What are the Most Sustainable Colleges in America?
10 May 2012
More and more, students seem to be using environmental credentials as a key decision-making factor in deciding where to go college. Which schools are doing it best?
Aspiring higher eduction students have all sorts of reasons for picking a college: academic performance, cost of tuition, and alcohol availability among them. But, according to a new survey, one consideration is rising fast amid all the others: environmental performance.
According to the Princeton Review’s latest “Hopes and Worries” survey, which scans the views of 7,445 college-bound students, 68% now say commitment to sustainability impacts their college choice.
USDA: Don’t put corporate interests over bee lives
2 May 2012
Researchers at Beelogics, a leading bee research firm, identified pesticides as a leading contributor to declining bee populations. In late September of 2011, Monsanto, a major producer of genetically modified foods, bought the Beelogics firm for an undisclosed sum. It now seems likely that Monsanto’s funding will manipulate research to point the blame away from chemicals used in GMO food production.
The bee decline affects all U.S. citizens. Bees are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of U.S. crops and are essential to sustaining our ecological lifespan. It is vital that researchers can identify the true cause of the decline so that responsible citizens can learn how to help the bee population.
If the USDA uses Monsanto-funded research from Beelogics, it will essentially be sacrificing scientific integrity for corporate interests. Please support the truth of scientific research and tell the USDA not to use research funded by Monsanto.
Biomimicry and teaching business the ‘secrets of life’
26 Apr 2012
Ray Anderson often asked a rhetorical question: does business exist to make a profit, or does business make a profit to exist? With this line of questioning, Ray called upon us to understand that while making a profit is the lifeblood of a company’s survival, it shouldn’t be the only reason for a company to exist.
With his talent for translating lofty vision into everyday reality, Ray would ask: what you would rather get out of bed to do each day: make carpet, or make history?
Making history by making carpet is a unifying sentiment for the people of Interface. How, exactly, are we making history? By proving the business model for sustainability, while taking on Ray’s challenge to eliminate our negative environmental footprint.
Ray believed there must be a better way for business to thrive on our planet, without the assumed ecological and social impacts that our current industrial take-make-waste system creates. With such ambitious goals, where do we look for inspiration in redesigning a system as pervasive and complex as business?
Frack attack
9 Feb 2012
From Huffington Post via Women Of Green
WASHINGTON — Natural gas drillers would be required to disclose the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” on public lands, according to draft rules created by the Department of Interior. The proposed regulations would also force companies to report the amount of any given chemical injected during the fracking process.
The move for increased regulation comes after President Barack Obama touted his commitment to expanding natural gas production while ensuring the drilling is done responsibly. “My administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy,” he said during his State of the Union address last month. Fracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of undisclosed chemicals into rocks containing oil or natural gas, has drawn increasing scrutiny from environmentalists who suggest the process contaminates groundwater and destroys ecosystems.
Under the proposed regulations, companies would be required to reveal the “complete chemical makeup of all materials used,” according to a copy of the rules obtained by The Huffington Post. But environmentalists have noted that, while the regulations offer some “good elements,” the rules still offer companies considerable protections for “trade secrets,” an exemption some worry could negate the rule.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said regulations will also cover well-bore integrity and regulation of flowback waters (the fluids that rise to the surface after hydraulic fracturing operations are complete). Further, reports detailing the ingredients used in the fracking fluids and a fluid treatment plan must be submitted 30 days before operations begin at any proposed well.
Interior spokesman Adam Fetcher elaborated in a statement.
UN panel says only Sustainable Development can create a ‘Resilient Planet’
8 Feb 2012
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, A panel of current and former heads of government, ministers and lawmakers Monday launched a plan for world leaders to propel an “ever-green” energy revolution that could wean the world off fossil fuels, when they meet in Brazil later this year.
The report of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability links the United Nations’ goals of reducing poverty and inequality to promoting the use of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to power the economies of rich and poor nations alike.
The report, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing,” contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice quickly, moving it from a general concept to the core of mainstream economics.
Conventional and GM Crop Growers Get a Taste of Their Own Legal Medicine
20 Jan 2012
From Natural News
Purveyors of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops — and the pesticides and herbicides that accompany them — are finally getting a taste of their own legal medicine. Minnesota’s Star Tribune has reported that the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property.
Moms 1, Chemical Industry 0
21 Oct 2011
By Senator Dianne Feinstein
Chalk up a win for moms around the country.
After years of battle, the chemical industry has reversed its longstanding position against restrictions on the controversial chemical bisphenol A, known as BPA, and asked the Food and Drug Administration to revise regulations on the use of the chemical in baby bottles and sippy cups.
It is ironic that the industry asking federal regulators to revise BPA standards is the very same industry that spent millions of dollars lobbying to block my legislation restricting the use of this dangerous chemical.
The American Chemistry Council must have realized that no matter how much money they spent, no parent, grandparent or concerned person would stand by while our children are used as guinea pigs with a chemical that could seriously harm their immediate and long-term health.
BPA is an endocrine disruptor, meaning that it can interfere with how hormones work in our bodies by changing their normal function. More than 200 studies link BPA exposure to breast and other cancers, reproductive disorders, cardiac disease, diabetes, early puberty and other problems.
Yet, the chemical industry stubbornly refused to listen to science and concerned consumers, and instead leaned on lawmakers.
Last year, the American Chemistry Council actually lobbied to prevent a vote in the Senate on the change it now seems to be advocating–a national ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.
Here’s why I think chemical industry lobbyists failed: Even though they successfully blocked a vote on BPA, consumers took matters into their own hands and voted against BPA with their wallets. Every time a BPA-free product was purchased, it marked a setback for the chemical industry.
For years the chemical lobby ignored the pleas of concerned parents, environmentalists and advocacy groups that called for a ban on BPA. Companies ignored the studies and continued to argue that there was no established link between BPA and many illnesses. There was simply no other alternative, the companies insisted—baby bottles and sippy cups could only be made with BPA.
Clearly they were wrong.
Raising consciousness through clothing: An interview with Eileen Fisher’s Director of Social Consciousness
27 Sep 2011
Eileen Fisher’s personal core values are about helping women and girls find their voice and their personal path in life so that they can achieve what they were meant to achieve. She happens to do this this through designing and manufacturing clothing for women that are meant to unfold their inner and outer beauty. To me, this is the true purpose of business — to raise consciousness through capitalism. Imagine what the world would be if all the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies did that same?
In this podcast, I interview Eileen’s Director of Social Consciousness (yes, social consciousness), Amy Hall. She has worked at the company for over 17 years helping Eileen and all the staff support the company’s efforts to practice business responsibly. That includes activating the leader within for women and girls. “It starts with finding your voice — and where we are with it now is what we call activating leadership. Activating that internal voice, that internal ability that everyone has to take charge, to take control of the situation, to be a leader in her own right. It doesn’t mean they have to go off and run for public office. It means leading a household, leading a community, leading a cause, leading a belief,” says Amy Hall.
We call that at Women Of Green “Being the Change”. How are you doing that in your world?
Walgreens wants to charge your electric vehicle.
28 Jul 2011
Pharmacy chain Walgreens plans to offer electric vehicle charging stations at about 800 locations across the country by the end of the year, making it the nation’s largest charging station retail host. Thumbs up? Thumbs down?
Read more at Environmental Leader.
Making green meaningful to women – Show 49
27 Jul 2011
OK, we know that American women buy 85% of the products on the planet, and we know we’re the keepers of the home and hearth, so why in the world are we buying so many products laden with toxic chemicals? Why are we voluntarily bringing them into our homes? This is a big disconnect for me. So I asked my guest, Margaret McAllister, an advertising creative director with a specialty in marketing green to women, this question.
“The most important thing we, as marketers, can do is to educate women about what they’re buying, why they’re buying it, and to relate those products to her specific life,” she said in this podcast. “If you really want to bring the message home to women, show them something that she specifically cares about. And there’s probably nothing more precious to her than her children.” I would agree. This self-professed cultural anthropologist shares with me more down-to-earth insights like this in this interview. If this topic intrigues you as much as it does me, listen in and, most importantly, join in the conversation. Love to get your take on this.
Tomatoland exposes the dirt on Florida tomatoes.
26 Jul 2011
We all know that Florida is famous for its oranges. But if it’s up to Barry Estabrook, the Florida tomato will soon upstage its sister. His new book, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, exposes some juicy facts about how these red rivals are grown and who’s doing the pickin’. According to the book, children as young as 12 do farm work and workers are paid by the number of containers of fruit they pick, a system that often leaves them with less than the minimum wage.
Estabrook writes, “This might explain why the life expectancy of a migrant worker in the United States is only 49 years … migrant workers typically make between $10,000 and $12,000 a year, a figure that is distorted because it includes the higher wages paid to field supervisors.”
To make matters worse, pesticides abound in the sandy soil their grown in, and farm workers are exposed and often unprotected. Give me one of those tomatoes and let me throw it at the culprits here. Shame on you.
Do women leaders have what it takes?
14 Jul 2011
According to a new meta-analysis (integration of a large number of studies on the same subject), leadership continues to be viewed as culturally masculine and therefore women suffer from two primary forms of prejudice.
Alice Eagly, study co-author and professor of psychology at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, the US, the journal Psychological Bulletin says, “Cultural stereotypes can make it seem that women do not have what it takes for important leadership roles, thereby adding to the barriers that women encounter in attaining roles that yield substantial power and authority.”
Vulnerability Management: Required course for leaders?
8 Jul 2011
Birute Regine, EdD is the author of “Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World.” She previously co-authored the critically acclaimed “The Soul at Work: Embracing Complexity Science for Business Success” with her husband, noted science writer Roger Lewin. She earned her doctorate in human development at Harvard and has spent 25 years as a psychologist in private practice and now works as an executive / life coach, facilitator, speaker and author.
I was having dinner with a friend, a very successful consultant, whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. As we munched on a Caesar salad, I talked about my research on successful women. “I asked myself, what did these women, from many walks of life, share in common?” I told my friend. “What I discovered really surprised me. And because it surprised me, I knew I could trust this finding. A secret to these women’s success, I realized, had to do with how they dealt with vulnerability, their own and others’. They were able to transform vulnerabilities into strengths.” My friend leaned back in his chair and said, “You better not use that word with leaders. No leader wants to talk about vulnerability! They won’t go there.”
Where the women aren’t.
23 Jun 2011
According to Businessweek, today, 29 companies in the S&P 500, or 9.4 percent, have no women on the board or among the five highest-paid executives. Among these are Discovery Communications, the co-owner of the Oprah Winfrey Network, and America’s largest maker of uniforms, Cintas.
Oprah’s audience is overwhelmingly women. What is wrong with this picture? Unfortunately, this is common across the board. Women hold less than 15% of leadership positions in Corporate America and politics. We need to seriously make a change. With the state of the world — from toxins in our food, to oil spills poisoning our marine life, to the threat of more nuclear disasters, we need women’s voice at the table more than ever. What are you willing to do to make that happen?
The Big Transition: Making the shift to a greener career
23 May 2011
So many women are interested in trading in their conventional jobs for a greener career these days. So much so we started a Facebook Group called “Women in Green Jobs” so women could talk to each other and learn how to make the Big Transition. Tracey de Morsella at Green Economy Post, a blog that I subscribe to, writes a series aimed at helping you do just that. Her Green MBA Success Series highlights Green MBA graduates to uncover what steps they took to transition to green careers using their degrees. This post features Robin Connell, Manager of Sustainability Programs at Del Monte Foods. Find out how she went from a career in media marketing to one in sustainability.
Read this interview with Robin Connell on Green Economy Post.
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