Should old posts be forgot…we’ll recap our favorite posts of 2008. Is this just our way of kicking up our feet for the holidays? Yes. But still, it’s worth looking back at some of the issues, innovations and inspiration that made us take notice.

2008 was the year…

…the Vatican went solar, and English nuns moved into a green monastery

…the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of debris and waste, roughly the size of Texas, kept swirling somewhere out between San Francisco and Hawaii.

…Better Place, the startup led by Shai Agassi, helped change the way people think about electric cars by investing in a green infrastructure.

…City Harvest continued to ‘rescue’ leftover food from NYC restaurants.

…Tom Friedman sounded the alarm in his powerful book Hot, Flat and Crowded.

…the year of the hybrid- SF saw the first hybrid ferry to Alcatraz, Toyota called for an all-hybrid fleet by 2020, Volvo introduced its hybrid garbage truck, we waited to see if G.M. would fall before the arrival of its game-changing (?) Volt, NYC and Boston each called for an all-hybrid taxi fleet.

…the year wind, wave and solar gained momentum. We saw turbines in Time Square billboards,  Wal-Mart parking lots, the North Sea where a proposed grid may power 70 million homes, on skyscrapers in Manhattan. We saw innovations in wave energy, proposed eco-rigs (floating renewable power stations) and potential breakthroughs in the efficiency of solar.

…the year we had a big fat opinion on a number of topics, such as individual responsibility and the role of the government, why Thanksgiving is the best holiday and the need for an Energy Race (like the Space Race of the 50s and 60s) to trigger a green innovation spree.

We’re hopeful that 2009 will surprise us in ways we can’t imagine!

Plenty Magazine has a great article on an interesting shift in US tobacco production, and how it is still linked to big tobacco (we’re talking about you, American Spirit)

Plenty - The Green Cigarette

It’s refreshing to find a brand that has so creatively blended its sustainability message with the quality of its products. Dansko, the Pennsylvania-based company, is reinventing the shoe business, from (eco-friendly) soup to nuts. Their shoeboxes and tissue paper are made of recyclable material. All of their marketing materials are printed on recycled paper with soy inks. Many of the shoes themselves are made of leather from a German-owned tannery that has developed a more environmentally-friendly tanning process, one that has resulted in a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions, 40% reduction in water usage and a 50% reduction in electricity usage. Even the office space reflects their commitment to sustainability. They recently moved into to an impressive new  8,000 square foot building and are targeting a gold LEED certification.

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For many of us, the holiday presents have been opened, the wrapping paper and boxes have been broken down and we now have…new stuff. Let today, what many call Boxing Day, be the day to think about how to responsibly dispose of that old stuff that this year’s booty replaced.

Boxing Day, December 26th, is a public holiday in places like the UK and Canada and is based on the tradition of giving gifts to the less fortunate members of society.  It’s a good time to put into boxes those belongings that are in good condition but that we’ll probably never wear or use again. RecycleNow offers a handy guide to what can and can’t be recycled. Goodwill is always a safe bet- if you’re Goodwill hunting (oh geez), try their store locator. Or find a Salvation Army drop off location near you. And check out this helpful list of recycling tips from Real Simple. Remember, the holiday season can also be a good time to downsize!

A lot of trends have started in Seattle- designer coffee, Sub-Pop, tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon, rain…- and we’re hoping a new trend takes off. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) is now offering prime location parking spaces with plug-ins for electric vehicles in the Airport Garage. The pilot program includes six spaces located on the fifth floor of the garage that provide free electric charging.

The new electric vehicle plug-ins consist of standard 120 volt outlets with 20 amps and the spaces are designated with green striping. The spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis and standard parking rates apply. Best news? This charge is free of charge!

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Last week, I put the scooter (our Kymco People Mover 150 cc) away for the winter. For anyone who hasn’t ridden a scooter, I highly recommend it! Emasculating? Slightly. Dangerous? A tad. Fun? Definitely! And a great choice for an environmentally-friendly commute.

I’ll admit, it had gotten a little ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong- with the full ski suit, gloves, two scarves, full helmet, I was perfectly comfortable, but the snow/black ice was starting worry me a little.

My wife’s family introduced me to the virtues of scooters- no trouble finding parking, fill up your tank for well under $5 and, here’s the real bonus, at 85-170 miles per gallon, it’s a great way to lower your footprint. My father-in-law  (a former fighter pilot and all-around thrill seeker) only turned to scooters after he crashed his BMW motorcycle into a deer at 50 mph (could’ve been faster than that, he says with a wink). We’ve had Hondas, Vespas, Kymcos and others. My wife stopped riding on back when she was pregnant with our son and her belly got too big- and, for some reason, she didn’t like my suggestion that she should just turn around and ride backwards. 

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The San Francisco Bay Area can lay claim to one more green innovation- the nation’s first known hybrid ferryboat. On December 12th, Alcatraz Cruises, the National Park Service concessioner of ferry service to Alcatraz Island, introduced the Hornblower Hybrid, a wind, solar and diesel powered hybrid ferry.

The Hornblower Hybrid, a 64-foot long catamaran, uses power generated by two ten-foot-tall wind turbines and a photovoltaic solar array covering the awning on the top deck. That power is converted and stored in battery banks that then power the navigation tools, lighting and other electronics on board the vessel. Excess power is stored in the main propulsion battery banks. In addition to solar panels and wind turbines, the Hornblower Hybrid also has Tier 2 marine diesel engines.

Scott Thornton, Vice President of Operations and General Manager of Alcatraz Cruises, said, “with this vessel we hope to become a model of environmental innovation for the city of San Francisco, the state of California and the United States.”

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Swede dude! Volvo has introduced a hybrid heavy-duty garbage truck, rolling out a limited number for service in England and France in 2009. It’s a welcome idea- after all, if you take the time to sort your recycling and your trash, it’s frustrating to see it taken away in a belching, smog producing garbage truck.

Volvo Trucks will deliver four garbage- or refuse, as they say over there- trucks with hybrid power to Veolia Propreté, one of the world’s largest companies in refuse handling.

The hybrid is based on Volvo Trucks’ heavy-duty FE model and has both a diesel engine and an electric motor. Each power source can be used separately or in combination with the other, with a total fuel reduction of up to 30 percent. Emissions of climate-impacting carbon dioxide are also significantly lower. Electric power gives exhaust-free and almost totally silent operation, a major bonus to people who are tired of being woken up by early morning trash collection.

While Volvo is clearly just dipping its toe in the water here with this program, we’re hoping the results prove impossible to refuse. Get it? Refuse. Oh geez…

Obviously one of the most enviro-friendly things you can do is a ride a bike, so I wanted to take a break from electric cars and coffee ground fuel to direct you to Copenhagen Cycle Chic, an great site that covers everything bike, billing itself as “Streetstyle & Bike Advocacy from the World’s Cycling Capital” Bookmark now.

Snowfences are a common sight in the Rocky Mountain west. Used primarily to minimize the amount of snowdrift on roadways and for avalanche control, these wooden structures are starting to find a new, unlikely home…in Whole Foods and Bass Pro Shop locations.

Centennial Woods, a Wyoming based company, has reclaimed over 5 million feet of Wyoming snowfence, preventing as much as 9,000 tons of CO2 emissions that would have resulted from its disposal and destruction. Whole Foods, Bass Pro Shop and others are using the company’s reclaimed wood as design features in their stores across the U.S.

Because of decades of exposure, the wood is extremely durable material that requires little maintenance, designers say. “Designers, architects, and builders tell us they absolutely love the texture, patina, character and strength of our reclaimed Wyoming snowfence,” says John Pope, CEO of Centennial Woods. “We plan to continue to cultivate partnerships with professionals who seek naturally beautiful, healthy materials with a truly green pedigree.”

For more info, check out the article on Sustainable Life Media’s site.

If you’ve had kids recently, you might have run into NYC-based boutique giggle - a great resource and community for the new parent. With the baby/toddler marketing booming, it’s good to see they are mixing in some responsible products in keeping with their philosophies.

Giggle - Eco-Friendly Cookware & Dining Set

Over at Core77, some more proof that everyone (well, at least sensible Canadian citizens) know elected officials will never solve our problems:

PowerUp Canada is a new website aimed at educating and encouraging Canadians to lobby their elected officials toward better environmental policies

Core77 - PowerUp Canada

As part of its on-going series, “Project Green,” Newsweek has put out a list of the most environmentally unfriendly holiday decorations. As Caitlin McDevitt writes in “Decorating Sense: How To Celebrate The Holidays Without Trashing The Environment,” while this might be the most wonderful time of the year, “the holiday season exacts a high price on the planet.”

Think of all the waste created, from wrapping paper and packaging to holiday party leftovers. The EPA estimates a 25% increase in the amount of household trash during the holiday season. And while you might not go as crazy as the Griswolds, odds are your energy consumption goes up along with the holiday lights. Newsweek offers this list of decorations to avoid this holiday season.

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This past weekend, the NY Times Magazine included its eighth annual ‘Year of Ideas,’ its list of ideas that “helped make the past 12 months, for better or worse, what they were.” As always, it’s an interesting mix, ranging from the brilliant to the bizarre, and we thought we’d provide some highlights, at least ones that were related to the environment. They include ideas about networked power grids,  a redesigned internal-combustion engine, eating Kangaroos, dog poop forensics and mini cows.

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China’s BYD - Build Your Dream - is the world’s second largest battery company. Warren Buffett owns 10%. And now, the producer of China’s first electric car. They built a 16 million square-foot auto assembly plant in Shenzen, hired a team of Italian-trained car designers, are working on public infrastructure, and plan on selling the car in the US by 2010. Oh, and all supported by the Chinese government.

I think my email would read like this:

TO: Rick Wagoner

CC: Barack Obama

Subject: RE: Why We’re Getting Our Ass Kicked

WSJ - BYD to Introduce China’s First Electric Car

I’ve always been on the fence about CNN. I felt like John King’s magic map and coverage of the 2008 Election was really impressive, but then it would be followed by Larry King talking politics and roundhouse kicks with Chuck Norris. This weekend, I watched Planet in Peril - pretty good - but the commercials for Anderson Cooper’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve with Kathy Griffin (?) kind of threw me off. Then I read that they eliminated their 7-person science reporting unit, thinking that the Planet In Peril programming would replace that group. Thoughts?

New York Times’ Dot Earth - Science Journalism Implosion, CNN and Beyond

CNN - Planet in Peril

If you’ve been holding out on putting energy smart Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs in your house because you just can’t get used to their spiral shape, General Electric (GE) has the answer. On December 28th, GE will introduce the new covered GE Energy Smart CFL bulb at Target, and at other select retailers starting early next year. The new 9-watt bulb has the appearance, size and fit of a traditional incandescent bulb but is the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent, is rated for 8,000 hours and guaranteed for 5 years, based on 4 hours of daily use.

According to Kathy Sterio, general manager of consumer marketing for GE Consumer & Industrial, “these fit in more lamps and fixtures than standard GE Spiral CFLs with the plastic base,…so [people can more] easily use it with clip-on lampshades or smaller table lamps.” Sterio added that “other people may see it as more aesthetically pleasing than GE Spiral CFLs in lamps or fixtures where the bulb is visible. It provides a more finished or tailored look that appeals to a lot of consumers.”

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I saw these for sale in Urban Outfitters about two weeks ago - they retailed for around $5 bucks, but I missed where they were manufactured. I recently noticed they were giving them away online to the first 500 orders of the day. At first glance, a bold move for a purveyor of disposable fashion (shutter shades anyone) but is this promotion because they don’t highlight them at retail enough and they are trying to move the stock? We’d like to know.

We try to avoid being political on this blog- no single party holds a monopoly on individual responsibility, and, besides, there’s a healthy diversity of views around here. That said, it’s impossible not to feel optimistic that the in-coming administration ‘gets it,’ that it understands both the urgency of climate change and the opportunities that a ‘Green Economy’ might present us. In Obama’s proposed agenda, and specifically in his choice of nominees (from Stephen Chu as Energy Secretary to Carol M. Browner as EPA administrator), there seems to be a refreshing respect for science.

The out-going administration, in contrast, has subjugated science and abdicated leadership when it comes to the environment. As a House of Representatives committee on global warming recently wrote, “the first 100 days of the Bush administration initiated perhaps the worst period of environmental deregulation in American history, [and] the last 100 days of a Bush presidency could be even worse.”

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Another cool find from swissmiss, easily one of the web’s best daily reads. But $150? Maybe I will offset my daughter’s nap time for Xmas instead…

swissmiss - Eco Dollhouse | Eco-Centric Play Gift Idea

From PSFK (their site redesign by Jack Cheng), via EcoGeek. Hope Howard Schultz reads this, they could use the cash:

Engineers at the University of Nevada have reported that they’ve created a high quality bio-diesel fuel made from coffee grounds. They believe that they could produce about 340 million gallons of fuel from the world’s used coffee grounds, and make $8 million in profits from Starbucks’ waste alone.

PSFK - Waste=Fuel: Coffee Grounds Can Become Bio-Diesel

We’re guessing John Mayer would have sold fewer records had he gone with that line instead of his (‘your body’s a wonderland’- good call, John), but we think it is a pretty cool image. Imagine a future in which much of the energy we exert throughout the day (walking, dancing, running…) is captured and converted into electricity.

Just as we’re able to harness the motion of the ocean and convert that into electricity, someday we’ll put nanogenerators in almost everything. Imagine capturing the energy of a tennis match in the handle of your racket. Imagine storing the energy used to type on your keyboard all day long. Imagine nanogenerators in your ski pants that could power your iPod. We’re already seeing innovative- if not terribly efficient- signs of this future. We see dance floors that capture the energy of dancing feet, machines at the gym storing power used to lift weights, and, most recently, a cafe in the Netherlands (pictured here) that has turned it’s revolving door into a generator. So far, each of these examples produces only modest amounts of usable electricity. You might never power your computer through the clippety-clop of a keyboard, or even produce the energy required to brew your coffee by going through a cafe’s revolving door, but the cumulative reserve of lots of little generators might actually bring us closer to a truly sustainable future.

One of our favorite companies is at it again! Better Place, the Palo Alto-based company focused on developing ‘electric highway networks,’ will now be partnering with Hawaii to make mass adoption of electric vehicles powered by renewable energy a reality in the state by 2012. Hawaii becomes the fifth market in the world (along with Israel, Denmark, Australia and the San Francisco Bay Area) to recognize that, before the electric vehicle can be a viable alternative to dirty technologies, we need a green infrastructure that can support its use.

Also this week, Better Place announced an agreement with the Japanese government to develop a pilot project there in collaboration with Japanese automakers.

As Tom Friedman suggests in his latest NY Times column, the fact that we’re seeing this sort of innovation  in places other than Detroit only proves that “whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you. Just don’t think it won’t be done.”

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Sisters are doing it for themselves! The Benedictine nuns of the Convention of Our Lady of Consolation are leaving their historic home, Stanbrook Abbey (pictured here), in favor of a more eco-friendly monastery. Built from “responsibly-sourced” timber, and utilizing recycled rainwater and solar panels, the new abbey will be located in the North York Moors national park, in the north of England. In recent years, the Church has been more vocal on issues of environmental stewardship. Earlier this year, the Vatican installed 2700 solar panels, in its effort to become the first carbon neutral state.

For the 24 nuns of Stanbrook Abbey, leaving the order’s home of 170 years and the impressive 50,000 volume library makes both financial and environmental sense. According to Dame Andrea Savage, the abbess (head nun) of Stanbrook, the wastefulness that comes with caring for the 79,000 square feet complex [that's about 3300 square feet per nun] and its 22 acre grounds posed a threat to the environment and their austere lifestyle.

Stanbrook is on the market for $8 million, a sum that may go some distance to paying for the Sisters’ new eco-monastery.

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[cartoon by Canary Pete]

Assembling a piece of furniture from IKEA can be a maddening experience, but somehow that store is impossible to resist.  Other than the hours of cursing that ensues each time I try to make sure my cabinet looks even slightly like the illustration, what’s not to love about IKEA. They’ve banned plastic bags, added renewable energy solutions to many of its stores and happen to have the best lingonberry jam of any major Swedish furniture retailer.

And now comes word that those flat boxes of disassembled furniture are actually good for the environment.

Rather than “transporting air” - wasted space of bulkier packaging for assembled items- IKEA is able to be very efficient in its shipping, placing as much as six times the inventory on one truck. In an interesting piece for Fortune Magazine, Marc Gunther recently examined how IKEA’s commitment to the environment is proving to be good for business, not just the planet. Gunther quotes IKEA’s CEO, Anders Dalhvig, as saying, “there’s no longer any doubt about whether taking environmental and social concerns seriously is good for business.” The only questions that remain, he argues, are about “how fast to move and at what cost and how customers will respond.” Perhaps we can view IKEA’s success- and growth- as very promising answers to those questions.

Here’s the article…

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