Tag Archives: Green

by Michelle Lentz

Fast Company  has named Enterprise Community Partners the Social Enterprise of the Year. Based in Columbia, MD, Community Enterprise Partners is a largely unknown organization which has worked tirelessly for over 25 years to provide clean homes, in a responsible and sustainable fashion, for impoverished Americans.

Enterprise has provided:
–$9 billion in capital and financing for low- and middle-income housing
–$700 million in capital each year to affordable-housing efforts
–Thousands of “green” affordable-housing units across America

I used to live in Columbia, MD, and it was a rather serene, almost gated community. It was the first true planned community I’d lived in, and I believe one of the first in the US. It was created by James Rouse, who also created Fanueil Hall and The South Street Seaport. He was also the grandfather of actor Edward Norton. Rouse and his wife Patty were the co-founders of Enterprise Community Partners.

Now, Norton and the company his grandparents built have become major players in the green movement as well.

In their quest to find new and innovative ways to fund clean, affordable housing, they’ve invented a mechanism to measure and collect construction related data, real world information about which construction, design and appliance choices make the most impact on removing carbon emissions from the air. (The vast majority of carbon is emitted by buildings.) The information is detailed, granular and site specific, and exists nowhere else in the world.

They’ve turned that rich data into a carbon offset fund, which helps raise money for more green housing.  They’re now poised to become a major player in the carbon market, and help save the planet in the process. The money they raise will go to fixing broken neighborhoods all across the country.

All in all it’s an impressive example of philanthropic business. Ellen McGirt has written an uplifting, in-depth article profiling the company over on the Fast Company site. We all need some good news lately. You’ll enjoy the read.

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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.

by Michelle Lentz

Ecobags – reusable canvas grocery bags – debuted in the Cincinnati area sometime in 2007. My husband and I were rather taken by the idea and decided that it would be a great idea for holiday gift bags as well.

I was thrilled to discover that 1BagataTime actually offers holiday-themed bags. You can pack tons of things into these bags as well.

This year, 1BagataTime is offering a holiday ecowrap package. It’s not much – 10 bags and 10 bows for $15.99. Last year I got both green and red bags. They were an absolute hit with everyone who received one from us. It’s a nice way to help “green” your holiday wrapping.

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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email at michelle[at]writetech.net, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.

by Michelle Lentz

This has been my week to come across sites that are out there to make us better people, one way or another. I stumbled on another “green” site recently. This site, ecomii, is a combination online magazine and community dedicated to helping us all live greener lives.

Perhaps the thing I like best about this site is that it acknowledges that in our everyday lives, it’s pretty hard to get rid of our carbon footprint. But it helps you set small, attainable goals, like bringing a canvas bag to the grocery store, because every little bit helps. ecomii action is an area of the site that focuses on setting goals for yourself and your community. You can tailor your goals based on your own personal lifestyle and invite others to join you.

The “magazine” portion of the site is filled with articles on how to make small improvements in your life. There are tips for going just a little greener, recipes, and articles explaining things like global warming. Have questions or disagree? That’s fine too. There’s a section of the site called debatables, where you can vote on a topic and engage in intelligent (hopefully) discourse through commenting on each topic. The ecomii About Us page states:

At ecomii, we don’t just drink the Kool-Aid. We look at how and where it was made, scrutinize the label, consult with our team of editorial experts (such as Jeff Cox, author of The Organic Cook’s Bible, and Dr. Alan Greene, author of Raising Baby Green), verify the facts…and then take a sip. Like you, we can be skeptical of new trends and unsubstantiated claims. We want the truth. Not the hype. We want tried-and-tested, agreed-upon, effective ways to reduce our planetary impact. What’s more, we have no intention of sermonizing…or pretending to be perfect. We don’t live entirely carbon neutral lives. (There. We said it.) But we try to make sound, environmentally-minded choices every day, and we believe that little changes add up.

So if you’re looking to go a little greener in your life, you might enjoy spending some time at ecomii.

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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology. You can also catch Michelle presenting on Twitter at the upcoming DevLearn ’08 in San Jose.

by Michelle Lentz

In the last few days I’ve run across a couple sites that are helpful if you’re going green – even just a little. The first one to catch my eye was Box Cycle.

I was standing at the Post Office yesterday, listening to a woman trying to buy boxes from the post office. She was moving and didn’t know where to get boxes. Wine shops and Kinko’s come to my mind, as well as your standard UHaul store. It’s a shame she didn’t know about Box Cycle.

According to their web site, BoxCycle was “created to make the environmentally superior option of reusing shipping and moving boxes practical, convenient, and worthwhile.”

Retailers with boxes to sell (at a rather low, set price), you can list them on Box Cycle. People who need boxes then put in their zip code to find boxes in their area. Using the web site, buyers can quickly and easily arrange to purchase and pick up the boxes.

Oh, the business plan you ask? There is one!

BoxCycle makes listing, buying, and selling used boxes simple and efficient while providing buyers with lower prices and sellers with higher returns. There are no upfront fees; BoxCycle only makes money after successful sales by deducting a commission before remitting proceeds to the seller.

I’m moving in about 6 months. Hopefully BoxCycle will still be around and have boxes in more places than San Francisco by the time I’m ready!

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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology. You can also catch Michelle presenting on Twitter at the upcoming DevLearn ’08 in San Jose.

by Michelle Lentz

Truthfully, I usually ignore Facebook Apps. I don’t want to hunt vampires or play Scrabble. Honest. I have a lot of fan pages and Causes, but that’s about it. But Green My Vino, by Village Green, combines my bleeding heart causes with an application. In this case, it’s allowing you to give free virtual “gifts” on Facebook.

Each one of these gifts is a token for 1-10 minutes of Green Power. Village Green totals the amount of tokens exchanged by folks on Facebook and purchases tht amount of solar energy from specific wind farms and solar arrays. When a certain number is reached, a selected wineries have agreed to power their operations on 100% clean energy. For example, the first winery is Iron Horse Vineyards. Iron Horse will convert when 10,000 tokens have been exchanged.

Iron Horse is the first of four wineries to commit to the program. Also involved are Girard Winery, Windsor Vineyards, and Windsor Sonoma. Once the first four are converted, Village Green will recruit more wineries to participate.

I think this is a great idea, especially considering how many of my friends are using the similar L’il Green Patch application on Facebook. This appeals to folks who like wine (that’s me), who like playing with various apps and sending gifts on Facebook, and those who are trying to go green.

The application just launched today and at my last count it was at 1700+ tokens exchanged. Not bad for a few hours. I think we’ll have some greener wineries in the near future.