Last Ecological Footprint Update

To finish my blogging for the quarter, I am doing one last ecological footprint quiz. I will compare it to my first and second one and then talk about whether or not I will continue to try to lower my footprint now that my sustainability class is over and if I will continue following the goals I had set forth on my first two quiz blogs.

So after taking the quiz, I got my footprint down to 3.36 Earths. The table and chart below shows the break down. Because I still drive so much, my carbon footprint is still extremely high. Moving turned out to be a bust. In my future, I know I will not be driving this much. I hate to drive, it's so annoying. So I know in the future this number will decrease dramatically.

The first time I did the blog, I really had to guess on a lot of things and now, having more accurate knowledge about what we do in our household that counts as being "green", what size our house really is, and so on. Things like that helped to decrease my number of Earths as well.

As far as sticking to my goals, I believe that I chose reasonably easy ones that were simply to implement and have become second nature to me. I guess that's why I really didn't blog about it much- I just did them. I believe that if all people made these little goals like I did, they too could lower their footprints. I've been eating healthier, unplugging electronics, and taking shorter showers without even thinking about it.

The only challenge I'm still having is recycling at school. It is really hard to recycle when the bins are clear across campus where I never go. Literally. I have 2 classes in the new building and one class in the comm building. So, in the future this will still be a challenge for me due to the fact that the bins aren't changing locations and no new bins will be added anytime soon.

I truly and honestly believe I will stick through with my other goals. To be ignorant and not change is one thing. But once a person sees how their individual habits affect the world, there is no going back. This is personally true for me. I hope to take these goals and keep implementing them in my life. I would like to keep creating little goals, one or two at a time. My next goal after this class will probably be to convince my boyfriend to do the same thing. In order to live a certain lifestyle you really need the people around you to live sorta the same. Hopefully this will create a chain affect.

Bare Naked

"Looks weird" sip "tastes amazing"

That's just one tag line from the juice product "Green Machine" made by Naked.

So what is it exactly?
The Naked Juice drinks consists of pure fruit concentrate. They are a healthy, filling, yummy way to drink juice while getting the daily recommended servings of fruit. There are no added sugars and many of the drinks contain boosts or whey protein. Perfect for on the go, in the car, or even at home. Here is what is in the Green Machine drink

Will all of these natural ingredients it is easy to see why the color is so weird looking. But one taste, and you will seriously be hooked! I drink one every day for breakfast. They are filling. There are so many varieties to choose from so you won't get bored or burnt out on them. On their website http://www.nakejuice.com/ you can find all of their other flavors, you can search by fruit, taste, name and more. At around $2 each- with 2 servings in each bottle, these drinks won't burn a hole in your wallet like fast food or your morning coffee. 2 bucks for a healthy, great tasting drink, what a deal! They are available at Walgreen of Guide Meridian. What could be better? Keep reading.

This company not only makes great tasting drinks, they are going green. On their interactive site you can find out about their sustainability commitments. Bottle reincarnation is where they make bottles from recycled plastic and those bottles can be recycled into new bottles. They are the first company to be able to do this! This is great because the company is such a natural company and now both in and outside of their bottles they are practicing this. A benefit to the environment is a benefit to them because this also helps with their branding. In class we've talked a lot about being transparent- naked is practically a synonym. "Naked Juice is the first nationally distributed brand to transition to a 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottle."

There are also links about their Rainforest Alliance and their quest to lower their footprint. This is a great company with great drinks, at an affordable price, what more could you ask for?! You're already bored surfing the net anyways so please, visit the website at http://www.nakedjuice.com/.

Unplug your Wallet

In order to persuade Western Students to reduce their carbon footprint, I’ve developed a new marketing campaign to convince them to unplug their small appliances. The target market of my campaign is WWU students who live off campus, due to the fact that they pay their electric bills, where students who live on campus don’t. They do not have strong feelings toward helping the environment. These people will only do things that benefit the environment if they themselves are benefitted in some other way. Using the Makower text, a murky middle might be what these consumers are best classified as. What drives these specific students is money and grades, since their lives are essentially consumed by going to college, possibly working and spending as much time with their friends as they can.

The overall objective of my campaign is to encourage students to unplug their small appliances in order to save money for themselves. The side effect of this will be the positive environmental impact it has. The college students who partake in unplugging their small appliances will not be informed of this benefit because it will not drive them to make a difference. This campaign will create a win-win situation for students and for the environment.
For my campaigns creative strategy, I have decided to integrate the slogan “Unplug Your Wallet”. This expresses the most important benefit to the students, which is their wallet. The catchy phrase will immediately let them know that if they pay attention they can save money. There will also be a phrase that says: Find out how to save $ by only lifting 2 fingers at: http://www.unplugwallet.facebook.com/ where a Facebook page will be. This page will be made for the students due to how tech savvy they are; this will be the most effective and sustainable way to reach them. This of course will also make it easier for them to share the page with their friends, and the campaign will we be highly exposed at virtually no cost. Posters will be placed around campus to spark interest and will direct students to visit the Facebook page where they can learn more. Because this current generation of students doesn’t like traditional advertising, there will be no main website. The Facebook page will be student ran in order to increase credibility and social proof among other students. In order for the page to be student ran, it will be offered as a quarterly internship where the marketing student will be maintaining the page and will have to come up with other campaigns that have the same central sustainability goals.

On the Facebook page, because this is only the first campaign, students will find information about how unplugging small appliances will save them money over time. Savings could be from 5% of the bill to as much as 25% on average, depending on how many appliances a person has plugged in at any given point in time. The main point the Facebook page will address this savings and will put it in a dollar format so that students can easily see just how much they have been saving and they will then be able to conveniently rationalize unplugging their appliances. Also on the page, conversions such as, “These savings could e equivalent to $20 a month which is like getting a week of free lunch!” I think this would be an effective marketing campaign due to the fact that the major benefit that is being promoted is one of the most important things in the minds of the target market. Also, the change from not unplugging appliances to unplugging appliances is simple, easy and once a person gets in the habit it becomes second nature. By providing a way to keep the campaign integrated and student ran will also contribute to the success and longevity.

U.S. Dairy Sustainability Commitment

I found the website for the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Commitment when I looking for something to blog about it. http://www.usdairy.com/sustainability/Pages/Home.aspx It is interesting to learn about what companies are doing to become more sustainable.

The goals for the Dairy Sustainability Commitment includes reducing green house gasses.

This website is huge and I will blog more later.

Green Lite Motors wins business plan competition

Portland electric-car start-up Green Lite Motors is one of three winners in a new business plan competition focused on Pacific Northwest clean technology companies.

Green Lite is developing a three-wheeled, enclosed, gas-electric hybrid vehicle capable of getting 100 miles per gallon.

It was one of 56 entrants in consideration for the Pacific Northwest Clean Tech Open competition vying for a $50,000 prize and the chance to move up to the national competition next month in San Francisco. The winner of the national event receives $250,000 in cash and services.

The two other winners of the regional competition come from Seattle: Hyrdrovolts, which is developing turbines to generate renewable energy from water without the need for dams; and LivinGreen Materials, which is developing a product called AggraLight to sell to solar manufacturers to boost solar cell efficiency by 50 percent and reduce the cost per watt.

The 10 semi-finalists in the event spent the summer receiving hands-on mentoring from local and national business leaders in an effort to hone their plans.

Each company was judged by a group of venture capitalists, angel investors and other business professionals based on both the scientific viability of the concepts and the ability to make it a commercial success.


Taken from Portland Business JournalPortland

Green Car Company

The Green Car Company is a company I found while browsing the Internet. I was interested in this because we have talked a lot in class about sustainable design, and credit has been give to Toyota for their goal of creating a vehicle that is more than just sustainable for the environment.

Their company goal is to create awareness and educate mainstream America about how transportation choices effect the environment. I think this is a realistic goal, and they are going about it in a very practical way. The website is very stream line, and simple looking, it reminds me of Apple in a way. Since Apple is seen as cool, new and innovative, it's great that The Green Company is taking the same approach. They don't seem pushy with their ideas at all which is great, because that only causes people to rebel against the cause.

On the website, thegreencarco.com you can actually view types of Green Cars and find out all the green on them (as apposed to dirt on them). For instance, the Xebra Ev Electric Vehicle which just so happens to be an alternative fueled vehicle which has zero emissions.

Yes it's a 3 wheeler!

This is just one of the many vehicles the site showcases there are other cars such as hybrids and smart cars, electric bikes and scooters. I was able to find prices for these items, but I'm not sure if you can actually buy directly from this website. It looks more like an info site where people can go to learn about these types of green vehicles, and get the facts.

ecological footprint... again

So, I wanted to track my ecological footprint again to see how achieving my goals is really affecting the earth.



My footprint reduced down to 4.21 earths. My carbon footprint is still really high because I haven't moved yet, so I still live about an hour away. I know once I move, this will reduce my carbon footprint. But I can't fix it right away. I could also work on recycling more. I have kept things longer than I normally would have (one of my goals) but I could still do better when it comes to recycling glass and plastics. The hardest part is finding the bins. Sometimes they are so inconvenient to find- and its just way easier and faster to throw them in the trash can.




Even though I have done a lot to reduce my footprint, I know a large factor of my reduction is due to the fact that I didn't know that many of things I was doing counted as being sustainable. Since this class I have learned that the lights I have are LCD, that washing my hair every other day means using less water. There are many things I've done in the past, and things I currently do that I was doing for one reason (like how washing your hair everyday is actually bad for you)
and it turns out is sustainable. So it's a win-win.


A new goal for myself is to stop being so lazy. I need to just recycle more. There is no good reason not to.

Chemical Free Clothes

I found an interesting article about how Going chemical-free in your clothing is getting easier. As many people know, the cotton in our clothes is commonly grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Many synthetic fabrics such as nylon, acrylic and polyester are petroleum-based. Because we wear cotton clothes daily, it's important to know the effects of our consumption. OS is it dangerous? Well, apparently wearing the clothes merits no harm. However, it is extremely dangerous for the people who are manufacturing the product. The factory workers who are already exploited through their cheap labor and poor working conditions are the ones being threatened for our benefit.

I picked this article to post on my blog because it reminded me so much of our talk we had in my sustainability class. We were talking about chemicals in everyday products such as makeup or lotion and how most of the chemicals in them are harmful but the debate was over in which ways. Are the chemicals in foundation really enough to cause cancer just by daily use or do you actually have to eat the makeup to get cancer? After reading the article, I don't think it really matters. What does matter however, is the fact that the people making our products are being effected. When I researched Maybelline I found that their products are made in Arkansas. I'm sure the workers have been through extensive safety training, and know how to handle everything. I'm not even sure how many workers their are.

There is a bigger issue that a lot of the products we ship in that are made up of chemicals effect oversea workers more than it effects us.

The article mainly talks about organic cotton and how it is easier to get. You can find it at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/ecoconsumer/2010039615_ecoconsumer10m.html. I just chose to focus on why it is so important to make changes such as buying products that were made out of organic cotton.

Maybelline!

Maybe she's born with it...
... maybe not!

Cancer? Reproductive toxicity? Allergies? What do these all have in common? Keep reading to find out!


On a daily basis I use a product by Maybelline called Dream Liquid Mousse which is a fancy way to say foundation. The ingredients listed on the bottle can be found by going to the Cosmetics Database http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ and then typing in the product name.

When I did this I found out that most of the ingredients in my foundation are horrible for me because it is so bad for my organs and my skin. How ironic. The toxic levels are so high in the ingredients that there is a link from my product to cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity and allergies/immunotoxicity. Of course this is just to name a few. Once again, by going to the website, you can see a full report of the product, including all of the specifics.

Green Halloween

I just found an article online today at http://www.bellinghamherald.com/550/story/1100577.html that was all about having a green Halloween. The article was was mainly just tips about what individual people could to do have an easy, affordable, green Halloween. One of the most interesting suggestions I read was to buy fair trade chocolates. This would be a good idea because every kid wants candy and you would be giving them what they want while being sustainable at the same time. I've never bought fair trade chocolates and I'm not sure if children or even their parents would know the difference or if it would even matter to them. Nonetheless it would still be beneficial because if you buy fair trade chocolate it's less mass produced chocolate you are buying. This article was effective because it's written as an informative, educational piece. It's not condoning people for not being green, it's simply telling you what you can do which is very persuasive. When I searched for green Halloween on the web, there are many other sites for people to go if they are interested. The key is just to plan ahead because if you wait too long, it will be virtually impossible to get the Halloween you want whether its candy or a costume.

Coca-Cola!

So I was looking online and I found an awesome article about Coca-Cola and their recent green efforts in Bellevue.

Apparently, this Thursday the plant will be hosting a broadcast to its employees on the importance of sustainability. The article also talked about how Coke is number 1 in the food and drink sector. I thought that was pretty cool. It's good to see a big company going in the right direction and setting the example. Even more interesting, the Bellevue plant is said to be at a 99.9% recycling rate. That's incredible seeing as though most people don't have that in their own lives. Coca-Cola seems to be walking the walk not just talking the talk. Many people have been accusing companies of "greenwashing". Coca-Cola seems to be setting the example.

The article can be found at seattletimes.nwsource.com and you should check it out.

Week 1 Update

So, it's been about a week since I started my blog and I thought now would be a good time to write about my difficulties and successes with my 3 strategies. But before I do, I have to mention how I haven't moved yet. The apartment complex I was interested in moving into was completely disorganized and unprofessional. Here's what happened:

My friend Rachel and I drove out to Lakeway to go to the management company I was thinking about renting through. When we got there, I had to fill out paperwork and the lady working there gave me a piece of paper with a building number, and a room number on it, and then she gave me the key. So, Rachel and I drove to Sunset where the apartment was. We found the building and the room fast and we were excited to see the place. We opened the door and it wreaked like smoke, the floors were dirty, and when we pushed the door all the way open, there so much stuff in there. Was someone living here? We shut the door, locked it and sat in the car. Confused about what we saw, we called the management company and told them what happened. Oops, the lady wrote down the wrong building number and key. So, yes someone was actually living there. Weird. It wouldn't have been so bad, if she had said sorry just once. But no, she acted as if it was no big deal at all, almost standard; nothing weird about it. Anyways, so Rachel and I went back to the management company, swapped keys, then drove back to Sunset to look at the right apartment. The first thing I noticed was a knife slash in the door. How scary. But when we got inside Rachel optimistically told me "at least the knife didn't' go through the door." ... The apartment had an unclean smell, the fridge looked like it needed to be bleached clean, the screen on the back door was about to fall off... it's a long list really. So, once I'm searching again for an apartment.

So as far as my footprint goes, the carbon factor hasn't improved at all. My goal to eat more sustainable foods has been surprisingly easier than I thought. I've been eating one peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday. I've been eating less meat and dairy. To be honest I can't remember the last time I had dairy. Meat is a habit that is a little harder to break. I've cut it down quite a bit though. Instead of having it everyday to every other day. I have it about twice a week. But this is only my first week, so I'll have to try to maintain this rate. It seems doable thus far. My goal about recycling more is really hard to judge in this short amount of time. It is more of a long term goal. However, I've decided to reuse my plastic bags I use for my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Other than that I haven't really changed much. I wasn't that bad before, I just wanted to make sure I was using items as much as a could before trashing or recycling them. I'm not sure yet if my goal is too broad, or just too long term to assess right now. But I'm thinking about adding another goal. Finally, my last goal- to unplug electronics. Sad, it's kind of been a little bit of a bust. I definitely haven't been doing as well with this goal as I thought I would. Honestly, at the start of this, I thought this would be the easiest goal for me to meet. It's interesting that it turned out to be the hardest. The big thing I never unplug my TV or my computer or my alarm clock or my toaster or my... you get the point. It sounds a little elementary, but starting tomorrow I'm going to leave sticky notes by my outlets reminding myself to unplug them. I'm also going to write my goals on my planner so I can look at it every day. Once this becomes a habit, it won't be a problem. Just getting it to become a habit is hard.

Ecological Footprint Quiz

I took the quiz on http://myfootprint.org and found my ecological footprint. If everyone on the planet lived like me, we would need 7.3 Earths! I was shocked too! My carbon footprint is the category that contributes the most to my footprint. This is because I still live in Arlington which is about an hour away. I'm moving to Bellingham soon, so this will decrease my footprint by quite a bit. The rest of my results are detailed at:

http://www.myfootprint.org/en/your_results/?id=638877

To further decrease my footprint, I've come up with 3 strategies:

1. Recycle more. I don't mean just recycling paper and plastics; I mean keeping items around longer instead of being so quick to replace them or throw them out.
2. Unplug electronics when they are not being used.
3. Buy & eat more sustainable foods.

I think these will be achievable, but I will have to consciously think about them, and maybe even write them down in my planner so that I will eventually internalize them into habits.