"It’s cost-effective to do things with environmental responsibility," says Alfredo Leali, owner of Apart Silvestris, in Mar de las Pampas, Buenos Aires province, Argentina. He wants to emphasize the fact that working in a sustainable manner may also be economically profitable. He tested this idea in his own business and it worked. And he is going for more: he has already developed a series of projects that minimize the environmental impact of his hotel, and now has ambitious plans. In 2009, 2521 people stayed in the hotel; it is remarkable that such large amounts of people get to know the philosophy of Leali, a retired publicist.
The first step taken by Alfredo was to avoid using wood treated with CCA (chromated copper arsenate). This is a common practice in the Atlantic Coast of Argentina, where CCA is widely used to preserve pine wood. Instead, in Apart Silvestris, hardwoods are used, which are just painted given that they do not need the CCA.
Caryn Heilman and Nana Simopoulos have designed and built the Topia Inn, a small hotel not far from New York and Boston, that minimizes its environmental impact and introduces its guests into a green experience. From powering itself with solar energy to cleaning with ecological products, to covering its beds with organic cotton, the hotel goes far beyond green marketing and makes an effort to be as sustainable as possible.
In an interview with Sustentator, Caryn Heilman says finding the organic materials the Inn uses “took an incredible amount of research”, yet it enabled them to get to know green companies and artists, which was “so gratifying”.
The inn powers itself partly with solar photovoltaic panels. For heating and hot water generation, it uses biodiesel. Resorting to biodiesel allows the inn to emit 78% less carbon dioxide. When you’re taking your eco-friendlier hot bath, you also have access to organic shampooing. While in the bathroom, another useful gadget is the dual flush toilet, which helps reduce water consumption.
Caryn says most of the inn’s green products are more expensive than regular ones, including the organic beds, linens, bath and bodycare products, breakfast, fair trade coffee and tea, nontoxic building materials, FSC-certified wood, recycled insulation and efficient appliances. Besides, she adds that biodiesel is very expensive. Solar panels were also costly but they “will pay back within 5 years”, thanks to the savings on electric bills. All this spending and efforts in greening the inn are a great source of marketing; thus by attracting more guests, the costs are offset.
In February 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed by the Congress, and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Its main goal is to spur economic activity and growth, creating and saving jobs. Recovery funds are around $787 billion. The Act also took into account the environment as a means of creating jobs and strengthening the economy.
Today we will analyze the case of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which was awarded $16.8 billion for its programs and projects.
The funds are being allocated into either energy efficiency projects or renewable energy ones.
We’ll start with energy efficiency. There are several projects in this area.
1) Solid-state lighting
$37 million have been awarded to more than 15 projects. Some of them will research,
others will manufacture, and develop this type of lighting which includes LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes). This solid-state lighting system has the “potential to be 10 times more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent lighting”, according to the EERE. Besides, lighting consumes around 24% of the electricity generated in the US.
Read Post
Starbucks is one of the largest coffee companies around. It is a tremendously popular store, growing and expanding to more and more countries at an impressive rate.
It’s been a few years since they’ve been working on their environmental impact. Lately, they’ve been developing quite interesting initiatives, and have many plans.
Their work is organized in a number of areas.
Read Post
As part of a series of green initiatives taken by the United States Tennis 
Association (USTA), the tennis championship US Open has become more ecological. Some of the actions they have taken include recycling balls and ball containers, acquiring wind energy certificates, and recycling plastics and cans used during the event.
The US Open is a tennis tournament that is known worldwide and is held once a year. It receives attention from the media and people all over the world, and about 700,000 fans attend. This gives even more value to the actions taken by the organization, since they have the ability to reach a lot of people.
Read Post
Loading...