The best piece of environmental marketing communications to date (IMHO…)

Picking a good carbon offset provider can be very tricky and usually can take some work. There are some generally accepted key principles that you want to keep in mind while picking an offset provider. Most large offset providers have third party verification, which is when an outside company verifies that the offset provider says they are doing what they are actually doing. Another important principle is permanence; the carbon that is offset is truly permanently not created. The last principle is additionally; the offset can not be business as usual.

You also then have to think about what kind of project you want to be involved in since there are many projects out there. Tree planting is by far the most popular and the most controversial. The key issue is that trees can die from drought, fire, or disease before they offset the promised amount of carbon. When trees are burned in a fire they will release carbon into the air, the exact opposite of what you want them to do. If you follow the news closely, there is new research out almost every week saying trees absorb more carbon than originally thought and a week later the news is that trees absorb less carbon then originally thought. I suggest that you stay away from trees as an offset project.

There are many other great offset projects like; renewable energy certificates, methane capture, and energy reductions. Each renewable energy certificate (RECs, Green Tags) is the creation of 1 megawatt of power usually from a wind turbine. Wind turbine construction is EXTREMELY expensive and selling RECs is a way to pay for it.

Cow dung historically was collected into big pools and allowed to just biodegrade, a byproduct of the biodegradation is methane. Methane is 10 times more potent a green house gas as carbon. One common offset project is to cover the dung fields capture the methane and use it to generate power.

Energy reductions is another important and under rated project. Companies can do many things to reduce the carbon foot print of existing buildings and new construction. There can be such a large reduction in carbon production that you can sell them as an offset project.

There are a few things that I think are important when evaluating a carbon offset provider. I hate when the provider pools your money and can not specify the project. The provider offers more then just tree planting, because it is not the best offset project. Most people tell you third party verification is king, a small provider that is doing a really great project can’t necessary afford to pay for outside verification.

With all those criteria in mind NativeEnergy is the only large scale provider that meets all of them. Some other really great large providers are TerraPass, and Carbonfund.org

Matt Feldman – Carbon Neutral Digest
carbonneutraldigest.com

Good Magazine has a great graphic depicting the economic implications of leaving appliances plugged in for an entire year. We all know that a minuscule amount of energy is being consumed just by leaving a device plugged in – but, an average consumer with a reasonable electronics collection will waste around $300 leaving all those gadgets plugged in year round. Thats 2,500 kilowatt hours completely wasted!

In a recent research published by the Energy Saving Trust they’ve calculated that if one mobile phone charger per household in the UK is left on standby, the energy wasted is enough to provide the electricity needs of 66,000 homes for one year.

Those of you with a plasma TVs, take notice…

Story via the fantastic PSFK

Here at e-photoframes, UK photo frame retailer with an ethical twist, we recently produced a shocking report on the response of the worlds airlines to climate change.

They have a penchant for big boys’ toys jammed packed with high tech gadgets; They’re a by-word for safe travel and their concern for your well being is so sincere that they’ll even get a pretty girl to show you how to secure your belt. Why do you think so many guys like to take the plane rather than use the conference phone? And despite the heavy conscience and wizzy technology, they’re helping to fly us to
oblivion.

Airlines are responsible for 3% of global C02 emissions (per the European Commission) and yet of 374 listed airlines in the English speaking world, only 24 offer passengers the opportunity to buy carbon offsets. Self service cleaning (i.e. being responsible for your own CO2 emissions) would be a start but most airlines are happy to clean the gangway and indeed the toilet, so how about the air we breath? Only one single airline in the English speaking world has taken the plunge: A seaplane operator from Canada.

The survey looked at the carbon offset policies published on each airline’s websites in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and India. In total 374 websites were reviewed. All airlines without a policy were e-mailed to verify that the data was correct. Only a handful responded. The most amusing of which, gave a full list of duty free products available in flight! Take the US with 175 listed airlines (with websites). Now make sure your seat is upright and you’re strapped in: Only 2 of those airlines sell carbon offsets! The UK is currently top of the class with 16% of airlines offering offsets (including all the big ones) but still fails to attain the pass mark, which should be set at 100%. India has 18 airlines listed without a single offset policy among them. Frightening when you consider the growth in air travel that is now taking place in the developing world.

So what to do? Consider the response to cigarettes, another luxury good that pollutes the air and can have a long term impact on your health. Perhaps labelling aeroplanes with images of pending catastrophe is going too far, and “no flying” signs would pose practical problems, but taxing luxury goods is standard fare for governments. Can it really be that that difficult?

Follow this link to read the full Airline & Carbon Offset report

GreenGirlsGlobal have written about the free 100 Ways to Save The Planet eBook which was written by Adam over at our usual website. As not everyone likes to read we’ve turned it into a video. It’s (hopefully) a reasonably short, nice, relaxing watch and another way to get the message out there. Please feel free to send it to anyone and everyone. The link is: http://www.revver.com/watch/501547/.

Not everyone will agree with the points made and some of them are vague and loose as we couldn’t fit more text on there (and have the ebook anyway), so it would be great to hear your comments and any feedback that you have.

Due to feedback we already have from the eBook, we’re now working on the next generation of the 100 Ways which will be followed up by a new, improved version of the eBook in the months to come – there’s no end to the ways you can go green!

Only a few years ago, anyone working to raise awareness about climate change was doing just that: working to raise awareness. The challenge was primarily to convince people that climate change was happening, and that it was a problem to take seriously.

One of the refreshing things about today’s climate is that this first challenge has been won. Thanks in large part to Al Gore, and all the work preceding his, global warming is all but uniformly recognised – both on a national and international level- as the greatest threat facing humanity today.

This means that for the first time in the history of environmental campaigning, activists, politicians, mothers, fathers, businesses and anyone else moved to act can focus all of their energy on creating solutions to the problem. And this means that the challenge of global warming can become an opportunity for things to get better.

From all I’ve seen so far, the cornerstones of this opportunity are two-fold: collaboration and action. Action is self explanatory: we have to do something, and we have to do it now. Collaboration is the mechanism to do it. Gone are the days of ‘them and us’ approaches to environmental issues- more clearly than ever we all see that there’s a massive problem, and the only way out is to work together.

That means governments, businesses, pressure groups, families, students, civil servants, red, blue, green, black, white, pink, capitalist, anarchist, socialist , upper-class, lower-class, working-class, middle-class, religious, non-religious, 4×4 driving, cycle driving, suit or sandal wearing, you name it. We are united by our common humanity, and if that doesn’t make sense to you, then by our common being on this blue ball together a long, long way from any other coloured balls on which we can live.

So what’s the convenient truth about all this? That doing the work- doing what’s needed to stabilise the climate, not only enriches our own lives, it also enriches the lives of those around us, and everyone with a stake in planet earth- which is everyone. Everyone wins.

It’s not always easy. Collaboration, whether within a family, or within the arena of international politics takes work. It takes work to get through our clashing egos in order for our common humanity to emerge: imagine Mr Capitalist and Mr Anarchist in the Big Brother House arguing over whose turn it is to do the washing up, meanwhile the chickens in the garden are being eaten by a hungry fox who got driven from his home in the woods.

The question is the nature of our end goal. Too often in life the end goal is drama, tension, sparks flying and continuing to fly. Is that what we want on a planetary level? Or can our end goal be harmony? Can we do away with the drama of doom and gloom, now? Do away with the tension of political stand-off? Can we collaborate enough so that once the initial sparks of ego clashes have flown, they can recede and we can get on with the job at hand?

I think we can, and I think it’s worth it. And that’s A Convenient Truth.

The feature length preview of my film, A Convenient Truth, is now available online, www.climatefilm.com/preview

View the trailer on YouTube or visit the website at www.climatefilm.com

After a successful weekend at the south bank, the WWF giant boat & plane with thousands of names on them have been delivered to the House of Parliament. Let’s hope that MPs will get the message and support a truly effective Climate Change Bill.

Global Warming is about a lot things that us humans have done to the earth due to past resources such as gas that runs our cars and it is found in the materials in our plastic bags.So blame the ones who overuse or who rely on this power to much of this power when we should be preserving for when we really need it.

To understand this we will have to look at one element that makes life well alive. Carbon is the central element that makes us move and to have energy to do things. We are a Carbon-based life form. Carbon is a very special element because it can be found practically anywhere it’s in pencils, paper, plants, coal, the food you eat and even in you and down to the smallest cell in your body. Carbon is even unique because of it’s strong force known as a bond. When a Carbon bonds with another element that bond between them has a very strong force holding them together and with in that bond there is stored energy. A professor at MIT says that even when something dies the Carbon bonds still keeps its energy even with death. In fact if you went back a long time ago you would have found a sea in what we call middle east in this sea there were zooplankton and many other creatures that lived in the sea and when they did die there corpses piled on top of corpses compressed over several thousands of years to form this mush we call today Oil which is fossil fuel or ancient life just liquified. Coal is fossil fuel but in a solid form.

Now back to Oil. Oil is used in most anything from Cars to plastic. The only way to break this carbon bond is to excite the carbon and this can be done by a spark or a flame or a some other way. for example if you were to light a piece of paper has carbon with in it and the heat coming off is the excitement of the Carbon, when you eat a apple you break a carbon bond which converts into energy for you to use, when you turn on a gasoline engine the spark ignites and excites the Carbon atoms to break apart and off you go. When you break a carbon bond it almost immediately finds a new partner and whats better than having a stable element such as Oxygen but not just one but two Oxygen. When you break a bond it doesn’t matter if it is a piece of paper, gas or a apple you release CO2 in to the atmosphere. CO2 is a colorless and a odorless gas. CO2 or known as Carbon Dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases which makes about 75% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Most of the greenhouse gases are from cars and industrial plants and power plants. yourself may release CO2 but its in a smaller form so humans are not really part of the problem. When traveling from here to there either using cars, planes, buses, boat to many other things like mowing the grass and shipping items thats when us humans effect our environment. So you could blame the Oil industry for polluting the environment, and they were the ones that killed the electric car but they only wanted to make some money or you could blame your self for not being educated on how the things we do each day effects our atmosphere. Whatever it may be we all effect this atmosphere either in small or big way.

There are things we can do now that will help because there may be a point in time where there may be no point of no return to a better environment which we don’t want to happen right? and think about our future generations to come. Something we can do now to limit our carbon emissions can come very simple as transport. you could cycle to where you have to go, you could walk, you could roller skate/skateboard, you could carpool instead of driving alone you would be transporting one to about eight coworkers/school mates. For food you could buy organic foods that are within 0-100 miles of where you live, buy foods that don’t come in plastic containers unless it has a recyclable sign, you could support your farmers market and don’t have to wonder if your food came from new Zealand or some odd place, you can bring your own canvas bag for items bought from the places where you buy your food.

There are a lot of things you can to limit your carbon emissions but there are so many things that I may not even know about yet but I try to tell you about most anything I find out or have come across with each week and will post about it with a tip of the week.

Green campaigners and those concerned about the environment were once regarded as fringe activists, ‘tree huggers’ and ‘eco warriors’.

Belittled for their stance against things like road building, corporate pollution, urbanisation and 4x4s, and personified as lentil-eating vegans living in trees.

Now the evidence for man-made climate change is overwhelming with rapidly disappearing ice sheets, rainforest destruction, population growth, species extinction, hurricanes and extreme weather patterns as billions of tonnes of carbon are pumped into the atmosphere every year.

In response, it’s now trendy to be ‘green’ as everybody from the newly green Tories to major banks to supermarket chains to ‘eco’-airlines is keen to show their concern for the environment. Not a day goes by without another announcement that another major business is going green.

But how ‘green’ are these corporations really and how sincere are they in their commitment to the environment? Can a supermarket that uses palm oil obtained from cleared rainforests in its food products and which flies ‘organic’ food half way around the world clocking up a huge carbon footprint be considered green because it asks customers to re-use their plastic carrier bags? Clearly, much of the recent surge to become green is a cynical ploy aimed at capitalising on consumer concerns and increasing profits.

Don’t be fooled! Remember, buy locally produced food. Buy food grown organically, free from pesticides and harmful chemicals. And buy Fairtrade-certified products. For more advice, tips and a list of companies offering truly green products and services see The Green Providers Directory (www.search-for-me.co.uk)

THE GREEN PROVIDERS DIRECTORY

I set up The Green Providers Directory in 2006 in an effort to encourage more consumers to use environmentally friendly, ethical and organic goods and services. I have deliberately set out to make the directory not-for-profit and run it in my spare time out of a genuine commitment to furthering the ‘green’ cause and out of a duty to try and reduce the widespread damage being done to our planet. Whilst there are many green sites that cover environmental damage and discuss the problems of climate change, I felt that they lacked proactivity and failed to engage mainstream consumers, which is needed to facilitate change on a global scale and not just stimulate debate amongst core eco-consumers.

The premise of the directory is based on consumer power. That is, if large numbers of consumers can be educated and convinced of the dangers of climate change, then their combined demand for greener goods and services will cause a paradigm shift in buying behaviour and force companies to adopt policies that reduce harm to the environment

Each company listed has been vetted against their stated ethical policy and a demonstration that they are contributing in some way to combating climate change and environmental damage. We routinely reject applications because they fail to meet these criteria. I have also been keen to avoid associations with ‘pseudo-green’ national corporations who are using the growing concern to jump on the green bandwagon, whilst continuing to pursue non-sustainable business practices. To that effect, you will not find supermarkets, car makers, tobacco companies, etc…anywhere in the directory. As The Green Providers Directory is privately owned and not-for-profit there is no requirement to affiliate with any particular company – it’s completely unbiased and independent.

The basic concept is that visitors to the site can be confident in finding true green companies for all their everyday needs. The advice given is impartial and there is no active selling. This gives the site a point of differentiation from other ‘green’ directories and instills greater credibility.

Hello.

I’m Asi and I’m really happy to be part of the Green Guys Global team. I’m a strategist at Poke and I will mostly write about green marketing stuff and tell you about really nice environmental campaigns.

In my first post here I’d like to tell you about something I’m personally involved with – the WWF Get on Board campaign to strengthen the UK Climate Change Bill.

The UK is leading the field by introducing legislation committing us to reduce our CO2 emissions by 2050, but the WWF along with many others are pressing for deeper cuts and clear targets. Poke have focused on one seemingly crazy omission from the calculation of CO2 emissions – namely that the emissions from international aviation and shipping are currently excluded from the calculations.

As aviation is the fastest growing source of UK emissions, it’s got to be bonkers to leave it out. We’re going to be making a rather large paper plane and boat to highlight this issue, and are hoping to take them from Gabriel’s Wharf where it will be exhibited for the whole weekend – 15th-18th November – to The Houses of Parliament – which should get some attention!

The people who sign the petition will have their names printed on the giant boat or plane so please go and sign up and tell your mama and sista and friends to support us as well.

We’ve been working with some lovely people who support the WWF and for celebrating my first post here, I’ll show you an exclusive outtakes/blooper video footage that will make you laugh…you can watch it here