The company said that users could also install Ecosia as their default search engine, adding that once installed it would provide them with a personal record of how much rainforest they have saved by using the search engine.
"3. Use your prettiest dishes and skip disposable anything. It can be a hassle to iron napkins and table cloths. And there is an argument to be made, I guess, that using recyclable/disposable plates and napkins saves water, but I like using my “good” dishes and napkins. Why do you have that beautiful china if you don’t use it? Or those beautiful cloth napkins? Believe me, if they could talk, they’d say, “Let me outta here! I want to serve!”
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| by Goldfish | |
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| For the full product rating, check out Goldfish Baked Snack Crackers - Whole Grain Cheddar. | |
You can put your green data to use in five ways that will help your bottom line:
- Saving money — a lot of it. As we've seen, if you give your operational people information on resource use, they will be inspired to find ways to cut back.
- Driving internal competition. Share footprint data broadly and transparently and you'll see how badly people like to win. When PepsiCo Chicago ran a floor-by-floor energy reduction competition, the results were staggering. In one three-month period, electricity use dropped 17% (and paper use 22%). Energy use on the winning floor plummeted 31%. Factory heads at a number of companies have told me that they'd rather miss their financial targets than their green or energy goals — it's just too embarrassing to be at the bottom of the list.
- Answering your customers' pressing questions. Wal-Mart, along with many other companies, is asking suppliers and vendors very tough questions about their environmental and social impacts. Those that can gather their data and tell the best story will get the most shelf space and mind space (see my previous post on Wal-Mart's eco-ratings for more on this point).
- Prioritizing initiatives. Resources remain very tight — you don't want to spend money on the wrong things. With all the pressure to go green, it's easy to get lost in the weeds and pursue avenues that may not yield the most benefit. When companies really look at their full value-chain impacts, they're very often surprised at the results. Green leader Stonyfield Farm discovered that 95% of the ecological damage from its packaging occurred during production and distribution. So the company has made light-weighting (which is what it sounds like) the top priority — use less stuff and the footprint goes down. Stonyfield has made the deliberate choice to not use a recyclable, yet heavier, plastic; this counterintuitive and seemingly non-green choice makes the most environmental and fiscal sense given the real data.
- Finding new market openings and focusing innovation. Procter & Gamble went through a similar lifecycle exercise and made a similar discovery about its laundry products. The vast majority of energy use was not in sourcing, production, or distribution, but in the use of the detergent in homes. And the majority of that was not the washing machine turning, but heating the water. This insight led to Tide Coldwater, a reformulated product to help customers wash in cool water, using less energy and saving money. Coldwater is one of P&G's seven original "sustainable innovation products" that generated $2 billion in sales in the first year.
#5 is the most underrated I think.
"The reports have the same conclusion: the stuff we buy and the packaging that comes with the stuff we buy represent our biggest contribution to global warming – far more so than the amount of electricity our stuff uses, or the amount of fuel our stuff burns on the highway."
"One of the main principles of permaculture is that 'the problem is the solution.'
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If some of us would just put forth the extra effort, I think we'd all find things like this could spark our personal creativity and -- dare I say --- be fun.
Simple and smart.
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"In terms of logistics, the plan is relatively simple. The six diary goats, owned by local farmer Lucy McKain, will be walked down the road from McKain's farm to the nearby meadow. They'll graze for a while, before heading home.
A semi-permanent fence will go up around the space to keep the goats from wandering, and any goat droppings will be left as a natural fertilizer.
If a success, the pilot project could end up expanding to include other animals in other conservation spaces in and around Andover."
I was just thinking about this at the Houston, Texas Tech game this past weekend. While we did go local for the cuisine, there was way too many items that just weren't recyclable. Sadly, there were even fewer places to dispose of the things that actually were. It's easy to overlook mother nature when your team's about to hit the field. Think next time and do your part.
