Reporting Season

January through June every year is reporting season for environmental compliance people like myself. As annual reports go, the first is due on January 10th (a Michigan requirement), and the last is due July 1, with a bunch in between. So basically from January 2nd through the end of June most of industry's environmental peons are collecting, sorting, compiling, calculating, wading through, and sinking up to their chins in data. Different agencies and different states require pretty much the same data in different formats or for different purposes. I for example, report the amount of emissions generated from casting xx tons of iron in a given year. Some agencies want to know how many materials we have on site over 10,000 lbs, for emergency response purposes. Some agencies want to know how much air pollution was generated while we made xx tons of iron. Others want to know how much of all types of pollution was generated. Still others want to know only how much waste was generated. And others want to know how much water we sucked from the ground and how much we put back in. I also report that we're doing what our permits say we're supposed to be doing, or that we're not. I also have to create reports for nobody at all - files that sit in the file cabinets on the chance that an inspector will come by the facility and want to read them over, which does sometimes happen.

I generate a LOT of paper and I hate it. It is quite ironic that the environmental people at businesses create such incredible amounts of paper. Luckily, more and more agencies are converting to electronic or online report preparation and submission. In that case, the only paper actually required is usually just one signature page. That covers reports, but doesn't always cover your a$$. When an inspector shows up to view a report, we have to be able to show how we arrived at the numbers we've reported, and show backup documentation that supports them. Yep, more paper. Then, the electronic programs often don't let you copy last year's report and just change the production index, you actually have to enter all or most of the information again, which means you have to have a hard copy of last year's report. Yep, more paper.

Our environmental agencies, while getting better, are just as bureaucratic as any other government entity. They have an increasingly important job to do, so we should be fighting to streamline and improve the functioning of those agencies so more of the money can be channeled to the efforts that really matter.

BBC Climate Challenge

The BBC is hosting a cool online climate challenge game. It is sort of like the Sim_ series of games, but you make policy decisions on every level to try to reduce your carbon dioxide emissions while maintaining enough money, food, water, and your popularity as president of Europe.

On each turn (a decade), you play 6 cards from your stack of options of National, Trade, Industry, Local, and Household policies. Each card shows the cost/income and the effects on the other parameters, along with the popularity of the choice. Supposedly you can get kicked out of office if you make enough unpopular decisions. Also, 3 times during the game, you meet with the presidents of the other continents of the world and try to get them to agree to reduce their CO2 emissions, often requiring you to subsidize them.

The goal is the reduce your CO2 emissions to zero over 100 years while maintaining food, water, and money for Europe, and keeping the people happy enough. I have no idea how realistic the effects of the choices are, but they seem pretty good to a political ignoramus like me.

I think this game is a good exercise for some of the high and mighty out there who believe that going green is a matter of simple choices, and also for those who simply want to try to understand the cause and effect, or unintended consequences, of going green. For example, small scale organic farming is obviously more green than medium or large scale factory farming, but then your people will go hungry and you may have to import food, which produces a lot of CO2 and other pollution in the transportation.

On my first try, I got good grades for meeting my CO2 reduction goals, but I left Europe in ruins as nobody had any money or food to eat.

Kick plASStic

Now that's a granola phrase if I've ever written one. But seriously, we just simply use - most often waste - far too much plastic and other disposables. Reusable Bags, which is a great place to get shopping bags, mugs, and other reusable goodies, estimates that over 1,000,000 plastic shopping bags are consumed per minute.

The latest site to promote the BYO lifestyle is aptly called Bring Your Own. Check them out and learn something about the problem, the impacts, and some solutions. Thanks TreeHugger.

I'm having a hard time deciding how to take on three huge topics: our disposable lifestyle, energy (oil) security, and waste. My challenge is delving into each while highlighting how intertwined they are, and how political they are. Any suggestions or discussion starters are welcome.

Gigoit

Huh? Gigoit is an acronym for "garbage in, garbage out", followed by an "it". It's a new free garbage exchange (one man's is another's treasure, after all) site that simplifies the models used by Freecycle and Craig's List (which I mentioned here). You don't need a user ID or PW, or have to search through posts to see if the item you want is still available. It's in beta, and there aren't many items listed yet, but keep an eye on it.

Reuse is unquestionably our most efficient mode, at least until the rethink catches on, and you can bet that is a long way off. Thanks TreeHugger.

Stumptown Coffee

A guest post from me pops:

"I don't know if you want to pay $12 per pound of coffee, but I recommend that you review Stumptown's great coffee. I have read in several places over the last few years that Stumptown - in Portland - makes the best coffee of all the "gourmet blenders". They are not big like Starbucks, and only have a few stores in that area, but they are consistently rated the best. I also found them rated tops in Consumer Reports, as I recall. I read somewhere that Portland folks will line up at length each morning just to drink Stumptown's coffee. I think they are a green company, also, and that much of their beans are free trade. If you visit their site www.stumptowncoffee.com you can read all about them. You can find their organic blends at between $12 and $13 per pound, which is high but may be worth the cost, at least for a treat." --Pappa Java

I checked out the site and found this bit: "Believing in the social, environmental, and economic benefits of sustainable business leads us to not only support coffee farms that are committed to the well being of their workers, land and water, it compels us to be a sustainable business in our own community. Providing health insurance for our employees and donating freshly roasted coffee to the Oregon Food Bank are some of the ways that we act on our belief in sustainability."

That's a lot of money for coffee, and most of us will need it shipped, but I'd gladly support these guys because of what they do.

Top Green Power Users

For the first time, a corporation ­leads EPA's national Top 25 list of green power purchasers. Wells Fargo & Company claimed the top spot, purchasing 550 million kilowatt hours annually. Organizations that purchase electricity generated from clean, renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro make up the quarterly list. After Wells Fargo & Company, Whole Foods Market ranks second and the U.S. Air Force ranks third. The U.S. EPA ranks fourth, with Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top five. Newcomers to the list include Cisco Systems Inc., New York University, Carbonfund.org, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Kohl's Department Stores.

EPA's Top 25 green power purchasers are buying more than 4 billion kilowatt-hours of green power on an annual basis. This is equivalent to the energy needed to power more than 350,000 average American homes each year. The EPA Green Power Partnership encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the use of electricity from fossil fuels and to diversify America's fuel supply. The partnership is comprised of a diverse set of organizations including Fortune 500 companies, small and medium businesses, government institutions as well as colleges and universities. EPA's Top 25 Green Power Partners is as follows, listed in order of purchase size:

1. Wells Fargo & Company

2. Whole Foods Market

3. U.S. Air Force

4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

5. Johnson & Johnson

6. Starbucks

7. DuPont Company

8. U.S. Department of Energy

9. Vail Resorts Inc.

10. HSBC North America

11. Cisco Systems Inc.

12. Staples

13. New York University

14. The World Bank Group

15. University of Pennsylvania

16. IBM Corporation

17. Carbonfund.org

18. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

19. NatureWorks LLC

20. Sprint Nextel

21. Safeway Inc.

22. Pennsylvania State University

23. Kohl's Department Stores

24. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

25. The Tower Companies

So what? Well, if you're interested in putting your money where it may do some good (or at least less bad), buy some groceries from Whole Foods, take a loan from Wells Fargo, or buy some staples at Staples.

Green Super Bowl

The Super Bowl has gone Green. The NFL is offsetting the carbon created by producing electricity consumed during the super bowl by planting native trees and purchasing renewable energy certificates. They even think that all of their efforts will make the event carbon negative. They are also pushing recycling at the event and will be donating any uneaten food.

The NFL isn't the first big player to host a green event. The Turin Olympics and the last World Cup were carbon neutral or negative, and the IRL is converting to ethanol from methanol (way more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas). Thanks Forbes.