Ecopreneurist

There’s no doubt that carbon offsets are in the news.  Just this morning, the New York Times reported that Goldman Sachs jumped on the offsets bandwagon with investments in two offset companies.  But, you still don’t hear too much about retail carbon offset efforts, beyond voluntary add-on programs for airline and rental car companies.  TerraPass, a leading originator and retailer of carbon credits and carbon offsets, however, just released its 2009 carbon offset “portfolio,” including products for purchase through the TerraPass website. They also still host voluntary offset program for various travel and retail industry partners.

But, possibly more significantly, TerraPass also just announced the formation of TerraPass Carbon Management Services that has already signed 10 long-term contracts representing over 2.5 million metric tons of carbon reductions, and has built “a robust pipeline of new projects:” Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Norwood has launched two new tumblers under their Evolve line, the Evolve(TM) Traveler Mug - 16 oz and the Evolve(TM) Infinity Tumbler - 16 oz.

Both units come in a variety of colors, both are Prop 65 compliant, both are top rack dishwater safe, both are microwave safe, and both are packaged in eco-friendly packaging for shipment.

The Evolve line is also made in the US and is “designed to biodegrade within 1-5 years in a managed landfill” according to the Norwood website. With one color imprint the units both run under $2.75.

I wanted to write about the Norwood Evolve line because, if you look again at the bullet points offered in the sales material, it seems Norwood developed these mugs to specifically address issues that Ecopreneurist has raised regarding eco-friendly promotional items. Read the rest of this entry »

AIGA Chicago is organizing an event called Incite / Insight 2008: Responsible Design 101, November 20 in Chicago that addresses the significance of green design. AIGA, the professional association for design, is the oldest and largest professional membership organization for graphic & communications design. The organization has been at the forefront of promoting the shift to sustainable design practices through their Center for Sustainable Design.

Green business owners are realizing that green marketing and design is a business asset that’s here to stay as momentum in the green movement builds. The graphic design industry is responding by opening more and more dialogues about sustainability and greening their practices. In this vein, Incite / Insight 2008 in Chicago focuses on the importance of green design. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Proforma Green got our samples in today of the new 8650 V Natural™ Organic Cap by Vitronic Promotional Group, one of our manufacturers.

These caps are great. The 8650 V is a casual unstructured cap made from 100% organic cotton with a Velcro closure and a 3.25″ crown.

The bonus is that they come in multiple colors - Green, Natural (as shown), Soft Blue, Soft Pink and Soft Yellow - and Vitronic can use a sustainable process for dyeing and finishing on these 100% organic cotton caps, so you can show your commitment to the environment. Read the rest of this entry »

Oddly enough, I just write a piece for this blog a few days ago, Building A Greenwash Crisis Plan, looks like Executive Recycling could use one. The 60 minutes report last night, The Electronic Wasteland, uh…certainly gave them cause to need one!

This is a bit of a chilling tale for any eco entrepreneur! Executive Recycling, a small Colorado based, e-waste recycling center, was founded by Brandon Richter in 2004 with high hopes to provide a green solution to a growing problem. As he put it:

You think that you are doing good sending your computers to a recycling company.. but that is not exactly the case..  “Your e-waste is recycled properly, right here in the U.S. - not simply dumped on somebody else.”

I’m going to give Richter the benefit of the doubt here. When the dreaded call from 60 minutes came (You all know the joke don’t’ you? “What are the 5 most dreaded words a CEO can hear? “This is 60 Minutes calling.”) Richter gladly agreed to help them and gave them access to his records.

Things obviously didn’t turn out so well, since 60 Minutes found that containers of used monitors left his facility and were shipped overseas, ending up contributing to the virtual destruction of a town in China that dismantles all kinds of e-waste. A snip from the broadcast transcript…

And Brandon Richter, CEO of Executive Recycling, was still warning of the dangers of shipping waste to China. “I just heard actually a child actually died over there breaking this material down, just getting all these toxins,” he said.

Then Pelley told him we’d tracked his container to Hong Kong.

“This is a photograph from your yard, the Executive Recycling yard,” Pelley told Richter, showing him a photo we’d taken of a shipping container in his yard. “We followed this container to Hong Kong.”

“Okay,” Richter replied.

“And I wonder why that would be?” Pelley asked.

“Hmm. I have no clue,” Richter said.

“The Hong Kong customs people opened the container…and found it full of CRT screens which, as you probably know, is illegal to export to Hong Kong,” Pelley said.

“Yeah, yep,” Richter replied. “I don’t know if that container was filled with glass. I doubt it was. We don’t fill glass, CRT glass in those containers.”

“This container was in your yard, filled with CRT screens, and exported to Hong Kong, which probably wouldn’t be legal,” Pelley said.

“No, absolutely not. Yeah,” Richter said.

“Can you explain that?” Pelley asked.

“Yeah, it’s not - it was not filled in our facility,” Richt Read the rest of this entry »

I know that Infoworld declared cloud computing “all the rage” back in April, but it now seems to have reached a tipping point. Just last week I came across Michael Dell and Marc Benioff sounding off in Forbes.com, I received an email from The QuestionPro Blog about cloud connectors, read about “Why Private Cloud Computing Is Beginning to Get Traction” in eWeek and learned about a CloudCamp Computing Conference. And, of course, since it was the election week, the talk about cloud computing even turned to politics with techies asking”  “What Does The Obama Revolution Mean to Cloud Computing?”

If I am coming across cloud computing on a daily basis, its clearly become mainstream. But, how exactly is cloud computing green?  Well, Kevin Jackson mused about this on his blog and asserts that The Economist provides the perfect answer:

Read the rest of this entry »

An op-ed piece in the New York Times, The Climate For Change, by über environmentalist, Al Gore, outlines for President-Elect Obama changes we need to make to both improve the economy and decrease climate change.

Much of what he recommends is good news for ecopreneurs.

1…. incentives for the construction of concentrated solar thermal plants, wind and advanced plants in geothermal hot spots .

2… planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places to cities

3…. help America’s automobile industry (not only the Big Three but the innovative new startup companies as well) to convert quickly to plug-in hybrids Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

I like beer. I like pubs.

I guess that is why I am still talking about eco-friendly coasters. As I mentioned before we are doing some research on eco-friendly coasters for Intrepid Travel and now that research has lead me to cork coasters.

And this is the thing, cork has been around forever. According to the dictionary the origin of the word itself dates from between 1275–1325 AD.

This is an old material, but how many of us think of it as a green material? Hemp and Jute have also been around for a long, long time and they are considered green. Why not cork?

The thing that got me thinking about this are these core coaster from Americanna. When I asked Americanna if they had an eco-friendly coaster they immediately came back with cork. Read the rest of this entry »

I started writing this post a few weeks ago, inspired by this article, PR Agency Warned Starbucks About Wasteful Water Policy. Like, what were they thinking?

I know, I know, it’s hard to think of everything, but that they pay good money to a PR firm then ignore their advice? Hello? (Check out this post,Starbucks Coffee: How Green Is Their Java? on our sister blog, The Inspired Economist, for the whole story.)

Yes, well, they were busy. Guess they aren’t now…oh wait – free coffee on election day – business is back up!

But seriously, I talk to ecopreneurs everyday. People email me questions, catch me on Twitter or actually (gasp) pay me to give them advice (Yes, I am a marketing consultant and have been for ummm a whole bunch of years.)

Often what I hear from folks is…do you think I, as a green product manufacturer can do xyz (overpackage; make product in China; use plastic…ship my product over 2000 miles away to a customer)? My answer is Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

I wrote a little while ago about paper products with flower seeds in them and whether I thought they were green or not.

Well recently in doing some research for Intrepid Travel - a very cool, very green client - I located these eco-friendly bar coasters made of a paper from recycled linen and embedded with flower seeds.

So in this instance the coasters are green to start with and the added flower seeds are a selling point. Anyway, I think these things are genius, I mean really what a great idea.

I think I am so taken with them because trying to get a green theme into a bar setting is normally a challenge, but these coasters are green, practical and cheap. Just perfect. Read the rest of this entry »