Envirovents Green Events
Blogging about green events around the world!Free Farm Food in Colorado
This weekend, and for Thanksgiving, a very unique event is happening in Platteville, Colorado. A family owned farm is giving away free food for two whole days to give thanks to the local community for supporting them for so many years. This is the kind of thing that makes supporting local farming all the more beneficial. Not only are they constantly providing a great local service, but they’re community oriented with events on their farm. Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) are always coming up with great ideas like this to get the community involved.
If you want to learn more about their event, go to www.millerfarms.net. For info about CSAs to purchase your own local farm fresh produce delivered to you, go to Local Harvest
Solfest 2008 Wrapup
Solfest 2008
Like mentioned in the last post, Solfest 2008 was just recentt. I travelled up using their carpool from spaceshare.com. I used SpaceShare last year too, both times with great results. Not only does it save money and pollution, but it allows some company on the long trip and get a good connection for someone to hang out with at the festival.
Anyway, the festival itself was great and I had a lot of fun. I was able to volunteer in exchange for admission and camping for the entire weekend. I was mainly focussed on workshops this year, since I had nothing to purchase and was there to learn and socialize. I attended 2 workshops based on structure and functions of eco-communities. I also attended one on EcoPreneuring (eco entrepreneuring), which I found to be quite refreshing. I’m an eco entrepreneur, but I find that the information available for entrepreneurs starting ventures for social good. Another workshop was about future economies and sustainability, which I also found refreshing. A lot of it is geared strictly for profits, and many entrepreneurs in society do not focus any effort towards sustainability and the planet. There were a lot of other great workshops throughout the weekend, but I found the event more about the connections and ideas presented.
The weather was a bit hot, but a gorgeous weekend nevertheless.
If you missed the event this year, mark your calendars for next year, you definitely need to check it out once. If you’re in another part of the country, they have an equivalent event in Wisconsin which is twice as big and run on wind power, and I have heard there are other smaller events like this one, scattered all over the world.
For more photos, visit our Photo Album
Greensumption
Now this isn’t an event, but from time to time Envirovents wants to notify the public of something great we found. A friend sent this over and I think it’s a great piece of work.
Check out Greensumption on Youtube.
It’s a cleverly made piece that sums up what Envirovents thinks about a lot of green business. We all need to be more aware of what we are doing, especially when we believe we are telling everyone we’re being more environmentally friendly by simply buying a Prius. A Prius will move us slowly in the right direction, but very slowly. I’m actually amazed when people try to argue with me that their Prius is better than my car. Not only did I buy mine used, but it still gets about 38mpg highway, sometimes as much as 42mpg! I’m looking to sell my car soon, giving public transportation a shot. I hardly drive my car anyway because it’s faster and easier to take the train. The fact that we all need to own our own vehicles is pretty ridiculous. It’’s the urbanization that created it. If we really need to, we should be driving around in very small vehicles the size of golf carts, which can be loaded onto other transport to take us to another city, then roam around in those. Unfortunately that doesn’t make enough money or feed the ego, so we’re lead to believe that bigger and better is the way to go.
Solfest, Powered by the Sun
It’s been a little while since the last post, but for good reason. Lack of funding. Being green is not such a great market to be in unless you’re selling green products, energy, or housing. While the green economy is increasing, there is still little money to be made in the rest of the green industry. Many green companies are non-profit and aren’t doing what they are to make a profit. Those who are making a profit, are still not looking to reap in gobs of money to pay for their fancy lifestyles, which they don’t have. Funding comes mostly from grants, because when the economy is in a lull, less people donate or put up funding for causes. Other capital can be raised by Venture Capital, but a majority of them are looking for high profit companies to invest in, not some company trying to do something good for the environment and just be financially sustainable. So this post is just to say that green is still struggling a bit, but we’re all still hopeful and chugging along, even if it’s slowly. Envirovents has been on hold for a re-strategizing before official launch. We think it will be for the better, as now we know what we’re in for. We’ll be posting an event that we are hosting very soon. We hope that will be the catalyst for official launch.
Green events have also slumped a bit recently, mostly because events happen closer to Earth Day. I do receive new event notifications quite often, but not very many are standing out right now. Solfest in Hopland, California is coming this weekend. I’ll be there for sure because it’s one of the largest festivals of the year. I went last year and had a great time, learned a lot, and met some great people. I highly recommend checking it out, or at least stopping by the Solar Living Institute at some time. The facility is one of the best examples of sustainable living and showing how you can still have a luxurious facility without giving up anything at all. The place looks like a resort, but everything has been carefully created through sustainable design and materials. They even have small tablets which describe how they were designed and what they give to the land, people, and animals. On top of that, their solar array is actually powering the facility as well as nearby homes. It is one of the largest arrays in northern California, with 10 Killowatts of solar and 3 Kilowatts of wind power. Check out their website for more details.
SF Bay Area Gets Public Transport Upgrade
Yes, I realize this is not an event, but how do you get to your events? We here at Envirovents noticed that some “green” events don’t even mention forms of nearby public transportation. Very odd considering that green-minded individuals are more likely to use public transportation.
Anyway, for those of you living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, you’ll be glad to here that one of the major problems of the transit systems has been solved! They finally created a single pass that covers all forms of transit throughout the bay area. I have personally been waiting for this, as many of my travels involve switching from one transit system to the next, which don’t always offer purchase transfers. Well, the wait is over, because they are now accepting their new “Translink” cards, which allow you to make a payment to a single card, that you swipe to use on any transit system. Not only does this reduce your time for purchasing tickets at the station (if you have a card and put a balance on your card in advance), but it allows them to give more directed frequent rider discounts, carrying coins around from your change given, makes transfers much smoother, and makes it easier on everyone for not dealing with the differnces between ticketing systems and tickets. Also, an added benefit of less paper used for paper tickets. Yes, it looks like the cards are made out of plastic, but maybe they can make them out of recycled plastic? Anyone want to call them up and make a suggestion?
On top of public transport, we also notice the lack of carpooling suggestions in events. Therefore, we’ve been creating an events guide to prevent event planners from forgetting these important details. Plus, we are starting to integrate carpooling directly into the each event! No guarantee on this one, as it’s quite an undertaking and we may just try to partner up with another website.
2008 World Environment Day
The 2008 World Environment Day was hosted in Wellington, New Zealand this year, and the North American version was hosted in Chicago. The Chicago Botanic Garden was chosen by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) . Check out the website and information that was provided, as well as check out the offical explanation and links over at Wikipedia for the 2008 World Environment Day.
The day is much like Earth Day, but more focused on celebrating and drawing attention to the initiatives and resources which improve energy, conservation, and everything else that reduces carbon emissions.
We decided not to write much here, as we didn’t find any “good” posts about events happenning, but the above links provide so much information and very nicely laid out, so check them out! If you know of any good posts, please send them in and we will publish them! Make sure they allow us linking to them, as many publications require you contact them first. We prefer links to blogs anyway, as we much rather promote grassroots, green organizations and people!
Netsquared Conference 2008
Last week there was an event of a different color than green. The 2008 Netsquared Conference at the Cisco campus, brought together social entrepreneurs from all over the United States for a “mashup challenge.” The projects ranged from political, to humanitarian, to environmental, to a combination thereof. The challenge, was a peer voting for the best “mashup” internet project. A mashup is any project which combines, aggregates, or builds upon pre-existing services across the internet. An example, which won 2nd place, was from KnowMore.org. They built an extension into the Firefox internet browser which allows you to see loads of information about the companies you are browsing from search engines to the company’s own website!
When you visit a company’s website, an uninstrusive notification window pops up to let you know their ratings and a link to see more information. Also, when searching on google, little icons will pop up next to the searches, which include color-coded ratings. The ratings are for corporate responsibility, environmental impact, business practices, and much more. This project is a “mashup” because of their integration with search engines and browsers which already exist. They didn’t re-invent the wheel, but instead made it that much better.
There are several other organizations building similar projects, namely another project at Netsquared, Greenerone.com. They provide green ratings for products while you shop. You can compare products and see their energy saving or green specs as you browse. I guarantee you will see a lot more of these rating systems in the very near future. I have seen more than a handful popping up around the internet.
The event itself brought together speakers from organizations like Wikipedia, a live internet feed with Second Life, and a “hack room” for those that need programming help from fellow innovators.
The future of the internet revolves around the concepts brought to Netsquared, as many of you may notice the applications and widgets that are being built into websites and software to make them much more powerful. A great example of this, is a winner from last year’s Netsquared Conference, call Freecycle. If you’re green minded, you’ve defintely heard of them, and Netsquared gave them the funding and publicity needed to make them into the giant they are now.
I can honestly say that this event was the best event I have ever been to. The energy of the event and the people involved, were some of the most passionate, caring, innovative, and collaborative people I have ever met.
Please make sure to stop by the top 21 projects and the other projects listed and support them in any way you can. These projects are running on very small budgets and mostly volunteers. These non-profit organizations survive on donations and grants, so every bit helps.
Green Apple Festival Highlights
I know it’s been awhile since Earth Day, but I didn’t happen to run across this video until now. I don’t think I need to write a blog post for this, as the video is self explanatory.
Envirovents Is Up and Running!
Envirovents is now up and running and open for all to see.
For everyone who has been helping in the beta testing, thank you for your support. Those waiting around for the go ahead to write about our website, you may now write away. We’ll be doing a “2nd launch” when all the kinks are worked out, just like any new piece of work.
Right now, we are confident our working model is loaded with great features and content, so please browse around on the site and check out the video walk through on the homepage. You’ll soon see how powerful it really is. Click on any event, as well as the “tools” section, to see the full concept we have created.
The EcoCity World Summit Came to San Francisco This Year!
This past weekend was the EcoCity World Summit, hosted in San Francisco, California from April 21st through the 26th. On hand were top city officials, planners, designers, and futurists from around the world. San Francisco was lucky enough to be chosen for this years conference. Previous years were held in India, China, Brazil, etc.
I was lucky enough to attend this great venue and meet some of the top thinkers on sustainability and cities of the future. The speakers are carefully selected by their impacts and research into the future of cities and sustainability. Speakers ranged from local Professors, to developers, to government officials, to world leaders in sustainability. The sessions covered topics ranging from transportation, to energy, to panning, to ecology.
A friend of mine, Scott Fossel, an “eco-futurist” with two future projects which will help excellerate green living and business, happened to be moderating one of the sessions. I’m glad I stopped by to see him speak, as I enjoyed that panel of speakers. This may be due to my personal interests, but I believe they did a great job of engaging the audience more than other speakers I heard, a successful practice I have found to make a speech have more appeal. The panel was made up of Jeff Stein, Board of Trustees Chair, Cosanti Foundation, Arcosanti, Arizona; Liz Walker, Ecovillage at Ithaca, Ithaca, New York; and Gus Yates, 
hydrologist and founder of Car-free City USA, Berkeley, California. Liz Walker brought a great perspective of first hand experience into Eco Cities, as she has helped create and live in one for several decades. Her experiences learned from Ithaca and knowledge gained from talking with other eco-villages like hers, gave great insight into the challenges we’ll face into creating new Eco Cities. Gus Yates brought a funny demonstration of how cities of the future can be designed to utilize shade and light throughout the year, purely by their orientation and shape of the buildings. From this semi-circle shape, they also create a much easier positioning for car-free cities and utilizing the central space for community endeavors.
A session which I missed and wish I could have made it to, was the keynote address by Jamie Lerne, the former Mayor of Curitiba, Brazil and co-founder of IPPUC (Institute of Urban Planning and Research of Curitiba). I have heard about what Jamie has done for the city of Curitiba and his amazing futuristic concepts about city planning. If you haven’t heard of Jamie, definitely look him up. He is a true futurist and carries successful programs under his belt, transforming a small city into a thriving city revolving around creative ideas in sustainability.
Luckily, I didn’t really miss Jamie’s keynote address, as most of the presentations are available for free on their website! With that said, I have to note that the conference came with a lofty entrance fee, which the average person can’t really afford. The conference is geared towards leaders around the world, many of which may have the funds for such an event, but not all are so lucky to throw down a large sum of money. The diverse backgrounds of the speakers, as well as the international networking gained, might justify the cost. Also, there were breakout sessions in another venue across the street, which were not blocked from outside visitors to take a gander. This, with the free recordings of the sessions posted on their website, maybe the cost is justified to keep the venue from being over-packed with local activists wanting to get their voice heard.
Besides the cost, I also noticed that they did not go very far to be green in their event practices. Yes there was using compost able materials, recycling, organic food, and directions on how to public transportation to get there, but it all just seemed a little lackluster. I could be very wrong though, as maybe I’m seeing and reading about too many events which push the boundaries of being super green!
In my opinion as well as many in the green industry, we should try to look at the positives these people and events are bringing to the world, rather than scrutinizing the minor details. Most world populations have not been built in a sustainable matter and we should be praising those who have to go out of their way to take a stand against the non-sustainable practices, try their best to find more sustainable solutions, and bring about the future of cities and mankind. Here’s a toast to all those trying to make the future a better place! Keep up the good work and ignore the petty hacks. Leaders are always scrutinized the most, no matter how much they try to do the right thing. The future is unwritten and we’re certainly not perfect creatures.
Like always, feel free to cross-post this blog around the Internet, as long as you give credit!
