Recently in Green Business Certification Category

Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, works with mid-sized companies to launch green initiatives . In a recent entrepreneur's coaching event, she observed three key challenges common to many of the companies she spoke with.

1. Lifecycle assessment (LCA): LCA is an approach that considers the cradle-to-grave lifecycle chain involved in producing, using and disposing of a product or service. It forces you to consider materials use, energy consumption and related greenhouse-gas emissions of your product, packaging and transportation decisions.

While larger corporations might have the resources to tackle LCA head on, across the board, the start-ups were struggling with easily accessing good data to help them estimate the key impacts associated with their entire value chain.

A few LCA resources for start-ups to consider include Sustainable Minds, Earthster and EIO-LCA.

2. Packaging: Many of these clean tech products require packaging and pushing for recycled content and avoiding plastic is a challenge for a CEO with twenty other competing priorities.

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition is a great resource on this issue.

3. End of life: Thinking about what happens to these new "clean" products at end of life is challenging. How do you create incentives to get consumers to recycle or return a product? One of the start-ups was considering a rebate program and another planning on using a mailer to make it easy to return the product at the end of its life.

Read more at Matter Networks

Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, works with mid-sized companies to launch green initiatives that encourage innovation and grow market share.

Do you have (or know of someone who has) a company producing green, sustainable, or high performance solutions?

We are launching a "green directory with a difference" -- you get a real opportunity to tell your green solutions story in the listing!  Up to 600 WORDS...and your listing can be included in FIVE categories. 

We also include BOTH Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer categories.  IF we don't have the right category for your solution -- let us know and we'll seriously consider adding it.

The SolutionsforGreen.com site is highly "search engine optimized" and the listings will probably appear higher on Google searches than your own company's listings for key word phrases.  We work hard at building a robust platform of sites to help drive traffic to the directory.  We're serious about greening our world...and want to help others who are also serious about the challenge facing us.  And who have solutions!

We would  love to have your company, nonprofit organization...or even public agency list your green products, green services...and green programs.  You don't have to be in the commercial market.  You just need SOLUTIONS!  Employee programs.  Festivals. Innovator groups. The broader the variety of solutions, the better! 

"Necessity is the mother of invention"...my mother taught me.  And we have necessity.  Now it's time to implement some great, innovative solutions.

And then get the word out for replicating good results.  So add your listing, already :-)

SolutionsforGreen.com

The Eco-Logical Business Program in Oregon provides an extensive number of resources to small businesses to help them prevent pollution and get certified as a green business.  Here is their list of what's involved in their program:

Certified businesses go beyond compliance with local environmental requirements and implement pollution prevention efforts in their work sites. Businesses are certified through an intensive application and evaluation process. During the certification process, businesses are evaluated in the areas of:

• Hazardous waste management
  
• Air quality and pollution
  
• Spill prevention and response
  
• Product and waste storage
  
• Cleaning procedures
  
• Purchasing/inventory management
  
• Recycling procedures
  
• Employee involvement and training
• Drainage Systems
• Energy And Water Use

THE PROGRAM

The Eco-Logical Business Program recognizes businesses and shops that reach the highest standards in minimizing their environmental impact. The goal of the program is to prevent and minimize pollution generated by small businesses in the Tri-County area. Currently, there are two multi-media (air, water, and solid waste) certification programs

Learn more at http://www.ecobiz.org/becomebiz.htm

ULE will soon test a number a range of products in line for environmental certification, including sunglasses, wind turbines, dishwashers and televisions

UL Environment, or U.L.E., new subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories that is launching global environmental-standards, has awarded its first product certification to EcoRock, a recycled drywall.

UL Environment gave Serious Materials in Sunnyvale, Calif., an environmental certification that will help the company sell EcoRock panels for building projects aiming for LEED certification from the USGBC. 

The company will soon test a number of other products in line for environmental certification, including sunglasses, wind turbines, dishwashers and televisions, said the vice president and general manager of U.L.E., Marcello Manca.

RESOURCE: UL Environment

UL Environment's Database of Environmentally Sustainable Products
Manufacturers may submit their products for UL testing and environmental claims validation.

With California's new green chemistry plan, the state is moving from 'claims of green' to 'metrics of green.'

Green is not a useful term when a company does one thing to make their product green, but their overall footprint is not good. The state of California will now start looking at how green is green. And how to compare this product to that product."

Approximately 100,000 known chemicals are used in manufacturing production today, but safety data is available on only a few thousand. In California, 644 million pounds of chemical products are sold each day.

The proposed "Green Chemistry" initiative comes at a time of growing concern that the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, passed three decades ago, has failed to control an explosion of hazardous materials.

"The federal government has not required ingredients disclosure for all products," Gorsen said. "Now for the first time, we will know what is in products -- and not just those made in California but anything sold in California."

Two California laws passed last fall have jump-started the program. AB 1879, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), requires the state to identify "chemicals of concern" and to evaluate safer alternatives. SB 509, sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), creates a scientific clearinghouse for information on chemicals' effects.

Automakers and electronics manufacturers lobbied against the bills, saying that, given the new European standards, they could be subjected to a patchwork of warning labels.

Read more at the LA Times

California Green Solutions is building a robust catalog of professional training courses and certification programs offered by private companies and colleges. You will find this robust catalog covers business law, construction, human resources...as well as engineering and green building...and more.

Visit the Green and Sustainable Job Training Catalog at: CaliforniaGreenSolutions.com

Proximity Hotel is a "green hotel" and the building's design and construction followed guidelines of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System,™ the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. Proximity Hotel’s goal is to attain the Gold or Platinum Certification.

Here is a sampling of the 70+ sustainable practices at Proximity Hotel:

• Uses 41% less energy than a conventional hotel by using ultra efficient materials and the latest construction technology.
• Utilizes the sun’s energy to heat hot water with 100 solar panels covering the 4,000 square feet of rooftop (enough hot water for a hundred homes). This heats around 60% of the water for both the hotel and restaurant

• Takes advantage of abundant natural lighting with large energy-efficient “operable” windows (7’4” square windows in guest rooms).
• Connects guests to the outdoors by achieving a direct line of sight to the outdoor environment for more than 97% of all regularly occupied spaces.
• Reduces water usage by 33% by installing high-efficiency Kohler plumbing fixtures.
• Uses geothermal energy for the restaurant’s refrigeration equipment, instead of a standard water-cooled system, saving significant amounts of water.
• Will plant a green, vegetated rooftop on the restaurant to reduce the “urban heat island effect.” In other words, the green roof reflects the heat, thus reducing the amount of energy needed for refrigeration and/or air conditioning. It also slows the rain runoff and insulates the rooftop, keeping the building cooler overall.

To read more of the Proximity Hotel's green strategies visit their website at www.proximityhotel.com

Green Products Under Scrutiny

Many manufacturers claim their products are environmentally-friendly, but how green are they? Priya David reports.

Green is the catchword for natural resources conservation in today's marketplace. The short is short and sweet, almost genetic in its core understanding. We love green...the trees and grass and food sources.

But green products and services require a healthy dose of realism and conscience beyond those universal understandings. By one count, manufacturers launched 328 supposedly environmentally friendly products last year, up from just 5 in 2002.

"Environmental" claims such as rcycled content, non-toxic ingredients, lower emissions, etc. must pass Federal Trade Commission standards on packaging and in advertising.

Certifications such as USDA organic, EnergyStar, LEED, and Canadian EcoLogo auditing and verification programs help consumers sort "marketing slime" from verifiable, measurable, specific claims.

The FTC is cracking down on green marketing. They are accelerating review of  aging FTC "environmental claims" requirements ahead of their normal scheduled review. Watch for increased scrutiny...and labeling specifics. Get ready to have your products tested, reviewed, certified and audited if you want to tap into the green marketplace.

Reference: CBS Interactive. May 18, 2008