Sustainability education promoting renewable energy around the country

Sustainability education promoting renewable energy around the country

The government and businesses in recent years have been doing more and more about renewable energy and sustainability. But individual citizens take up the mantle, too, and plenty of outlets this summer will be offering education and opportunity for the average person who wants to increase his or her green efforts.
Farmers Market offering customers opportunity
Farmers markets are a staple of the green lifestyle, a beloved regular opportunity for the organic believer. And in Oregon this week, one farmer's market will be doing its best to make sure its customers understand organic best practices.
The Cedar Mill Farmer's Market will be holding its third annual Sustainability Fair on Saturday, according to the Beaverton Leader. The fair will include over a dozen organizations that will come together to support and educate on green living, including Washington County Bicycle Transportation Coalition, Zipcar and Habitat for Humanity.
Dean Moberg is co-chairman of the Conservation, Us, and the Environment committee of the Terra Linda Neighborhood Association, who organizes the fair. He spoke to the Beaverton Leader about the purposes of the event, which tries to help the farmers markets' customers learn new ways to live green, whether big or small.
"We believe in giving people the information to act," Moberg told the Leader.
New Jersey community college offering classes on sustainability
In the common imagination, New Jersey may bring to mind images of its famous turnpike or the muscular and hair-gelled patrons of its shore. But in reality the state is a player in sustainability, and one of its community colleges will be taking an opportunity this summer to educate students on a greener lifestyle.
The Cape May County Herald reports that Atlantic Cape Community College will have an assortment of "green" classes this summer. The college, which has about 6500 students, will begin the first offerings on June 21.
The first class is called "Green Building Today!" and, according to the Herald, "provides an in-depth overview of the design and construction of Green High Performance Buildings." Other offerings include LEED for Green Associate PLUS, which will prepare students for the Green Building Certification Institute's LEED for Green Associate exam. Also offered will be Solar Professional Certification, beginning July 29, which will give students training on photovoltaic installation.
Because with the sun sure to be shining bright in the coming months, there's no better time to look into solar power and sustainability.

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Top four reasons businesses are focusing on sustainability

Top four reasons businesses are focusing on sustainability

Creating a more sustainable business can be achieved in several ways. Maybe it means installing solar panels on the roof of your office buildings. Perhaps you could give out free bicycles to your employees to ride to work, as IKEA has done, or even incentivize riding or walking to work, like Colorado's New Belgium Brewery started doing years ago.
If you haven't considered operating your business in a sustainable way, you could be missing out on an opportunity to save costs and drive new business, a group of business owners concluded at a recent event. The panelists spoke at a session held by the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, according to Technically Philly.
The participants spoke on how the Swedish and Scandinavian culture has had a profound impact on corporate sustainability, and outlined four reasons why any company, anywhere in the world, should implement more environmentally sound practices.
1. Because it's what the customers want
Amy Bellcourt, vice president of communications for manufacturing firm SCA Americas, stated that hopping on board the green train makes business sense because it will drive your brand up in the eyes of the customers.
"If you have not started working with sustainability yet, you have missed a major opportunity," she said. "Customers are getting more aware every day and they demand sustainable business partners and products."
2. It will set you apart
If the competition is stiff in your respective industry, you may want to use sustainable practices to differentiate yourself from others in the field.
3.It's a great long-term investment
The media outlet pointed out that all the panelists agreed that when you see sustainability merely as an additional cost, you'll also likely miss out on huge opportunities. To Bellcourt, only looking at the upfront costs of sustainability is a major mistake.
"It is definitely giving us value back," Bellcourt said. "If sustainability would be a cost, we would never be able to keep it up in the long-run."
4. Good workers flock to forward-thinking companies
Bellcourt added that companies that focus on sustainability tend to attract the best talent in any given industry. This is especially true for the young workers around the world, she said, who want to work for companies with a "good agenda."
According to a recent study from Apparel, 87 percent of Fortune 1,000 CEOs said sustainability is important to profits, while another 73 percent said it can result in cost savings.

Sustainability could be great for education

Sustainability could be great for education

Everyone wants to see their kids get the best education possible, and that could result in greater environmental sustainability for schools, according to The Guardian. The news source said the U.K. Department of Education's Framework for the National Curriculum report aims to promote the understanding of sustainability and stewardship of local resources as well as helping personal development so each student can be more balanced and healthy moving forward.
"Children and young people growing up and attending school today will become the business leaders of the future, people who will have to tackle environmental and social issues on a level that is currently unrecognized or at least swept under the carpet," The Guardian said. "It is a huge challenge but one that other nations are addressing and one that our current government needs to square up to."
The report said the agency believes education should be stressing personal development to allow students to have a greater understanding of their surrounding world.
Adding to this, The Guardian said the business case for this is that children who develop an appreciation for sustainable practices in school have more potential for achievement and should have more key skills that could be useful when they get into the business world.



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Sustainability changes for every organization

Sustainability changes for every organization

Climate and sustainability expert Bob Doppelt wrote a recent article published in Business Review USA, in which he offered up six changes that he said every organization is capable of making to cost-effectively reach sustainability.
Doppelt noted the need to revise the classic "more and cheaper is better" approach to business, offering up an alternative mantra for personal happiness and economic success, saying, "sustainable is better, healthier, morally just - and essential to sustain life on the planet."
Doppelt's six cost-effective changes for sustainability begin with his recommendation for businesses to complete a Life Cycle Analysis to fully explore the effects the company's goods and services have on the environment and society. Then, Doppelt advised undertaking an analysis of the company's carbon footprint for all production facilities, and to simultaneously perform an energy audit. These beginning steps are key for helping companies inexpensively discover where there is room for improvement and new ways to save money.
The next change Doppelt offered up was to hold a company-wide dialogue with the goal to establish clear ethics to help manage the company's activities around sustaining the natural environment.
Fourth on Doppelt's list is arguably his boldest suggestion, telling companies to set an ambitious target - something similar to either increasing efficiency or reducing energy use by 30 percent - in an effort to show commitment to the company's initiatives.
The fifth change is to have the company establish a plan to reduce its use of coal across its value chain, completely eliminating coal use in a period of five to 10 years. Doppelt maintains that this is achievable by transitioning to renewable energy sources such as wind or solar while simultaneously working to increase energy efficiency.
Doppelt's final change involves setting yet another ambitious goal, this time to reduce company waste that goes to landfills through the gradual building up of recycling and reuse at facilities.
Once organizations have gone through Doppelt's six changes, he advises them to then continue approaching goals like these in a similar fashion until they have gone through the company's entire value chain.
Today, companies around the globe recognize the necessity to restructure their sustainability efforts, residential households are making individual efforts to do their parts, and entire cities are taking on the sustainability challenge. For example, a recent article in Peoria new source the Peoria Times described how that city developed a sustainability initiative in 2009 in an effort to counter financial hardships and have "positive, lasting effects" on Peoria's future.

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