An architect’s rendering shows solar panels atop the US Airways Center parking garage. The panels are expected to generate enough power for 26 games.

There’s a good chance that many of our readers have noticed that we are pretty big fans of Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns NBA team. For fun, check out our community for a video that Steve Nash and Nike released on Earth Day this year. The video came after Steve convinced Nike to produce the official Steve Nash shoe from scraps of material on the factory floor. Now the best point guard in the league is going solar at his home and has convinced his team to do the same at their home stadium.

Yesterday the Phoenix Suns “shed some light” on the new solar panels that will be going on top of their home court, the US Airways Center. The 1,100 panel photovoltaic system is expected to produce 194 kilowatts, enough energy to reduce the team’s power usage by the equivalent of 26 home games each season and keep approx. 440,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air, according to Suns General Manager Steve Kerr. The Suns’ solar installation won’t cost the team any up-front cash, but will cost approx. 1.5 million and the team anticipates that it will receive a yearly rebate to the tune of $60,000 - $85,000.

The Suns struck an arrangement with Tioga Energy, out of CA, in which Tioga covers the costs of setting up the solar panels and maintains them for 20 years, (seems like a pretty long time for a technology product ) while the Suns pay Tioga an annual fee determined by the amount of energy the solar panels produce and the annual rebate they get from the Arizona Public Service Co.

Any other NBA team using solar? Yes. Ironically, the thorn in the Suns’ side, the Lakers, announced last month that they too will be putting solar panels on their roof. The San Francisco Giants announced in 2007 that they would be installing solar panels, followed by panels at Fenway Park in Boston and Coors Field in Denver.

Sattler Eco & Fair Labor Clothing 

http://www.sattlerclothing.com 

As an already reluctant diaper-changer I was leery when the topic of cloth diapers came up. Let me say that my wife and I try to live as eco-friendly as we can – but when it comes to poo – less is more. The less I have to deal with, the better. Some things are better out of sight, out of mind.

I mean, that’s where we draw the line right? From an experienced diaper-changer perspective - what could be better than disposable, non-leaking, easy to take on and off, go anywhere diapers? What’s so bad about conventional diapers, what’s the real dirt on diapers anyways? (pun intended)

An interesting article over at Wired told of a mother who was buying biodegradable diapers from Whole Foods only to find out that they aren’t much better for her baby or the environment.

“These diapers all contain super-absorbent gelling materials,” or AGM, said the latest newsletter from cloth diaper service Tiny Tots. “AGM is linked to an increase in childhood asthma and a decrease in sperm count among boys. Environmentally, these diapers require as much water, energy and fuel to produce as any other single-use diaper. The bottom line is they offer no environmental or health benefits.”

Well,…as much as I would love to use this quote to help me rationalize keeping my regular, uber-convenient diapers, the source is a cloth diaper service - kind of like trusting research funded by a drug company. So how many diapers do you think the USA dumps in an average day? (this time no pun was intended) According to Treehugger, the USA goes through 49 million diapers each day!

The article continues by pointing out that during the 2 years that the average child spends in diapers he/she will go through 5,000 diapers. The last year data was collected about diapers, they made up 3.4 million tons of waste, or 2.1% of the U.S. garbage in landfills where, contrary to popular opinion, nothing biodegrades. The website of the California Integrated Waste Management Board reads, “A landfill is not a composting site. Nothing degrades well in a landfill.” – That’s not very encouraging.

Well, more to come on the diaper but consider this part one of a blogisode about my experience with cloth diapers. One day I go to work, come back and there’s a pack of cloth diapers sitting on the table. My mother in law thinks its great – she’s also not the one changing the diapers. So far, my wife is admittedly much better than me at accepting the change. Stay tuned for our adventure in cloth diapering.

Go Michael Phelps.

If Greenwashing were baseball, Royal Dutch Shell would be on the verge of striking out. Twice in less than a year the company has been called on the carpet for misleading eco-advertising, commonly called greenwashing. The first, and don’t ask me how they thought this wasn’t going to make sense to anyone, showed an oil refinery with flowers spewing from the stacks. Nice.

That ad was brought to the attention of the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) by the nonprofit organization Friends of the Earth. The nonprofit group challenged Shell’s claim that it used carbon dioxide emissions to grow flowers – just when you thought you’d heard it all, right. For its’ part, Shell said that an estimated 320,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide was scheduled to ship to greenhouse growers this year. Nice gesture but Friends of the Earth argued that amount represented only .325 per cent of the company’s carbon emissions.

I don’t know the chemistry, biology or whatever is involved in this kind of a deal but it sure sounds like a good thing – why they wouldn’t ship more to greenhouses is beyond me.

Anyways, the ASA ruled that in the absence of qualification the TV ads were misleading and Shell agreed to pull the ad in June of 2007. (Reuters UK)

In a ruling published today, the ASA took issue with Shell’s claims in this print ad that by building what would be the U.S.A.’s largest refinery, and tapping into the Canadian oil sands deposits is somehow environmentally responsible. Yeah, I can see how they would think that would make sense - more oil refineries. Now that is a real sustainable, innovative solution to the energy crisis.

The text of the ad reads -

“The challenge of the 21st century is to meet the growing need for energy in ways that are not only profitable but sustainable. As our 2007 results show, we’re investing heavily in new technology and assets to safeguard the interests of our shareholders and future generations. In Canada we’re harnessing our global network of technical and financial expertise to unlock the potential of the vast Canadian oil sands deposit. In the USA we’re helping to build what will be the nation’s largest refinery. And we’re exploring a new generation of biofuels made from non-food sources. Difficult yes, impossible no”

Difficult to believe, yes. Impossible, yes.

What we ought to be asking is who in the world is making these ads for them and how come nobody pushed the panic button when they saw an ad with flowers coming out of a refinery stack?

http://www.sattlerclothing.com

If someone told you that they would provide you with funding to develop a product and once you’ve developed a sellable product you won’t have to spend your days selling it to retail outlets – instead you’ll have access to 270 retail outlets in 35 countries getting your product in front of half a billion customers per year – would you do it? Particularly if you’re a green tech company with sky-high overheads and consumers aren’t quite lining up for expensive, lifestyle-changing, eco-friendly technology.

Last week, according to Cleantech, Swedish-retailer, IKEA, announced an investment group focused on five key product areas that it wants to see in its stores within the next five years. The approx. $75 million dollars in the IKEA GreenTech fund will go into development of solar panels, alternative light sources, product materials, energy efficiency, and water saving & purification products. The IKEA GreenTech fund will focus on companies able to produce a sellable product within the next four to five years.

IKEA plans to work with five to ten companies and bring their products to market within three to four years with an emphasis on helping the startups reducing their prices and develop better products.

“Really low prices, and they should be of very good quality. That’s the only thing we look at, we would never look at anything else, we would discard anything else that doesn’t fall into those boundaries,” Johan Stenebo, managing director of the fund said. “Whether it’s home furnishings or it’s greentech products.”

Stenebo continues - “We will be very active on the boards of these companies,” he said. “I think we can contribute somewhat in terms of commercializing the product they are developing, and then, obviously, distributing the product as well.”

Got a greentech product that belongs in IKEA? Email them at igt(at)memo.ikea.com. Learn more about IKEA’s fair labor and green way of doing business at a website launched earlier this year at The IKEA Way

Yahoo! Photo

Just hours before Olympic gold medalist and outspoken Darfur activist, Joey Cheek, was set to fly to China for the Smoglympics, he received a call from Chinese Embassy official telling him that he couldn’t go, his visa had been denied. The Olympic games are anything but apolitical this time around it seems. The Chinese government offered no explanation and doesn’t necessarily need a reason to deny anyone a visa but this time the reasons to deny 29-year old, Joey Cheek seemed all too obvious.

At the press conference after winning the gold in the 500 meter speedskating in Turin, Italy Joey Cheek announced that he would be donating all $25,000 of his USOC gold and $15,000 silver award money to the Right to Play organization, which is an international humanitarian organization that “uses sport and play as a tool for the development of children and youth in the most disadvantaged areas of the world”, according to the organizations site.

He also challenged his sponsors to match his donations and so far, Jet Set, Roots, Nike and Gap have done so. Cheek admitted that the money wasn’t very much but he has a goal of seeing the program take root in the devastated Darfur region of Sudan where 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since ethnic African tribesmen took up arms in 2003. Joey is also the founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes who work to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan where China has military, economic and diplomatic ties. Though Joey Cheek was not going to compete in the Olympics he wanted to bring attention the genocide in Darfur, which critics say Beijing abets through its ties to the Sudan government. (WSJ Article)

According to Eddie Pells of the AP - “One of Cheek’s key initiatives was urging the international community to persuade Sudan to observe the ancient tradition of the Olympic truce during the Beijing Games.”

Of the denial of his visa Joey Cheek said –

“I am saddened not to be able to attend the Games. The Olympic Games represent something powerful: that people can come together from around the world and do things that no one thought were possible. However, the denial of my visa is a part of a systemic effort by the Chinese government to coerce and threaten athletes who are speaking out on behalf of the innocent people of Darfur.”

Chris Chase of Yahoo! wrote

“With the Games getting closer (just two days away now), the world seemed ready to forget about all the Chinese issues in order to focus on the Games themselves. Unfortunately, China’s actions make that impossible. In a time when we should be wondering who will light the Olympic cauldron, whether Michael Phelps can break an all-time record and how Liu Xiang will react to the pressure of 1.3 billion of his countrymen hanging on his every step, we’re instead left to discuss the Chinese government’s reluctance to allow any dissension in their country, despite repeated promises that they’d clean up their act when the Olympics came to town.”

According to an AP article, Joey Cheek had not planned on any Team Darfur events but was planning on attending a United Nations Olympic Celebration and some charity events.

“Of course I would have liked to have been there, advocating for a peaceful resolution,” he said. “But we’ll figure something out.”

The Power of One - Joey Cheek

2006 - Harvard Denies Joey Cheek Admission

In an effort to measure and monitor the progression of consumers worldwide towards eco-friendly consumption habits, National Geographic and GlobeScan recently finished a study that surveyed citizens in 14 countries. The results of the study led to the creation of the “Greendex”, an index of how green the consumption habits of citizens across the world compare.

The Greendex is the first study to measure how consumers are buying eco-friendly products, as opposed to tracking what governments or companies may be doing to support green. Essentially, the Greendex illustrates which countries are willing to consistently pay extra for products that are eco-friendly.                              

So who is the greenest? According to the map, the top 2 countries where consumers have demonstrated a willingness to pay for eco-friendly products are Brazil and China and India. Who is the worst of the 14 surveyed? Go figure, the U.S.A.  

You can download the entire Greendex report here .                                             

In our never-ending effort to expand our product line to fill the need for eco-friendly clothing options, we are in the final stages of preparing to launch some very new and cool products. We work very hard to make sure that all of our products meet certain eco and fair labor standards and that the suppliers with whom we form relationships with support our commitment to providing eco-friendly and fair labor clothing. We also like to demonstrate to the consumer that we take sustainability and fair labor seriously and that’s why we post our organic certificates and fair labor materials online. The new suppliers with whom we are building relationships with are also interested in transparency and have already provided us some of their certifications.

We’re even moving into some new eco-friendly fabrics besides organic cotton. Fabrics made of computer parts, plastic bottles, coconut shells, and hemp. As with all of our product, you can rest assured that everything is made of only sustainable fabrics and in fair labor workplaces in the U.S. and outside. We are also one of the few eco-friendly clothing companies using water-based inks. Conventional screen-printing inks contain PVC, a non-biodegradable plastic that sits on top of the shirt. Water-based inks are eco-friendly and actually go into the shirt and won’t crack or peel off like PVC-based inks.

If you are a retailer that would like to offer stylish, eco-friendly clothing in your store, please give us an email info(at)sattlerclothing.com

Jamie Rector/Bloomberg News

Yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that the lower court judge giving the thumbs up to the merger had in adequately considered the impact the merger would have on consumers. The three-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, voted 2-1 that lower court judge, Paul L. Friedman, had rushed a decision in the original hearing. The court ruled that $565 million merger would limit competition and therefore elevate prices for natural and organic foods whereas Whole Foods executives have argued that the merger was necessary in order for the company to compete against much larger competitors like WalMart, Kroger, and Safeway that now sell a large assortment of organic products for consumers.

It is now unclear what will happen if courts determine the merger to be unlawful. Austin, TX-based Whole Foods has already transitioned 27 former Wild Oats stores into Whole Foods stores since the favorable ruling last August. Apparently, the new case has proven to be more than just a legal conundrum for Whole Foods as “documents filed by the Federal Trade Commission revealed that Whole Foods’ chief executive and founder, John P.Mackey, had, under a pseudonym, posted hundreds of messages on financial bulletin boards promoting the company’s stock and criticizing Wild Oats.” (NYT article)

So the real question – will Boise get the 54,000 sq. ft. store we’ve been promised? Whole Foods New Stores List
Also, check out the conversation on SeekingAlpha “Whole Foods: How Many Health Nuts in Boise?”

Amid $4-plus a gallon, rising food and energy prices and confronting what may be the costliest winter heating bills the country has ever seen, U.S. politicians are asked to “re-examine outdated and entrenched positions”.

According to an Associated Press article, a bipartisan group of 27 former political officials sent a letter to all 50 governors, all members of Congress, and presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama, calling them to address the country’s energy crisis that threatens the future security and prosperity of the United States.

Six former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger, along with former senators of both parties and half a dozen former senior White House advisers and Cabinet officers were among the writers of the letter.

The letter was the brainchild of the Institute for 21^st Century Energy, a group affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that has “embraced largely Republican, pro-business approaches to dealing with energy problems”, according to the AP article. President of the Institute, retired Marine General James Jones, said they wanted the letter to represent the broad, bipartisan support, and a sense of urgency for taking aggressive steps towards eliminating our country’s energy crisis.

Jones hopes that the letter will breakdown partisan roadblocks and streamline efforts to make strides in addressing energy consumption. Jones feels that “There’s an energy tsunami coming, and when you see it coming you better get on top of the wave, or you’re going to get crushed by it.”

The bipartisan letter states – “We demand more energy and complain about high prices, but we restrict energy exploration and production. We embrace the promise of energy efficiency, but we are slow to make adjustments in our energy-intensive lifestyles.”

Former White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton, Thomas “Mack” McLarty, stresses that the letter emphasizes that “the next president is going to have to put energy right at the top of his agenda”.

Brandweek got together with Frito-Lay vp-marketing Gannon Jones about the recent success of a previously less-than stellar (pun intended) product – Sun Chips. Sales for Sun Chips are up 17.6%, or $201.8 million for the 52 weeks ending June 15.

Back in 2006, when Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out, (can you believe it has only been two years?!), Mr. Jones says he and his colleagues really began thinking about how to connect Sun Chips with the environment and people’s health. The brand began offering 18 grams of whole grain, low sodium, no trans-fat and installed solar panels at their production plant in Modesto, CA.

What has really made it work for Sun Chips?

As we’ve said before, any company that wants going green to be a profitable, positive, lasting experience needs to make being green a part of daily operations. In this interview Gannon Jones speaks to that same point –

“One thing also learned about green brands and believe very much is that the brands that are most successful in speaking about green make it core to their business strategy. It’s not something you can treat as a consumer promotion and do it for three months and move to the next promotion. Like Prius and Stonyfield Farms who make it core to brand operations, that’s something we believed in. We needed to take a series of steps.”

More on Green Strategies for Business?

Do we Need to Hire an Energy Management Person?

How to Take Your Business Green – Green Strategy

and much, much more you might even read how a PA-based paper company has gone green in Dunder Mifflin Goes Green