Category — Eco-Conscious Coaching

Just a few months ago we all became aware that the toys we gave to our kids were potentially poisoned by lead and other toxic substances. People protested and asked the government to institute better controls and more oversight.

Some people said we should go back to the old days when toys were made by hand and from wood. Though that is a nice dream, most of us would probably not be able to afford these toys.

During my travel to Germany I was lucky enough to come through the city of Nuernberg, where the worlds largest exhibition for toys is being held every few years. On the first page of the exhibition magazine, a new development was announced. I was surprised and excited, and am happy to bring the good news to you today.

As I am involved in the preparations for the event management of Earth Day 2009 through my cooperation with Social Traffic Inc. (http://www.socialtraffic.biz) and the associated events portal at http://www.eventslisted.com I am always on the lookout for interesting developments in the eco-conscious field. When I find them I publish them in many places including here as AEM.EDBD

Let’s look at some of the details about this amazing new material directly from the source of the inventions at the Toy Expo 2009: Most plastics are based on petroleum. A bio-plastic that consists of one hundred percent renewable raw materials would help to conserve this resource. Researchers have now optimized a renewable plastic in such a way that it is even suitable for products such as Nativity figurines and toys for babies and toddlers.

Toys have to put up with a lot of rough treatment: They are sucked by small children, bitten with milk teeth, dragged along behind bobby cars, and every now and then they have to survive a rainy night outdoors. Whatever happens, it is vital that the material does not release any chemical softeners or heavy metals that could endanger children.

Toys can be made of a new material called ‘liquid wood’ in the future. The advantage is that this bio-plastic, known as ARBOFORM, is made of one hundred percent renewable raw materials and is therefore not reliant on petroleum.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT in Pfinztal and the Fraunhofer spin-off TECNARO GmbH have developed the material. But what exactly is liquid wood?

“The cellulose industry separates wood into its three main components – lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose,” explains ICT team leader Emilia Regina Inone-Kauffmann. “The lignin is not needed in papermaking. TECNARO mixes lignin with fine natural fibers made of wood, hemp, or flax, and natural additives such as wax. From this mixture, they produce plastic granulate that can be melted and injection-molded.” To separate the lignin from the cell fibers, the workers in the cellulose industry normally add sulfurous substances. However, children’s toys should not contain sulfur because it can smell very unpleasant, among other side effects.

“We were able to reduce the sulfur content in ARBOFORM by about 90 percent, and produced Nativity figurines in cooperation with Schleich GmbH. Other products are now in the planning stage,” says TECNARO’s managing director Helmut Nägele. This is a challenging task: Sulfur-free lignins are usually soluble in water – and therefore unsuitable for toys. Toys left out in the rain or humidity should not dissolve. The same would be undesirable when children suck on them. With the aid of suitable additives, the TECNARO scientists were able to modify the bio-plastic in such a way that it survives contact with water and saliva undamaged.

One of the other important questions was: Can the material be recycled? To find out, the company produced components, broke them up into small pieces, and re-processed the broken pieces – ten times in all. They couldn’t detect any change in the material properties of the low-sulfur bio-plastic, which means it can be recycled.

This new invention is a great development for concerned parents and all institutions and organizations providing services for small kids. At the same time it goes to show that we can find natural solutions in many places on Earth, if we put our minds to it.

Liquid Wood… - who would have guessed?

Hello Eveybody

Buckle down,  this ones a long one, but you know what,… some things are worth slowing down for,…this message just might be the one to change the course of your life forever (for the better),..its well worth the 35 second investment in time it’s going to take you to give it a chance.

** If the first three paragraph’s don’t hook you in, fair enough,..just forget it and move on
Here is the deal. I have been involved in a movement for the last 5 months. It has made me part of a core group of 15 individuals who believe they can make a difference. Now the time has come to give you an opportunity to participate.

This is our Story! – so far…

In a world dominated by corporate giants and multi-million dollar marketing investments, a bunch of 15 or so people that I have never met in real life, have came together to form an online think tank. They are all gurus at different aspects of social media marketing.

They are all settled and busy with their own personal/work lives. But we all know that the way things are happening around us isn’t quite right. Most importantly, we all believed in the power of the collective whole. You see, despite the complexity of the new web 2.0 platforms; spamming is still a regular thing, one-way messaging is still at large, slick-self-interest-based promotions are still done shamelessly.

These 15 people and I are standing up to it, we have decided to take things into our own hands one step at a time. We have decided to prove it to the world around us, that the way to go into the future is by bridging the gap between marketing and trust based relations.

We have come together as a powerful team by forming a group of like minded people who all feel the same way. Collectively we have massive potential and the collective synergy is being brought to our weekly online webinars, it’s become contagious for everyone involved so far.

Today we launched a recruitment drive. Our objective is to recruit 1000 evangelists/volunteers/eco-conscious individuals to join our party. We have all dedicated our time, sweat and tears into building this, our second Social Media marketing campaign together on a global scale. The subject of this second campaign is Earth Day 2009 and the green movement.

On April 22nd this ear (2009) we intend to generate enough interest across Social Media Networks to promote over 100,000 physical events across the world throughout a 24 hour period.

This launch will lead the way to a new tomorrow. After the success of the world’s biggest birthday bash across the globe, we will have gotten people’s attention. Corporate clients are already starting to want to become involved.

The reason the key people driving this campaign (including Yours’ Dearly) are so passionate about it is because, it’s a collective demonstration of what we are all capable of.

You see, 5 years ago, people actually had resumes. Companies asked for them. It wasn’t like it is today, with the online personal-profile in one place with your life-streaming, blogs, updates, accomplishments in one dynamic feed for whoever to see them. This event will become a massive trademark on the resume of anyone associated with it’s planning and launch.

It’s already being said that the inaugural Earth Day Birthday bash (2010) for our planet will become the biggest influence of change in the way our human race see the “Rock” we all live on this generation has ever seen. Earth day Birthday 2009, this April 22nd will become our lead in event.

I want your involvement in this, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, sign up and help us alter the course of history here;

http://www.socialtraffic.biz/super-promoter-two-opt-in-page/

It will costs you nothing but time. In return we are offering cutting edge Social Media marketing training that comes with a proven social media expert as a personal mentor. The real value though is something that’s not for sale anywhere, it’s the actual participation in a massive global Social Media marketing campaign for you to apply your newly learned skill set.

If you would like to become part of a story that will be told by future generations, this is a real chance. Chances like this don’t come along too many times in a lifetime. Secure your role in this amazing story.

If you would like to read more about this opportunity visit the Social Traffic Inc. blog;

http://www.socialtraffic.biz/category/our-story/

We even have our own radio show. If you are on Facebook you can join the show here;

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=60538533974

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Axel Meierhoefer
AEM.EDBD

P.S. As this story grows,… more and more people will want to become a part of it, good roles will become harder and harder to come by.
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Sign up now by going to this link and adding your name and email address. The email sequence you will receive is written to fill you in on everything you need to know, including putting you in direct communication with the right person to answer any questions you may have.
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P.S.S. Yes, you guessed it. All these events are going to be hosted on http://www.EventsListed.com and yes, the site is ready for those on my list to use.

There are many reasons to get involved in activities and causes. Some people like to loose wait, others like to achieve new goals in sports, again others want to spend time on something they are passionate about.

Earth Day is part of the Green Movement that is beginning to spread like a wild fire across the United States. Everybody wants to do something green, wants to demonstrate how environmentally conscious we all are, especially if it isn’t hard to do. If we can maintain our creature comforts and standard of living and still do all these “green things” we should be fine, right?

Maybe one can’t make money with it or be profitable, but it’s not that hard, or is it?

A group of very dedicated, educated, and motivated individuals has come together to organize a fabulous, global Earth Day Birthday celebration in 2009. One of the goals, besides the celebrations, is to build more awareness about all the issues surrounding all of us. Earth Day Birthday becomes the magnifying glass and the anchor point for this initiative. The global events will actually occur on April 22nd 2009. Volunteers are welcome to help with all kinds of work related to this celebration.

As part of the awareness building, this article is providing some food for thought about the green movement and its spread across the consciousness of the American public. Now that we have a new president in Barack Obama, the expectation is that there will be much more funding and a push towards green solutions. That does not mean things will all be very easy.

In his newest book, Thomas Friedman reminds us that the transition from consumer orientation with the believe of unlimited credit, ever increasing house values, and living above our means , towards an eco-conscious mind set will require thoughtfulness, sacrifice, and reflection.

How much we will need to move can be seen in some recent examples that showed me how much Earth Day needs to become one of the important awareness builders in our lives.

It all started with the notion of carbon footprints and pollution. I, AEM.EDBD, wonder if there is a formula or system to calculate comparisons. As a German, I come from a place where the natural resources were always scarce compared to the large population. That meant doing the most with the little space available.

Forestry has been a part of the economy for hundreds of years. Maintaining the forest, keeping it clean and healthy, and profitably harvest the wood has been going on for as long as I can remember (and my dad says the same for as long as he can remember). In that sense, everything the forest produces is put to good use. Berries are picked and baked into cakes, mushrooms are picked and become part of seasonal recipes (if you are very lucky and have truffles, you can actually make money with it) Underbrush is cleared, and in very bad winters some of the wildlife is fed to keep it around.

Shortly after this years Christmas holidays in our local California valley, the city officials of Solvang, together with the fire department, decided to hold a public fire safety demonstration. In light of the recent wild fires, this appeared to be a good idea. Some rain a few days earlier would also help to limit the risk of any problem with the demonstration.

What happened next was shocking to me. The public administrators alerted all families to put out their Christmas trees for collection. It was decided that the trees would become the fuel for the safety demonstration. Not just one or two or a handful, but a huge pile of trees was formed and then burned in front of hundreds of people, showing them how quickly dry Christmas trees can burn.

Nobody ever mentioned that they could have been chopped up, used as mulch or fertilizer or ground cover. Instead they were used to pollute the air creating a huge carbon emission plume.

Another example occurred at a business lunch the other day. The weather was so nice that we sat on an open patio, looking out towards the hills and the fields. In the distance a huge cloud of smoke was growing, rising to approximately 20.000 feet. Later that night the local TV station reported that the public shouldn’t be concerned, because this wasn’t a wild fire (which we had so many of in the last 3 years that about 350.000 acres of forest and grasslands burned). This was a controlled burn with the aim to reduce fuels. The area being burned is 6000 acres in size.

With these examples I wonder how much carbon these activities release, compared to what our Earth Day Birthday campaign using the internet  could ever generate.

We are trying to do to raise awareness via the internet. I am appalled that all this valuable biomass isn’t put to better use, but just burned. That is one of the biggest messages I would like to get across as part of the Earth Day Birthday event.

We all need to raise the awareness of people about these habits. As long as we are burning valuable fuels for reasons that are not credible, we don’t really have to worry about the minute amounts of carbon a search for information on Google or Yahoo might create.

A new friend with very similar ambitions and hope for Earth Day as an awareness builder, but also in a larger sense for the need to change people minds wrote to me:

I agree that behavior change is the most important issue. So few people ask, “How is this action going to affect the environment?” Our society’s wasteful habits are so deeply engrained in our habits, it’s a monumental task to shift the public’s awareness. One of the questions we have to get people to ask themselves is, “We’ve been doing it like this for decades, is it the best way for the environment or is this part of the problem?”

If the firemen want to demonstrate the danger of dry trees, perhaps they can burn a few, not, “Let’s see how many we can burn, they’re just old trees that are going into the trash anyway.”

The two questions I ask all the time are. “Is it sustainable?” and “How does it scale?” When you multiply someone’s actions by a thousand… or a million, the eyebrows go up. Most people say, “I never thought about it that way.”

The beautiful thing is, there are profitable business models around all of these examples. It’s all based on the price of carbon. As soon as the Cap & Trade system is in place there will be amazing opportunities where people only saw garbage before.

You probably have seen or read the commercials about the company that comes to help you get rid of pests using non-toxic methods. Playing on that theme, I believe, we should all shout: “Earth Day Birthday, we need you!”

Some people might have doubts that changing minds, creating a better world, resurrecting a damaged economy, and maintaining the comfortable standard of living most of us have gotten used to, will be possible. I think we all need to join in and project the right energy. The slogan: “Yes, we can” and the movement that has grown around it has shown all of us, what is possible. All we need to do is start taking action instead of waiting for others to do it for us.

For the Earth Day Birthday events we can still use lots of volunteers and evangelists. If that’s not your cup of tea, then go ahead and get involved in some other way to make people eco-consicous and increase their awareness.

Part 2: Your Schools, Colleges, Universities Eco-reputation

Ecological issue and eco-consciousness touches all parts of our lives. It’s not just how we behave and act, but also what our institutions on all levels do to create a better future for all of us and develop more awareness for those who will be the leaders in the future.

In August 2008, Dawson Rasouzzi showed one example about a college to demonstrate what can be done to improve the eco-reputation of a school and in the process develop a better awareness among its faculty and students. Dawson wrote:

Green Mountain College is hoping its incoming students’ first impressions at college are their long-lasting impressions during their years on the Poultney campus and long after graduating.

Freshman orientation — which, for many colleges, means burying students in paper handouts, flying in guest speakers and blanketing the campus with balloons and other non-recyclable goods — is getting a “green” makeover this year.

To lead by example in showing importance of sustainability, GMC has cut back the number of paper mailings that often fill mailboxes the summer before freshman year, and combined them into one package of information with suggestions to check the school’s Web site where the information is also posted.

The school will also be teaching incoming students’ about the effects actions have on the environment and how to reduce their carbon footprints at the orientation from Aug. 28 to Sept. 1.

“We’re adding workshops and public campaigns about sustainability to hit students over the head about it,” said Jesse Pyles, the college’s coordinator of service learning and sustainability. They will also calculate the amount of each student’s carbon emissions upon getting to the campus and the amount they will produce in their four years at GMC.

One night of orientation, the college is offering the opportunity for students to camp out on the campus around campfires and the college will read the meters from rooms that house students overnight to show how much electricity is used in an average dorm room.

Recycling Electrical Wire Rolls

“The idea is to show they don’t have to use that energy inside to have fun and hopefully they will see that.”

The college is also encouraging students to bring their own utensils and travel mugs for orientation to reduce the amount of energy and water the college uses to clean them, with stations set up on campus to hand wash them. They are also offering biodegradable utensils for orientation visitors.

“The fewer items that have to be washed by the institution (means) the more energy is saved and the more water is going to be saved,” Pyles said. “It’s just a matter of being really intentional and getting students into the habit of taking personal responsibility and to think about what they are using.”

The campus will be decorated with flowers grown on the college farm and with signs made from reusable sandwich boards instead of the previously used plastic, one-time-use signs that typically plaster college campuses.

For breakfast one day, students will dine on products from the college farm and local providers, saving the energy it takes to transport the goods to Vermont from out of state.

Logistically, it’s very difficult to provide only locally produced foods all the time, Pyles said, although the one meal demonstrates the college’s intensions and also supports local farmers.

All of the speakers at the college will be local during the orientation, including employees of the college, instead of bringing speakers in from far away.

The “green” thinking doesn’t end for students after classes begin on Sept. 2, but instead orientation is just the “green” kick-off.

“It’s something we want to focus on for all of our events, but it’s still a work in progress,” Pyles said.

Recycle Electrical Wire Rolls 2

The college with a “green” reputation has long tried to make its campus more sustainable and practiced earth-friendly initiatives.

Pyles said last school year the college focused on the “little things” like having more in-house presenters or experts from the area speak on campus.

“Those small actions really served as a spring board for these other actions,” Pyles said.

More to come…

AEM.EBDB

In a previous article we looked at the outcome of neglect when it comes to eco-consciousness. Examples like General Motors or Ford Motor Company come to mind. The reputation of a company as a measure or important factor for its success will be an important aspect of the economy in the 21st century.

At the same time the bottom line for any activity is people. What people do or do not do, what they stand for and what actions they take makes all the difference. That’s why it is important to take a look at your eco-reputation.

To start out I feel it is important to get a clear understanding what the term “reputation’ actually means. Here is a summary from references on the internet, in dictionaries and other public sources:

Reputation is the opinion of the public toward a person, a group of people, or an organization. It is an important factor in many fields, such as education, business, online communities or social status.

Reputation is known to be an ever-present, spontaneous and highly efficient mechanism of social control in societies. It is a subject of study in social, management and technological sciences. Its influence ranges from competitive settings, like markets, to cooperative ones, like firms, organizations, institutions and communities.

Furthermore, reputation acts on different levels. At the individual level, it concerns groups, communities, collectives and abstract social entities (such as firms, corporations, organizations, countries, cultures and even civilizations). It affects phenomena of different scale, from everyday life to relationships between nations. Reputation is a fundamental instrument of social order.

These definitions don’t just apply to the work reputation, but also to eco-reputation. You have one, your company has one, your school, college, university, has one. Corporation receive one from the public, and even regions and countries have eco-reputations.

In the recent past, cases have been pound where the overall reputation of an entity is different than its eco-reputation. A good example would the country of China. It is known and has the reputation of being communist, almost dictatorial, controlling, and mainly interested in economic growth. Many media outlets and politicians have pointed out that China is adding a new coal power plant to its electric network every week.

Politically, economically, and environmentally, China has the reputation of being strict, ambitious, and willing to neglect the impact on climate. When you dig a little deeper you will find out that international organizations actually give China a pretty good eco-reputation – and rightfully so.

With the beginning of the year 2008, China has become the largest producer of solar and wind energy products, not just for export, but also for installation in their own country. What most people don’t know about their eco-reputation is that they pollute the climate with the equivalent of about 5 tons per person while the US is putting about 20 tons per person into the atmosphere every year. China is very strict about this and tried to reduce the amounts further with a top down policy and alternative energy initiatives.

You can see how the reputation of a country and the eco-reputation can be significantly different. How does this apply to you?

Well, in a similar way as you need to build your reputation for any other aspect of life. If you want to be seen as dependable, the only way to gain that reputation is by following through on your promises. When you take this premise and convert it to your eco-reputation, you gain dependability by actually acting on the eco-friendly issue dear to your heart. If you ask your friends, co-workers, and family members to separate recyclable items form non-recycle ones, you need to be the role model and do it all the time, especially when they can see it, both at work and at home.

If you want to improve your reputation from wasteful to conserving, you cut down on all the things not really necessary to achieve a goal. The same is true for your eco-reputation. To achieve the reputation as an eco-conserver, you collect your organic matter and use it as part of your compost. You buy organic products because you know that they are packaged in recyclable containers or offered without packaging. You also read most of what you need online or in emails, rather than printing everything, and you don’t through advertisements and other paper products into the trash can but collect them and get them back into the production process.

Even for management and leadership, you want to walk the talk to gain your eco-reputation. That doesn’t just mean that you point out all the things mentioned above, but you encourage your team members to look for ways to develop or improve products, production and services with savings and positive outcomes for nature in mind. That builds the bridge to the eco-reputation of your company, your schools, your region, and your country.

Most important, you need to take action. Some things are obvious and others might need a little push. The free Eco-Action Plan we have developed will help you build your eco-reputation and encourage others to follow your lead.

Your eco-reputation is very similar to a first impression. Someone once said: You can never redo a first impression. If your first impression is the one of a great eco-reputation, you will be well on your path to success. Just don’t forget what Peter Drucker once said: “It takes many people easily years, if not decades to build a good (eco-) reputation, and it only takes seconds or one foolish act to ruin it.”

Don’t let that happen to you and spend some time thinking about the steps you can take to build your eco-reputation. It will set you apart and .prime you to be at the forefront of the people needed to succeed in the new green economies and societies of the 21st century.