Green is Everywhere!

March 24, 2008

 

GREEN is everywhere.  Just about every other commercial on NBC10 is about going green.  Major companies like PetSmart are even speaking environmental.   The Today Show features tips on how people can go green.  Is it just Spring?

Allison finds a few interesting websites that can help all of us in our research when it comes to statistics.

 

http://www.greenpowermgt.com/green-energy.htm

 

http://www.johnlmclane.com/eco-statistics

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=2049304&page=1

 

and with regard to the Chamber’s 5 Star accrediation, Allison writes:

 

I downloaded an Excel sheet with thes accrediations from all over the country and I have attached it. It looks like the only other PA 5 Star chamber is the Tri-County Area Chamber located in Pottstown and they have an Environmental Education link listing several events. Here is the site…

http://www.tricountyareachamber.com/pages/environmental-education.asp

 

5 Star is definitely what the Chamber deserves!!!  

 

 

 

 

Still gathering info!!! So much is out there!

March 15, 2008

We need more information.  The project is so broad, we are to gathering facts to find out what is the most important to the Main Line.  Allison came across links to the Kansas City and Seattle Climate Protection Partnership websites.   I love the carbon calculators!  There are so many small things an individual can to to improve their “Carbon Fingerprint.” 

Having lived in Kansas City for four years while my husband and I went to school, I am familiar with the impetus to create a greener environment.  There are many great things the local government and agencies are doing to help provide incentives for individuals and businesses.  What a great idea! ( Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce: http://www.kcchamber.com/ClimateProtection/Index.asp?IdS=000360-96A6A30&x=010|010&~=and the City of Seattle: http://www.seattle.gov/climate/partnership.htm.

Milena Lanz found an interesting site called the Green Business Alliance which is an amazing resource for businesses.  Here is a short blurb from their website,

Green Business Alliance has assumed a leading role in assisting businesses to understand what it means to be Green, identifying attainable objectives and then implementing more environmentally responsible business practices. In short, we help companies Greenify for better business and homes Greenify today for a better tomorrow.

Our mission at Green Business Alliance is to help integrate environmental stewardship into your daily business practices.

We understand that it is naïve to think that a business can go Green overnight or that every recommendation can be implemented within every company. Green Business Alliance understands these dynamics and presents our members with the support and expertise to incrementally boost the Green qualities of their businesses.

The chief objective of Green Business Alliance is to help businesses become “Greenified” and be able to demonstrate their commitment to a Green business future to customers, prospective customers and their community through the display of several recognition channels that we provide. https://www.greenbusinessalliance.com/default.aspx

This is awesome!!!  Could what we are doing provide a strategic advantage for the MLCC by giving it a GREENER competitive edge?

Paul Eisenhauer found the website http://www.treehugger.com  which has a large list of “how to go green” pages that will be very useful to us. This site concentrates on individuals, but many of the ideas will work for an office as well or can be easily modified to add to our arsenal of information.

Paul wrote on our board, “One thing that this site mentions that we haven’t talked about is educating all of the members of the organization about the “whys” as well as the “hows” of going green. This needs to be part of our plan.”  

One thing the MLCC is famous for is their wealth of information with all the classes, information sessions, and activities.  I think this plan will fit well for the Chamber.   People look to a Chamber for advice on running their business better – why not Greener?

 

 

 

 

 

session 3 – Ethics & Diversity

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Upper Main Line YMCA

It had been sometime since I had been to the Main Line YMCA, workplace of our classmate, Jennifer Au.  Last year, the Y added a new addition that was breathtaking when you pull into the parking lot with the new building reflecting the older section. 

When we were introduced to our first speaker,Suzanne Kaplan, of Organization Change Solutions,  she looked familiar to me.  In her opening remarks, I realized where I had seen her face before.  Her story was featured in a book called, Best Friends.  She used the story that she had in that anthology of friendship to illustrate examples about how our preconceived notions and upbringing had much to do with who we are today.

There were many times in her talk that my mind opened to a new way of thinking which was incredible!

After her talk, Jeanne gave us an exercise that changed my life as a business owner!  Many times I need to think of a process and put in steps that need to occur.  We needed to do this for our projects.  Taking multi-colored Post-Its, markers, and large rolls of paper (ok, so maybe it is the office supplies I love!) to design a process and timeline for our projects.  It was fabulous because if you misplaced an idea, you could simply pick it up and place it somewhere else!

Splitting into groups, we each took a stack of Post-its and staged our project out.

The real test came when we had to switch, and the Lock Box group had to critique ours and we had to do the same to theirs.

In the afternoon, we had Ethics with Mike Graves from the Delaware YMCA.  Mike kept us laughing with his personal stories.  We had many opportunities to do small group exercises that resembled the 80’s game “Scruples.”

 

 After Mike was done, we decompressed all the information of the day and made  constructive comments about each other’s processes.   We finally had a general plan of attack for our project.  It was exciting!

The Path is Getting Clearer!

“Go Green” Action Plan

Typed up by Karen – 3/12/2008 at our Ethics and Diversity Class at UMLY

 

Complete by March 21^st

 

Research what is “green” Allison will contact Green Chamber of Commerce

 

Research Energy Audit Jim & Karen

 

“Go Green” Blog Ken will create

 

“Go Green” Blog writer Brandie

 

Complete by April 8^th

 

Create/Develop survey for Main Line Chamber to evaluate the current “green” activity-  Paul, Jenny & Milena

 

Conduct Survey with Main Line Chamber contact- Paul, Jenny & Milena.

 

Complete by May 14^th

 

Define guidelines, best practices & outline benefits of going green- Group

 

Develop PR plan- Group 

 

Identify local resources & references- Group 

Complete by June 4^th

 

Create a step by step plan for the Main Line Chamber to “go green”

 

Getting Focused!!

Jeanne emailed the questions to remind us what we should be focusing on as we conduct our research. We should start posting answers/suggestions to the questions:

1. What EXACTLY is the goal of this project?

2. How will you know when that goal is reached? (this means how will you know you have been successful)

3. What is in place right now that can be used to achieve the goal?

4. What has to be done to achieve the goal? (this is the actual work of the project)

What could get in the way of your reaching the goal? (either too little success or too much success)

Oh Boy!!!  Going Green is SO broad!!  There are so many ways!!! 

My interpretation was:

1. The goal of our project is to increase awareness to local businesses (specifically ones in the chamber) to decrease their usage of natural resources.

2. Our goal is to get a commitment of _____ businesses in the area (or just chamber) to implement ___ steps for Going Green.

3. See what others have posted.

4. Top ten ways that businesses can save energy and help the planet, website, brochure.

We were going to have to narrow this thing down…..more research is needed!!!!