A press release touting "Boston's First Carbon Neutral Concert," whatever that means, popped into my inbox yesterday. It's a free show tomorrow at 7 by the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, one of only two professional orchestras in the country that dedicate themselves to entirely free concerts. I didn't even know Boston had two orchestras. There is apparently some kind of environmental fair beforehand, which from the list of collaborators looks like it will be focused on water quality, not global warming. Anyway, it's a free show at the Hatch, if you're into some jamband music of a different kind. Debussy, anyone?

Linky Link.

Labels: carbon neutral, jason, water

Since this is a popular travel week due to the onset of spring, the kiddies on spring break, and the Easter holiday, I thought a quick post on the environmental impact of travel was timely. I myself am traveling, but am bringing back far less schlock for friends at home than I would normally. While air travel has the biggest impact on the environmental footprint of your vacay, awhile back, Treehugger.com reported on some non-schlocky souvenirs that also add to your footprint. But first:

schlock n. Something, such as merchandise or literature, that is inferior or shoddy. adj. Of inferior quality; cheap or shoddy.

OK. On with the news:

Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs: A Whole New Way to Give Gifts

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA

Just because you go on vacation doesn't mean your carbon footprint will take a break, too; while things like the impact of aircraft carbon emissions are large (with one exception), obvious and often calculated, the impact small things like the chintzy souvenirs -- the ones we've all bought and received to commemorate a visit to some famous landmark -- are less so.

If you recall, The Story of Stuff taught us that all the little things we consume really add up, souvenirs included. Designer Héctor Serrano has conceived of a way to use 3D printers, email and downloadable design to create personalized souvenirs, like the one pictured above, at a small fraction of the carbon footprint (we first saw it back at the London Design Festival). Meet the Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs below the fold.

Labels: carbon neutral, sarah, Transportation, travel

Upon creating my holiday iMix, I stumbled upon this track by a Leeds-based group, Buen Chico. Their newish album (released in October) featured this season appropriate jam:
Giving Your Gifts by Buen Chico

With every minor-chord followed by some rammy happy chords, this jam makes me feel like a teenager again, instantly transporting me back to my Pennsylvanian high school days of rushing to see the next Supergrass feature in the NME , my asymmetrical haircut flapping in the breeze ala Rachael from Slowdive. So transported in my reverie was I, that I did a little research on these dudes and found that, lo and behold, they offset the emissions associated with producing their last album! RAD! As you know, I love it when my worlds collide.

NewConsumer.com reported on the story back in August and included this quote about their eco-intentions from Morgan Tatchell-Evans, who fronts Buen Chico:

"Basically, global warming is a theme present in quite a few of our songs, so we want to put our money where our mouth is. Obviously virtually anything you do as a band or with any project will have a potential carbon footprint, but there are things you can do to minimise the effect. Hopefully as we go on we'll be able to tighten up on emissions related to other things we do as well. I think it's important for any artist to speak up about what is one of the most critical issues affecting the world at the moment. We just have to try and sweeten the deal with some hummable tunes!"

Hummable, indeed! And applaudable, too! This rounds out the roster of indie-darlings who not only have downright lovely records, they care enough for their fans and the environmental impact of their music. Andrew Bird, anyone?! Kelley Stoltz, anyone?! Guster, anyone?! Take that, Pitchfork!

Come on! Give me more ammo! What other indie artists are out there making great music while being environmentally-conscious?

Labels: Andrew Bird, Buen Chico, carbon neutral, guster, Kelley Stoltz, sarah

Well, here comes some more negative press....I have a huge problem with this. I think what Fiji has outlined is closer to a "carbon neutrality" claim than a "carbon negativity" claim. I had the esteemed pleasure of listening to Patagonia's founder speak at the Net Impact conference last week. He talked about the fact that they consider the entire life-cycle of the product during the design and manufacturing phases. As I've stated before, I'm still on the fence about what carbon neutrality actually means, but Patagonia's process is the first example that seems like a benchmark with some real integrity. So, while Fiji is doing a good thing and taking action, they might do better to further assess the claims they make publicly.

Labels: carbon neutral, water

Environmental Leader posted this interesting story about the question Sun Microsystems is asking, i.e. what's next if you've already brought your emissions to net zero:

David Douglas, vice president for eco-responsibility at Sun Microsystems, raised an interesting question in his blog yesterday. Sun, which released its latest CSR report earlier this month, is pretty open with the fact that it’s not ready to go carbon neutral because the company is currently focused on lowering its carbon footprint by investing in projects that have a clear ROI, rather than investing in offsets.

“There is a cost to this strategy, and that cost is that we can’t claim that we’re carbon neutral,” Douglas writes. “Right now that’s a cost we’re willing to live with.”

Then Douglas asks if a company can be double carbon neutral? “If it is good to offset your emissions, is it even better to offset your emissions twice?” Douglas asks.

It’s an interesting question. As company’s continue to raise the green PR stakes, we could see moves like this down the road.

I think it's a little early in the game to try and claim "double carbon neutrality" when good old singular carbon neutrality isn't universally defined. However, I like the concept. It thrills me to the bone that corporate commitments to the environment are firmly ingrained in a competitive business strategy. Some of the old guard may say that it's ruining the purity of the environmental movement, but on average, one behemoth corporate commitment to renewable energy has the same benefit as, on average, powering several hundred thousand homes. If we're in a race against global warming, I'd rather have the behemoths taking action. What does the old guard want, larger emissions reductions or indie cred?

In regard to double carbon neutrality, maybe taking the approach of greening the city where the home office is located or greening the CEO's university would carry the same PR benefits and offer up positive secondary effects without the awkward title. Thoughts?

Labels: carbon neutral, Environmental Leader, sarah

This past weekend my boss sent me to the Clean Air-Cool Planet conference in Manchester, NH. Ordinarily, I'm loathe to give up my weekends for anything even remotely work-related (I am a government employee, after all), but this was actually pretty fun in a morbidly depressing sort of a way. Besides hearing that we have even less time than we thought until we lose all the fun places like Amsterdam, Key West and New Orleans (why are all the good spots so low?), I got to hear speeches from my boss at the regional level here at the EPA, his old boss Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the EPA, and several of the people who want to be her replacement's boss: Bill Richardson, John McCain, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Huckabee. There was also some science, and a few good discussions on various topics related to global warming. I snuck out early on Friday afternoon so that I could catch game 1 of the Red Sox-Indians series (more important than global warming!), but at the expense of missing what I'm told was a very spirited discussion of CO2 offsets featuring George Hoguet of Native Energy.





While I missed seeing George speak there, I did catch his presentation the next day in a smaller session. Native Energy is the big name in offsets when it comes to music. The company offset Dave Matthews's entire touring schedule retroactively, handled the offsets for all of Live Earth, and has worked with many other big names from Bonnie Raitt to Jack Johnson. After the presentation, I cornered him and pressed him for more info on the company's work with the music industry. He passed me on to Kevin Hackett, Marketing Specialist.





Before I start, an introduction to carbon offsets is in order. The simplest explanation is that they are a way to compensate for the carbon dioxide you're responsible for when you drive, fly, or use fossil-fuel based electricity or heat. You give some money to a carbon offset program like Native Energy based on the amount of your CO2 you feel guilty about. The program takes the money does something that is supposed to either remove an equivalent amount of CO2 from the atmosphere (by planting trees, for instance) or replace a fossil-fuel burning power source (by adding wind power to the grid, for example). Native Energy takes the second approach. If you want more info, I recommend reading Grist's short and sweet description, visiting the Tuft Climate Institute's analysis of carbon offsets, or delving into Clean Air-Cool Planet's 44-page Consumer's Guide to Carbon Offsets (PDF).





There are any number of problems with carbon offsets, and I'm on the record as saying that I'd prefer people spent their carbon offset money elsewhere. As Ed Begley says in a quote I'm shamelessly stealing from Grist.org, ""[I]f you're going to drive a Hummer and buy carbon offsets, that's like getting drunk every night and getting into an AA meeting, throwing money in the basket, and leaving." More troublesome to me, having to pay extra for offsets perpetuates the notions that being carbon-neutral has to be both expensive and voluntary. But they are a first step to either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system, both of which I support.





But despite my general opposition to carbon offsets, it's hard not to like Native Energy. They go out of their way to address their critics and work as hard as they can to actually do good for the environment. The company is one of only four that Tufts recommends of the 13 reviewed. Native Energy is also working on a new project with the Gold Standard group to make sure that its carbon offsets pass muster with even the most stringent critics. They're majority tribally owned and are working to give Native Americans a viable source of income besides casinos. And to top it all off, they're a bunch of music lovers from Vermont.



The process of offsetting is simple. First, you decide how many tons of CO2 you want to offset and buy the credits (currently $12/ton). Native Energy takes this money and uses it to help finance either a new wind farm on Native American land or a methane powered-project on a family farm. These projects deliver renewable energy to the grid, displacing energy from fossil fuel plants. Since the fossil fuel plants burn less fossil fuel, they emit less CO2, and you can tell your friends that you're carbon neutral. After this point, Native Energy could choose to sell your CO2 offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), but instead it donates them to Clean Air-Cool Planet (CACP). CACP then retires the offsets, making sure they don't get double counted. For much more info, check this link.



And now, on to the interview:



Jason Turgeon: Tell me about the work Native Energy (NE) does with the music industry.

Kevin Hackett: Native Energy works with both Reverb and Music Matters on outreach. Both of them do a great job of reaching that youth market. Both take the position that they should help reduce emissions first.


JT: Do you see fans purchasing offsets?
KH: Yes, both through our standard programs for their homes and through things like stickers that have tons or pounds of offsets. But it's not a huge number of fans.


JT: Can you clarify the part of the process where you donate the offsets to CACP?

KH: When someone buys an offset, they can't really show it off to their friends. It's not tangible. We donate the rights to that offset to CACP so that it can't be resold or reused or double counted. Offsets and renewable energy credits (RECs) are traded on places like the CCX. Ours are taken out of that.


JT: Who owns the projects?

KH: It depends on whether it's on tribal land or a family farm. For wind projects, the tribe owns them. On family-farm methane projects, the farmers own them. We don't own the projects, we help finance them. We provide the last 20% of the funding. Our business model is to find projects that are on the cusp of being viable and provide that little push.



JT: What response do you have for people like Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who has said he doesn't like offsets?

KH: That's a statement that we get on a regular basis. Offsets are not the solution, they're part of a solution. Everyone we work with takes steps to reduce their emissions first. What they can't reduce, they offset. We stand by the projects that we work with. They are all truly additional projects that wouldn't happen without our funding. They're not up and running projects that are selling RECs on the CCX.


JT: You're famous for your work with Dave Matthews and Live Earth. Waht other acts have you worked with recently?

KH: Incubus, Martin Sexton Trio, Jon Butler Trio, Xavier Rudd, a lot of others.



JT: You work with Timberland, a company that is well known in the hip-hop community. Have you had any success working with hip-hop artists?

KH: No, but there's stuff coming down the pipe. We're open to working with anybody.



JT: Do you see bands rolling this into the ticket price?

KH: We've seen a lot of that. We see promotion companies doing this either as an opt-in or an opt-out.


JT: Native Energy is from Vermont. Did you work with Phish before they split up, or have you worked with any of the members on their solo tours?

KH: We haven't had any contact with them, but we're open to working with anyone.



JT: You're doing methane projects on family farms. Have you worked with Farm Aid?

KH: We have not worked with farm aid, but they would be a good fit.



JT: Is it easier to put up a windmill on tribal land than it was for Jon Fishman or Cape Wind?

KH: No, we still have to jump through all the hoops. Being majority tribal-owned certainly helps, but we have just as many hoops to jump through. It's all essentially federal land, so we have to deal with all the same regulations.



JT: What about NIMBY? Is it better on reservations?

KH: It's still an issue. In some ways, it might be worse.



JT: Are you working with anyone to certify your offsets?

KH: We haven't in the past, but the Owl Feather project will be our first gold-standard certified project. We're not doing anything differently than we would before. It's just a new bit of paperwork.


JT: What's on your ipod?

KH: Everything from Willie Nelson to Guster because we just went to the show, a little bit of hip-hop. I am a child of the eighties so there's some Ratt and Guns and Roses and Poison. I hope I didn't just turn off the jambase crowd. (laughing)
JT: No, no, it's cool, we're not all 19.



Thanks again to Kevin Hackett for taking the time out for this interview. Now here's some Ratt to take it home.

Labels: carbon neutral, carbon offsets, climate change, Dave Matthews Band, jason, methane, native energy, Ratt, wind

Following along on my cooking theme, Dole announced today their plans to utilize a carbon neutral supply chain for bananas and pineapples produced in Costa Rica. My location in the United States certainly does not make buying these bananas supporting locally grown food, but it does definitely signal a strong current of doing business in a new, more sustainable way. When I began following sustainability trends four years ago, it was fruit stands and Ben and Jerry's....it's been amazing to see larger corporations take on sustainability goals, too.

From Environmental Leader:

The carbon dioxide emitted to produce, pack, transport and distribute the fruit will be offset by mitigation practices which increase the capture of CO2 in order to achieve a ‘neutral’ balance. These practices entail new, more efficient transportation methods, changes to agricultural processes to reduce CO2 emissions, and partnering with local farmers to implement preservation and reforestation programs.

I will add that I am still wary of carbon neutral claims until there is a widely accepted standard. Yes, Oxford English dictionary has selected "carbon neutral" as the 2006 word...er...words of the year, but the dictionary definition does not suffice to answer the question of how deep a greenhouse gas inventory should go to warrant the banner of carbon neutrality (the dictionary is already long and heavy enough). I prefer the approach that some companies are taking to list carbon measurement metrics instead with some disclosure on what they did to green their operations and supply chain. This may sound nit picky--but it will set a great precedent for the years to come.

While Josephine Baker's skirt was made from artificial bananas, perhaps someone should resurrect the skirt as a Burning Man costume this year with real bananas---after all, the theme is: "The Green Man" and after camping for several days, some fresh sustainable fruit can be quite tasty--so your costume is guaranteed to leave no trace.

Labels: carbon neutral, Dole, local food

Treehugger.com published this very thoughtful piece about Al Gore's interview in Rolling Stone. While my criticisms of Rolling Stones paper choices were harsh, I'm glad the substance in the magazine reflects some important aspects of the fight against climate change. While most interviews with Al tend to read the same way, this one's different--and worth your time. Pay attention:

AL GORE'S FIGHT AGAINST THE CLIMATE CRISIS IN ROLLING STONE. Rolling Stone magazine has devoted a sizable portion of their latest issue (on newsstands until June 28) to talking about the dangers we face relating to global warming. They've enlisted help from some heavy hitters, including media juggernaut and "environmentalist-in-chief" Al Gore, who's been making the rounds lately. In an interview with the mag, Al talks about the rising tide of support for the climate crisis, whether or not we've reached a tipping point, and how events like Live Earth can help his cause. One thing he said really resonated with TreeHugger; when asked if he believes we can be saved by Priuses and new light bulbs, Gore said, "I agree that we're not going to solve this problem by buying Priuses and changing our light bulbs. But driving hybrids and choosing better technology is still important in two respects. First, it makes a small contribution to reducing CO2. And second, when people make changes in their own lives, they are much more likely to become part of a critical mass of public opinion and to support the bigger policy changes that are going to be needed to really solve the problem."

This is an important point: individually, or as individuals, solving the problem isn't as easy as getting a new car or buying some new light bulbs, but it's an important part of the evolution of the idea that everything we do and everything we buy and consume has a carbon cost. While buying a hybrid won't stop global warming, support of cleaner technology and greener practices is not only a way to reduce an individual's carbon footprint, but a way to begin to engage in social, moral and political activism that represents the "sea change" that Gore references several times in the interview. And he's still optimistic; About his current attitude toward the problem (including his vision for the short term) Al says he still thinks we can turn the ship around: "I will 'fess up to the element of 'hope being father to the thought' here. But I don't think it's an unrealistic hope at all. I believe that it's much more likely than not that we will see within the next few years a very dramatic political change in most of the world, including in the United States, that will sharply reduce CO2." Hmm... read (or listen to) the rest of Al's thoughts, including his latest answer for the million dollar question about returning to politics. ::more ::Rolling Stone

Labels: Al Gore, carbon neutral, Live Earth, Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone announced that their June 28th issue will be devoted to climate change and will be printed on carbon neutral paper. The magazine's explanation of their choice of carbon neutral paper over recycled paper is just plain ridiculous: (from the New York Times) Eric Bates, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone, said, "We think recycled paper is great."

But he added, "we are publishing some of the greatest photographers and artists, and the print quality on recycled paper does not do them justice."

If that was true, I'd probably be writing a very favorable post right now. However, it is obvious Mr. Bates and the Rolling Stone production team have not done any comparison prints. There are plenty of paper options out there that offer the benefit of being produced with low levels of greenhouse emissions AND boast high levels of recycled content---without any loss of quality! GreenBase details them here. New Leaf Paper, for example, has an extensive line of great sustainable papers that I've used in commercial print jobs with great success and no loss of quality. Check out their Eco Audit that explains the sustainable qualities of the paper:

For a publication that advocates turning it up to 11, Rolling Stone's effort could definitely use a good hard clockwise turn.

Labels: carbon neutral, recycled paper, Rolling Stone

Labels: carbon neutral, Nike, sarah

OK. As a tribute to one of my The Village Green Preservation Society (Hot Fuzz) by The Kinks"top ten favorite albums of all time, I had to repost this festival! It is going on May 24-25th.

From creativematch.com:

Visit London will be kicking off its “Village London” campaign by covering Trafalgar Square with 2,000 square feet of green turf on 24-25 May, transforming one of London’s most iconic attractions into “London’s village green”.

A leading global city, London can also claim to be a diverse collection of villages and one of the greenest capitals in the world. During the two-day event people will be able to take advantage of the green space to have a picnic or just soak up the atmosphere and relax in a deck chair.

A new section on Visit London’s website at www.visitlondon.com/villages will be dedicated to London villages. Visit London will also be producing 500,000 printed guides in association with Time Out. These will be distributed with Time Out and the Evening Standard as well as in Tourist Information Centres and through face-to-face distribution. There will also be outdoor advertising in London and South East England.

Visit London’s Chief Executive, James Bidwell, said: “From the rural feel of areas like Bexley Village and Wimbledon, to urban villages like Marylebone and even Canary Wharf, the campaign will help everyone discover Village London.”

After the event the turf, which will come from a sustainable source in the Vale of York, will be transferred to Bishops Park in Hammersmith and Fulham, where it will be planted beneath an avenue of majestic plane trees close to the River Thames and Fulham Palace.

Global Cool, the celebrity backed climate change campaign, will be working with Visit London to make the Trafalgar Square village green carbon neutral. Global Cool will advise Visit London on how to reduce the event’s carbon footprint before offsetting any remaining emissions.


www.visitlondon.com

Labels: carbon neutral, festival, Global Cool, London