Category Archives: Business

Recycling Clothes/Recycling Ideas

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Warm Home Cool Planet wants it’s readers to be as efficient as possible. That’s why we bring you stories from around the Web that help you live the life you want without increasing your carbon footprint. From our recent travels on the information superhighway, we’re pleased to note many other fine media outlets are also sharing information on keeping it green close to your body.

One of Warm Home Cool Planet’s favorite political sites, The Huffington Post, has figured readers might be all caught up on Barack Obama and ready for some other useful info. If you’re reading this article from the campus of one our fine educational institutions here in Cambridge, you’ll find this article on how to make your own hacky sack a must read.

Beyond the weird, the well intentioned, and all the other advice on recycling your old duds that could make you look a homeless person trying to get through winter, Warm Home Cool Planet has noticed a couple of welcome trends from clothing manufacturers. First, their ability to recycle other materials beyond the soda bottle used in your favorite fleece includes some interesting and inspired ideas.

Second, more clothing companies are taking back old clothing from customers and recycling themselves, including every greenies’ favorite premium label, Patagonia. Check out out this video where one of their sponsored climbers, Tim O’Neill dons a cape and attempts to rescue Japan from mountains of old underwear. Not quite the threat Godzilla represented to our friends in the land of the Rising Sun–but frightening nonetheless.

The death of Books–Part LXVII

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Amazon has just released the new version of their book reading device, the Kindle 2. The new hard drive (2GB) holds 1500 books and features a new “Read to Me” feature which allows the…. user to hit a button and let the Kindle read for you. In other words it’s a book that comes with it’s own ‘Books on Tape’ mode. All improvements over the first Kindle, which was essentially a high resolution black & white screen with a hard drive attached.

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Many media pundits are using this launch to dust the cobwebs off their Books Will Soon Be Extinct storyline. Many of these people have also speculated that if Amazon can’t make the leap to digitally delivered products, their future looks awfully shaky. An ironic twist given  many of these experts are working for media companies who are practically on life support themselves. As an example, the New York Times live blogged the launch event.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself why Warm Home Cool Planet is getting all tangled up in the launch of yet another interactive media product. It’s the same reason we take an interest in all different types of technology. Will they lead to more effective and (energy) efficient ways of doing things?

There is no question human thoughts–and the words we use to express them–will always be an integral part of our society. Think of the book–or the Kindle–as a delivery system for those words and it makes things a little clearer. Do people have a stronger attachment to books than they do for newspapers? Is the long form of the book more conducive to an ‘analog’ reading experience?

We have no doubt someone with more time on their hands than Warm Home Cool Planet is calculating the carbon footprint of getting a book into a reader’s hands versus beaming it their Kindle. We’ll bring you those facts and figures when they become available.

Prices of Solar and Wind Components Fall

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That’s the upside of the NYT story Dark Days for Green Energy, which details slowdowns and layoffs in the alternative energy world brought on by a combination of the credit crisis and the continued price moderation of fossil fuels. We’re trying hard to see the positive side of things here at Warm Home Cool Planet. 

The price of solar panels has fallen by 25 percent in six months, according to Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, who said he expected a further drop of 10 percent by midsummer. For homeowners, however, the savings will not be as substantial, partly because panels account for only about 60 percent of total installation costs.

So while congress debates how much of the stimulus package will be spent on tax cuts, and how much will be spent on, well, actual infrastructure spending that stimulates the economy, maybe more of us can take matters into our own hands and start buying up those solar panels.

Of course, just when we thought that the glass was at least half full we read this:

In Massachusetts, for example, the Commonwealth Solar program cut its rebate by $1 per watt on Jan. 1, reducing the overall discount by $3,000 for a 3 kilowatt solar panel system…

So make your calculations carefully, and make sure you get the latest information on the bewildering array of deductions, exemptions, incentives and rebates which make Massachusetts one of the most solar progressive states in the country. This list of goodies is dated 2009, which is nice.

The year Green Marketing Broke Through

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I think we can all agree 2008 was an historic and constantly surprising year:

The folks over at Marketing Profs  also noted 2008 was the year major companies and major brands saw that terms like carbon footprints, CO2 emissions, alternative energy and energy efficiency weren’t going away. OK, so Warm Home Cool Planet is now part of the mainstream. What does that mean and where can we expect ‘green’ marketing to go in 2009.

Here are the some of the trends worth noting:

Green campaigns are being created and awarded. On the other hand, organizations who engage in ‘greenwashing’ (i.e. making false claims about their environmental record or the carbon footprint of their products) will be found out and called out by the many watchdog and activist groups using the Internet to make life difficult for these companies.

The bottled water industry has taken a beating recently as people began to realize there was something wrong with drinking a bottle of water transported from thousands of miles away when there is perfectly good drinking water coming out of tap just a few feet away. This kind of information-the kind that changes consumer perceptions–and behavior–is now being shared on the web at lightning speed.

If the car industry in America is ever going to make a comeback it will have to be within the next four years. They are in position to be first to market with an entirely electric car, which if it gains widespread acceptance will help them meet tougher emissions standards. If a universal health care plan is passed, it will also allow Detroit to compete with car companies located in countries where employers do not have to add employee healthcare costs to the price of their products.

In other words, despite the grim economics news, there is enough financial incentive, consumer demand, technological innovation and government assistance to make green products and the marketing of those products grow even more prevalent in 2009.

OK Computer… now go to sleep.

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In a pilot study conducted by Verizon, the company found that Windows “sleep” features can actually cut energy costs by $65 per computer, annually.
Geez, you’d think Microsoft would have enough $$$ to do their own study.
Anyway, here’s the skinny on how much the communications giant is saving by having their PC monitors go zzzzzzzz… when no one is looking at them.
Hey Monitor, you're getting sleepy... very, very sleepy

Hey Monitor, you're getting sleepy... very, very sleepy

Your mileage may vary, but we suggest you check the sleep function is working properly on your own PC or laptop.

Carbon Tax or Cap and Trade?

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The NYT Green Inc Blog examines arguments for different strategies for reducing carbon—the carbon tax, cap-and-trade systems, and simple regulatory reform. Recent fluctuations in the price of carbon credits in the European markets call into question the ability of cap-and-trade systems to work efficiently during an economic downturn.

Do we really want to create another set of poorly understood financial instruments? A revenue-neutral carbon tax can create low-carbon incentives while revenue can be used to reduce payroll taxes. “Tax what we burn, not what we earn.” – James Handley

Other analysts argue that the decline in price is simply the result of the system working; companies meeting their carbon reduction goals simply don’t need to buy the credits, driving down their market price.

Whatever your ideological stance, most experts agree that the roll-out of emissions-cutting technologies will be slowed by the drop in carbon credit prices.

New Prius on the Horizon

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2010 Toyota Prius

Not that we’re flacks for the auto industry, but when we heard they were rolling out a new Prius at this year’s Detroit Auto Show, the car fans here at Warm Home Cool Planet got all excited. After all, here’s the car that pretty much made hybrid a household word.

When we heard words like ‘mainstream styling’ we started to worry that the Prius’ wonderfully quirky styling had become a victim of success. Have no fear, though, as you can see from the photo above the distinctive ‘slice of pie’ profile is still there. With just a little Camry styling around the lights.

Green Boxes for a Green Planet

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Eco-friendly moving? According to the New York Times, it’s already here. Best of all, you won’t have all those UHaul Boxes making your new place look like a warehouse for the next year or so.

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They also stack a lot better than the random boxes you get from the local liquor store.

For those of you in the Boston area, check out Rentacrate, located in Waltham, MA. For everyone else, go to GreenMovers.com to see if there’s an ec0-friendly moving company near you.

7.2 Megawatts of Energy. We’ll drink to that.

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Scotch drinkers who care for the climate will soon relish their tipple in the knowledge it is providing clean renewable power in the home of whisky.

Helius Energy Plc said on Wednesday it and the Combination of Rothes Distillers Ltd would build the plant, which would use distillery by-products and wood chips to generate 7.2 megawatts of electricity, enough for about 9,000 homes, and heat.

“Not only will it generate renewable heat and power, but it secures additional markets for our distillery co-products,” said Frank Burns, general manager of the Combination of Rothes, which includes the Edrington Group–the producer of The Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark–Chivas Brothers, producer of Chivas Regal.