Susan Labandibar - Activist CEO » conference

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Susan — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:43:43 +0000

It may be trite to begin a Green IT blog post by stealing a line from Kermit the Frog. But this misappropriated malapropos repeats in my mind as we grapple with our Sustainable IT methodology. It’s not easy being green. We are fighting climate change, which means that we need to slow the warming of a planetary weather system. How could it be easy? So far, worldwide efforts to go green are a failure. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise and even the rate at which they increase is increasing.

It is for good reason that environmental writers such as Thomas Friedman and Bill McKibben deride the glib green-washing group of copy writers crowing over their ten easy steps green guides. Bill McKibben’s group, 350.org, makes the case that we need to lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350ppm as quickly as possible or risk global climate catastrophe.

Into this climate cacophony steps Greener Gadgets with their upcoming Green Gadget conference in New York. This event was brought to my attention by Roger Bruist, our new Green Technology Architect. My initial reaction was entirely negative. A gadget is usually an ingeniously engineered article whose function is often less important than its design. I’m of the belief that we need to go back to basics to save the planet. Too many of the gadgets I see around our office are cheap toys hawked by sites such as Think Geek.com

On closer examination, however, it appears that that the green gadgeteers have put together a program that addresses many of the same issues we confront as we build our Sustainable IT methodology. Given the real energy and resource costs of PC manufacturing, when is it responsible to replace existing equipment with more efficient models? How do we bring technology to the developing world in areas that need to develop a power infrastructure not based on our current carbon-intensive model? It looks like I’ll be taking the train to New York in a couple of months to find out.

The BALLE conference

Susan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:11:10 +0000

The BALLE conference was this weekend. BALLE is the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. Last year it was in Berkeley. This year was Boston’s turn. BALLE is cool. It’s not just a bunch of people who care about the planet getting together. It’s a bunch of business owners. It’s not about talk. It’s about action. It’s about food security, green jobs, and creating community. And it’s about climate change.

Bill McKibben was one of the keynote speakers. His new website: 350.org is all about getting global CO²levels back down to 350 ppm (they are currently at 387 ppm, up from 278 ppm in pre-industrial times.) My key takeaway from his speech was that, as business owners, we need to do more than simply try to reduce our carbon footprint. We need to leverage the power of the business community to affect public policy on the environment.

I must be dreaming

Susan — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:22:22 +0000

No, seriously. That’s how I was feeling last Thursday when I attended the SBN Annual Conference at the Hampshire House. What a beautiful venue! It was set up like a Victorian library with antique books lining the built-in bookshelves and squat little vases filled with roses scattered artfully around the room. But, I digress.

As I mentioned, it was a dreamlike atmosphere for me. So many of my ideas for SBN had come to fruition. From changing our name, to the Boston Green Business Awards, to the Sustainable Business Leaders Program… It had all happened in just 18 months.

And we’ve gone from a sleepy little non-profit with a $10,000 annual budget to a staff of 4! As Laury Hammel would say: “Rock on!”