- Sustainable Manufacturing Summit in Chicago (event)
- Design Green Now in 4 west coast cities (event)
- Turn off your light for one hour this Saturday, March 29th at 8:00PM (BIG event)
- The Tap Project starts this Sunday! (BIG event)
- Rapanui: a brand to inspire (product)
- Syncromatics make using public transportation much simpler (product)
- Lucid Design Group is not a gadget, it can actually save energy (product)

Can global manufacturers grow their businesses while cutting carbon?

The summit will bring together over 250 sustainability professionals to share their strategies on carbon management. They will look at implementing a sustainable supply chain or how to incorporate your suppliers into carbon reduction strategy. Other topics include developing products that are less resource and carbon intensive, the 3Rs and other elements that should be considered to effectively reach sustainability goals.
Where: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago,
When: April 8-9 2008
Cost: $1150 (NPO) $1750 standard
Register: Sustainable Manufacturing Summit

Design Green Now!
Design Green Now, a small tour and series of panel discussions about sustainable design and greening consumer products, is coming to a venue near you. Starting April 1 in Bellingham, WA and ending April 11 in Long Beach, CA, the events visit colleges along the coast, bringing industry professionals, non-profits and students together to inspire and empower a greener way forward.
Where: 4 locations on the West Coast.
When: 4 dates between 4/1 and 4/11
Web site: Design Green Now

Show you believe and turn off your light for 1 hour
World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour is catching on across America following the tremendous success of last year’s event in Sydney, Australia. This global phenomenon will spread across six continents in 2008, including hundreds of communities like yours in the United States. Everyone throughout the US and around the world is invited and encouraged to turn off their lights for an hour on March 29 at 8 p.m. local time.
Don’t try to call me around that time, no phone, no light, no cooking, no reading, hopefully, the sky will be clear and we’ll be able to watch the stars with a nice glass of local wine.
Where: Your home, office, restaurant (diner candle … tres romantique!), …
When: March 29th @ 8:00PM
Web site: http://www.earthhourus.org/

The Tap Project
You might have seen UNICEF’s Tap Water TV ad. This is a great concept that will help provide clean water to some of the 425 million children who do not have access to potable water. During the week of March 16 to 21 participating restaurants (2252 as of today) will invite their customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free. For every dollar raised, a child will have clean drinking water for 40 days.
Where: Check the list here
When: March 11 to 16/ 2008

Rapanui: a brand to inspire
The Knight-Drake brothers’ story that led to the creation of the Rapanui sustainable clothing brand is one that is unfortunately too common to many water sport athletes and participants: enjoying their favorite sport – surfing – not knowing your in polluted water. This misfortune turned them into green entrepreneurs, designing and producing surfing wears from sustainably harvested bamboos and cotton and paying a great deal of attention that everything needed to make their “stuff” will be as eco-friendly as possible. And they have achieved just that and they are proud of it, calling it “total transparency” – something we’d like too see from the big guys. On top of this: great name, clean logo and cool design should offer Rob and Mart’s Rapanui a sustainable growth in the world of fashion.

Using public transportation could be that easy
You’re home and about to head to your work and the usual question comes up: car or bus? Is it going to be late and crowded?
Students attending and staff working at UC San Diego have now a friendly relationship with their transit system. Syncromatics, provides real time bus traffic information and passenger count using GPS and cellular networks to transmit and analyze telematics information directly from the buses. I met Josh Bigelow, founder and CEO of the company for coffee last week. Although winning the California Cleantech Open helped the company gained credibility (and a bit of cash), Josh said most city transit services have processes that give an advantage to established vendors. Perception has it that they have a hard time believing their solution is 30% of the cost they are currently spending on existing solutions for half of the functionalities. Moreover, He said that 90% of the improvements made on syncromatics’ tracking system have been suggested by clients generating 8 versions and 10-15 features each. Are sustainable centric companies more customer focused?
Ah … and hum … UC San Diego has saved one million dollars in the first 6 months of using syncromatics’ solution. Tax payers, your dollars at work … think what Washington, the Bay Area, Chicago could be saving. Yes, your taxes at work.
Tool to change people’s behavior
Do you want to know how much energy you’re saving by switching the door, porch and garden lights off? How about water conservation? Another California Cleantech Open winner, Lucid Design Group has developed a tool every one of us should have on our computers, at home or at the office. It seems so simple. Every sustainability executive (including mom) should be looking at this user-friendly building dashboard to empower companies’ employees and visitors to adopt a sustainable lifestyle. Yahoo is the latest company to implement. I feel it should be in every sustainable consultant toolbox.

That’s it for now, see you next month for another round of news, events and cool products.

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