Zerofootprint has partnered with the city of Toronto to come up with a nifty site that allows you to compute your personal carbon foot print. They even have an area geared specifically for kids.
Knowing is half the battle.
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Monthly Archives: February 2008
Podcast with Vancouver Film Studios
Vancouver Film Studios has become the first film and TV production studio in Canada to go carbon neutral.
The company spent a year preparing to meet the carbon neutral challenge, and has implemented a number of new process to reduce their carbon footprint, as well as purchasing carbon offsets.
This podcast features Pete Mitchell, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of Vancouver Film studios, and was produced by At Large Media’s Robert Ouimet.
It’s unusual when you get a movement that’s coming from both the bottom and the top….frankly the cost is not as high as everybody thinks, it’s more the uncertainty.
- Pete Mitchell, Vancouver Film Studios
Robert’s notes…
Pete Mitchell makes his accomplishment at Vancouver Film Studio sound simple.
But what he’s done is impressive, requiring determination and passion. As you’ll hear, it also required a certain amount of serendipity.
While it’s good for the environment, Pete Mitchell argues it’s also good for business.
And I think he’s right.
We live in a competitive world, and Vancouver Film Studios is going a long way to differentiate itself from its competitors. They’ve also started an irreversable path within their company, one that will lead them to new technologies and processes that will help the environment even more.
That’s good for business, our community, and our planet.
- Read more about Vancouver Film Studios green initiatives on their web site.
- Read more about recent projects shot at the studios.
- Go Neutral Now – carbon neutral consultants
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Pete Mitchell
Executive Vice-President and COO, Vancouver Film Studios
Runs 9:44
ISBN: 978-0-9809054-4-1
© Bigsnit Media Consulting Inc. Podcasts are available for re-broadcast. Contact info@vangogreen.com
Eco Friendly Ipod Cases
It’s really great to see local companies contributing interesting new products that are both stylish and good for the environment.
Ipods are everywhere, and a Vancouver company, Imoeba, has unveiled a new line of cases for the Nano and the 80 or 160 gig iPod. Continue reading
Nash Trash Talking?
As if I needed another reason to love Steve Nash. He will now be wearing the Nike Trash Talk, their new environmentally-crafted-shoe. The first game test was on Valentine’s night in the Phoenix game against the Dallas Mavericks (his old team).
Tap into a good idea.
Water is a valuable commodity. Here on the West Coast drinkable water is easy to a take for granted. That is why this New York pay for your tap water initiative caught my eye. Beginning Sunday, March 16 through Saturday, March 22, over 300 New York based restaurants will invite their customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free. Continue reading
Grow Grain in Your Garden
If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, you know how rewarding it is to have fresh grown food on the table. As a kid, I spent the summer on my grandparent’s farm and huge gardens were the norm. Continue reading
Trash Based Bio Fuels
Aron recently blogged about the issue related to corn biofuels. Meanwhile, BlueFire Ethanol, a company based in California, sees promise in converting some trash into usable fuels.
The remains of plants processed for human purposes molder in landfills across the world. Whether waste paper or raked leaves, the plant remnants still contain cellulose, a sugar in greenery that bonds with the chemical compound lignin to furnish a plant’s structure. Microbes living in the landfills break down this cellulose into methane….
BlueFire estimates 40 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol could be produced from plant waste destined for the landfill, providing as much as one third of all U.S. transportation fuel needs.
And, if other forms of waste, such as the stalks of corn plants (corn stover) or the remnants of timber harvest are included, Klann [Arnold Klann, BlueFire's president] says, “we have enough feedstock in the U.S. to offset 70 percent of the oil import.”
read the full story in Scientific American
The Sustainable Restaurant Green Guide
The Green Table network recently put together a Green Guide aimed at the restaurant business. The Guide was part of their booth at the recent BC Foodservice Expo – the idea is to help restaurants find out about, and source, greener products and equipment for their establishments.
Wal-Mart Looks At Vancouver LNG system
I wrote a few weeks ago about the proliferation of ‘green’ efforts by mainstream companies. Green is in. And I’ll say it again – every effort helps.
This week, a Vancouver company signed a deal to provide Wal-Mart with 4 trucks, part of a pilot project… Continue reading
No corny solutions.
Alternative fuels are becoming big business as peak oil looms on the horizon. Unfortunately, it looks like corn is not the answer.
The rush to grow biofuel crops — widely embraced as part of the solution to global warming — is actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them, according to two studies published Thursday in the journal Science.
….
The analysis calculated that a U.S. cornfield devoted to producing ethanol would have to be farmed for 167 years before it would begin to achieve a net reduction in emissions.
“Any biofuel that uses productive land is going to create more greenhouse gas emissions than it saves,” said Timothy Searchinger, a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the study’s lead author.
The studies prompted 10 prominent ecologists and environmental biologists to write to President Bush and congressional leaders Thursday, urging new policy “that ensures biofuels are not produced on productive forests, grassland or cropland.”