Contact your Congressperson today and save greenway/bike path federal funding programs!!!
TrekBikes and the League of American Bicyclists have shared that there is federal funding that is about to be eliminated!

On Thursday, February 2nd the House Transportation Committee is voting on the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, a bill thateliminates crucial funding for biking and walking. We stand to lose $1.2 billion and over 3,000 potential bike and pedestrian projects, including Safe Routes to School programs.   We need your help to preserve these dedicated biking and walking infrastructure funds.   What can you do?    1. Pick up the phone and contact your elected official. Find their phone number here. 2. Send an email to your elected official. Find their email here.

5minutes of your time, contacting your Congressperson via the link above will help save these necessary programs.  Without bike paths and greenways, people will use more carbon emitting vehicles and continue to pollute our environment.  ACT NOW!

Newsweek magazine published an article on the 100 Greenest Companies based on the following criteria: carbon footprint, policies and transparency.  This is the third time Newsweek magazine has featured the 100 Greenest Companies.  Progress towards environmental sustainability and eco-friendly policies continue to develop.  However, most of these companies still have a long way to go in helping us ensure a better future.  For instance, most of these companies still produce a substantial amount of waste by-products during their manufacturing process and also do not have global wide policies in place to handle/process used disguarded and/or returned goods.  These companies need to collaborate vertically with their manufacturing partners and distributors to reduce waste in their supply chain process.  These companies need to collaborate horizontally with their competitors to uniformly reduce un-necessary product packaging.  For example, can you imagine how a global agreement between cosmetics companies in eliminating un-necessary product packaging would help the environment?  Can you imagine if General Mills and Kelloggs reached an agreement to reduce their cereal box sizes by 30% across the board how that would positively impact the environment?  If you agree and believe in these efforts, email these manufacturers and consumer goods companies and voice your opinion.  They are listening and they will begin to highlight their light packaging as a consumer competitive advantage when they realize we will shop with our wallets for more eco-friendly alternatives.

I have come across a great website that promotes public action in support of federal funding for safe bike paths to schools.  We live in a community where a number of middle school students bike to and from middle school.  I didn't grow up with that privilege and hope that our proactive efforts will help ensure that all future generation of children have a bike to school option.

Please visit www.saferoutespartnership.org/home.

Despite the thunderstorm and tornado warning, we attended the Downtown Raleigh Planet Earth Day Celebration today.  It was a great event with a good turnout (given the weather).  In addition to several not for profit organizations highlighting various conservation efforts, there were art displays (refer to the photo of plastic bottles here), educational trivia games for children and eco-friendly clothing vendors.  There was an impressive cardboard castle made from recycled Burt Bees' storage boxes.  Overall, it was a successful event in raising awareness of great eco-friendly efforts.  I thought I already knew a lot regarding eco-friendly initiatives but it was a very educational experience for me.  

For example, I learned that there are now oyster shell recycling efforts that promotes collection of oyster shells and having them returned to the ocean to serve as shelters for budding oceanic creatures.  There are also local initiatives that for a small service fee provide a compost bin for you to set aside your food leftover and will pick up your bin weekly and drop off a compose bag filled with fresh compose so you don't have to compose your own food.  There was also a live band as well as craft activities for kids.  If you would like to learn more about this event, please visit www.planetearthcelebration.com.  This annual event started in 2008.  Hope your future participation will keep this annual event a continued success.

The following are clever marketing techniques that are eco-friendly and effective.
- For recurrent events, (e.g. meetings at the same location, festivals, races, fundraising events, etc.) make your signage last for repeat uses by avoiding specific dates and/or frequency of events.  For example, a fundraising event could have the following "Welcome to Our Annual ABC Race" instead of "Welcome to Our 5th Annual ABC Race."
- Sell T-shirts or memorabilia without the year of the event on them, for example, instead of "2011 Summer ABC Art Camp" use "Summer ABC Art Camp."  
- Encourage online registration and/or enrollment for events and include discounts and/or incentives for doing so.  This greatly reduces paper waste.
- Use email announcements only.  Eliminate postal mail announcements altogether.  For the few members who do not have email, offer the information on postcards.

LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system,  providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all of the following metrics: 
Sustainable Sites
This category discourages development on previously undeveloped land; minimizes a building's impact on ecosystems and waterways.

Water Efficiency 
This category encourages smarter use of water, inside and out. Water reduction is typically achieved through more efficient appliances, fixtures and fittings inside and water-wise landscaping outside.

Energy & Atmosphere 
This category encourages a wide variety of energy strategies that utilize renewable and efficient energy solutions.

Materials & Resources
This category encourages the selection of sustainably grown, harvested, produced and transported products and materials used in building materials. 

Indoor Environmental Quality 
This category promotes strategies that can improve indoor air as well as providing access to natural daylight and views and improving acoustics.

Locations & Linkages
This category encourages homes being built away from environmentally sensitive places and instead being built in infill, previously developed and other preferable sites.

Awareness & Education
This category encourages home builders and real estate professionals to provide homeowners, tenants and building managers with the education and tools they need to understand what makes their home green.

Innovation in Design
Thiscategory provides bonus points for projects that use new and innovative technologies and strategies to improve a building’s performance well beyond what is required by other LEED credits or in green building considerations that are not specifically addressed elsewhere in LEED. 

For more information about LEED certification and the difference it makes in improving our environment, please visit www.usgbc.org

Earth Day 2011 is about less than two months away.  It is time to commit to honor this event by participating in one or more of several exciting activities.

Local activities can be found at your local Parks and Recreation Department.
For other activities, please visit www.earthday.org.
If you are interested in learning about activities for children's schools, please visit www.dosomethinggood.org.

If you are interested in sharing any local upcoming eco-friendly events and having your event posted on this website, please provide your upcoming event and activity information at www.eco-friendlyliving.com/upcoming-eco-friendly-events.html