sustainable

Things to make you happy: Google employs goats

The economy is still in shambles, we're all panicking about the bacon fever, and even those bright and shiny "green" initiatives might not be so green. Sad!

But did you know that Google is conserving energy by cutting its Mountain View, Calif., lawns with adorable goats?

Yes, it's true. The company has enlisted an innovative start-up called California Grazing to bring some of the Google greenery a more carbon-friendly, less polluting alternative to lawn mowers. It sounds like the use of goats is confined to peripheral fields where weeds and brush could cause wildfires, so it'… Read more

Companies still keen on green despite economy

Despite the economic downturn, companies are still planning to invest in long-term sustainability projects and want to make sure that their customers--and anyone else who asks-- knows it.

The American Marketing Association and public-relations firm Fleishman-Hillard sponsored a small survey (PDF) to determine whether companies were still keen to invest in sustainability practices despite economic downturn and what influenced them in their decision.

To give you an idea of where the economy was when people were asked about their commitment, the survey was conducted by the AMA during January and February 2009, and included 270 people spread about equally throughout … Read more

Joy! Apocalypse delayed until 2030

I always thought a stray meteorite would just smack into the world in, oh, 2020, and that would be that.

Or, perhaps, around 2015, everyone would become a celebrity and have a simultaneous nervous breakdown, brought on by excessive drug abuse, causing a Koresh-like disappearance of humanity.

But no, the year to prepare all your insurance policies for is 2030.

By that year, according to Professor John Beddington, the U.K. government's chief scientist, food and energy demand will have risen by 50 percent and fresh water by 30 percent. And the global population will have risen to around … Read more

Electrolux puts its appliances on ice

When I imagine life as a scientist doing research in Antarctica, I see images of frostbitten noses, two-man tents, and notes carefully handwritten in college-ruled notebooks. After reading about the Princess Elisabeth Station, a research facility opened in February of this year that will focus on studying ice samples for clues to solve climate change, my ideas about life as a scientist in the Antarctic tundra are forever changed.

I'm smart enough to know that the technology driving scientific research has developed at mind-numbing speeds, making notepads and journals a distant memory. I've been fortunate enough to witness … Read more

SAP hones sustainability push

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

SAP on Monday unveiled a multifront sustainability push including the launch of an EHS--or environment, health, and safety--management application.

The company unveiled its plans at CeBit (statement). Among the moving parts:

• SAP has teamed with TechniData to offer line of EHS applications, dubbed SAP Environment, Health and Safety Management. The goal of the EHS application is to make sure corporate sustainability policies are met and ensure a company is meeting its regulatory targets. In other wordis trying to align business processes with the enterprise's green IT talks, SAP .

• SAP … Read more

B-52 crews pull shades on nukes

Having your shadow scorched into the wall is one drawback to detonating a nuclear weapon; being blinded by the flash (PDF) and not being able to drive away in your B-52 Stratofortress is another.

Now engineers at the 540th Aircraft Sustainment Squadron's B-52 Communications Navigation and Weapons Flight have designed a thermal curtain that could protect aircrews from that blinding light (PDF).

The curtain resembles a common windshield sunshade used in passenger cars, except these cost $2,500 for a seven-shade set. Measuring about a tenth of an inch thick, 40 inches to 50 inches long, and 30 inches … Read more

Google sees energy solution in the math

Correction: This story originally misstated Schmidt's total energy savings projections. He said that the U.S. would save $2.1 trillion of $2.7 trillion.

SAN FRANCISCO--Google CEO Eric Schmidt outlined an energy plan Monday to reduce America's dependence on oil and create green jobs.

At an event called the Corporate EcoForum, Schmidt laid out Google's energy plan to sustainability executives from Coca-Cola, Motorola, Clorox, Microsoft, and dozens of others. In characteristic Schmidt-Google fashion, he backed up the idea with some calculations. The plan could be compared to something like energy efficiency = savings (or E2=$).

"It'… Read more

12-year-old's 'Water Watcher' nets top eco-prize

Those worried about the future of the planet needn't look much further than 12-year-old Elizabeth Rintels and friends for reassurance that young people aren't just aware of eco-challenges, they're putting their minds to solving them.

Rintels, of Keswick, Va., created a smart device designed to measure and monitor water usage in the shower. On Thursday, youth marketing and media company By Kids For Kids announced that her invention nabbed the grand prize in BKFK's "Going Green Challenge," which called on America's youth to come up with new eco-ideas for a changing world.

The … Read more

Craig Venter's CO2-Eating Organisms

Craig Venter, who led the charge to decypher human DNA, is now on the green hunt. According to Treehugger he's looking for a double-wammy: take CO2 in the atmosphere and convert it into fuel (rather than fuel creating CO2 as is mostly the case today).

As we've described before, Venter's overarching goal is to produce microorganisms that are able to "convert things like sugar or sunlight or carbon dioxide into fuels that people are very familiar with, like diesel fuel and gasoline," as he himself put it. These would constitute not only the fabled second- … Read more