“Many want to align themselves with the ‘good guy’–companies not only known for great products and services but also for community involvement, employee satisfaction, and a reputation for giving back.“

Companies cannot fake social responsibility to today’s well-informed, well-connected consumers. The author, Melinda Partin, presents several strategies for businesses to increase involvement and build credibility within the community.  Some of the ideas include encouraging employee volunteering, recognizing company and employee volunteer and sponsorship activities, and participation in non-profit boards.

Click here to read the full article with more on the benefits of and strategies for community engagement.

For more reading on corporate social responsibility, check out winningworkplaces.org’s archive of research articles on the topic by clicking here.

Google released its PowerMeter application to track home energy use earlier this year.

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” That is the quote from Lord Kelvin that Google presents as the idea behind their new PowerMeter application.  Google is one of a handful of IT companies to roll out online home-energy management tools in recent months. Cisco, Verizon, and most recently Microsoft are also moving into the home energy management space.  Here is a taste of what is out there:

• Google - PowerMeter shows consumers their electricity consumption in a secure Google gadget.  The application is FREE, but right now it is only available to a limited number of customers whose utility companies are partnered with Google.   You can see the full list of companies here. No, Duke Energy is not on the list, but Google has plans to expand its partnerships by the end of the year.  Keep your fingers crossed.

• Microsoft -  Hohm is basically a do-it-yourself online energy audit tool designed to help customers conserve electricity and natural gas.  Microsoft designed Hohm as a cloud-computing application so that users can tap into back-end data analytics for more tailored advice.  The application is built upon models licensed from the Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There is a FREE beta version of Hohm available to all US residents.  As it is now, you have to manually enter all of your utility data unless you are lucky enough to live in an area where Microsoft is partnered with your utility company.  Again, Duke Energy is not a partner, although at least that is not a deal breaker like it is with Google’s service.

• Cisco - released EnergyWise software earlier this year for managing energy use in office buildings. Cisco also announced in May that it plans to offer home energy monitoring, most likely as an add-on to it’s home network hardware such as Linksys routers.

• Verizon ’ is exploring ways to use its Fios broadband service to give consumers ways to remotely control their thermostat and view their energy usage.  You can read more about it here on the GreenTech website.  This functionality will be built in to the broadband router Fios customers will receive.  There is no official timeline on when the energy management capabilities will be available, but insiders think it could be as soon as the end of the year.

These are just the major players. Energy is exciting right now, and several start-ups are moving into the space as well.

Each of these new platforms has its pros and cons.  One thing is for sure, though, there are already countless websites that offer tips on how to save energy, but these IT tools offer useful and actionable information.  Furthermore, tracking energy consumption is a necessary first step towards a functional smart grid and joining utilities with IT will hopefully jumpstart that process.

The most thorough way to start is to get an energy audit. They are discussed in the How-To section of the Green Plus website here.  A full energy audit includes blower door testing and infrared thermography, as well as other tests to tell you exactly where your structure has air leakage and recommended next steps for sealing off your building’s envelope.  One of the most common recommendations after an energy audit is wall insulation.  Wall insulation is one of the best ways to save on heating a cooling costs, but it is also one of the most expensive and most laborious tasks at around $6,000.

For buildings more than 5-10 years old, it is a pretty safe bet that the attic and basement should be your focus if you have a tight budget.  More specifically air sealing and attic insulation are sure ways to improve your building’s envelope.

• Air Sealing  – seals where the house frame meets the foundation with caulk and foam. The cost is about $1000-2000 for a small building, and has approximately a 5-year payback period.
• Attic Insulation – while attic insulation is slightly more expensive at $2000+, the attic is where approximately 40% of energy loss occurs. Attic Insulation also has an estimated 5-year payback period.

For handy do-it-yourselfers, the Sierra Club has a new Green Home website with lots of tips on air sealing and weatherproofing here, which are accompanied by videos from the Green Dream Group.  Both of these websites  have more information about air sealing, attic insulation, and many other options to prevent air leakage.
When it comes time to expand, think LEED design.  In the mean time, though, consider all the ways you can tighten the seal on your already existing buildings.

Candidates for the “Top Small Workplaces” award go through an exhaustive selection and verification process beginning in late January of each year.  A panel of judges with extensive experience with and understanding of small business evaluates finalists.  Finally, Winning Workplaces and The Wall Street Journal publishes the annual list of winners at the end of the summer.

You can view the 2008 list here, which includes the Morrisville, NC-based and Green Plus Mover Redwoods Group.

The Institute for Sustainable Development and our Sustainability Fellows – Amanda Campbell, Dale Hammer, Elizabeth Liedel, Brooks Rainey Pearson and Teddy Salgado -  are privileged to learn from Winning Workplaces’s insights into the workplace characteristics of high-performance organizations for its own Green Plus program.  The People and Performance (and Planet!) aspects of the triple-bottom-line are very closely aligned, as illustrated by the Top Small Workplaces winners.  The fellows are currently working on the next iteration of our diagnostic tool as part of our continuous improvement efforts, and we are excited to incorporate Winning Workplaces’s acumen into our own efforts.

Keep an eye out for this year’s list of winners, which will be announced in a Wall Street Journal Report on Small Business on September 28, 2009.

Visit the Winning Workplaces website for more information on their framework, as well as to learn more about the research and low-cost services they provide to small businesses and non-profits. 

Xerox cites some key environmental advantages of its new printer including 90 percent less supplies waste with its cartridge-free design, 9 percent less lifecycle energy, and 10 percent fewer greenhouse gases than a comparable laser device.  The printers achieve all of this while also saving up to to 62% in color printing costs versus traditional color lasers.

Greenbiz.com highlights some more of the environmental advantages of ColorQube printers.  I’m definitely not saying to scrap your old printers and run out to Xerox for a quote, but this technology offers an interesting alternative if you are in the market for a new printer. Also, the recently released ColorQube line is just a commercial-sized version of solid ink printers that Xerox already offers – which may make more sense for the needs of small businesses.

OTHER GREEN PRINTING TIPS:

• print and copy double-sided – duplexing helps save energy in addition to reducing waste and paper costs
• e-mail your documents as attachments whenever possible
• edit documents on screen rather than printing out and hand editting
• fax directly from your computer if possible
• and of course, print on recycled paper and recycle paper waste

President Obama requested that Congress increase renewable energy to one-fourth of America’s power supply by 2025.  There are two key limitations of our national power infrastructure that must be overcome before that goal is even feasible: 1) Distribution and 2) Supply.  Michael Heyeck, senior vice president for transmission at American Electric Power likens the existing power grid to the highway system of the 1950-s – congested and overloaded – before President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System fixed that.  Beyond delivering power, the grid must ensure that it is used efficiently for the times when winds ebb or the sun goes behind a cloud, especially since the grid has little or no storage capacity.

Solutions to both of these issues already exist.  China is building an extra-high voltage HVDC line to deliver power from a hydropower megaproject.  Similar lines could carry power from wind farms in the Great Plains to the Atlantic and Pacific costs.  Xcel Energy is piloting a “smart grid” program in Boulder, Colorado, in which the power grid communicates demand levels with a smart meter in each home.  Xcel will have hard numbers from the project in 2010, and we could start seeing smart grids all over the country within 5 years.

As for storage, some experts believe plug-in hybrid cars are part of the solution, using the smart grid to direct energy to homes and businesses during peak demand.  Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee, even goes as far as predicting utilities may pay drivers to keep their mobile batteries plugged into the grid.  It is too soon to say for sure, but this could create a great new avenue for businesses to cut costs by investing in hybrid fleets.  For now businesses should keep an eye on the direction in which technology is heading.

Read the full article here on DiscoveryMagazine.com.

For more information about government programs in renewable energy, check out the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy website.

Learn more about wind energy at the American Wind Energy Association website.

Here is more on the SmartGridCity project Xcel Energy is conducting in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo from Volvo press image gallery

“Greening the commute” is a suggestion that seems to come up almost daily, but it’s often difficult to break old habits without seeing the tangible benefits of changing a way of life or offering an easily accessible way to act on those idealistic thoughts.  Several mobile technology projects have recently brought exactly those sorts of tools much closer.

A recent project run by Volvo IT in Göteborg, Sweden enabled a group of employees to track their carbon footprint by downloading a CO2 “pedometer” onto their mobile devices.  A press release published on Volvo’s website claims the software allowed the group to visualize the externalities of their commute and reduce their carbon footprint by more than 30%.

Other mobile technology research is underway at the CITRIS lab in the University of California system which would direct real-time, location-specific information about traffic congestion to mobile devices.  Real-time traffic info means shorter commutes, which in turn means reduced emissions.  The Mobile Millenium Project is currently being offered for free as a pilot program in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Presently, the software  works with many java-enabled mobile devices and there are plans to release an iphone version soon.  If you live in the Bay Area, see the full list of compatible phones and how to take advantage of this service here.

The technology is evolving and spreading, and best of all, it is being developed to work on the devices most of us already have in our pockets. I can’t wait to see it go from the Bay to the Turnpike and the Triangle.

Non-profits, small business owners, and local hospitals in locales such as Galveston, Tex.,  Duluth, Minn. and Pueblo, Col. have begun collaborating to offer medical services at reduced rates with “3-share” plans.  Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal.