Comments on: Labor Day Weekend Retreat Goes Green

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:42:36 +0000

Update – 1 year later – this year’s CMG gathering attempted in some meager way to emulate the fantastic efforts of 2007’s ‘green’ gathering, but fell far short of the mark. In the program attendees were told the event was staying green by not providing bottled water, but neglected to provide an alternative like the stainless-steel ones that came free with our swag-bags last year. As a result, out came the styrofoam cups for everything from water to coffee, along with styrofoam plates for desserts at dinner. The food was terrible and I doubt very much it was locally grown.

While there may have been many reasons for the failure of this year’s gathering to come any where near last year’s in green terms, I don’t think it was lack of interest or concern. Rather, it was likely complete lack of knowledge about how to proceed. And probably a lack of priority amongst the planners. All the great efforts from last year did not seem to get institutionalized in any way into either the organization’s planning memory or the camp staff procedures.

So, not to burden Green Joe with more work but I can’t help but think that since one of the missions of the CMG is to provide mentorship – it seems that some mentoring is in order to foster not only green awareness and desire, but green know-how. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Green Joe to be on every planning committee, but neither is it reasonable to expect every new committee to carry on the tradition without some competent guidance.

By: Urbain

Urbain — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:12:16 +0000

“Owning an energy-efficient dishwasher that always runs fully loaded is great, but air-drying your dishes after the wash cycle can further reduce power use. Reducing the number of dishes you use will create even greater savings. And what about your dish soap? Is it biodegradable? Accounting for the natural consequences of our decisions can be a full-time job.”

Why not wash dishes by hand? Doesn’t that save water? In addition it is one less major appliance in the house to worry about where you don’t have to worry about calling a repairman(repairperson) should it fails to operate. In my house I don’t have a dryer, dishwasher, disposable, extra freeze or refrigerator. Not having those items has not been an inconvenience for me since I never used them(well I did use a disposal, but when my parents disposal went on the brink they decided not to replace it and this was way before the current second green revolution that’s going on righ tnow) them growing up.

By: Urbain

Urbain — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:02:36 +0000

First of all GreenJoe good job to you and your CG friends/brothers were eco-friendly(is that the PC term to use or shoud it be going green) eight months ago at your annual gathering. Working in meeting/event industry for the past 6/7 years I’ve been trying to tell my company and clients not to be wasteful where it was going in one ear and out the other. Now they’ve jumped on the bandwagon like everyone else – which is a good thing.
I’ve been living in L.A. all my life and wherever I lived I never/rarely use a dryer…still go out to the backyard and use a clothesline. Clothes smell better when they’re line dried. I am now seeing them again in some back yards of McMansions which looks out of place in their desginer back yards(which by the way sucks up a lot of water), but they’re the portable ones.

By: Beau August

Beau August — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:22:52 +0000

The Bag are great the water was fine, the rassberry Ice tea, not again please, just regular tea would be fine as well as the Rass, Thank you for all the work you did Joe, and all the cmg leaders!!

See you at the next one, Beau

By: music

music — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:31:41 +0000

very interesting.
i’m adding in RSS Reader

By: greenjoe

greenjoe — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:24:04 +0000

Green Living,
You are so right. In fact, our newest dishwasher purchase is an energy star Bosch model that doesn’t even have a heated dry cycle! Though such major changes have an initial adjustment period, I like the idea of taking away the decision point – that is take away the un-green options and therefore simplifying the countless decisions we constantly feel like we are making in order to live more green.
…and what about air drying clothes on an old fashioned clothes line, especially if you have an electric dryer – which in many states is essentially a coal-powered dryer! I’d love to see the clothes line come back into vogue. Of course, since I’m a design-conscious kinda guy, I would hope anyone putting up a new clothes line would exercise some discretion in locating it in a sunny, but discreet spot.

By: Green Living

Green Living — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:43:01 +0000

Owning an energy-efficient dishwasher that always runs fully loaded is great, but air-drying your dishes after the wash cycle can further reduce power use. Reducing the number of dishes you use will create even greater savings. And what about your dish soap? Is it biodegradable? Accounting for the natural consequences of our decisions can be a full-time job.

By: Erika Leung

Erika Leung — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:54:54 +0000

Hi Joe,

Congratulations on the success of your event! Kudos to getting people to: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, OFFSET. There are many things we can do easily to lessen our environmental impacts and reduce our carbon emissions. Like using compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) instead of incandescent bulbs. They save more than 2/3rds of the energy of a regular incandescent, which leads to $40 or more over its lifetime. There’s also a campaign by one of Carbonfund.org’s non-profit partners, 41pounds.org (http://www.41pounds.org/cfund/), to eliminate junk mail, which consumes 100 million trees a year!

I work for Carbonfund.org, where our mantra is “Reduce what you can, offset what you can’t™”. Thanks for living up to that!

Best wishes,
Erika