Rieselfeld Center

Two areas of Freiburg have been developed as eco-villages — Rieselfeld and Vauban.  The eco-villages showcase integrated planning based on principles of sustainability.

Rieselfeld, the larger of the two, was built on land that was formerly used for sewage disposal.  It lies toward the western outskirts of Freiburg.  There are about 4,500 apartments in buildings of 3 to 5 stories housing around about 10,000 people.  Most of the buildings are built to a “low energy” standard for heating requirements, which we are told is about 65 kwh/square meter (in Europe they use kilowatt-hours as a basic energy metric in the way we use BTUs).

Solar panels and green roofs appear throughout the development.  The ecumenical Maria Magdelena Church has a solar PV system on its… [view entry]

Cross-posted from the Sustainable Business Leader Program blog.

On May 23rd the Sustainable Business Leader Program, Cambridge Local First, and the Cambridge Energy Alliance hosted a new kind of business sustainability workshop:  a business-to-business conversation featuring the Cambridge Brewing Company, a handful of business-centered sustainability services, and a score of small business representatives curious about their own green options.

By having many of the players in the room at the same time, small Cambridge businesses were able to comfortably learn how they could make their businesses more environmentally friendly while saving valuable natural resources and money.

The workshop featured a presentation by Phil “Brewdaddy” Bannatyne, owner of Cambridge Brewing Company, who highlighted the steps that his business took to “go green,” including much… [view entry]

Tara Holmes

This past Friday, I attended a workshop lead by Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr entitled “An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing: Fostering Sustainable Behavior.”  As someone who’s personally very intrigued by the oftentimes overlooked (and dare I say critical) link between our everyday psychology and environmental sustainability, I was eager to attend. What I learned was both enlightening and somewhat anticipated.

In brief, humans, at least the populations Dr. McKenzie-Mohr has studied, tend to default to the easiest common denominator of behavior when it comes to environmentalism.  Of course, this isn’t to say there aren’t outlier personalities who go above and beyond the “green” call, but overall, unless regulated to do so, or cajoled by neighbors or friends, most people will resort to the path of… [view entry]

Bringing people together from a wide range of fields to make new strides in environmental change

While the environmental movement is nothing new, dating back almost a century, the approach of activists, organizations and policy makers is continuously evolving. The Garrison Institute is taking measures to contribute to this evolution by creating the Climate, Mind, and Behavior Program. The CMB program looks to combine a number fields to solve environmental issues.

The Garrison Institute holds a CMB Symposium where leading scientists and thinkers from the fields of environmental advocacy, neuro-economics, behavioral and evolutionary economics, psychology, social networking, policy-making, investing and social media together to focus on new approaches to reducing emissions on a large scale. The event has been held in March annually since 2010.… [view entry]

A guest blog by one of CEA’s Spring interns, Allison Simon:

Think back to your first encounter with today’s sustainability movement—what were you introduced to? For many people, including myself, I believe the answer would be the same: Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs). These light bulbs represented everything that the sustainability leaders wanted the movement to stand for: ease, cost savings, and little difference to the previous energy guzzling options. The most important aspect about these light bulbs was that they worked—residents started to go out and buy energy efficient light bulbs and began to see a difference in their utility bills. Even though that change may have happened in your home and office years ago, light bulbs are far from passé.

With the addition of Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs, into… [view entry]

The Boston Globe recently reported on an important issue: the perception of the threat of climate change by Massachusetts residents.  While the article pointed out that a majority of Massachusetts residents believe climate change is happening – and is caused by human activity – the article also pointed out that many residents remain apathetic on how to address the problem. The MassInc survey, entitled “The 80 Percent Challenge: A Survey of Climate Change Opinion and Action in Massachusetts” was sponsored by the Barr Foundation.

Interestingly, the survey, found that 77% of those surveyed say climate change has probably been happening and 33% believe climate change is very serious and is caused at least partially by human activity. Another 26%, however, believe climate change is real and caused somewhat by humans,… [view entry]

Massachusetts State House in Boston

This coming Tuesday, April 5th, the Joint Committee on Environmental, Natural Resources and Agriculture will hold a public hearing (described as “Invasives and Waterways”) on over 20 bills that hope to improve and update Massachusetts environmental laws. The bills range from explicit to quite broad, the latter likely subject to more scrutiny at the hearing because of the lack of specific details within the bill.

A number of the bills are intended to provide funding for the rebuilding and restoration of beaches, shores, and seawalls, in coastal towns from Marshfield to Scituate. A majority of the bills to be heard are of this nature, but there are others for the purpose of setting up grants to help with this type of restoration… [view entry]

Cycling in Groningen, Netherlands

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to the Netherlands and visit many different areas within the country. I landed in Amsterdam and took a train roughly 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the city of Groningen in the northern part of the country. The trip took about as long as it takes to get from one end Boston to the other via the green line (sadly I’m only half joking here). It doesn’t take long to notice the public transportation system in the small European country is as efficient any.

Stepping out in Groningen, we made our way to catch a bus to the apartment where we would stay for the next few days. Finally outside of airports and train stations, I… [view entry]

This past weekend, I attended the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Boston, hosted by e-inc.  Though I had already attended Maynard’s top notch version of the Festival a few weeks back, I was pleasantly surprised by how little overlap there was between films at the two events. That said, one of the films I was able to see in Boston was Spoil, put out by The ILCP, EP Films and Pacific Wild. While I tend to consider myself someone who’s current with pressing environmental issues, I must admit – I was stunned. The potential devastation taking place in one of our planet’s most majestic and critical natural habitats, the Great Bear Rainforest, needs immediate attention. One of the largest tracts of temperate rainforest left in the world, the Great… [view entry]

A coal-fired power plant in Shuozhou, Shanxi, Chin

Unrest in the Middle East has yielded change in the region, but the effects of anti-government protests are slowly being felt globally as oil soars to its highest price in over 2 years. The New York Times reported that Chinese Energy Specialists revealed that the government plans to announce strict goals for energy conservation.

Make no mistake, this is not an altruistic attempt by the world’s leading energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter to go green or make strides to curb carbon footprint (energy security far out ways climate change in Chinese policy priorities). China views energy as a national security issue; the concern here is how rising oil prices will effect inflation, export competitiveness, and the country’s… [view entry]