Posts Tagged ‘sustainability’
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Across the Bay in Marin in Tiburon to be exact, a lot of rumblings continue to occur about a soon to be built Green House. A large, soon to be built Green house. 15,240 square feet of large to be exact making it one of the biggest in the county.
It brings up the question that we have debated before. Is it better to build a small “dirty” house or a large Green house? Seeing that Anders Swahn who wants to build this home runs a solar energy startup, we would think that he would get the whole idea of sustainability.
He plans to build the structure as carbon neutral with solar panels, geothermal heating and greywater recycling. It would be built to last for 200 years and, of course, would measure up to Marin County’s green building standards.
The problem that many neighbors have remains the size. Since when is a 15,000 square foot house sustainable. Unless 10 people live there. A lot of materials will be used to build it. No matter how much FSC certified lumber he uses it still would need copious amounts. We’re not even talking about the trees that will removed on the wooded bluff location in order to build the house (not to mention the 2000 sq ft guesthouse).
A more sustainable idea would be to buy another large home like the one for sale just down from the proposed site, a 10,944-square-foot estate, with 11 bedrooms and 10 baths that sits on the market for $37 million. He could add his Green bells and whistles to that estate and be more sustainable without sacrificing his need to live in a ginormous casa.
Tags: Eco Homes, geothermal, Graywater system, Green Building, photovoltaic_panels, Solar, sustainability, Tiburon
Posted in Green Building, Materials | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
San Francisco Mint
For some builders and architects the challenge to even consider building Green from scratch remains daunting and monetarily off the radar but taking a structure like San Francisco’s Old U.S. Mint built in the 19th century and transforming it into a 21st century Green mixed-use cultural center would be even more challenging. San Francisco new goal is to create the most sustainability innovative National Historic Landmark in the United States. Like they say is Swingers, “That is so money.”
Back in the day, the US Mint used to print the green stuff now it will encompass Green thinking.
Some of the ideas that the building will incorporate include:
Natural Daylight – The redesign will include an alteration to the ground floor, which will allow daylight to reach the ground floor.
Natural Ventilation – Currently sealed windows will be redesigned to create natural ventilation.
Water Use – A new canopy drainage system will allow rainwater to be harvested, treated and stored for uses throughout the building. The water, among other benefits, will be used to feed vegetation on the roof.
Now if we can do something about the Bank Of Italy building.
Photo by Mike Hofmann
Tags: Bank of Italy building, Green Building, Old U.S. Mint, San Francisco, sustainability, Swingers, Water
Posted in Green Building, San Francisco, Water, money | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Plastiki arrival in Sydney
It seemed like just a short while ago that David De Rothschild set sail from San Francisco aboard his boat made of 12,500 plastic PET bottles, the Plastiki touched base in the planned destination of Sydney the other day.
De Rothschild and his crew completed the historic expedition in four legs: San Francisco – Kiribati – Western Samoa – New Caledonia before reaching the Australian Coast (Mooloolaba) on Monday 19 July and continuing on to Sydney. The innovative catamaran carrying a crew of six made its trip without major incident.
De Rothschild’s inspiration for this journey came after reading the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) report ‘Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters and High Seas’. His journey included sailing through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
While most cruise ships maintain poor to awful records of creating pollution the Plastiki set out to educate people about the use and misuse of plastic bottles. The Plastiki which uses core principles of “cradle-to-cradle” design and biomimicry receives 68% of her buoyancy from 12,500 reclaimed plastic soft drink bottles and the super structure is made of a unique recyclable plastic material made from a self-reinforcing PET called Seretex.
Hopefully more people will put down their two liter plastic soda bottles to realize how much plastic we overuse in our throwaway society and how we can move toward inspired ideas as a sustainable alternative.
Tags: David, David de Rothschild, Environment, Plastic, Plastiki, San Francisco, sustainability
Posted in Environment, Interesting ideas, Plastic, San Francisco, Transportation | No Comments »
Monday, June 21st, 2010
We thought that the whole college system was broke, so where the heck will the get the green to build this sustainability built joint use building on the rapidly improving CCSF campus? Maybe they will have giant vegan cookie sale over the next few years.
It’s not that we aren’t ecstatic to see the campus using sustainable deign practices be having architect Peter Pfau shoot for a LEED Platinum rating. Some of the sustainable elements will include natural ventilation, a green roof, radiant flooring, a geothermal central plant, abundant daylight, durable and easy to maintain materials, well designed shading for west-facing façade, and post consumer/green materials. Notice the lack of big-ticket items? Just because a building shoots for a LEED Platinum rating doesn’t mean that the budget needs to unsustainable.
When the new three story facility opens we’re sure that the students and facility will be give the building high marks for indoor air quality and the overall healthy study conditions. It makes us want to go back to school.
Tags: Green Building, green roof, LEED, LEED-NC, natual ventilation, radiant flooring, San Francisco, San Francisco City College, sustainability
Posted in Green Building, Programs and Standards, San Francisco, Technology, health | 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 »
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
With many cities putting Green building on the back burner, while they try and help solve the distressed homeowner crises (equally important), San Francisco continues their progressive Green thinking. In a few years, when the distressed homeowners crisis hopefully wanes, people will start thinking about how important Green building looms in terms of not just energy and cost savings but the health of people who live their.
San Francisco recently developed an accessible financing program that allows residential and commercial property owners to finance sustainable building improvements. This effort coincides with efforts across California and the United States to establish similar financing programs.
Interested home and business owners to finance can utilize GreenFinanceSF privately owned energy efficiency, renewable energy and water conservation improvements. The repayment obligation is attached to the property, rather than the individual, and is paid back through property taxes over the life of the financing.
All size residential and commercial buildings can use the program. Eligible projects include energy efficiency upgrades—such as adding insulation, replacing windows, and upgrading heating systems; and water efficiency upgrades—such as installing low flow toilets. Financing is also available for installation of renewable energy generation on buildings such as solar arrays – in conjunction with energy efficiency improvements.
Pretty simple, huh? We think so. It should be a win-win for everyone so we’re hoping that everyone will look long term (yes, we know that is hard for most Americans) and utilize this program.
(photo courtesy apartment therapy)
Tags: Green Building, Real Estate, San Francisco, Solar, sustainability, Water
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, March 29th, 2010
Every once in awhile we get desperate enough to enter Safeway (mostly late night) for items that the not so green corner store doesn’t have. Just the other night we made one of those late night expeditions to the Safeway on Market Street with our reusable bag in hand.
After selecting a few items we ended up choosing the self-service line. We only selected the self-serve line because the human based checkout lines (the few that they opened) had monstrous lines. We certainly don’t support the notion of self-service as it simply eliminates jobs and makes things worse for the local economy (but of course it helps Safeway’s bottom line). Ever hear of the 3 Ps? People, planet, profit.
Before doing our own self-service scanning, we asked for customary bag credit (not that 3 cents will significantly cut our bill down but just to make a statement). The two people overseeing the self-serve robot lines said that they don’t offer the bag credit any more. We asked what they were now doing to encourage people to bring their own reusable bags (e.g. the weekly raffle that Trader Joe’s offers). The smugly replied, “Nothing.”
They honestly didn’t seem to care if customers bring their own reusable bags or they distribute plastic or paper bags. It doesn’t seem that sustainability can be found in Safeway’s culture or philosophy. If this store wasn’t in San Francisco, we might have thought that we clicked our heels together and ended up in Kansas.
Tags: people, planet, plastic bags, profit, reusable bags, safeway, susta, sustainability
Posted in Business, San Francisco | No Comments »
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Ah, it feels good to have the BSR conference back in San Francisco. Even though the economy has gone to hell, it is good see that probably close to 1000 attendees hit the conference so the sour economy has not killed the whole notion of notion of sustainability and companies.
Good start — as we walked in and registered the staff handed me a recyclable, biodegradable, compostable lanyard.
The theme for this year’s conference – Sustainability in a Reset World
After admiring our lanyards and breakfast we jumped into packed conversation with Pamela Passman of Microsoft. Of course we considered today’s launch of Windows 7.
The discussion centered on the sustainability of Microsoft. Now, most people will admit that the technology business isn’t the least sustainable or “dirtiest” business. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t press a heavy carbon footprint. Passman discussed that companies need software to track their own carbon footprint.Microsoft may have many ideas for other comanies but they need to look in the mirror as well.
She admitted the two most pressing issues that Microsoft needs to improve in so far as reducing their carbon footprint that includes:
1- Traveling (lots of it)
2 – Data centers — The data centers continue to be electric and water intensive.
Microsoft claims to be attempting reduce the footprint of these data centers.
(more…)
Tags: BSR, china, data centers, human rights, Microsoft, Pamela Passman, San Francisco, sustainability
Posted in Business, Events, San Francisco, Technology | No Comments »
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
It’s still relatively early here out the third day of Outside Lands, people either circulating with cups or beer or coffee (or both). We’re taking a slight music break to check out some of the tents, behind the scenes offerings, and offer other general musings about the festival.
We checked out a local SF band Big Light early today – 1) to check out a local band and 2) because they played at the Solar Stage (completely powered by solar like last year). Wouldn’t it be nice to have all of the stages powered by solar? They actually used solar on a larger scale for OL uno but they had power issues which apparently turned into economic issues this year.
Behind the scenes, most people think that a lot of drinking and eating goes on, which is true but people like Ice Cream Man sits in his ice cream van and just gives out ice cream – free. Why does he do it? He wants to just give something simple like ice cream (we downed a few Cherry Garcias while we talked with him) just to promote community and show people that you can simply give stuff away without expecting anything in return. Ice Cream Man hits the festival circuit but we’re more impressed when he hits various childrens’ hospitals and gives out free ice cream to sick kids. Now that’s a wonderful dessert. (more…)
Tags: bands, EcoLands, Mr. Ice Crea, Outside Lands, San Francisco, Solar Stage, sustainability, Yellow Bird Project
Posted in Events, Food, San Francisco | No Comments »