “strive to attain a balance between the needs of people and the environment, including the interdependence of rural and urban life.”

After doing some research to investigate how exactly Canada incorporated sustainability in its exhibition, I was happy to discover that Canada isn’t just all talk. For example, the exterior skin of the pavilion is made of 4000 m2 of Canadian red cedar, which is certified by the Canada Wood Association and Canada Wood China. Besides that, the structure is designed in such a way that the cedar boards can easily be dismantled so that it can be reused after the Expo is over. There is a “green wall” that leads to the courtyard outside the pavilion which operates as a natural bio air filter.

After today’s discussion in class about air travel and how it’s not very environmentally friendly, I think it’s interesting to note that the total expected visitors for the Shanghai Expo from May to October is 70 million, with the number of international visitors amounting to 3.5 million*. Even though some exhibits did a wonderful job showcasing their newest “green” technologies and advocating sustainable living methods, that’s a lot of flights and a lot of fuel used to gather people at these exhibits to learn more about sustainability, not to mention some people don’t even care about the “green-ness” of it, and not all exhibits have a sustainability aspect to it.

*Source: Expo 2010 Facts and Figures

A group of 10 graduate students from UBC Journalism have just won an Emmy award for a news documentary that investigates electronic waste (“e-waste”; such as discarded hard drives, cell phones, TV’s) and its impact on our health and environment. I’m proud that students from our own school won such a prestigious award and glad that they were recognized for uncovering this hidden global issue.

Their documentary, entitled Digital Dumping Ground, traces the path of e-waste to Ghana, China, and India – all smoldering wastelands where heaps of e-waste from the rest of the world has been dumped there. This raises concerns not just for people living in these places but it causes problems worldwide. Firstly, it has turned into a business where the locals sort and burn the waste to see what metals are left that they can re-sell. Even children are doing this and the burn sites are often near the shanty dwellings where they play, eat and live.  Secondly, criminals and scammers sometimes look through the thrown away hard drives for personal info and even valuable company info, leading to serious data fraud. In fact, it was found that Ghana is listed as one of the top sources of cyber crime in the world by the U.S. State Department.

This information was alarming to me because I would think that high-tech industries know to recycle responsibly. Besides, the culprits can be easily traced since many of the hard drives and containers still have company labels on them. Now that the documentary has raised more awareness about this issue, I hope changes will be made. Perhaps stricter laws can be imposed to regulate electronic waste disposal.

And to think that technology solves problems..

To watch the video or read the synopsis: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/

I want to start my first blog post as a call to action to all my fellow classmates.

My friend recently told me about the World Community Grid (WCG), which is a program sponsored by IBM.  WCG’s mission is “to create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity”. Sounds cool (especially to you tech saavy people), but what is it really? Well thanks to IBM who has created the infrastructure for the WCG, this program allows people to donate their unused computer power to process data for a variety of humanitarian research projects. It really strives to make advancements in important humanitarian research projects that would otherwise not be possible because of high costs related to setting up the computer infrastructure. All you have to do is download the software to your computer and you can even set preferences for the time period you want to contribute your idle time, and which projects you want to support (FightAIDS, Clean Water Project, Help Fight Childhood Cancer, to name a few). And as someone who has been running WCG for the past month, I assure you it really doesn’t slow down your computer!

When I first heard about the WCG at the beginning of the year, I thought it was such an amazing idea. My initial thought was “Wow, IBM and WCG have definitely made it so easy to make a difference, it gives people no excuse not to help.” My second thought was “This definitely relates to my sustainability marketing class somehow.” And after the first few classes of 486F, I realized that is really does relate. What IBM and the WCG have been doing is one example of what “going green” means – building sustainable relationships with customers, the social environment, and the natural environment. For users of the WCG, there is a “feel-good” factor of being able to contribute, and with such ease and minimal disruption to their everyday lives (truly doing something by doing nothing!). For society and for the environment, improvements are made through advancing humanitarian and environmental research which will one day transform into sustainability.

As a WCG supporter, I urge each and every one of you to join the WCG and make a difference (check out the links below). I know most of you will even end up spreading the word about WCG like me after you realize how amazingly easy it is. It’s a simple but great way to show our responsibility as future leaders to make a change towards sustainability.

About the WCG: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewAboutUs.do

My friend from SFU is an advocate of the WCG at his school, working towards promoting it to business students in particular.
Here’s their promotional video: SFU – World Community Grid
To download WCG with SFU (chance to win prizes!): http://wcg.caseit.net/