Becoming Green at Oregon

Businesses can now take a 10 week course on becoming green and lowering their carbon footprint. Course is offered at the University of Oregon. See article here from The Register Guard.

Food miles and cheap food

It may be snowing at my house today, but I am thinking about Spring. Specifically the garden. For the past four or five years we've grown our own vegetables and fruit in our vegetable garden. This started when my wife was pregnant with our first kid. My plan then was to provide a lot of organic veggies on the cheap. It ended up working very well. In the ensuing years I've learned a number of tricks about what to grow and how to grow it. I've learned that we'll pretty much eat as much lettuce as we can produce, as long as there is some variety. And My wife and kids can not have too many strawberries. I'm proud that my kids help in the garden and will even eat raw broccoli straight from the plant, hands free.

The last year or two I've been becoming more concerned with our impact on the environment. The side benefit to this garden is the reduced food miles we enjoy all summer long. For four or five months a year we deal in food feet, which, on an annualized basis makes a difference. And for this our trade off is fresher, healthier food. Now if we could figure out how to lengthen the growing season when it snows in March.

Wasteful Practices

UO Catering business is far from sustainble, just fyi. Maybe they do a few things, but it's far from effective. The amount of potentially compostable food that is thrown in the trash, the pounds of saran wrap that wrap everything that goes out of the kitchen, and the tremendous amounts of Sysco products that are shipped in from far away, the "compostable" products which are thrown in the trash (which doesn't mean it composts!), excess hot water usage, lights left on all the time, etc etc. all drove me insane when I was working there.
Just keepin' it real.
K

Sustainable Business Practice

Hey, Paul and Show Me Your Green Team! Great site and informative content.

I wanted to add my thoughts. I've committed to sustainable living in mypersonal life, but my bigger contribution is greening my company'spractices. We've won several community and sustainability awards for ourprogressive business values...and I'm pretty sure we'll win Best Company toWork For in Oregon (Oregon Business Magazine) when the awards are announced2/26/09. Our green policies are a huge part of building our companyculture, supporting volunteership, and promoting responsible practices tothe business community. Here's the link to our Green info:http://www.rosecitymtg.com/culture/ . I've also attached ourspread-the-green-word insert that we include in clients' loan packages, sothey can see that we care (and maybe get inspired for sustainable stuff theycan do).

Thanks for getting the word out! Hopefully the green movement will get soentrenched with companies' daily business practices that it won't fade likeother PR fads. It seems like being sustainable is becoming a fundamentalbusiness practice: both for the balance sheet and for customer confidence.

JJ

Jennifer "JJ" Lee Kwai

Rose City Mortgage Specialists 10737 SW Inverness Ct, Portland, OR 97219

503.768.4248 (Office) 503.768.4210 (Fax)

RoseCity Mortgage Specialists Has Been Awarded: 100 Best Companies in Oregon,BBB Small Business of the Year, 10 Most Dependable Mortgage Brokers

how we walk our GREEN talk:
We recycle everything. We offset our carbon consumption with the purchase of green tags. We clean our office with non-toxic cleaning products. We support local business and the environment by purchasing locally. Our office supplies are recycled and printed with soy inks. Loan files are handled electronically to reduce paper consumption. We work with a green Escrow Company, Appraiser and Realtors.
We donate back to the community with each loan we close – over $100,000 so far.
˛¸
www.rosecitymtg.com

Lowering My Carbon Footprint Weeks 2 and 3

So I'm a failure.

I've got loads of excuses but for the most part I was just lazy.

On week 2 I rode my bike a grand total of....... 8 miles

I drove or was a passenger in a car for a total of just over 34 miles

Wow, this was bad. I looked into ltd but never woke up in time to catch the bus that takes me to Eugene Station as I have classes at 8:30. (It's not like I'm ever on time even when I drive)I tried to keep driving to a minimum and consolidated my trips for the most part. It did snow on Tuesday of this week so should I be penalized for not riding my bike that day? (hey, thats a good excuse)

For week 3:
I actually rode my bike 19 miles this week! 16 were too and from school and the other three were recreational.

I did however drive or got a ride in the car for 27 miles. So i still didn't achieve my 50/50 split. I found that it helped to wake up a little early and wake up a little with some java, plus the weather was a little bit better this week, that can't hurt right?

On Thursday of this week, My stupid bike lock key broke in my lock before my noon class. I decided to risk not having my bike locked the entire class. After sweating frofusely for an hour and a half I came back out and realized it was still ther (whew) I promptly had to go to the nearest bike shop and fork over 16 dollars for a new one! arg.

Until Next Time!
-Nick

Restaurant Sustainability

While working in the restaurant industry, I've witnessed first hand the wasteful practices which occur everyday. Using styrofoam for carry-out containers, constantly running water, and continually throwing away products which can easily be recycled are some of the biggest issues I see at work.
In my efforts to promote sustainability, I decided to take my efforts to the larger scale and tackle some of the issues going on in the restaurant I work at. I began by asking the general manager for an interview. I was not surprised when I didn't hear back from him. I must have made some sort of ripple because a week after the interview I had the service manager pull me aside for a talk. This is usually a bad omen as it usually deals with constantly being late or guest complaints. I was surprised to hear that he had heard of the sustainability project and wanted in. I first asked to interview him about restaurant sustainability and his beliefs on what is important to him in the big picture.
Here is the interview:

What does sustainability mean to you?
As a society, I think we spend very little time thinking about the rate at which we are going through our resources. Also, what effect the waste that we generate will have on the increasingly human dominated habitats. This has to catch up with us eventually. Sustainability means doing what needs to be done to prevent a possible critical mess in the future.

What aspects of sustainability are important to you?

Modifying the resource consumption of water, keeping the by-products of our lifestyles from poisoning the very things that we depend on to live, and better management of energy consumption.

Are you acting on those beliefs?

I would say that i am passionate about sustainability, my awareness of ways to decrease my 'footprint' has grown and I feel like I am a work in progress. Having said that, I am still moving with the wasteful inertia of society more than making strides against it.

You work in the restaurant industry, what are some of the sustainability issues you see which need to be addressed? Do you see any fundamental changes happening? Increased Awareness?

A sustainability plan is in the embyotic stages at my restaurant. Our consumption of water is a very large concern, we need to put a lot more work in our electricity consumption, and we allow too much plastic and paper to end up in a landfill. But I am not giving up.

Is there anything holding you back from doing more both at home and at the workplace?

We are addicted to petroleum because of our reluctance to drastically modify our lifestyle or change our thinking. This is human nature and I am guilty also.

Who do you think should play a bigger role in helping us become more sustainable?

There is not a whole lot of leadership out there, partly because of general apathy and partly because our sources of information don't do a whole lot of touting the virtues of sustainability. In many cases quite the opposite. What we need is an enlightenment of sorts where the message gets from person to person. "Yes, what I do today REALLY does affect livability tomorrow. That is definately not at the forefront of our psychy. It needs to be.

I was extremely surprised with the passion he displayed for these issues. We also devised a sustainability taskforce at work with those who share similar opinions. I'll keep you all updated after the first meeting!

Eco Hot Rodding - This might be a stretch

In order of impact, walking is without a doubt the least impactful way of getting around, followed next by bike, public transport, motorcycle/scooter, car pooling and finally driving yourself. The unfortunate truth about city design in most US cities is that walking isn’t always a realistic possibility to get everywhere you need to go. In some cities, the public transportation system may even be inadequate. The point being that many people in the US have no choice but to use a car, and the type of car they use, and how they use it is the biggest determinate of their impact from transportation.

My current situation is such that at least three days a week I have a 150 mile round trip commute. This type of commute begs for public transportation- bus or rail. Unfortunately in my situation those are not well developed enough options to satisfy my needs (and believe me, I dream of being able to jump on a train and have a couple hours of my day back to work while traveling). This distance is also beyond my abilities to peddle in, even if I had help from three friends. So, I am beholden to the commute via auto.

These days the answer to the question: “Ok, which car?” almost always seems to be a hybrid. The Prius being the most common, but there are many from Honda and Toyota, and many more coming from the Big Three and others. I have two problems with this answer. First, why must we always consume something new? Cars take a great deal of energy to produce, and have a great deal of impact just getting them to the dealer’s lot, no matter how low their MPG is. Second, all of these hybrids have batteries. Battery technology is seeing a great deal of investment, but I feel the jury is still out on the impact of producing and, more importantly, disposing of car batteries. This problem will potentially become larger as a new crop of full electric vehicles comes to market. Essentially, hybrids and electrics are great at reducing fuel consumption, but what are the other ecological trade offs?

I might not be raising these questions if I didn’t have an answer that would work for me, and maybe others. Until a more sustainable answer comes along, I propose a new green option for the car: repurpose and hot rod.

Repurpose: Pick any old used up car and save it. Ideally, pick something cool, but not too heavy. This will rule out ‘57 Impalas and ’67 Lincoln Continentals. Both cool cars, but also quite heavy with full frames and solid axels. Think smaller and lighter: old VW Bugs might work well. But I think I’ll go about as light and small as is feasible: a classic Mini Cooper, not a MINI, a Mini. Like from the early ‘60s. These old Minis sip gas but aren’t really set up for modern traffic, a little slow to accelerate, not too reliable, and despite the small engines, they are ‘60s technology, so they pollute. In other words, the engine is not going to work.

Hot Rod: The solution to the power plant issue is another opportunity to repurpose. Almost any Honda 4-cylinder engine from the last 25 years will bolt into these small little cars with the help of a kit from Mini Tec. The Honda power train is reliable and relatively efficient. By essentially bolting a smaller, lighter car to the Honda engine, you maximize its potential.

These repurposed parts combine to create a car that gets 45 miles per gallon and can go 0-60 in under 5 seconds, an added benefit to “adding lightness” to the Honda engine. This sort of performance matches the VW small diesel’s performance, with out having to force VW to make a whole new car in your quest for efficient driving. In this pursuit you are potentially saving the car and engine from a landfill, and giving them new life. The fact that you created a high performance hot rod that can park in almost any parking spot is just an added bonus of trying to be green.

And don't forget...the Mini is one of the best handling cars ever. This just keeps getting better.