Kimberly Lancaster, founder of the Green Life Smart Life (GLSL) project, will be a speaker at this year’s Greener Gadget’s Conference on Feb. 25th in New York City. Speaking on the “Green Living Begins at Home” panel, she and four other industry experts will discuss sustainable design strategies and tips for creating plans for a home that is both high-tech and green.
The GLSL project was designed to demonstrate the implementation of green building techniques and smart home technologies to achieve LEED®for Homes certification. Not only did the project achieve LEED® for Homes certification, but was rated by the US Green Building Council as Gold certified. The Narragansett, RI 4529 sq/ft home scored 92.5 out of 136 points and is the first LEED-H Gold home in RI and only the second completed LEED-H project in the entire state.
“Every day we make choices about what we are going to reuse, recharge and recycle in our home. By being aware of the impact of the choices you make, whether it is the amount of energy a device consumes or where it ends up at end of life, we can all minimize our environmental footprint,” stated Lancaster.
Lancaster is also the President and founder of Caster and her team provided the development and marketing for the Green Life Smart Life project.
The Greener Gadgets Conference, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) will cover issues on energy efficiency and sustainable design, along with innovative advances in packaging and product manufacturing to end-of-life recycling solutions. It will emphasize ways in which electronics make a major impact by utilizing renewable energy in developing nations.
An old friend back at the Forest Society brought an interesting subject to my attention last week…he asked if I’d seen any research lately on which is greener – eBooks or printed books…or as he called it the carbon footprints of paper versus pixels. The majority of the info that he’d found actually came from the paper industry…so as you can imagine of course they claim their research shows that paper has a smaller carbon footprint than pixels—this prompted me to go online and do a little digging just to see what those whom are interested in the subject have to say.
In literature put out by International Paper titled Are Pixles Greener than Paper? they state Electric Data Centers (EDC) that power internet servers use 1.5% (enough to power 5.72 million homes) of the total energy purchased in the United States while the pulp and paper industry uses .7% (enough to power 2.76 million homes). They also say that the paper and pulp industry is one of the largest consumers of low-carbon and renewable energy with sixty percent of their energy coming from carbon-neutral sources, while the electronics industry purchases more than ninety percent of its energy off the grid and from fossil fueled sources. The consumption rate of data centers doubled in the U.S. from 2000 to 2006 and it is estimated that it will double again by 2011.
I took this report with a grain of salt since it was published by an international paper manufacturer, but they do bring up some good points when it comes to statistics on paper recycling versus electronics recycling…how many of you have wrapped something naughty up and stuck it in the trash because it’s just easier than taking said item to your local transfer station or waiting for the hazardous waste recycling days that seem to only come around once a year and of course the weekend that you are out of town—D’oh!
We all know paper is biodegradable, recyclable and reusable…but did you know that an estimated sixty percent of paper is recycled while only eighteen percent of electronics are e-cycled…with 1.84 million tons of electronic waste shipped to landfills in 2006 alone…I didn’t…YIKES!
On the other hand, according to Kris Kiler, the Founder and President of TypeLabs another way of looking at things from an eBook versus paper point of view is that 37 million pieces of paper thrown away each year do not get recycled, many retailers will even rip the cover off paperbacks to obtain credit for not selling the book—the rest goes in the garbage. There is also the gasoline used to get to the bookstore, for each gallon of fuel we use, we create 22 pounds of greenhouse gases and that doesn’t include modes of transportation that get the printed book to the retail outlet…
eBooks do need energy in order for you to read them, and yes there is an environmental impact of creating the device, driving to the store to pick it up—but you can use it over and over…the reuse of the device will most likely consume minimal energy when compared to the production and purchase of the paper book—and if you are able to purchase green energy from your local utility, you aren’t using an extreme amount of fossil fueled power to begin with. Those that are lucky enough to live within walking distance of the library (like me) have a lesser impact by borrowing books—but I’m sure fellow bookworms like myself also own plenty of traditional dead tree books. The concept of Eco-Libraries is neat, but I’m not sure if I would really be jazzed about living in a world without the smell of old books…
So which do you prefer…pixels or paper…??
Posted by Amanda| follow me on Twitter
The Apple’s Mac mini might be one of the hottest gifts this season for more reasons than one. Besides its hip sleek design and the small amount of space it takes up, this new Mac is one of the most energy efficient computers available.
This computer can be run far more cheaply than any PC or other Mac available, making this a smart choice for an eco friendly gift giver this holiday season. Besides the amount of money it will save you on your energy bill it is also extremely inexpensive starting at only $550.
Apple has been on the top of the charts for the most energy efficient computers. Apple’s mini Mac has shot to the top of that list. Choosing the right model could save your energy bills around 150 dollars a year making this a great choice. Hopefully other manufacturers will begin designing more energy efficient models.
The energy consumption site is a great way for you to find out how your electronics rate in saving you energy. All you need to do is multiply the amount of wattage used by the number of hours you use that product a day and then divide it by 1000, this will give you Daily Kilowatts-per hour. You can go even further by multiplying this by the number of days in a year you use it to see how much energy you will be using and how much it will cost you to run this particular electronic. This can be used for any electronics in your home.
So far Mac seems to be on their toes joining in on energy efficient models available to the public. We are all looking to save some money this year and this may be a top choice for anyone looking to purchase a new computer!
By Kate Kiselka, follow me on Twitter
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