Business Archives - Page 3 of 7

Find Anything on Google, Except Maybe Their Large Carbon Footprint

Google has been a carbon neutral company for seven years, and every year around this time they calculate and publish their carbon footprint so they can make sure to offset it completely. Today Google updated the Google Green website with their 2013 carbon footprint so we can see it for ourselves. They also made another announcement relevant to green businesses, communities and our environment. In ironic contradiction to the old song, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," the search giant announced that it will put a 82MW solar power plant on top of an old oil and gas field in Kern County, Calif.

"There's something a little poetic about creating a renewable resource on land that once creaked with oil wells," said Google. "Over the years, this particular site in California has gone from 30 oil wells to five as it was exhausted of profitable fossil fuel reserves. The land sat for some time and today we’re ready to spiff things up."

The new deal wi…

What’s Good for the Environment can be Great for Business

I enjoy learning about how I can help the environment and staying up to date on which green businesses are playing a role in this revolution. My understanding of why everyone needs to contribute to this solution continues to branch out in many new directions as well. From reducing to reusing to recycling, this century's eco-friendly innovators have helped pave the way for a growing awareness about environmental concerns that is sweeping the globe. Here are some examples of how green businesses are helping create a cleaner and safer environment. Plastic Reduction

The most basic way people can start helping clean up the environment is bringing their own bags to the grocery store. Instead of choosing between paper and plastic bags, both of which create a strain on the environment, bringing your own cloth bag is reusable, reducing the need to cut down trees and drill for oil, which is where plastic products come from. Several U.S. cities such as San…

20 Universities That Encourage Green Living

1) Nanyang Technical University – School of Art, Design and Media - The architectural structure of this building maximizes interior daylight, makes smart use of lack of space and land in the local area, minimizes materials, and uses lower water and electricity uses. 2) Yale University – Kroon Hall - Kroon Hall at Yale University is made from 80% certified timber, 16% recycled content. Also, 34% of the purchased materials came from regional sources. As a result, there is an 81% reduction in annual potable water use, which saves an average 500k gallons of city water a year. They are also seeing a 61% reduction in energy use compared to a similar building and program. It features rooftop photovoltaic panel providing 25% of the building’s electricity. Half of the red oak paneling came from a forest in northern Connecticut that’s managed by the school itself. 3) Carnegie Mellon University – Gates and Hillman…

California Officially Joins the War on Plastic Bags

Great news for the environment occurred last night, when CA government voted to ban single-use plastic bags across the state. “The bill, SB 270, will phase out single-use plastic bags in grocery stores and pharmacies beginning July 2015, and in convenience stores one year later, and create a mandatory minimum ten-cent fee for recycled paper, reusable plastic and compostable bags” states Stephanie Spear, author at EcoWatch, who wrote California Bans Plastic Bags. If the already agreed upon bill is signed by the CA governor, California will be the first state to ban these environmentally un-friendly products.

“More than 120 California local governments have already banned single-use plastic bags with more than 1 in 3 Californians already living somewhere with a plastic bag ban in place, in an effort to drive consumers towards sustainable behavior change,” affirms Spear. With such a large amount of the population already embracing the plastic ban bag, this measure will …

Companies That Do Sustainabililty Right Make it Mainstream, Not Niche

By Jeana Wirtenberg. Originally published on Businessweek. Twenty-five years ago, sustainability was not a part of standard business discourse. Today it is—and business schools helped make that happen. But we’re reaching the natural limits of what B-schools started. Only a wave of innovation in management education will help businesses get fast enough to meet customers’ needs in a hotter, flatter, more crowded world. The first step is to take sustainability out of its silo existence and make it part of the core business school curriculum. Sustainability can’t just be an orientation exercise, an elective course, an institute, or a specialty degree. It can’t be something that some students go deeply into, while some just get familiar with it. Unfortunately, that’s where we are now. In management education, sustainability departments have produced lots of specialists. The knowledge those departments have accumulated should be brought into the mainstream to reach stude…

Charge your Mobile Battery with your own Body Heat

These shorts and sleeping bag charge your mobile devices Smart materials in the Power Shorts use kinetic energy created by the wearer's movements to charge mobile phones Modules attached to the fabric of the Recharge Sleeping Bag capture thermal energy from a sleeper's body to create an electric charge Products have been developed by Vodafone and Southampton University By Victoria Woollaston Festival goers need never run out of phone battery again thanks to a new range of denim shorts and sleeping bags that use body heat and movement to generate electricity. The Power Shorts and Recharge Sleeping Bag can charge a phone's battery by harvesting energy from the human body using kinetic and thermoelectric technology. The wearable phone chargers have been designed by mobile phone company Vodafone with help from the University of Southampton. Vodafone has teamed up with the University of Southampton to create wearable phone chargers for festival goers. Th…