21st Annual EMA Awards Video
Watch highlights from the 21st Annual Environmental Media Awards.
EMA School Gardens
Nicole Richie participates in an EMA School Gardens event.

How Much Do We Actually Recycle in California?

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A lot. According to CalRecycle’s Biannual Report of Beverage Container Sales, Returns, Redemption, and Recycling Rates, released last week, Californians recycled over 16 billion beverage containers in 2011. For a state that is home to 38 million people, that number seems pretty impressive. California continues to lead the nation in total quantity of bottles and cans recycled.

According to the report, 4,504,934,972 aluminum cans were purchased from July to December in 2011 with 4,276,266,506 of those cans getting recycled – that’s a 95% recycling rate!

The overall recycling rate for the first half of 2011 was 86% The second half calendar year recycling rate was lower than the first half at 79%, which is consistent with the trend observed over the life of the recycling program. Continue reading →

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Greening Business for the Green Consumer

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From left to right: Joe Baratelli (Rubin Postaer and Associates), Debbie Levin (Environmental Media Association), Magali Delmas (UCLA), Steve Boyd (Tern Bicycles), Mark Gold (UCLA).

EMA President Debbie Levin recently participated in a discussion hosted by the UCLA Center for Corporate Environmental Performance to talk about corporate sustainability and the growth of the ‘green consumer’.

Joining the discussion were Magali Delmas, Professor of Management at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the Anderson School of Management, Joe Baratelli, Executive Creative Director at Rubin Postaer and Associates, and Steve Boyd, General Manager of North America at Tern Bicycles, a leading manufacturer of folding bicycles.

The speakers discussed several topics such as who are green consumers, what are they buying, and why? According to Magali Delmas in just 20 years, U.S. sales of organic food and beverages have surged from $1 billion (in 1990) to nearly $27 billion (in 2010). Continue reading →

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London is On Track to Host the Greenest Olympics Ever

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With the 2012 Olympics just months away, London is on track to hosting the most sustainable Olympics of all time. According to the Pre-Games Sustainability Report released in April, progress is being made to ensure a very green Games comes to fruition.

The April Report highlights five major areas where new standards for sustainability have been set:

  1. The Olympic Park: The most sustainable Olympic Stadium ever built was completed according to high sustainability standards. The Park itself is the largest new urban parkland in Europe for 150 years. It is already developing a mature landscape, and the cleaned up and reprofiled river valley is providing both new wildlife habitat and significant flood alleviation – early examples of lasting legacy benefits.
  2. Carbon management: London 2012 is the first summer Olympic
    and Paralympic Games to measure its carbon footprint over the entire project term. By using the outcomes of the footprinting assessment to inform decision-making, they’ve radically improved their ability to avoid, reduce and substitute carbon emissions associated with delivering the Games.
  1. Sustainable transport: The commitment to delivering a public transport Games means nine million ticket holders will experience sustainable events like never before from the way they travel. The Active Travel program, launched in October 2011, aims to achieve one million extra journeys by walking and cycling in London each day of the Games.
  2. Food Vision: London 2012 is the first Games to specify stringent sustainability requirements for its catering operations. All caterers are signed up to the Food Vision standards and are ready to serve 14 million sustainably sourced meals. Continue reading →

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Hawaii Becomes the First US State to Ban Plastic Bags

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Hawaii recently became the first state to ban single-use plastic bags throughout the entire state. The new law will ban all non-recyclable paper and non-biodegradable plastic bags effective July 1, 2015. 2015 seems like a long time away, but it’s a step towards progress.

“This is really getting people to change their behaviors and that’s one of the most difficult things to do frequently and we hope people are going to understand that,” says Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle who signed the ban last week.

According to EcoWatch, the ban was not done by the state legislature, but instead by all four County Councils—a great example of local activists and decision makers addressing the serious issue of plastic pollution.

We applaud Hawaii for being the first state to ban plastic bags and hope that their actions will set the stage for other states to follow.

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5 Green Ways to Shop at the Grocery Store

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Kermit the Frog wasn’t right about one thing – it IS easy being green. Small simple deeds go a long way, you don’t have to be perfect at your attempts, and every little bit counts! We’ve put together a short list of 5 simple green ways to shop at the grocery store. Follow any one of these (or better yet, all of them) and you’ll be on your way to living the green life!

  1. Bring your own bags. This is so easy to do. At the same time, it’s just as easy for us to get caught in an unplanned trip to the store and not have any bags. Avoid this scenario by keeping those reusable bags everywhere – in your car, in your bicycle basket, next to your keys, etc.
  2. Buy things with little packaging. If you have a choice between two products, one wrapped in plastic and cardboard and more plastic, and one with minimal packaging, choose the one with the minimal packaging. It took less energy to create and will leave less of a carbon footprint. Plus, minimal packaging creates less waste.
  3. Shop the perimeter. In food writer, Michael Pollan’s 7 Rules for Eating, he advises that you stay out of the middle of the grocery store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad. Continue reading →

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Toyota Giving 100 Cars to 100 Nonprofits in 100 Days – Voting Starts NOW!

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UPDATE: Starting May 14 through August 21, it’s the voters’ turn to do their own good deed by voting for their favorite organizations and causes. All voters have to do is log in to their Facebook profile and use the 100 Cars for Good app (or click here) to vote on one of that day’s five nonprofit organizations.

Each afternoon, the previous day’s winner is announced and a fresh batch of five finalist organizations will be ready to compete for votes. Vote once a day because each vote counts and each day brings another new car to another deserving organization.

Vote now for your favorite nonprofit of the day to win a car and then tell your friends to do the same! Continue reading →

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Know Your Labels! Is It Green or Greenwashing?

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There are plenty of products on the market that are eco-friendly – or at least claim to be. A product can attach the word ‘green’ or ‘natural’ to its label in order to lure in eco-conscious consumers without actually being all that earth-friendly. That sneaky marketing scheme is known as greenwashing. The term is generally used when significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being green, (operating with consideration for the environment) than spending resources on actual environmentally sound practices.

Unfortunately, there is very little regulation around products that claim to be green but aren’t. However, there are certain labels, applied by third parties such as nonprofits or government agencies that can help us detect which products are actually sincere in their claims to be sustainable.

According to Triple Pundit, the following eco-labels seem to be the most trustworthy by consumers:

Government: USDA Organic and Energy Star are government issued labels that require adherence to very specific standards, carry hefty fines for misuse, and require certification and testing of operations and products by an accredited certification agent. Other government issued labels include: the Green Vehicle Guide, Design for Environment, and WaterSense programs from the EPA, the USDA BioPreferred program, and the Canadian EcoLogo programs. Continue reading →

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