The Sustainable Future

Sustainable community indicators

While I would love to see more of a focus on sustainability at a high level (e.g., government, large companies, etc.), I have a feeling that it's not something I should hold my breath for.

I think the sustainable transformation that needs to happen is going to do so at the individual and community level.

One of the challenges in developing a sustainable approach is taking it out of the abstract and into the tangible. It's nice to have a high-minded philosophy of sustainability, but what does that mean when the rubber meets the road, and how do you implement it?

With that in mind, the Sustainable Measures site asks the question, "how do you measure community sustainability?" Its answer is with sustainability indicators.

What is a sustainability indicator, you might ask. From the Sustainable Measures site...

An indicator is something that helps you understand where you are, which way you are going and how far you are from where you want to be. A good indicator alerts you to a problem before it gets too bad and helps you recognize what needs to be done to fix the problem. Indicators of a sustainable community point to areas where the links between the economy, environment and society are weak. They allow you to see where the problem areas are and help show the way to fix those problems.

The site includes a sustainable community indicator checklist with 14 points to help you evaluate potential indicators.

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Vermiculture: Apartment composting with worms

One of the downsides of living in an apartment is a lack of yard space to compost food scraps. Well, fear not! All is not lost. All you need is a plastic bin, a drill, some shredded paper, and a bucketload of red wrigglers (that is, worms).

Add your food scraps and voila! In a matter of weeks you've got compost fit for a king's (or queen's) garden. Give it to your green thumb friends. Use it on your plants. Whatever you do with it, it's better than adding your food scraps to our ever-expanding landfills.

Here's an excellent video giving you a vermiculture how-to.

If you want to dig even deeper (pun intended, though probably not terribly funny), here are a couple articles for you to read:

Cheap and easy worm bin

Composting with red worms

Off the shelf worm bin (pdf file)

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The Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators

Let's face it, metrics like Per Capita Income or Gross Domestic Product, while important, are inherently poor indicators of societal well-being by themselves. Part of the reason the world is in such a mess is an over-focus on the financial as the sole measurement of how we're doing.

If we're going to make different decisions to build a sustainable future, we have to recognize that we're operating in a holistic, interconnected system and take into account a much wider range of factors.

With that in mind, I was delighted when I ran across a more multi-faceted view of measuring quality of life. The Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators are "the result of an extensive six-year study by a multi-disciplinary group of practitioners and scholars from government agencies, for-profit firms, and nonprofit organizations who see the need for more practical and sophisticated metrics of societal conditions."

There are twelve Quality of Life Indicators, offering a much more robust (and accurate) view of well-being. They are (including links to pages with more details about each)...

• Education
• Employment
• Energy
• Environment
• Health
• Human Rights
• Income
• Infrastructure
• National Security
• Public Safety
• Re-Creation
• Shelter

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Sustainable living tip: Buy recycled

You're not really recycling unless you're buying recycled. The most important part of recycling is buying products that contain as much "post-consumer recycled content" as possible. Look for it and ask for it when you go shopping.

Source:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Saving the Environment - Environmental Tips

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Electronics manufacturers trying to go green

There's a green storm a-brewin' in the electronics industry as more and more companies make an effort to green up their products.

PC and electronics makers, in their quest for the fastest, coolest and most powerful devices, have never given much thought to environmental issues, says Barbara Kyle, national coordinator of the Computer TakeBack Campaign, an advocacy group. Not surprisingly, their products are often chemical-laden, power-sucking nightmares, she says.

Now, for the first time, almost every major PC and electronics maker is trying to change that, says Zeina Al-Hajj, an environmental campaigner at Greenpeace.

The industry is brimming with new green initiatives. Dell (DELL) in June announced a plan to become "the greenest technology company," by beefing up its recycling program and building more Earth-friendly PCs. Weeks before, rival Apple (AAPL) made a similar pledge to become "greener." Panasonic has taken the lead out of its plasma TVs. Motorola (MOT) made its cellphone chargers energy-efficient. Sun Microsystems (SUNW) has even begun posting the amount of electricity it uses in each of its office parks, by month, on the Internet.

It's easy to demonize electronics manufacturers for environmentally unfriendly manufacturing, but part of the blame rests with those of us who buy the products. For example, are we willing to pay more?

It's still unclear whether often-costly environmental programs generate enough goodwill to be worth it.

"If everything else is equal, a consumer will choose to purchase a product that's more socially responsible," says Stewart Mitchell, chief strategy officer for Sharp Electronics. "But I'm not going to say they'll pay more for it."

And does the environment even enter our thought process when we buy electronics? As Panasonic found, time and money invested in green alternatives don't necessarily mean the products will get snapped up at the stores.

Panasonic spent six years and $75 million developing lead-free solder to connect parts inside its electronics, says Thompson. Lead solder is hard to duplicate because it has a relatively low melting point of about 180 degrees, he says. Panasonic struggled to come up with a replacement that wouldn't melt every computer chip it touched.

The lead-free solder was a key component in Panasonic's line of lead-free plasma TVs. Yet the initiative "hasn't resonated" or sparked an uptick in sales, Thompson says.

David Thompson, environmental director of Panasonic sums it up when he says, "Consumers do not buy products for their greenness." 

How about you? Do you consider environmental factors when purchasing electronics? (I have to confess, it hasn't been on my radar screen in past purchases.) Are you willing to pay more for more environmentally friendly options? How much more? 5%? 10%? 20% When does it become too much?

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Non-toxic household product ideas

Most people's cupboards hold a noxious soup of toxic chemicals. If you want to jettison the toxins and replace them with something a little easier on both your body and the environment, here is a bucketload of non-toxic household product ideas.

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Sustainable living tip: Only drive part of the way

If getting where you’re going by bike or public transit alone isn’t going to happen, consider driving part of the way and then jumping on public transit or your bike (a folder would be perfect). A great way to beat traffic!

Source:
TreeHugger: How to green your car

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US organic chocolate sales booming

Did you buy any organic chocolate last year? If so, you're part of a trend that saw organic chocolate sales soar.

Chocolate is the largest growing snack segment in the U.S. organic market, according to an industry study, with organic sales tallying a 49 percent increase in sales in 2006.

Not that there isn't still a lot of room to expand...

Organic chocolate sales totaled a still small $70.8 million fraction of the market in the year, according to a Euromonitor report cited by the Dagoba Organic Chocolate company, compared with total U.S. chocolate sales in 2006 of about $6 billion.

And here's an interesting factoid I couldn't resist including...

The average American consumes about 12 pounds of chocolate per year, said Cathy Strange, global chocolate buyer for Whole Foods Market Inc.

[via The Sustainable Table]

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How do you get to work? US commuting statistics

After seeing a post on carbon copy that a recent analysis showed that Boston tops the list of American cities in the percentage of people who walk to work (about 12.5%), I went looking for more information.

The data, gathered from the U.S. Census Bereau's American Community Survey in 2005 and released last month, show that:

• 9 out of 10 workers, or 87.7 percent, drive to work
• 77 percent, driving alone despite rising fuel costs.
• 4.7 percent of commuters used public transportation to get to work, an increase of about 0.1 percent over levels five years earlier.
• The top cities for commuting by public transport were Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
• Portland, Oregon, was found to have the highest percentage of bicycle commuters among large cities with about 3.5 percent of its workers pedaling to work. This is about eight times the national average of 0.4 percent.
• Boston had the highest percentage among large cities of employees who walk to work with 13 percent.
• Nationally, 2.5 percent of Americans walked to work.
• 1 in 10 workers, or 10.7 percent, car pool and three-fourths of car poolers, or 77.3 percent, ride with just one other person. 

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UK shoppers want less packaging (and so do I!)

It drives me nuts how much packaging ends up in my garbage can or recycling bin (a better option, but still not great) after a trip to the store. There's just too much of it!

A recent survey in the UK shows that UK shoppers agree. As Ecofriend points out, "A recent MORI survey on 1000 supermarket shoppers shows that about 92% of them want a reduction in amount of packaging." The study is part of the British newspaper The Independent's Campaign Against Waste.

Here's a frustrating statistic statistic.    "Packaging volume increased by 12 per cent between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of the typical household's waste." 

Think about that from a business perspective for a minute. Here you have all of these companies delivering precisely the opposite of what consumers want. Seems like the time is ripe for some kind of change on the packaging front.

Ecofriend summarizes some of the other findings of the survey:

• Some customers accept their social responsibility. About three quarters of the public are keen on accepting the social and environmental responsibility. So they shop at places like Food Co-ops where packaging is less and brown bags are used more.
• Some of these grocery stores have green credentials. This means their policy strictly adheres to saving the environment from pollution. When the customers were asked about this, they were surprised themselves. Survey Stats prove that about a third of the customers would stick to stores with green credentials.

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