The new Internet Resources are organized under major subject headings—Climate Change, General Resources, the Green Lawyer, Key Congressional Committees Addressing Climate Change, and By the Categories, which is broken down by the blog’s major categories of Buildings, Conservation and Recycling, Pollution Prevention, and Administrative Stuff.

You’ll find that the Internet resources are now organized by these headings, making it easier, I hope, to search for resources and to locate links you read about and want to refer to again. 

I want to take the opportunity to thank the students and Ms. Otylia Baranowski, tutor and Captain of Team Nemo and Team Planet, from the 9th grade science class at the Colonial Academy.  They were my inspiration to upgrade the Internet resources listings on GreenWorksGov. The students undertook a project to identify resources that they found would be helpful to add to the GreenWorksGov Internet resources.  Ms. Baranowski sent me the students’ recommendations, and they collectively form a valuable enhancement to the Internet site listings. I am so proud of their diligence and achievement.  With environmentally-aware students like these, I know that we can be optimistic that they and future generations can meet the challenges of climate change.

Here are some of the steps the firm has taken to reduce its carbon footprint:

·         Moving to all "Energy Star" electronics

·         Worked with building on waste separation and recycling programs

·         Give purchasing preferences to items with high recycled content

·         Converted many internal memos and reports to email versions

·         Set default copying procedure for double-sided wherever feasible

·         Shifted to 100% post-consumer content, chlorine-free paper 

Wendel Rosen formed a Sustainability Team comprised of attorneys and staff to tackle the challenge of identifying actions the firm could take to meet the high standards of Bay Area Green Business certification.  The firm follows The Natural Step Sustainability Framework, created by Karl-Henrik Robert, a Swedish physician and cancer specialist.  If you haven’t heard of The Natural Step, neither had I.  According to their website, the Framework “builds on a basic understanding of what makes life possible, how our biosphere functions and how we are part of the earth’s natural systems. Rather than get lost in abstract definitions and causes, it builds on a platform of basic science and is designed to allow true interdisciplinary, cross sector cooperation for concrete and measurable change towards sustainability.” 

As I understand it, The Natural Step provides that tangible link between “sustainability” and the actions we ask of employees, for example, printing back to back.  It provides the larger framework of the natural world around us and our relationship to all living things and helps us to understand how the choices we make in our daily lives, at work and at home, impact our environment for better or worse. 

There are some very helpful resources on the website, and one I think should be required reading for every member of a green team is the sustainability primer.  This is an excellent resource to link to on your Intranets.  Click here for a pdf of the primer for the US.  The website has other versions for other languages and countries.  The Natural Step is headquartered in Sweden, with offices around the world.

The Wendel Rosen team and the firm continue to look for ways to conserve energy, reduce waste, and increase staff’s use of mass transit.   I really like their commitment to work within their larger communities to improve the environment and promote sustainable economies.  Learn more about Wendel Rosen by clicking here.

This is my last blog for 2011, and I’m in a “going forward” frame of mind.   Going green didn’t get easier in 2011, as the world economy is still sluggish and priorities in the United States are to cut unemployment, spur the growth of business, and create jobs.   On a day-to-day basis, two challenges for green teams are to maintain the resources allocated to program efforts, be they dedicated positions or volunteers, in the face of reduced budgets and to persuade decision-makers to invest in sustainably manufactured office products and energy-efficient equipment.  I think it’s important to acknowledge the challenges, but not to view them as obstacles that can’t be overcome.  When we do so, it invites us to be creative in setting and achieving our goals and objectives for 2012. 

I propose that green teams tackle what’s doable and chart a course for success that leverages the resources that are available, collaborates with efforts in the local communities, and adopts objectives that are realistic.  We can’t save the planet overnight, but we can be agents of change.  If green teams can choose only three things on which to focus their energies, these are my suggestions:

1.    Individual awareness.   Ensure that staff are aware of what they can do as individuals at home and at work to use fewer resources, to recycle, to buy recycled content products, and to re-use or re-purpose when they can.   Host lunch and learn “green bags” and invite speakers or show films.   If your office doesn’t recycle bottles and cans, start a volunteer drive and use the proceeds to fund holiday and birthday parties.  We have had speakers on oceans, water use, office plants, and weight loss (now there’s a greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy that has personal benefits).  

2.    Saving money.   Demonstrate the cost-savings of proposed policies and processes and you’ll have a winning recommendation.  Look for the low-hanging fruit.  Is your office printing on one side of the paper only?  It’s a no-brainer to print double-sided.  It saves paper and money.  Is your office’s ratio of printers to staff in less than 4 to 1 (a generous ratio all the same)?  Recommend that the number of printers be reduced over time to a number that meets the office’s needs but doesn’t have a surplus of underutilized printers.  Individual printers should be high on the list of suspects for underutilization.  Stage a spring house cleaning week in the office and set up “re-use” centers where staff can deposit their excess supplies and equipment.  Ours have become the “go to” place for finding that vintage desk item or a supply of pens and paper that might take the office buyers a week or longer to order and have delivered, assuming it isn’t past the annual deadline for submitting purchase orders. 

3.    Be part of the world outside your office.  Find out what organizations are doing in the cities and towns where you work and collaborate with them.  This could be as simple as noting upcoming events in your office newsletters to participating in Earth Day 2012.  Take advantage of the many resources on the Internet to get ideas and make connections.   We don’t have to re-invent the wheel; there are dozens of ways to be more environmentally friendly.  You’ll find them in the archived (yet timeless!) blogs on GreenWorksGov and the links I’ve included. 

Recently I was in the market for a computer chair for home use.  I headed to a second-hand store in my neighborhood and found a chair that was in mint condition.  It was manufactured by the HON Company, in Muscatine, Iowa.  I decided to check up on HON to find out if my chair materials had recycled content and what the company might be doing in the area of environmental responsibility.  Quite a lot, I discovered.  HON started its environmental journey more than sixty years ago by focusing on waste reduction.  One of its first product lines was made of recycled scrap metal.  Since then, HON has become a leader in the use of renewable plant resources, in adopting technologies that meet LEED low emissions requirements, and in the use of post-consumer wood waste.  Click here to learn more about what this remarkable company is doing to promote sustainable manufacturing and business practices. 

I was curious to know more about office furniture in general.  What information is available to buyers of office equipment and furniture that will help them make more environmentally-aware decisions?  How does the industry regulate itself and set standards for manufacturers?  When our office purchases a computer chair or an acoustical panel, can we be sure that it will meet LEED certification levels? 

Drum roll, please!  The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association (BIFMA) is the industry’s organization that develops voluntary standards “that support safe, healthy, and sustainable environments.”  BIFMA developed sustainability guidelines in 2005 which provide a roadmap to establish or expand an environmental management system and business practices.  The association has continued to actively lead efforts to promote environmental and social responsibility in product manufacturing. 

Of particular focus in recent years has been the development of multi-attribute sustainability standards and the means of communicating the environmental impacts of products to the customer.  The result is the ANSI/BIFMA e3 Furniture Sustainability Standard and what is called the “level®™ Certification Program.”  "level®" is the first open, consensus-based sustainability standard and certification program for the furniture industry using the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) process.  This is a major advance, and welcome news to those of us concerned with meeting compliance requirements of green procurement laws and policies and LEED certification. The website pages are reader-friendly and there is a searchable database of current furniture and equipment products that meet the third-party “level” certification. 

The BIFMA website is your gateway to all this information.  The BIFMA Sustainability Guidelines document is available by clicking here.  There is a charge for a copy of the ANSI/BIFMA e3 standard, which can be ordered from the list of standards on BIFMA’s website.  Click here to see the list. 

The Audubon Society has a wonderful resource with ideas and links for everything from trimming your tree to gift giving and holiday parties.   You can even adopt a puffin and receive periodic updates on its progress!  What a fun and meaningful gift for a child and a teambuilder for your work unit! The Audubon holiday tips makes a great poster for bulletin boards as well as a link on your office Intranet.  Click here to read it.

Cooking for the holidays?  Save energy in your kitchen with these terrific suggestions from CleanEnergyHolidays. Click here to learn how.

There are plenty of websites ready to enlighten your environmental awareness just in time for Christmas and the holidays.  Check out the tips the Sierra Club is offering and gift ideas from TreeHugger.  The Earth Day 2012 website has a list of ten ideas to green your holidays including some unconventional gifts.

If your office is planning one or more holiday parties, this is a great time to encourage staff to cut back on the plastics, individual sized soda cans and water bottles, and green the party with recyclable or re-usable serving trays, multi-serving sized containers, and finger foods.   Instead of “new” gift exchanges, have a white elephant gift exchange where the rule is the item has to be one that was purchased or received but never used.  Alternately, host a “trash to treasure” gift exchange.  Invite attendees to contribute to an office-wide fundraising campaign that benefits a local community beautification project or other worthy local environmental project.  And how about a thrift shop gift exchange, where the only rule is the gift has to come from a local charity gift shop?