Read the full post at GreenBiz.
Editor’s note: This is the latest episode of a regular podcast series to be aired on GreenBiz.com. Nature of Business radio, created and hosted by Chrissy Coughlin, airs weekly on public radio.
This week, Nature of Business host Chrissy Coughlin discusses energy management, smart design, waste diversion, and energy remedies at home with Kathy Loftus, Global Leader, Sustainable Engineering, Maintenance & Energy Management at Whole Foods Market.
Read the full story at NYT Green.
A thing of sheer beauty is berthed in Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong: the Tûranor PlanetSolar, a vessel that is circumnavigating the globe to prove that solar energy can power water transportation.
Designed in New Zealand, built in Germany and flying a Swiss flag, the 102-foot boat has completed about two-thirds of a voyage that began in Monaco last September. So far it has sailed nearly 24,000 miles.
With its upper deck covered with over 5,300 square feet of photovoltaic solar panels, the Tûranor PlanetSolar is unlike any ship you’ve ever seen. Sleek and sexy, it looks more like a spaceship than something that travels the seven seas.
Read the full post at Triple Pundit.
School systems, both public and private, are realizing the advantages of incorporating clean tech and sustainability in their development plans. A previous TriplePundit story describes one of the first net-zero school buildings at the private Putney School in Vermont. Today, we look to Antelope Valley Union High School District’s recently commissioned 9.6 megawatt PV solar system. A much-needed project that provides power, reduces costs, and even helps raise test scores and send kids to college.
Read the full post at Triple Pundit.
In the summer of 2008, the southern Italian city of Naples (Napoli) dominated the newswires with stories about trash piles in streets, piazzas, and parks. Municipal workers refused to pick up trash in part because the surrounding region’s landfills were at full capacity. The building of incinerators only infuriated Napolitanos who saw their construction as a ruse to import trash from the northern Italy. Meanwhile stories of soil in farmland and parks becoming contaminated angered locals even more.
Indifference from the national government, local bureaucratic incompetence, and organized crime syndicates have all had a role in the Naples’ trash crisis. But residents within the city and throughout the Napolitania region have taken matters like waste diversion, recycling, and beautifying their communities into their own hands. Local activism, which takes the form of flash mobs, guerilla gardening, and innovative job creation, is certainly inspiring. But what is occurring in Naples could teach citizens around the world about how apathy from both government and business cannot be deterrents to revitalizing communities.
Read the full post at Triple Pundit.
I always thought that GoogleMaps was one of the coolest things when it came to finding your way. As a person who is prone to getting lost, it’s a constant guide when I navigate new cities. Now, HopStop is aiming to do one better – in addition to helping you find your way, they also want to let you know the carbon footprint of your journey.
HopStop is basically a city transit guide. Just like GoogleMaps they also provide bus and subway directions for several metropolitan cities in the US. They also provide a City Guide service that will tell you where to go, what to see, where to eat etc. The site can send you directions directly on your mobile device or email.
Last week in addition to all these services HopStop announced that they will be offering a carbon emissions savings calculator.
Read the full post at Triple Pundit.
Some of us (ahem) have lived long enough to remember when collaboration was not all that radical a concept, in the business world and even in Congress.
Alas collaboration lately has become a buzzword, something that businesses and their PR departments are eager to pay lip service to and perhaps aspire to achieve with their partners. (Take Congress and the notion of bipartisanship out of the collaborative equation entirely.) But talking the collaborative talk is one thing; true collaboration these days is an exception…
The Collaborative Collaboration Hub describes this burgeoning “what’s mine is yours” movement. Briefly, collaborative consumption embraces “the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented through the latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces in ways and on a scale never possible before. Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not just what we consume but how we consume.”
Environmental News Bits 