Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Better than most holidays parties would be the Gorgeous & Green gala tonight at the W in San Francisco. Sure anyone can throw a holiday party but do they do it with a Green philosophy and fund-raising at the forefront? Holiday parties generally aim for drinking and merriment but do they also aim for zero waste? How many holiday events have models prancing around in eco-friendly fashion?
So, maybe tonight we too can be gorgeous but even we have our fashion limits. Even though the eco friendly fashion takes center stage (or rather center catwalk) much of the festivities revolve around like-minded people gathering for festivities.
The event generally brings a generous mixture of green-minded designers, celebrities, artists, politicians and the like. We hear that William McDonough will be in attendance, which would be entertaining and enlightening just to talk with him for a few minutes.
Even when not doing the green mingling thing or admiring chic models, we plan to distract ourselves with the 360 Vodka eco-cocktails (it is party right?), cocktail wines by eco.love, Korbel California Champagne with organic grapes (see a pattern here?) as well as organic wall displays and DJ Donavan beats.
Green fashionistas were not but we still have to get ready to roll.
Tags: eco.love, green & gorgeous, organic, San Francisco, W hotel, William McDonough, wines
Posted in Events, Food, San Francisco | No Comments »
Monday, October 4th, 2010
Being so busy at West Coast Green 10 and in honor of ecoMonday we post part two of the William McDonough “deep dive”, and he does get deep. While most people throw around the term “carbon footprint” or simply use it in passing, McDonough talked about a skyscraper that he worked on 21 years ago, and calculated the amount of trees that would be need to be planted not only to offset the building of the skyscraper but to operate it as well. He convinced the person financing the building that the cost of the trees could be used in place of the marketing budget. Who needs a marketing budget when the story of the tree planting ends up as a front-page story on the Wall Street Journal? Green does pay.
Speaking of trees, we fully agree that people need to start thinking about the “rights of nature” and not just human right. We need think more in terms of abundance, not scarcity.
He mentioned things like the Endangered Species Act, which seems to be thinking in the wrong direction, with the reactive thinking. We need to start thinking proactively.
Our government and other governments and entities continually throw about numbers and plans to deal with our environmental impact. Think about the lofty goals for the UN, US government whatever about reducing carbon emissions by 20% (or whatever number) by 2020 that don’t illustrate “less bad” thinking. As McDonough states, “being less bad is not good”. And that is what our country continues to do or promote. We warn people in CA entering buildings (thanks to Prop 65) that the building contains various materials that cause cancer yet they remain legal and we continue to use them to construct buildings. Isn’t there something illogical about that thinking?
Seeing McDonough makes us (and the rest of the crowd) more motivated. We’re not here to be less bad, we’re here to be more good.”
Here’s a call to action to start being more good.
Tags: cradle_to_cradle, endangered species act, proposition 65, San Francisco, West Coast Green, william, William McDonough
Posted in Eco-Entreprenuers, Environment, Events, Green Building, Interesting ideas, San Francisco, health | 1 Comment »
Saturday, October 2nd, 2010
They normally refer to William McDonough as Mr. Sustainable but after watching his unplugged marathon presentation at the first day of West Coast Green 10, we might refer to him as Green John Wooden or the Eco Vince Lombardi. Why? Because like the two notable sports coach legends they built their winning teams based on sound foundations and fundamentals. Oh, and they were great motivators.
In a wold of sound bites and 60 second You Tube videos, how could anyone would not be impressed and awed but his powerfully fact filled, logical yet often funny almost 3 hour presentation? He began by showing his upbringings in Ireland where his first house designs incorporated solar collectors. Impressive how his progressive thought goes way back in the day. He jumped forward to tell a story about his first US based project in New York when he fought to get compost toilets approved for Hindu temple. (In some places, unless you live in national park, it sometimes remains challenging to get approved to install compost toilets).
Then in 1984, McDonough started questioning manufacturers about what was in their wood, paint, carpets and Building Materials Supplier told him, “It’s proprietary. It’s legal. Go away.” So much for transparency.
And so much for the first part of this post. We’ll post additional highlights from McDonough who, lucky for the planet and us, has not gone away.
Photo by Darilyn Kotzenberg
Tags: cradle_to_cradle, john wooden, Solar, West Coast Green, william, William McDonough
Posted in Eco-Entreprenuers, Events, Interesting ideas | 4 Comments »
Friday, October 1st, 2010
Lot's of good natural light in the solar house
On the first day of West Coast Green 10, only a handful of bloggers (like Zem Joaquin of Ecofabulous) showed up for an informal solar talk presented by SunPower and Luminalt but as they say, we respect the quality more than the quantity. We quality people brought about a spirited talk mentioning the progress of solar and how solar fits just a small green option in the big picture. We raised the question of considering that if someone who has only $50,000 in their pocket would they be better off installing a PV system or maybe a water catchment system, hydronics, some new eco-star appliances.
To be fair, Luminalt made a good case for just making a sales pitch. They work with GoSolarSF, which combines environmental justice and social justice for lower income neighborhoods like the Bayview here in SF. They made a point, which we have seen before, that be having a solar system that reduces their PG & E bill to sometimes nothing can transform the life of someone.
Now part of the discussion ended up being a show and tell of one of the local installation. Of course we would have preferred to see one of the homes in the Bayview but we settled for a posh house in Presidio Terrace. Honestly, the people who opened their house to us do live a mansion and the PG & E bill to them will hardly make a difference but they continue to make a conscious green effort. Besides the 3 7.5 KW solar system they repurposed much of their old furnishings to Building Resources (instead of the dump), they installed eco star appliances, used low VOC paint and drive hybrids. The couple mentioned that they will be purchasing fully electric cars soon.
Although not militantly green they do make an effort. We hope soon that we can say the same for everyone else.
Tags: Bayview, Building Resources, Green Building, low_voc_paints, photovoltaic_panels, Presidio Terrace, San Francisco, Solar, West Coast Green
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Events, Green Building, Materials, Resources, San Francisco | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Tour de Fat San Francisco 2010
Wanted to post for Eco Monday but had too much beer and biking over the recent weekend for us to stick to our schedule. Fortunately, the Tour de Fat stuck to its (or is it their) schedule.
In all honesty, a few of us made but we completely missed the festive ride but we did make it in time to celebrate the beer and bike happenings in Golden Gate Park. Let it be known that happiness reined not just because Mother Nature cooperated with a balmy 85 degrees and the cold New Belgium beer poured freely but because the stages where Mucca Pazza (like the Stanford marching band on acid or steroids) and other performed came via solar energy. The festival pretty much marks on off the grid show which makes the merriment even more merry.
On this day, bikes ruled. It might have seemed odd for some to see a young lady go up on stage an sign way the pink slip to her Toyota Corolla for for a spanking new bike courtesy of New Belgium. Some may think that isn’t a fair trade when the lady mentioned how she only drove her car in order to avoid parking tickets, we think that she may have gotten the better end of the deal.
If more festivals had this smarts to play off the grid and promoting sustainable transportation then we would all be happy to purchase just one more beer.
Photo courtesy SFbike
Tags: beer, bikes, new belgium, off the grid, San Francisco, Solar, Tour de Fat
Posted in Events, Lifestyle, San Francisco, Transportation | No Comments »
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
Even though West Coast Green remains just a shade over a month away, we’re still keyed up about the event. With the continuing housing storm and distressed housing situation, many people have not been considering sustainable aspects to real estate.
We’re sure that will change. It may take a few years to re-convince people that Green building and innovation are not just for the good real estate times. Green building should be a staple and not just a temporary fad.
As for the show, we can’t wait to see sustainable rock stars like Bill McDonough of Cradle-to-Cradle fame who will deliver a 3-hour presentation about the tradition of Buckminster Fuller. Also, on our must see list will be the Innovation Pipeline which creates an “Exploratorium-like” exhibit with smart products that always to seem to wow us.
Don’t think that we won’t be looking out for any “greenwashers” as some companies seem to only promote the hype but provide nothing sustainable in the tank.
Tags: cradle_to_cradle, Exploritorium, Green Building, San Francisco, West Coast Green, William McDonough
Posted in Eco-Entreprenuers, Events, Green Building, Interesting ideas, San Francisco | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Exhibit Hall Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2010
While wondering the exhibit hall of Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2010 style at the Pre-Conference Day, amongst all of the technology we figured that no one would go out of there way to promote Green but then we spied some of the “go paperless” inspired companies. In the race to go paperless, a few innovative companies have stepped up to create a paperless universe (at least in terms of contracts).
In the real estate world, agents often use ridiculous amounts of paper in which to disclose, offer and negotiate which in old school terms means that many trees get the saw for that counter offer. We passed the DocuSign booth and discussed with the folks the Green benefits of using their technology, which allows people to sign contracts with an electronic signature. No more printing contracts. Just sign on-line. We can see the sustainable value in an item that eliminates paper use and general waste. But we discussed how much energy it takes to run the servers that run the DocuSign program. It would take a third party study to determine the paper, ink, transport carbon footprint savings versus the energy used to run something like DocuSign.
We brought this conundrum to another paperless company that not surprisingly goes by the name Go Paperless. Similar to DocuSign this technology allows people to sign and mark up documents using a stylus and tablet PC. Again, saving paper versus using more energy.
We all know that the cost of people runs high in terms of its impact with deforestation, transportation, recycling, shredding, printing, etc. so even at the cost of added energy use, companies that reduce (one of the three Rs) paper consumption can only improve things. We just hope that these companies use this Green philosophy inside their corporate offices as well.
Tags: Docu Sign, Go Paperless, Green philosophy, Inman Connect, paper, Real Estate, San Francisco, three Rs
Posted in Business, Events, Materials, San Francisco, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Carnival San Francisco - Green Section
Carnaval here in San Francisco may not be as sexy, rambunctious or famous as its counterparts that take place in Rio or New Orleans but that doesn’t mean that the 2-day event doesn’t mean that the crowds don’t enjoy the fun, sun (the weather actually cooperated with glorious 80 degree SF weather) music and sexy costumes.
With all of the things going for Carnaval why can’t there be some added consideration given to making the event more Green. We did spy a plethora of compost and recycling canisters and the beer areas did utilize the non-plastic cups. The event did have a small cluster of vendors dedicated to products or services at least slightly aligned with being somewhat progressive. Earthlust sold slightly dented reusable water bottles at a discount, San Francisco Vegetarian Society, Zip Car, Rainforest Action Network and some others. Sure these aren’t as sexy as some of the other venders but Green can be sexy as evidenced by some of the Hollywood A-listers creating Green events or supporting various green products.
Nos gusta gazing at the colorfully sexy costumes and gyrating to the various Latin beats but wouldn’t it be great to see some of sexy thinking combined with some Green ideas?
Tags: A-listers, Carnaval, green products, Hollywood, Latin music, San Francisco, sexy costumes
Posted in Events, Lifestyle, Products, San Francisco | No Comments »
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Mousetrap at Maker Faire
Unbelievable but true but this past weekend marked the first time that we attended the Maker Faire. True, in terms of numbers, we only stand a few behind those Makers who’ve made it there since its inception. Our Green posse scurried from the ingenious to downright crazy exhibits. For us Maker virgins, Donna our unofficial group leader for the day, mentioned that people might place this fair somewhere between Burning Man and Exploritorium. That description nailed it.
Why do we love this event and can’t believe that we hadn’t attended before? Not only did we encounter mad scientists of a sort but because almost every artist, scientist, inventor at the fair reuses, repurposes, and recycles other object to create art, cleaning robots, giant mousetraps, and transportation (mostly creatively built bikes).
Even the entertainment had a sustainable element with a solar stage but we caught the band Fossil Fuel at the Human Powered Stage where the bands powered their instruments and amps from bicycle powered generators. That way, we earned our music. Maybe people should try this with their TV so they would have some incentive to exercise.
Now, we can’t be sure about how sustainable it is to jolt 1,000,000 volts of electricity from two five foot Tesla Coils into a guy wearing a grounded metallic suit but the sheer spectacle of watching the long electrical arcs made us think how the electro guy might be able to creatively energize a small town.
Seeing all of the innovations like Algaelab which creates a personal algae photo-bioreactor and the not so practical but highly amusing inventions like the giant mousetrap made us believe that humans can still create mind-boggling inventions and art while not using up precious resources.
Tags: art, bicycle, Burning Man, Exploitorium, Exploritorium, inventions, Maker Faire, San Mateo, scientists, sust, sustainability
Posted in Eco-Entreprenuers, Events, Interesting ideas, Lifestyle, Materials, Technology, Transportation | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
BP oil runners
In the 99th installment of Bay to Breakers, the usual things occurred: the Kenyans as a whole flat out rocketed to the finish line (one female breaking a world record), the fog covered the course for most of the day and a lot of participants (not the runners) got totally trashed and created of lot of people in the local recycling business. But we’re not here to check out the usual, we’re here to check out any signs of Green going on of and off the course.
To be sure, the organizers and the City have a tough time creating sustainability for the thousands of runners but they seems to have gotten control of the recycle and compost aspects. 90,000 equals the number of recyclable water cups used per race (almost 6 miles of cups if placed end to end). And with all of the beer and booze bottles, the recycling people had a bountiful day. In the media tent, they had the presence of mind to use compostable cutlery as well as cups but it would be nice to see more organic and locally produced offerings.
We might request the same thing from the Footstock area (which moved from the Polo Grounds much to the dismay and confusion of many participants where the vendors could offer more locally and natural offerings. We did spy some booths that did toss out all natural dog food (based in Novato) as well as West Coast companies serving up free samples of granola, nutrition bars and electrolyte beverages sans the artificial crap. We tried everything but the dog food.
As for the costumes (at least the ones that we saw), the BP workers dressed in oil splotched jumpsuits made the best environmental statement.
Next year the race turns 100, and with that mark, hopefully the race can incorporate some added greenness that will keep the event going for another 100 years.
Posted in Energy & Fuel, Events, Lifestyle, San Francisco | No Comments »