Green Business Blog Carnival #22

Welcome to week #22 of the Green Business Blog Carnival, a weekly green assembly that highlights the news, opinion, and insight on green business published during the past week.

We're very happy to host the carnival this week and thank all our green biz colleagues who arrived to celebrate with us another week of green biz progress. Even in a week that seems not so good in general to green biz fox, it's great to see the movement going on in full force!

Is nuclear green? We'll definitely be hearing more about it after the results of the mid-term elections and the expected backing away from the cap and trade program. Jennifer Varnedoe and Liz McAndrew-Benavides, two leading young members involved in nuclear energy, already started the discussion on ANS Nuclear Cafe, while presenting how the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently designated jobs in nuclear energy as "green jobs." According to the writers, Nuclear energy qualifies due to its reduction of pollution and greenhouse gases when generating electricity.

Speaking of alternative energy and jobs creation, Calfinder reports on Sustainablog about Gila Bend, a small town in Arizona, which suffered from an economic downturn when an Air Force auxiliary field caused the land and nearby reservoir to fall victim to toxic pesticides. Now it looks like a massive solar power development there might be able to reverse this economic downturn and get Gila Bend back on the track.

And how about solar gadgets? Calfinder explains that taking simple steps in your everyday life is the best way to work toward sustainability. With so much time each week at work, why not start there with these solar gadgets? How about wireless solar-powered keyboard for example? This is so cool (or maybe hot is more appropriate here..)!

For those who want to move toward sustainability also in their wardrobe, there's a new initiative offering them to consider giving new life for unworn t-shirts. SAVED initiative, as SUNfiltered reports, takes donated used shirts, adds some embroidery and other fun items, and then sells them. This is part of the Green Thing’s efforts to get users to participate in “the art of wasting nothing and using up everything.” Sounds like an offer you can't refuse!

Triple Pundit is providing a great service for those of you, who like me, didn't make it to Net Impact 2010 lat week at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. They feature on their website a full spectrum of coverage, including video interviews and in depth. Don't miss it!

Here, on Eco-Libris blog, we're getting ready to the Green Books Campaign that will take place next week with 200 bloggers will take a stand to support books printed on environmental paper by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 such books on November 10, 2010, at 1:00 PM EST. In the meantime, we present the green agenda of some of the participating publisher such as Scholastic and McArthur & Co.

And finally, if you like to eat chips and you were following the story behind the compostable but noisy bags of SunChips that Frito-Lay decided to take off the market, then there's an interesting twist to the story coming from Canada. Tom Laskawy reports on Grist that Frito-Lay Canada has a different approach to this issue. What is it? Check this video:



We hope you enjoyed this week's carnival and we invite you to visit the green business blog carnival next week at Green Building Elements.

Also, if you want to host the carnival on your blog check out the opportunities at Sustainablog and to submit posts visit Triple Pundit for the submission form.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting green reading!

Green Business Blog Carnival #8

Welcome to week #8 of the Green Business Blog Carnival, a weekly green assembly that highlights the news, opinion, and insight on green business published during the past week.

We're very happy to host the carnival this week and thank all our green biz colleagues who arrived to celebrate with us another week of green biz progress. So let's check who's here.

The first guest is Dinesh Thirupuvanam of Viv Business Club who followed up an interesting on a LinkedIn group called the Compost Network about plastic food packaging. He's exploring the question whether plastic food packaging is getting in the way of the recycling and composting efforts of many of our small businesses, and adding three recommendations to prevent this from happening and to help businesses move toward zero waste.

Speaking of materials, Kalen Smith of Engineer-a-Business wrote about the potential of potato starch based polymers. One of the problems associated with the depletion of the world's oil supply is that the polymers we use in our world come from this ever disappearing substance. Fortunately, we can already use the starches from potatoes to create new polymers for someconsumer applications. But is it possible to use these polymers for more later on as well?

Kalen is not the only guest occupied with green innovation. Jeff McIntire-Strasburg at Sustainablog who is talking with Eco-entrepreneur and runner Carolina Baker, who couldn't find an eco-friendly sports bra that she liked... so she created her own.

Green marketing was also on the agenda of the green community this week. Lorna Li of GreenMarketing.TV wrote on the importance of adopting green marketing practices, with five actionable ways you can green your marketing campaigns today. Lorna's first advice is to have your product or service eco certified.

Taylen Peterson at CalFinder agrees with her. Going Green with Your Business? Certify! he says in an article that explored green certifications and eco-labels, explaining that the competitive edge of the future will go to certified green businesses.

We celebrated the beginning of season 4 of Mad Men on Eco-Libris blog, wondering if anything changed since Don Draper tried to sell us Lucky Strike, explaining that advertising is about selling happiness and assuring us that whatever we're doing is OK. We conclude that not much, at least not when it comes to ads of e-readers.

And no carnival is complete without some radical thinking - RP Siegel presented at Triple Pundit a great video presenting Seventh Generation’s Jeffrey Hollender idea about radical transparency. In this video, he tells the story of how several years ago, he posted a list on the company’s website of all the things wrong with their products and how they fell short of what the company was, and still is, trying to achieve in terms of their focus, which is to “restore the environment, inspire conscious consumption and create a just and equitable world.”

We hope you enjoyed this week's carnival and we invite you to visit the green business blog carnival
next week at Matter Network. 

Also, if you want to host the carnival on your blog check out the opportunities at Sustainablog and to submit posts visit Triple Pundit for the submission form.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting   sustainable reading!

Green Gifts Campaign - the first video is online!

Last Monday we started our green gift campaign, where we give great gifts that promote green reading! From free green books to gift cards for Strand Bookstore and BookSwim, the Netflix for books, Eco-Libris is now rewarding readers who balance out 25 books or more by planting trees.

To get the word out there we decided to get a big star that will help us promoting the campaign with a couple of funny videos. After holding auditions for several days, we've found our man! Actually we've found our baby..

Yes, my beautiful baby Shira was chosen to star in a couple of funny videos promoting the campaign and we hope you will enjoy them. If you do, please pass them along (embedding code can be found below. The video's link on YouTube is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf3yljv4PV8)

More information can be found on the campaign's webpage - http://www.ecolibris.net/gifts.asp

The press release of the campaign, with its logo, is available at http://prlog.org/10524166

The announcement on our blog - http://ecolibris.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-campaign-is-rewarding-green-readers.html

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!

How green is the iPad - Part 3: A greener eReader or an unnecessary luxury item?

In the first two parts (part 1 and part 2) of our "how green is the iPad" we brought you the opinions of other bloggers and writers, as well as a comparison between the green features of the iPad and those of the Kindle and the Nook. Today it's time for the final episode with our analysis.

To simplify it we'll do it as Q&A:

Is the iPad better for the environment than paper books?
Maybe. No one can really tell right now as no life cycle assessment was made to reach a clear conclusion and too many details are still missing about the iPad (from manufacturing to the end of life) to even start guessing the answer. To all of those who look at the Cleantech Group's report (The Environmental Impact of Amazon's Kindle) as a reference to base an answer to this question, I would like to remind that this report's findings are in no way alternative to a proper life cycle assessment (you're welcome to read our comments on the validity of the report's findings here).

Is there a hope to receive an answer from Apple?
Definitely. In the last couple of years Apple shows a greater commitment to environmental issues - in their latest update of their 'Guide to Greener Electronics', Greenpeace noted that "Apple continues its climb up the ranking from 11th place in v.12 to 9th in v.13 and is now in 5th place, with a score of 5.1 points, up from 4.9." I believe that even if Apple won't make the life cycle assessment (which might be a good thing, as it will be better done by an objective third-party), there's a good chance it will provide the necessary details for such an assessment to be made. In any case, there's a much better chance that Apple will do it than Amazon or B&N, so if there's anyone to look to, it's Apple.

Is the iPad as green as it can get?
It's not that clear. As Greenpeace reported in their guide "Apple does best on the toxic chemicals criteria", so we've got a device free of mercury, PVC, BFRs and Arsenic, but it's still not clear how will Apple is approaching other important issues such as packaging and recycling.

E-waste, for example, is a huge problem and since the battery (which should last up to 10 hours, with over a month of standby capacity) is built-in here, it's even more important to see what Apple will do not only offer a recycling plan for the iPads, but actually encourage customers to recycle their iPads properly. Some will say of course that a "green" iPad is an oxymoron in the first place, as it is nothing but an unnecessary luxury item.

So what's the importance of the iPad from an environmental point of view?
Firstly, as we showed on the second part of our series, it looks like it's greener than the Kindle and the Nook and there's a good chance it's currently the greenest eReader available.

In the long run, it might also become a greener alternative to physical books, reducing books' footprint and making reading more sustainable. I'm not sure for example if it will be better than books printed on recycled paper - it will be interesting to see who wins in such a green battle.

Last but not least, we shouldn't ignore the fact that for the first time such a device is presented with a specific reference to its green features and its impact on the environment. This is something we didn't see with the launch of the Kindle or the Nook, and even though it's just a presentation, this kind of saying is important and shows the growing importance of this issue for both manufacturers and customers.



What about the criticism that it's just another gadget with environmental impact and no real "green" value?
This is definitely a real concern. How many people do you think will replace their laptops to iPads? not many I guess. There's a good chance the iPads will be purchased as another item that will be used together with the laptop, iPod, cellphone and more electronic devices. Is it sustainable to add more and more devices, where each and every one of them has its own ecological footprint? I don't think so.

Still, we live in a certain society that is based on consumerism and we can't just tell people to stop buying - well, we can, but not too many will listen to this call. Hopefully many more will listen to a call to buy products that are more sustainable than others - buying for example iPad instead of the Kindle if you're looking for an eReader.

Yet, it's still very much the responsibility of the manufacturer, Apple in this case, to make sure that they make not only an excellent product, but one with a minimal footprint, that can have eventually a positive environmental impact (for example, by becoming a greener alternative to physical books). What do you think? We'll be happy to hear your thoughts so feel free to comment!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

When economic constraints meet Planet Earth: HarperCollins' catalogs are going digital

One more time savings are meeting the environment: The HarperCollins Fall catalog is going paperless or in other words: no more printing and mailing physical catalogs. From now on, it's all digital.

And it actually has many advantages as Publishers Weekly reports (thanks to GalleyCat for the link!): "HC's digital catalogues, housed at www.harpercollinscatalogs.com, will, in addition to featuring the standard information in print catalogues, include reviews, interviews and promotional videos. The publisher is also promising that the online catalogues will be updated frequently, reflecting any evolving changes with the publication details or marketing efforts surrounding titles."

Again it's another win-win solution: interested parties get better and improved information, hence making the catalogs more effective, money is saved as there's no printing and mailing and of course the environment is benefiting from it. It's maybe even win-win-win :-)

Wonders how a digital catalog looks? check out www.harpercollinscatalogs.com (where you can also find the book, which you see it's cover above - The Road to Woodstock by Michael Lang)

And what about the rest of the publishers? Josh Marwell, president of sales at HC, is quoted on PW saying the new online catalogues mark the "next step in the evolution of how we bring our books to market." I believe he's right and it also applies to other publishers. Hence, my guestimation is that HarperCollins won't be alone for too long - such a move makes too much sense especially in these times. We'll follow it up and let you know if we were right or wrong here.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Planting trees for Harry

The new Harry Potter will be released this Saturday (July 21), and Eco-Libris joins J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter’s fans in the celebration of the new Potter book's release (though we’re sad it’s the last one).

As you may know, the new Harry Potter books are being published on partially or fully recycled paper worldwide. So for us, Harry Potter is not only a great story; it also sets an example for the future of the book publishing industry, and a vision which we share.

To show our appreciation to the courageous author and to the young magician we’ll be celebrating by letting Harry Potter fans plant new trees and win a free copy, made of 100% recycled paper, of the new book.

To participate in "Eco-Libris and The Green Wizards" promotions, Harry Potter's fans need to send a picture of themselves posing with any of the books in the series. The first 50 people to do so will receive a special gift - seven trees planted for them in developing countries, to balance out seven of their books in honor of the seven books in the Potter series. They will also receive seven Eco-Libris stickers saying “One Tree was Planted for This Book” to be proudly displayed on their books sleeves.

Our judges will pick the best photo of all and we'll send a free copy of the new Harry Potter, printed on 100% recycled paper, to the gifted photographer.

So please check out our our special Harry Potter celebration page (http://www.ecolibris.net/harry_potter_promo.asp) and join the green wizard's party.

have fun,

Raz