Recently in Green Business Ideas Category
 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.
Historically, its higher price had prevented widespread use.
Reducing is the number one way to conserve our natural resources...and our way of life. One easy way to reduce your use of trees and the great amounts of water that papermaking uses... is to change the kind of paper you buy and use. Use higher percentage RECYCLED paper!
Because of cost issues with recycled paper and seeing the need to help improve usage of recycled content paper, the Recycled Products Cooperative was created in 1999 with two goals in mind:
(1) To leverage purchasing power of members to reduce pricing, and
(2) To educate buyers on the importance of using recycled paper and other products.
The Co-op is committed to bringing about transformations within the marketplace which conserve trees and other natural resources.
The Cooperative was originally one of numerous creative and progressive programs under the umbrella of the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation. The Solana Center is a non-profit organization based in Encinitas, California. For 25 years the Solana Center has been a leader in addressing and finding creative solutions to many of the environmental challenges both locally and globally. To find out more about the Solana Center and its other programs, visit www.solanacenter.org. Last year the RPC spun off on its own and is now a for profit corporation. Although we have changed our tax status our guiding principals are still based on saving environmental resources.
Another informative resource is...
Environmental Paper Network -- a resource for purchasers, environmental organizations, industry, and individuals. The Environmental Paper Network is a diverse group of environmental organizations joined together to support socially and environmentally sustainable transformations within the pulp and paper industry. The Network developed the Common Vision as a framework to guide necessary shifts in production and consumption.
The Green Press Initiative is to help those in the book and newspaper
industries better understand their impacts on endangered forests,
indigenous communities, and the Earth's climate. GPI also works with
those in the industry to implement solutions, and to provide the tools
and resources necessary to support industry transformation.
Specificity
An environmental marketing claim should specify whether it refers to the product, the packaging or both, or just to a component of the product or its packaging.
A box of cereal is labeled "recycled package." The package consists of a paperboard box with a wax paper bag inside holding the cereal. By itself, the claim "recycled package" could apply to both the box and the bag. If only the box is recycled, the claim is deceptive. It should be qualified to say, for example, "recycled box."
A steel can that contains vegetables is labeled "recycled." No qualification is necessary for this claim because it is obvious to consumers that the can is recycled-not the vegetables.
Qualifications (that is, disclosures or explanations) pertaining to an environmental claim should be clear, prominent and understandable. Clarity can be achieved through the size of the type face, proximity of the qualification to the claim being qualified, and absence of contrary language that could undercut effectiveness.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seeks to prevent deception and unfairness in the marketplace. The FTC Act gives the Commission the power to bring law enforcement actions against false or misleading marketing claims, including environmental or "green" marketing claims. The FTC issued its Environmental Guides, often referred to as the "Green Guides," in 1992, and revised them most recently in 1998. The Guides indicate how the Commission will apply Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, to environmental marketing claims.
Federal Trade commission: Facts for Business
InnoCentive
was set up by Eli Lilly in 2001 as an experimental way to farm out some
of the giant drugmaker’s biggest product development challenges by
posting them on the Web and inviting people around the world to submit
competing solutions, with a substantial monetary prize as the reward
for the winner.
Two years ago, Lilly spun out the company as an independent venture, and it has since diversified beyond the life sciences to a range of disciplines, such as computer science and cleantech. And today, the organization announced that it’s raised a new pile of venture money—$6.5 million altogether, which it will use to upgrade its platform and expand its network of “solvers,” people who submit solutions in hopes of winning awards that range from $10,000 to $1 million. To date, solvers have collected over $3 million in awards, according to InnoCentive.
It works like this: Companies (called “seekers”) work with InnoCentive to craft a well-defined challenge and pick a dollar amount for the award. InnoCentive then alerts its network of solvers, and those who choose to engage in a particular challenge are given access to online project rooms containing proprietary details about the seeker’s project. At the end of the challenge period, the seeker evaluates the solutions and chooses one as the winner; InnoCentive then helps transfer the rights to the solution from the solver to the seeker’s organization.
It isn’t “crowdsourcing” in the typical Web 2.0 sense of throwing
open a problem and soliciting thoughts and contributions from thousands
of random Internet surfers. It would be more accurate to describe
InnoCentive’s platform as a mechanism for soliciting RFPs (requests for
proposals) from a much broader cross-section of experts than any
company could reach through the traditional business consulting
process.
Planet Eureka
Companies like Procter & Gamble use Innocentive’s system to find new product ideas faster than they might on their own, and the model has even inspired imitators such as Ohio-based Planet Eureka, which launched last in April 2008.
READ MORE: xconomy.com
The business card—many of us use it more than any other single marketing item, yet it very often demonstrates the least marketing smarts.Ideabook is a treasure chest of design and business ideas. This tip for business card redesign ideas fits well into the green thinking stream, as well as general business. "High performance" is at the heart of green design. If you can make the simple business card work more effectively, you will need fewer of them, waste less paper, and improve your time management!
Even though design is a creative exercise, it is fraught with formula thinking—a newsletter is 8 1/2 by 11 inches, a brochure has a headline on the cover, text in the middle and a logo on the back, and a business card is 3 1/2 by 2 inches, printed on one side using a boilerplate layout and the usual information. Jolt thinking is the opposite of formula thinking. It challenges you to examine your mission, strategy, and execution of a project. How? By answering three basic questions: What is the purpose? Why is it done the way it's done? And how can I do it most effectively?
INFORMATION CARD One of the “whys” of business cards is to get folks to hold onto it until they need it. And one way to increase the chance of having it saved is to incorporate information your prospect might refer to from time to time. Charts, graphs, calendars, green tips, sources for information...etc.
What ARE green business cards? Eco friendly business cards that are printed using soy inks, etc., and FSC certified paper, or high recycled content.Other features that can be incorporated to up the "green" impact of your business cards:
- Add a blurb about the recycled content and/or green printing method
- Print at a local, eco-friendly printer to reduce shipping distance and provide local business sustainability
- Limit the amount of ink and coatings used ... and keep them environmentally friendly
- Print no more than you need. Info changes, so don't waste paper that gets sent to the landfill
- Use lighter weight stock...100# cover isn't always necessary. Lighter stock conserves paper resources
- Print a green message on the back side -- don't waste space!
Treehugger (and BoingBoing) found this interesting business card design by Jamie Wieck. This is a fantastic way to bring a little nature into the business world.
Some printing sources we've found:
Greener Printer, - Certified green business in Bay Area
Berkeley, CA
www.greenerprinter.com
123Print - 100% recycled paper from
Hagerstown, MD
123print.com
Wizard Graphics - Recycled Business cards
Chico, CA
www.wgiprint.com
