CT Green Scene

Social Media at Its Finest

I felt a bit like a little kid before Christmas this week, as I conjured up the idea that a Tesla Roadster would be fun to have at a special event we're having at Windermere on the Lake on November 20th (yes, mark your calendars).

The 100 percent electric sports car goes 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds and over 200 miles on a single charge-which comes from a 220 v plugin.

A two-seater and priced at $100,000, it's well beyond my means, but some people in this area may be able to do the planet a favor and trade in their HUMMMER for one.

Well, I wasn't able to get a Roadster for the event...we're getting TWO...one for display and one to test drive around the Windermere Eco-Village grounds!

So how did I do it? Using social media, networking and groupsites. People from around the U.S. wrote back and gave me connections that I followed until I got an inside connection to Telsa Corporate.

It's amazing how connected we all really are, and what you can turn up if you only ask!

What Is Smart Growth and Why Should You Care?

By now, you probably get the idea that our planet's resources are finite, but many people are beginning to catch on to the fact that our need to design, plan and build communities that are "smart" and conserve our limited natural resources, while creating a strong sense of community is imperative.  On the financial side of the coin, developers, architects, builders and real estate agents are seeing great investment potential in smart growth, even in a slowed up economy.

So what is Smart Growth?

Smart growth as defined by experts at CT Smart Growth:

Mixed land use: "Our post World War II land use decisions have separated and compartmentalized the various aspects our lives.  We live in one place, work in another, and venture to still another place for shopping and entertainment.  This separation has created a car-centric society and taken away from the vitality of the traditional town center or Main Street. Smart growth supports the integration of mixed land uses into communities as a critical component of achieving better places to live. By putting uses in close proximity to one another, alternatives to driving, such as walking or biking, once again become viable."

Compact Building Design: "Compact building design suggests that communities be designed in a way which permits more open space to preserved, and that buildings can be constructed which make more efficient use of land and resources. By encouraging buildings to grow vertically rather than horizontally, and by incorporating structured rather than surface parking, for example, communities can reduce the footprint of new construction, and preserve more greenspace."

Housing Opportunities: "Providing quality housing for people of all income levels is an integral component in any smart growth strategy. Housing is a critical part of the way communities grow, as it is constitutes a significant share of new construction and development. More importantly, however, is also a key factor in determining households' access to transportation, commuting patterns, access to services and education, and consumption of energy and other natural resources."

Walkable Communities: "As the personal and societal benefits of pedestrian friendly communities are realized - benefits which include lower transportation costs, greater social interaction, improved personal and environmental health, and expanded consumer choice -- many are calling upon the public and private sector to facilitate the development of walkable places."

Other elements include: Strong Sense of Place, Preserve Open Spaces, Infill Development, Wide array of Transportation Choices, Fair and Predictable Development Decisions, and Community Collaboration. To find out more about the other 6 elements of smart growth, as well as valuable resources, visit CT Smart Growth. Also, check out this incredible Smart Growth project slated for Georgetown.

 

 

Hey, You Gonna Eat That?

Food waste composted into nutrient rich soil

By News Channel 8's Chris Velardi
Posted September 18, 2008
4:55 PM

Northford (WTNH) -- One company is collecting food waste and composting it into a nutrient rich soil to sell it to farmers around the state.

It's time for the weekly pick-up at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. A truck is coming for a specific type of trash -- the 'food waste' from Choate's cafeteria.

"We measured it for a couple of meals and we said, okay, one meal was 170 pounds of food," Katrina Linthorst Homan, of Choate Rosemary Hall, said. "And what does that mean if it's all year long?"

It means the school throws out about a ton of food a week.

"For a lifetime, it's been trash," Andy Bozzuto, of Global Environmental Services, said. "But, to be quite honest with you, we could look at it as commodities in the mix -- that's all."

It is a commodity to Andy Bozzuto who's been in the trash business for 45 years.

His company -- Global Environmental Services -- picks up the food waste from schools like Choate, Yale University, and others. And, it takes it to a plant in New Milford where it's 'composted' -- turning the trash into a type of treasure.

It's becomes a nutrient-rich soil favored by organic farmers.

"Because of the food waste, that's composted and the process that they take to do it, it becomes high in nutrients," Bozzuto said.

So how does a guy who's been a lifelong trash hauler know so much about nutrient-rich soil? Why does he care so much? Well, it turns out that Bozzuto, and his brothers, also have a family farm.

Bozzuto says it's a better way of looking at trash -- recycling coming full-circle.

"We're pulling this food waste out of the waste stream. We're composting it into a product that's needed for the organic farming side of it," Bozzuto said. And, being a little more green in the process.

The New Milford company that composts the food waste is currently the only facility that is licensed to do that in Connecticut.

Fake Trees that Generate Energy?

Trees are experts at converting the sun into energy, and the people at Solar Botanic Energy Systems have come up with a way to create artificial trees in order to harness the power of the sun and wind. With the use of nanotechnology, the twenty different species of trees that Solar Botanic Energy creates will create energy much the same way that regular trees do. Due to the combination of photovoltaic and thermovoltaic in the nanoleaves, they are able to convert light and heat into energy. Almost all of the light from the sun will be absorbed, except for the green light, and the leaves will also absorb the infrared wave, or radiation, even hours after the sun has set.

To fully integrate all the aspects of a tree, Solar Botanic Energy has also infused the twigs and branches with nano piezo-electric elements. These elements detect the stresses on the twigs and branches whenever the leaves flap in the wind or rain. Every time they flap, the nano piezo-electric elements will produce thousands of picowatts of energy. The stronger the wind, the more energy the tree can produce.

Solar Botanic Energy has decided to start plant their first palm tree in the Middle East. This palm tree should produce 5000 kilowatts hours per year. The company has already begun offering these trees to the government. The lifespan of these trees are about 30 years. Not only does it offer cheaper electricity alternatives, it also offers the same benefits as regular trees from shade to windbreaking and cooling. Solar Botanic Energy offers low installation costs and there is also governmental grants available for the planting of the trees.

Learn more at the Solar Botanic Energy System site.

Demand Grows for Farmers' Markets

Via CT Environmental Headlines
EVERTON BAILEY Jr.

Connecticut Post: 07/05/2008 11:23:52 PM EDT

With summer officially under way, the 2008 Connecticut Farmers Market season is yielding a bumper crop of new markets around the state — with more and more people demanding locally grown products in the face of rising food prices.

Rick Macsuga, marketing representative for the state Department of Agriculture, said there has been a significant increase in requests by towns and cities to offer farmers' markets.

"Town involvement has definitely increased over the years," he said. "Before, we would kind of have to reach out to towns in order to hold a farmers' market. But nowadays, more towns have been reaching out to us and demanding more and more farmers' markets.

"With more and more town support, it definitely makes this process a lot smoother and easier," he said.

Macsuga said 21 new farmers' markets will debut this season, bringing the total statewide to "a little over 100," with 320 farmers contributing fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy and other produce. However, farmers are not the only suppliers to these markets. Fishermen, bakers and florists also participate, adding variety to the markets.

The draw of the farmers' market is "the fact that it is local," Macsuga said, "that the money spent here stays here. There is less of a carbon footprint and the food travels less miles in order to get here."

Customers at the Fairfield Farmers Market at Greenfield Hills agreed.

"I like the whole ambiance of the farmers' market," said Fairfield resident Art Beagan.

Some just want to help support hometown goods. "I like the idea of buying local, homegrown products," said P.J. Calyne, of Fairfield, who was shopping with his wife, April, and two children, Abigail and Alexandra.

Others have another agenda.

"I like the cookies," said Abigail with a giggle.

Vendors say they most enjoy the one-on-one contact when dealing with buyers of their crops.

The Cow in the Living Room

A few months ago while I was surfing for events to post, I came across the CT Audubon Society's Annual Fundrasier. Dramatic images of soaring birds promoted this year's theme: Birds of Prey.

I glanced at the menu for the event: Chicken cacciatore.

I picked up the phone and did a quick survey of meat-eating friends and family. Did this strike them as odd?

I held back from posting about it: until I read the latest issue of E Magazine and saw the publisher of this Connecticut-based magazine may agree.

The Cow in the Living Room

By Doug Moss, Publisher E Magazine, Norwalk, CT

"I politely passed on the offer of a bison burger at a recent Ted Turner-hosted fundraising event I attended in New York City (no, I’m not a donor—we were invited as press). But I couldn’t resist a wisecrack and a wink to the server that it was only because I was full, having had a dog burger on the way over.

It is funny, though, how social and environmental change work. The bad news about meat has been plain as day and out in print for decades (the only new news is that we have now discovered that the industry is also warming the globe). Jim Mason’s Animal Factories (Three Rivers Press), written with Peter Singer and published in 1980, could be re-released today without a heckuva lot of updating. Mason traveled some 10,000 miles around North America with a photographer friend, documenting the horrific conditions on factory farms and what the industry meant for our health, the environment, world hunger challenges and animal welfare.

When the book came out, though, the press didn’t want to know about it. Neither did most of the environmental groups or, for that matter, many of the animal welfare groups that were content to focus on their puppies and kitties and charismatic wildlife, which raised a lot of money and sold a lot of wall calendars. Peter Singer’s seminal solo effort, Animal Liberation (Harper Perennial), published five years earlier in 1975, also fleshed out the topic, as have numerous books since—but it’s still steak and chicken for dinner 33 years later at many an environmental fundraiser.

Environmental leaders and advocates who resist change in this area need to realize that this is exactly how the world at large reacts when we come at them with our demands to properly recycle, eschew bottled water for tap, opt for the hybrid vehicle (or the bus or the bicycle), replace those incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents or use both sides of a sheet of (recycled) paper. It’s sometimes not easy to make changes to lifestyle habits that are so ingrained. But if those of us in the trenches are hammering the world at large to do so, we need to look at the poor choices we still make ourselves and do what we’re always telling others to do: change." Visit E Magazine to read more...

Are you a Social Entrepreneur?

Corporate Sustainability: Employees Want the Change

Via Fresh Marketing

"It's a new era for business:  more and more business leaders recognize that their company's future is increasingly intertwined with the needs and demands of society.  What many executives don't understand is how best to manage that changing relationship."

New research by Fresh Marketing reveals that employees are embracing the principles of corporate social responsibility - they want the change and they are looking for ways to bring their values to work. The research also reveals the uncertainty felt by executives over how to successfully address the environmental, and social impacts of their businesses.

Fresh Marketing has engaged many peers and business leaders in this conversation over the past few years. With the goal of supporting employees, we conducted the Corporate Sustainability Employee Study, a 9-minute online survey, in the first quarter of 2008. Study sponsors included Re:Vision, Kelley Campaigns and Natural Logic.

Addressing the environmental, social and economic impacts of business, or corporate sustainability, includes many areas that run deep and wide in an organization.  This can include eliminating waste in the supply chain, reducing the carbon footprint of office buildings, ramping up corporate wide volunteer programs, ensuring that all workers are paid fair and equitable wages and reducing the toxins or harmful ingredients in products. 

The 2008 Corporate Sustainability Employee Study reports on data collected from 129 employees from a range of large corporations to small and medium enterprises. 

To delve more deeply on this topic, we also held in-depth conversations with thought leaders and willing employees. 

Those who agreed to be quoted include interviews conducted with:

Michael Dupee - Head of CSR, Green Mountain Coffee
Tavia Bentley - Community Affairs Executive, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, UK
Amy Hall - Director of Social Consciousness, Eileen Fisher
Justin Smith - Business Development Manager, Domtar 
Catherine Sanders - Project Manager, Morningstar, Inc.
Dianne Dillon-Ridgley - Board Member, Interface

Email: Saaron@freshmarketing.com for the full report.

Behind the Green Scenes

Thursday, June 05, 2008
By Adam Bulger
Hartford Advocate

For a green-themed event, the May 29 Green Drinks at the University of Hartford was a black tie affair. The white tent on the West Hartford university campus was laid out more like a college graduation party than an environmental event, with several bottles of wine on ice and a plate of cut cheese and crackers. Attendees wore business casual attire, exchanged business cards and networked.

Describing the dress and décor might sound dismissive or petty. But, arguably, it was a sign of the evolution of environmentalism from fringe concern to mainstream business goal

"If they had this event a couple of years ago, everyone would have come in Birkenstocks and Volvos," Nathan A. Nunez said.

Nunez, the marketing director of Northeast Lamp Recycling, an East Windsor company he said was "green before there was green." They recycle lamps and light bulbs, offering ways to deal with potentially toxic materials like the mercury in energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs.

He said it was important for his company to attend events like this to exchange information. Despite the interest in green products and practices displayed both by consumers and by businesses, there are still a lot of faulty assumptions out there.

"I remember watching television when [television network] NBC 'went green' for a week," Nunez said. "They planted a tree — because it was supposed to be green, you know — and they poured bottled water on it."

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association was one of the co-sponsors of the Green Drinks event. The CBIA's involvement indicated that the underlying spirit of the event was a sense of marketing and business savvy, not moral high-mindedness.

"We're not doing this out of any sense of obligation," CBIA spokesperson Nancy Andrews said. "This is completely market-driven. We have customer surveys that show that the market is demanding this."

United Technologies Corporation also sponsored the event. Had the event been more activist-based, UTC's environmental history might have kept them off the roster: They paid $5.3 million to the Federal government for environmental penalties in a 1993 settlement. The company rehabilitated its reputation since then. They are founding members of the Pew Center for Climate Study's Business Environmental Leadership Council and have been at the forefront of research on fuel cell and other energy efficient technologies.

The Green Drinks event was organized by Heather Burns-DeMelo, the president of GreenScenes, a Connecticut-based environmentally-themed event planning and marketing business.

This was the second Green Drinks event coordinated by Burns-DeMelo, and like the earlier event at Hartford's Real Art Ways, attracted dozens of people. Previously, Green Drinks was organized by Connecticut Forest & Park Association Executive Director Eric Hammerling. Burns-DeMelo said Hammerling's background with non-profits brought in people from the nonprofit world, and that her business and marketing background attracted another group of people.

"We bring people from all different sectors into a common space," Burns-DeMelo said.                 ¦

Send comments to

abulger@hartfordadvocate.com

Thule Installing Solar Power At US Headquarters in Seymour

Thule Inc., best known for its vehicle roof rack systems, will install a 318-kilowatt solar power system at its U.S. headquarters in Seymour, Connecticut.

Thule’s system will consist of two separate arrays with a total of 1,876 solar panels mounted on the rooftop of the Thule Distribution Center. The PV system will supply an estimated 324,800 kWh annually, or about 26 percent of the facility’s electrical needs.

The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund has approved a $1.3 million grant for the project. The project is organized as a power purchase agreement with Nautilus Solar Energy acting as the system owner. Under the PPA, Thule purchases the electricity produced by the system at a fixed price below its current utility rate, and Nautilus receives federal tax incentives, rebates and renewable energy credits associated with the project.