Does my small step make a difference?  Absolutely!!

It's time to consider that it's all the small steps or large steps that got us into the trouble in the first place.  We, as an individual, can make a difference.  Imagine if we all changed a CFL light bulb in one day.  The energy saving would be astronomical!!!  Why is it that so many people do not talk about what they are doing in their daily lives when they think they are doing something different?  We should be so proud of what we do and it is by sharing stories with others that will help change the habits of families, co-workers, communities and the world.  One step leads to a change... we can't keep it a secret though.

Remember that every act of green helps to build momentum and ultimately leads to a new way of doing things.  Take a chance, share your ideas, develop or improve on ways of doing things.  We are part of the solution and it's time to take action.  This weekend I am going to check the windows and put weather stripping and weather sealer on my windows to save money and help take a step to helping the enviroment.  What are you going to do this weekend?

when you select your act of green don't forget to log in on the CBC's One Million Acts of Green http://www.onemillionactsofgreen.com/  Share your ideas and keep active.

Have a great green weekend.

As my daughter is standing next to me, carving her jack o'lantern, I want to impart a few more greening tips before the big event tonight.

In addition to my last post, here's my laundry list of ways to green Hallowe'en:

Trick or treat: 

-pick up cell phones to recycle (see http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/50_ways_to_recy.php)

-walk, don't drive...good for you and the earth

-hand out organic products if giving out food...there are now organic chip bags & raisins. It seems at Hallowe'en in bigger communities, the food must be packaged to be safe. The new term for green goodies is 'eco-friendly candy'.

-use biodegradable bags for your handouts

-use a strong reusable bag to collect goodies

-if buying chocolate, try to find organic fair trade brands

-don't litter, and pick up any garbage you see en route

-rent costumes, find them second hand (2nd 'R'~Reuse), or look in your closet instead of buying new

-use organic/natural makeup

Hallowe'en Party

-use healthy, seasonal, local organic food

-send invitations via email, or if using paper, use recycled/reused

-use reusable plates,cups, utensils, napkins, etc. or find biodegradable ones

Decorations

-use efficient lighting, solar lights, etc. outside your home

-but local, organic pumpkins if possible

-roast your pumpkin seeds and eat them ~ yum!

-try not carving a pumpkin, decorating the outside, and then baking it for consumption later

-reuse decorations, and buy second hand

-use natural items to decorate, like fallen tree branches, berries, corn stalks, etc.

-compost your carved pumpkins after the great night

Alternative Hallowe'en ideas...

-visit a pumpkin farm

-pick apples

-talk a hike outside

-enjoy the moon

-look at the sky

-appreciate the bounty of the earth

Have a wonderful Hallowe'en!

Hallowe’en is fast approaching, and my daughter and I are getting ready (in fact, she’s been getting ready for 6 months already!) It is the one night a year when it is socially acceptable to be as evil as possible, and she always takes advantage of it to be the most black and nasty character she can be.

I might be a queen this year (suits my name) so I could at least have one night where I could tell everyone what to do and get away with it (as a municipal councilor it actually doesn’t happen often, believe it or not!) but sometimes I like to become someone from another culture to try to understand it better. I’ve dressed Japanese before, and I’ve been thinking that it might be useful to dress up as someone from the Maldives or Bangladesh and walk around in wet feet all night in tribute to the trouble they are having from rising sea levels. However, I wouldn’t want to make light oftheir hardships, but finding a way to raise the profile of their plight on Hallowe’en would be cool.

But, when you think about it, Hallowe’en is another holiday where Canadians often are not considerate of their environment. It is estimated that we spend $1.5 billion on Hallowe’en every year, with most of the expense being candy to hand out. This blog is the first of a series about what we can do to make it greener and healthier and funner (if that is a real word).

When I was doing the research to find out who had the best ideas, I came across a cool website, which is the most comprehensive, in my humble opinion: http://www.greenhalloween.org/

The most innovative idea I found was Reverse trick-or-treating. Instead of going to the doors and getting just regular chocolate, you go to the doors and hand out fair trade chocolate with some information on fair trade. http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/

When I was little, I always collected for UNICEF, and it felt good to be helping children around the world, on a night when it was easy to see that we had more than we needed. It would be nice to see children being considerate of others when they are receiving goodies. My daughter used to collect goodies then give most of them to extended family members who usually couldn’t afford treats like that.

Watch for another blog where I’ll list off the best of the green ideas I’ve found. Have fun greening your Hallowe’en!

I read two articles last week that on the surface seem to have nothing to do with each other, but I managed to connect them in my silly little head

The first article was in a magazine in my doctor's office - I don't even remember the magazine, but I do remember the topic.

Seven years have passed since 9/11 and seven years have passed since we were told that the site of the World Trade Centre will be rebuilt. And yet...there is still a hole in the ground. Numerous organizations can't agree on how to proceed, building permits and other regulatory agencies can't get on the same page. Seven years have passed, and there is still a hole in the ground.

In the meantime, China has built about half of the equivalent US infrastructure during the same period of time. Now, I know there are issues with their approach, etc with respect to feeding that amount of growth, but...it is a reality. North America has to wake up to this new reality.

Another reality facing North America is our slow pace in adopting the labelling the carbon footprint of consumer products. UK has begun, and now Japan. Walker Crisps (chips in North America) now state right on their bags of chips that each bag is responsible for emitting 75 grams of CO2. I actually carry two empty bags of Walker chips in my briefcase to share with people I meet.

Whether it is carbon labelling or construction or manufacturing more fuel efficient vehicles, North America has to wake up, or else we are in big trouble...

It's a big word - REVOLUTION!

Dramatic change, radical alteration, sea change, metamorphosis, transformation, 

innovation, reorganization, restructuring; informal shake-up, shakedown. 

Thought about it? Time for change, I'd say.  Time to shift paradigms in our society toward sustainable practices. Time to understand how our actions affect the world and each other. Time to get real about comprehending the full cost of our actions and becoming accountable for every step of what we need, use, want, desire.

Think about the computer you're using. What raw ingredients from mines were needed to make it? How much recycled content? Where did the ingredients get shipped from? Where was it put together? How far did it travel from the manufacturing facility? What resource input was needed to develop the programs you are using? Where does your electricity come from and what resources are used? Those are just a few of the questions we could be asking ourselves on things we buy and use every day. These are the questions that businesses and corporations could consider in their procurement policies. 

I believe that if people thought about these kinds of questions and could find easy answers, they would want to lessen their ecofootprint, their carbon footprint, to help the world, cool the climate, save the planet. If people are educated, I believe they will be willing to change, to adapt to sustainable practices, to morph into environmentally aware human beings. To join the green revolution!

Shift happens? 

I believe. 

I read in a blog about green marketing and I also read a news paper article about green products and their regulation in the very same day.

From these articles and issues  I found that I am not alone in wondering how we really can find out if the companies are just talking the talk or are they really walking the walk.  What scares me is that people in general show environmental issues and the environment as being really important, however these are the same people who won't necessarily do the research to make sure it is going to help.  Just saying something is green and picking up the product, no doubt will start making things better, however, if we want to have an impact we have to make sure that the regulators keep on top of the products and make sure the companies us e at least a template to qualify as a step in the right direction.

I am a marketer at heart and I know that products can use the label "new" for products that have been available for two years.  What qualifies a product for a proper greeen designation.  I thnk that green should be product based as well as product based.  I company should have a ecologically friendly product, produced in an environmentally friend production line.  Re-using water, recycling programs in-house and all the other great steps should assist with giving the product a 1 - 10 rating.

What is our responsibility... We need to let the MP's or Government members that proper and tighter regulations have to be in place in the consumer product market and that companies have to prove that they are truly green products without getting the designation.

What else can we do?  We can contact out City Councillor all over the country and let the know that their municipality should implement a green procurement policy and that they need to make more ecologically friend choice.  The municipalities and governments in general need to lead the way but the political will has to be there first.   The political will comes from the people.  Speak up, speak often, it will come but we have to make sure greeen products are really green and that we use them.

 What do you think? 

One of the challenges major corporations face moving into the 21st Century is how to relate core values and products with environmental action. For example, when you think of Nike or Coca Cola or McDonald's, being environmentally friendly doesn't automatically come to mind, but in fact, they are being proactive.

That said, on a quick scan (by design), McDonalds are starting to build 'green' LEED restaurants, Coca Cola mentions climate change on their website and Nike scores 82/100 on ClimateCounts.org (a very cool website). However, despite their positive action, none of these three companies have built addressing climate change and other environmental issues into their core products or messages (yet).

Two companies that do incorporate green into their core products and services are Aeroplan and Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Aeroplan offers air miles rewards (and other products and services), primarily through Air Canada. Earlier this year, Aeroplan launched a carbon offset program that allows members to exchange points for offsetting flights, in partnership with the Carbon Reduction Fund. The program is very use friendly - 780 points and my flight to Montreal for the weekend was offset with just a couple of clicks of the mouse!

Enterprise now offers carbon offsets for clients - right on their home page. They have also created www.keystogreen.com to help share their story with clients, focusing on their fuel efficient fleet, tree planting program and carbon offsets. They also have a great little video explaining carbon offsets - a must watch!

Companies like Aeroplan and Enterprise that incorporate client friendly experiences to address climate change are certainly the leading edge today. Hopefully we will see more and more companies doing the same thing in the near future.

Picture these products on the market in 2 years:

- The Recycled, Carbon Neutral Nike

- The locally grown, organic Big Mac

- The refillable Coca Cola steel cup that you take to the convenience store (hey, Tim Horton's does it now - why not Coke too!) 

They may seem like a stretch today, but so did the Internet in 1990!

Here is an interesting thought about purchasing electricity - it is one of the very things that we pay for and really don't know how much we are going to pay until 45 to 15 days after we use it (i.e. when the bill arrives). I just changed that problem in my home with an electronic meter that monitors my electricity use in real-time. Click here for the full project description and background on the equipment.

The meter sits on my desk and is currently showing that my home is consuming 0.320 kW, or the equivalent of about $480 per year for electricity ($40 per month) - wouldn't that be nice! It was reading 0.520 kW before I unplugged my TV / cable box / stereo / DVD player and a couple of unused lights.

The TV and related equipment all consume 'phantom power' when they are off but still plugged in - all of those pesky red and green LED lights need energy. I have plugged all of that equipment into a power bar that is easy to reach so it is easy to plug in and unplug.

Some quick math tells me that leaving that stuff plugged in was costing me about $100 per year and about 500 Kg of CO2 emissions - YIKES!

These monitoring units cost between $150 and $300 depending on the model. The encourage you to turn things off and save. I figure this thing will pay for itself in a less than a year. Money well spent for my wallet and the planet!

One of the great things about hanging out on GreenNexxus is receiving really interesting, valuable and sometimes scary information from friends! One of them is Lil MacPherson, a fellow Climate Project Canada presenter and co-owner/operator of the best darn restaurant in Halifax, Nova Scotia - The Wooden Monkey.

Lil just sent me an incredible PowerPoint on the fate of plastic shopping bags - this is a must watch! Please check it out - if you don't use reusable shopping bags now, you will after seeing the PowerPoint show.