sustainability Archives - Page 2 of 3

Breaking News: Rockefellers to Kick the Oil Habit

(See video below) By the time the Ball drops in Times Square on December 31st, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund–a private charitable foundation established in 1940–committed to reducing their exposure to coal and tar sands investments to less than one percent of their total portfolio. Could be a great way to end the new year, or "the end of the hydro carbon age" as Deborah Burke of the Fund's Sustainable Development team quoted Bill McKibben from yesterday's People's Climate March. Would father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the philanthropist who founded the fund, approve? Perhaps. According to the fund's Sustainable Development Guidelines, the fund already supports global stewardship that is ecologically based, economically sound, socially just, culturally appropriate, and consistent with intergenerational equity. The Fund encourages government, business, and civil society to work collaboratively on climate change, to acknowledge the moral and ethical consequences of in…

6 Freeway Removals That Changed Their Cities Forever

By Allssa Walker

It seems counterintuitive, right? Rip out eight lanes of freeway through the middle of your metropolis and you'll be rewarded with not only less traffic, but safer, more efficient cities? But it's true, and it's happening in places all over the world.

Many freeway systems were overbuilt in an auto-obsessed era, only to realize later that cities are actually healthier, greener, and safer without them. Like freeway cap parks, which hope to bridge the chasms through severed neighborhoods—Boston's Big Dig is a great example—freeway removal projects try to eradicate and undo the damage wrought from highways, while creating new, multifunctional shared streets that can be utilized by transit, bikes, walkers and yes, even cars.

Okay, you're thinking, but where do all the cars go? It turns out that when you take out …

OC Business Summit Attracts Stellar Speakers Including Arianna Huffington and Malcolm Gladwell

The 2014 OC Business Summit Brings Bright Minds Together Discussing Transformation at Saddleback Church By Amanda Crater (Lake Forest, CA) -- Spending a sunny Saturday indoors attending a business conference at a Christian church is not normally this Jewish hippie's idea of a good time, but when I heard about the line-up of speakers at the OC Business Summit on March 8, I immediately cancelled the dance classes I teach on Saturdays and drove 20 miles before 8:00 am to Lake Forest to attend. As editor of Greenbusinesses.com, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to hear from and interview some of the biggest names and brightest minds in publishing, including Arianna Huffington, Malcolm Gladwell (author of "The Tipping Point" and "David and Goliath), pastor Rick Warren (author of "The Purpose Driven Life"), and the publishers of Forbes magazine (Rich Kaalgard) and Freedom Communications/The OC Register (Eric Spitz). Pardon my expression when I say the roster was a writ…

Costa Rica: Where Environmentalism and Tourism Live in Harmony

The country is creating a model using its natural resources. March 17, 2014 By Scott Johnson Scott Johnson has headed Newsweek’s Mexico and Baghdad bureaus, and is the author of "The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, A Son and the CIA." This article appears in full on www.takepart.com Standing on the beach at Playa Guiones, on Costa Rica’s northwest Guanacaste coastline, and looking eastward, the only thing one sees is an unbroken line of forest. There are no high-rises, no big hotels, no smog-filled taxi corridors catering to drunken tourists. Instead the trees are filled with monkeys and birds with brightly colored plumes. The only sounds are the crashing of the ocean’s waves and the thrum of forest creatures. Not all of Costa Rica looks like this, but a lot of it does. According to last year’s report from the World Energy Council on global environmental sustainability, Costa Rica nabbed second place, after Switzerland, and was far ahead of Central American neighbo…

Google Investing More than $1 Billion in Alternative Energy

Google aims to rely completely on renewable energy sources, investing over $1 billion in alternative energy sources, reported the International Business Times in this article, "Google Clean Energy: $1 Billion Investments Protect Environment And Company's Bottom Line." An article on RT provides additional analysis on Google's clean energy investment. Here is an excerpt with a link to the full article: Google investing more than $1 billion in alternative energy Around one-third of Google’s operations are made possible by renewable power, but the Silicon Valley giant is gunning to become completely reliant on resources like wind and the sun. Rick Needham, the director of Google’s Energy and Sustainability office, told CNBC recently that 34 percent of the search engine company’s day-to-day operations are currently powered by reusable resources. If all goes as planned, though, before long that statistic could soar as high up as 100 percent. Speaking to CNBC for an…

Green & Clean in 2013: Six Top Environmental Stories of the Year

Many excellent articles from reputable environmental news sources have been published recently rounding up and summarizing the top green stories and trends of 2013. Here's a look at some of our favorites: 1. A Year in CSR: The Top 10 Trends of 2013 Triple Pundit Alison DaSilva From the massive Bangladesh fire and factory collapse, to the horse meat scandal and ongoing international natural disasters, 2013 was a year of new issues, challenges and opportunities within CSR. Companies and consumers alike were bold, even brazen, in their approaches to accelerating positive change. This year was marked by continued digital innovation, audacious goals, new industry support and unexpected partnerships. 2. 13 for 13: The Stories that Defined California Environmental Leadership Environmental Defense Fund By Derek Walker There is never a dull moment on the California environmental policy scene, and 2013 was particularly action-packed. Everywhere you turn there se…