We’re glad to see that Bank of America, our partner for the Brighter Planet Visa, has taken some significant steps to become even more environmentally responsible.
They’ve recently announced that they will:
1) phase out loans to companies that do mountaintop removal for coal production. (BoA Coal Policy)
3) continue to adopt the Carbon Principles. These are guidelines about the risks of investing in greenhouse gas emitting- public utility projects like coal plants.
In the bigger picture, Bank of America has made a broad environmental commitment of $20 billion over the next ten-years. The money will be used to advance sustainability across the board– in its operations, through its lending and investing, and in new products and services.
There’s room for eco-improvement in nearly every organization, but these are important steps for BoA and we at Brighter Planet applaud their efforts.
Our count-down of holiday conservation tips will help you save money and carbon this winter. The tips are centered around the theme of one day’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions for the average American, or 136 lbs. of CO2.
12. Recycle.
Most people know recycling is good for the planet, but they don’t connect it to climate change. In fact, the average bag of landfilled waste emits the equivalent of 5.77 pounds of CO2 while it decomposes. You can save 136 lbs. of CO2 by recycling or composting 2/3 of your waste for just 2 weeks.
11. Get outside.
Recreation is a major contributor to our carbon footprints. Get outside to enjoy winter while it lasts, and help keep winter cool in the process. Instead of loading the family in the car and driving to the heated movie theater with its high-power projector, go sledding in the park, or take a family bike ride.
Instead of paying a landscaping company to bring in their trucks, leaf blowers and snow blowers, give your kids some rakes, or grab a shovel, and get active. Instead of driving to the gym to exercise on an electric machine (a treadmill emits 2 lbs. of CO2 per hour), put on a hat and go for a jog in your neighborhood.
Already a skier? Consider ditching the crowds, the expensive resorts, and the energy-intensive lodges, snow makers, and lifts (a 250-hp lift emits 1750 lbs. of CO2 each day), and heading into the backcountry on Nordic or telemark skis instead.
10. Weatherproof your home.
Heating can account for over half of all home energy usage, so it isn’t just hot air that escapes through leaky windows and doors—it’s money, and it’s carbon. By installing storm doors, weather stripping, storm windows, and clear window films, you can dramatically reduce your heating bills and your carbon footprint. Even just closing all your curtains at night can make a big difference in preventing heat loss. Stopping your worst heat leaks will easily save you 136 lbs. of CO2 emissions every month.
9. Fly eco-light.
If you’re planning a flight over the holidays, there’s a lot you can do to minimize your climate impact.
Do everything you can to avoid flying at night—night flights have more than double the warming impact of day flights, because contrails trap much more heat in the atmosphere at night than during the day. Flying cross-country during the day instead of at night will cut your footprint by the equivalent of over 1000 lbs. of carbon dioxide.
Pack light—every pound of extra baggage decreases aircraft fuel economy. If all passengers shaved their bag weight by just one kilogram, the average airplane would reduce its emissions by 190,000 lbs. of CO2 per year.
Book direct flights—they use 10% less fuel by taking off and climbing once, and save more energy (and time!) by not stopping at out-of-the-way destinations.
8. Cool your house; cool the planet.
Getting creative with your thermostat can help you save big on home energy.
Turning down your thermostat 1 degree will save you 136 lbs. CO2 in 2 months; you won’t notice the difference. Or try turning it down 5 degrees, put on a sweater, toss another blanket on your bed, and save 136 lbs. CO2 in a few weeks.
Additionally, make sure your thermostat is programmed to heat the house to room temperature only when you will be at home and awake—keeping it at 55 degrees when you’re asleep and at work will save major dollars and pounds.
If you’re going away for the holidays, make sure you turn down the heat to 50 degrees before you leave.
7. Audit your energy.
Turn a home energy audit into a fun family activity. Have the kids search the house high and low, and compete to find the most inefficiencies. Drafty windows, vampire chargers, incandescent bulbs, inefficient appliances, blocked heating vents, exposed hot water pipes… the more inefficiencies you can find and correct, the more energy and money you can save, and the more we can teach eco- stewardship to the next generation. An audit that saved you just 1% of home energy usage would reduce your home CO2 footprint by 215 lbs. CO2 annually.
6. Lighten up on lighting.
One string of incandescent holiday lights burns through about 100 lbs. of CO2 over the holiday season, and chances are you have more than one. If you love your lights too much to take them down, there are some easy alternatives that will save lots of energy. Replacing a few strands of lights with efficient LED holiday lights, which only use 10% as much energy, will save over 200 lbs. of CO2 this winter. So will installing an automatic timer that turns your lights on only when needed—between dark and bedtime.
5. Give green.
Multiply the positive impacts of your giving. Thoughtful, eco-minded gift giving can benefit the planet as much as the recipient, save money, and distinguish your presents.
The first step is to focus on the gift item itself: give to charity in someone’s name, buy second-hand gifts, or give EnergyStar rated electronics and appliances. Vote with your dollars by choosing socially- and environmentally-responsible companies if you are purchasing new products.
Next, think about how you purchase your presents: shop online instead of driving to the store, ship your presents by ground instead of by air, and combine all your shopping into as few trips as possible. Every mile you avoid driving saves a pound of carbon dioxide emissions, which adds up fast.
Finally, wrap creatively: use recycled wrapping paper, newspaper, blankets, or even hide the gift, instead of wasting wrapping supplies.
4. Focus on the fire.
Most fireplaces are extremely inefficient, drawing lots of warm air from the house up the chimney, and transferring very little heat into the room. Ironically, the furnace often has to switch on every time you light a fire. Installing glass doors or an external air source can significantly improve the efficiency of your fireplace.
Huge amounts of heat can escape through open or leaky chimney flues. Making sure the flue is always closed after a fire can keep huge amounts of heat from escaping—but most dampers still leak, so consider installing a chimney-top damper that completely seals the chimney opening. If you almost never use your fireplace, consider sealing off your chimney permanently.
The best solution is to install a new wood stove—they are a very efficient way to heat your home, and are carbon neutral, assuming your wood is sustainably harvested. Heating half your home with wood instead of a furnace would save you 136 lbs. of CO2 every week.
3. Cruise with control.
When we drive to Grandma’s house, the shopping mall, or a ski mountain over the holidays, the miles really add up. It’s an important time to remember some simple things you can do in your car to save money on gas and reduce your carbon footprint.
Avoid idling. Whether caught in traffic, lining up at the drive-thru, or waiting by the curb, idling is extremely inefficient, and contrary to popular belief, idling does not save fuel. Ten seconds of idling uses more gas than restarting your engine. Also, resist the temptation to warm your car in the driveway, and just wear some gloves; modern cars don’t need any pre-heating the way old ones did.
Drive slowly and smoothly. Driving 65 instead of 75 will save you 1,400 lbs. of CO2 emissions every year, because speeding reduces your mileage. And accelerating and breaking slowly instead of abruptly can have just as great an effect.
Check your tire pressure. The EPA estimates your fuel economy falls by 1% for every PSI your tires fall below the recommended level. So if your tires are at 15 instead of 20, correcting the problem will save you 136 lbs. of CO2 emissions every 2800 miles.
2. Cook carbon-light.
The holidays are often centered around the kitchen, so this is a great place to achieve major energy savings. Making some simple changes in the way you cook and cool your food can really make an impact.
What you eat matters, too. The UN estimates that the livestock sector produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation sector. A family of four going vegetarian for just one week will save the equivalent of 150 lbs. of CO2. But shop smart: local, organic meat may have a lower carbon footprint than agro-industrial soy products.
Fight back against the irony of using energy to cool your food in a heated house in winter: move that extra fridge or freezer from the basement (often the warmest place in the house during winter) to the garage, the porch, or even outside. Use the outdoors to keep beverages cold for parties, and to pre-chill hot leftovers before refrigerating or freezing them. And you can always send guests home with leftovers!
When using the oven, bake dishes together rather than separately, avoid opening the oven unnecessarily, and don’t preheat—things may take a little longer to cook, but the energy savings are worth it.
Run the dishwasher only when full, and use the low-energy setting. The standard dishwasher emits 64 lbs. of C02 every month, but most people don’t run them full.
1. Give the gift of carbon neutrality.
The One Day campaign gives people the opportunity to give the gift of carbon neutrality for one day this holiday season. Brighter Planet will donate 136 lbs. of carbon offsets—used to fund renewable energy projects—to each One Day participant.
Recently, we received the following message on our Facebook page from a Brighter Planet customer:
Where’s the wind??!!
After browsing the newly designed NativeEnergy.com, it appears they’ve replaced wind projects with trucking efficiency. If this is true, I’m more than a little disappointed. Given that the nature of the carbon offset market is inherently prone to greenwashing/inefficiencies, I look for the highest quality that I can. NE got my business first on this basis. I purchased wind over biogas being that the whole biogas enterprise just seems less “verifiable” and “additional” than a seemingly straightforward windmill that either produces KwHs or doesn’t. I was also glad to see that some windmills were being constructed in cooperation with First Nation peoples.
And now trucking efficiencies, which I just can’t seem get excited about:
*Additionality - I feel like many of these efficiencies will be made anyway when/if diesel returns to $5/gallon.
*Verification - Nowhere near as straightforward as a KwH-counting windmill.
*I feel like this distracts us from the need to reduce long-haul trucking trips. Yes, I know people need to make a living, but we can’t pretend to actually (un)change the climate without completely changing our economy. Is hauling a semitrailer of orange juice from Florida to Minnesota even close to sustainable, even if we increase fuel efficiency by 10%?
I have these semi-scientific reasons as well as probably some unscientific ones, but carbon offsetting is already on the “edge” of credibility, so I need to be extra sure. Unless I’m reading this wrong (and I invite someone to show/convince me otherwise), NE doesn’t seem to meet that anymore.
That said, I’ll still use my BP Visa, but I’m not quite as enthusiastic anymore.
(Former) NativeEnergy Customer,
Adam
Our response, which was a bit too long for a Facebook, below:
Adam, we share your concern for making sure that the projects you support make a material difference in the fight against climate change. That’s why we have our Project Selection Committee inspect all the projects we consider for our portfolio to make sure they meet our criteria of additionality, transparency, permanence, and high social value.
The trucks project you mention, along with various other projects listed on NativeEnergy’s website, are not actually a part of our portfolio. Since launching one year ago (November 29th was our first birthday!), we have selected an exclusive, high-quality blend of 11 wind projects and two methane abatement projects. We display all the projects our customers support on our project page. We’ll shortly be announcing our 2009 supply strategy, so stay tuned for updates and new projects.
A quick comment on wind versus methane. When it comes to assessing additionality, the difference may not be as clear-cut as it seems. Renewable energy is almost always subsidized and may be required by a state RPS, so figuring out whether a wind turbine is additional can sometimes be quite tricky. By contrast, creating offsets to sell is pretty much the only reason to invest in a methane digester.
As for verification… yes, it’s easy to measure how many kWh a wind turbine has produced. But calculating the emissions those kWh displaced requires using grid averages. And it’s also not always clear whether those grid averages (which people also use to calculate emissions from their electricity) properly account for RECs claimed or sold as offsets. With methane, all you need to do is measure the volume destroyed. With the right equipment you can directly measure the flow of methane to a burner. Or you can measure the kWh produced by burning methane, and calculate how much was burned using the energy content of the gas and efficiency of the generator.
Of course this isn’t to say we think methane projects are better than wind, or that methane is easy and wind is hard. Just that wind may be more complicated than it first appears, while methane’s unfamiliarity may make it seem more complicated than it is.
Thanks for using your Brighter Planet Visa, and please let us know if you have any other questions. We hope in the future we’ll be able to help you recover your initial enthusiasm!
December 1, 2008 at 8:53 am
· Filed under Partners
Today is an important day as almost 11,000 participants gather in Poznań, Poland to talk about climate change. The UN Climate Change Conference will go on through December 12th. These high-level talks are part of the ongoing negotiations to further enhance Kyoto Protocol agreements and to develop a post-Kyoto climate regime. The hope is that this conference will bring the participating nations one step closer to a formal agreement in December 2009.
SustainUS, the US Youth Network for Sustainable Development, sent over a delegation of US-based student leaders who will be involved in the sustainable development policymaking process in Poland. Brighter Planet is honored to have donated 69,138 lbs. of carbon offsets to balance out the Agents of Change delegates’ travel emissions to and from the conference.
This is an exciting opportunity for these youth to see climate policymaking in action. Offsetting the carbon emissions from their travel helps them to lead by example as they develop climate-responsible policy recommendations. We’re looking forward to hearing how things go in Poland!
We’re excited to share the inspiration of Planet Earth with you. Seeing the natural world in an up-close and celebratory light is a great way to stay motivated to fight global warming. Afterall, it can be hard to remember the big picture, especially during the busy holiday season.
The BBC’s Planet Earth is an Emmy-award winning nature documentary series, and starting today, we’ll send it to you in the mail if you sign up for our green credit card. If you already have a card, we hope you’ll ask a friend to apply then watch it together. Get ready to be inspired!
