As part of their Earth Month efforts, Motorola is encouraging their employees to use less paper and plant more trees. For each employee who completes the “Plan Before You Print!” Pledge the Motorola Foundation will make a donation to Carbonfund.org to plant five trees. The pledge encourages employees to take actions to minimize their paper use such as printing double-sided, using “print preview” to minimize printing errors and going print-free one day a week. Deforestation is responsible for roughly 20% of global warming. Motorola’s efforts to minimize their paper use and support tree planting will help restore local habitat, minimize floods and create jobs.  To support tree planting today or learn more about our Million Tree Challenge, please visit: www.carbonfund.org/trees. Through July 22, 2010, Carbonfund.org will direct donations to tree planting in Haiti and match your donation 2:1. Please donate today!

Monarch Beverages recently celebrated their year anniversary of the CarbonFree® Certification of their energy drinks. The Monarch Acute Fruit™, CoMotion™, NTrinsic™ and NTrinsic™ Sugar-free drinks received the certification in spring of 2008.

Carbonfund.org certified the four energy drinks CarbonFree after a rigorous life cycle assessment (LCA). Carbon emissions associated with the energy drinks were calculated at each step based on the ingredients used in manufacturing, the ink and materials used for packaging, and the fossil fuel burned during shipping.

The carbon footprint was reduced where possible and the remaining emissions were offset through investments in carbon offset projects such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation.

In the past year Monarch Beverages has also added three more beverages to the CarbonFree lineup, Acute Fruit strawberry, tangerine and kiwi. Carbonfund.org looks forward to many more fruitful years of partnership with Monarch Beverages. To learn more about Monarch please visit www.monarchbeverages.com.

Metro Business Systems, a CarbonFree® Partner since 2008, has started an innovative new program to help keep old computer equipment in use and out of landfills. Primarily an IT hardware and services supplier, they are assisting some of the world’s largest financial institutions in recycling a substantial amount of their computer equipment. Instead of the used equipment ending up in a landfill, Metro Business Systems is working to “refresh” the old equipment so that it can be donated to local charities. With help from some local students and their own donated technical services, Metro Business Systems is wiping the confidential data off the hard drives, fix non-working components, and reinstall operating systems so that the computers are once again operational. Metro Business Systems is a supplier of computer electronics equipment and was created in 1986. They specialize in delivering a comprehensive suite of computer hardware, networking, integration, configuration and inventory management resources with unparalleled attention to customer satisfaction. Metro Business Systems is committed to environmental awareness and education. Through their partnership with us they are offsetting their corporate business and shipping emissions. They have partnered with organizations such as Carbonfund.org to better understand how they can be a more environmentally responsible company. For more information, please visit www.metropc.com.

In the Waxman-Markey bill (HR-2454, Section 274) is a provision for a product carbon disclosure program. The program would be voluntary and include a carbon content label intended to help consumers understand the carbon footprint of the products they buy. I know, it sounds great, but even if the bill were approved tomorrow the program could take over 4 years to implement due to the approx. 18 month feasibility study and up to 36 months to enact the program. Plus, it’s really nothing new, our CarbonFree^® Certified Product Program has been up and running for years. The CarbonFree^® Certified Label, the first in the U.S. for carbon neutrality, was created in response to consumer demand for transparent, credible and readily accessible information about the environmental impact of the product at the point of purchase. Like the proposed program, our program requires that CarbonFree® Certified products undergo an intensive life-cycle assessment (LCA) to calculate the emissions resulting from each phase in the life of the product including manufacturing, shipping, and usage. What distinguishes our label is that once the carbon footprint is calculated, and reduced where possible, the remaining footprint is offset, creating a carbon neutral product. Motorola, Anvil, and Domino Sugar are among the growing list of businesses who have partnered with us to be able to offer their customers a CarbonFree® Certified product. The label brings carbon neutrality, responsibility and action on global warming to the heart of a business, its products and customers. Plus, it’s available today! To learn more about the CarbonFree® products or the certification process click here. To read the full text of this section, go here: http://www.seia.org/galleries/pdf/hr2454_house.pdf

Lieber’s Luggage is a family owned, online luggage retailer who is committed to their community and the environment. A CarbonFree® Partner since 2008, Lieber’s Luggage is offsetting its office carbon emissions through donations to fund carbon offset projects such as reforestation, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Lieber’s Luggage works hard to find environmentally sound products to offer their customers in addition to using renewable energy sources for the heating and cooling of their office building. They offer “Everything but the Trip’ including a large selection of luggage, travel accessories, business cases, leather goods, travel clothes, gifts and more. To learn more visit: http://www.liebers.com/

In today’s culture computers are powered-on most, if not all, of the day. With over one billion computers currently in use worldwide, this accounts for a large amount of energy. But with recent breakthroughs in more efficient technology, low-power PC components have become available that may help to decrease that footprint. Leef PC, LLC has taken advantage of these new technologies by creating a low-power PC that provides great performance while saving you money and reducing emissions. Leef PC, LLC is an experimental low-power PC computer company, testing the viability of green products that can address future needs and concerns without extra cost or performance cuts. Their PC uses 22% less energy to run than the average desktop computer. This increase in efficiency will save over 230 kg of CO2 per year from entering the atmosphere and around $50 per year from leaving your wallet. In addition, Leef has partnered with us to offset a portion of the emissions related to the manufacturing, transportation and use of their computer systems by supporting our energy efficiency, renewable energy and reforestation projects. To learn more visit www.myleef.com.

Language Fusion is committed to providing outstanding language services in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. They have made a large effort to reduce their footprint by choosing an office space that is centrally located so their employees can get to the office by foot, bike or public transportation. They also recycle and reuse ink and toner, use paperless faxing and scanning, and even have a corporate bike that employees can use to go to lunch and run errands. A CarbonFree® Small Business Partner since 2008, Language Fusion provides rapid, on-demand, quality, affordable translation & interpretation services to corporate, medical, legal, non-profit, NGO and governmental organizations across the United States and Canada and offer services in over 150 different languages including American Sign. Through their partnership with us they are offsetting not only the carbon emissions associated with their business operations but also all of the emissions resulting from hundreds of their interpreters driving many miles a day in service of their clients. For more information, please visit them at www.languagefusion.us.

HotelsCombined.com, a free travel tool that helps travelers find the best deal for their preferred hotel on one website, recently announced that their business offices are now running on 100% renewable energy. A CarbonFree® Business partner since 2007, HotelsCombined.com is dedicated to reducing the carbon emissions of its business activities to minimize its carbon footprint. Through their partnership with us they are offsetting all of their emissions including office energy usage, business travel and emissions associated with hotel bookings by supporting a combination of renewable energy, reforestation, and energy efficiency projects. Their system searches over 600,000 hotels deals worldwide, from over 30 different major hotel reservation websites. HotelsCombined.com users can view a side-by-side comparison of all offers for the one hotel, ensuring they select the right deal for their accommodation needs. Consumers can also navigate comprehensive hotel content including millions of images, descriptions, maps and consumer reviews. By combining all hotel information into the one site, HotelsCombined.com improves the way travelers search, plan and shop for hotels. For more information, please visit www.hotelscombined.com.

'Green' was definitely a running theme at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held last weekend in Las Vegas.  Although I knew that there would be a small sustainability section I was pleasantly surprised to see how many companies were talking about, even focusing on, the greening of their products and their business.  From energy efficiency and widespread recycling programs to reduced packaging and carbon neutrality, everywhere I looked companies were touting their efforts to minimize the environmental impacts of their products.  All of the major consumer electronics companies, including Samsung, Casio, Toshiba, Panasonic and more had entire sections dedicated to their sustainability efforts and where boasting about the increased efficiency of all of their 2010 models. For example, Panasonic provided an array of green products and initiatives. Through a joint venture with Sharp and Toshiba, Panasonic has created a recycling program with 100's of free drop off locations in all 50 states.  This program was the first winner of the US EPA’s National TV Recycling Challenge for responsible recycling end-of-life TVs.  Their booth also showcased Panasonic’s innovative residential fuel cell technology which takes hydrogen from city gas and oxygen from the air to generate heat and electricity.  Coupled with their residential storage batteries, which help to store the energy created by the fuel cells or solar power generators, this technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we power our homes. At the impressive Samsung booth they unveiled their eco-design and energy efficient products including LED TVs, 30” free-standing induction ranges, Energy Star Blue-ray players and more.  Samsung also partnered with us to address the environmental impact of participating in the show by offsetting their presence at the show, including the booth, which was the largest at CES, transportation, and lodging. The 2010 show proved that sustainability and energy efficiency is not a fad, but rather a way forward.  The consumer electronics industry has realized that making efficient, environmentally friendly products will make their customers happy, strengthen their corporate social responsibility and increase their bottom line.

I love to wear jewelry but I am also aware that the mining and manufacturing of materials to make the jewelry can be very harmful to our planet. That’s why I’m always on the lookout for jewelers that use vintage or recycled materials in their work. I was thrilled to find out that one of our CarbonFree® Partners, BAMBOO Designworks, has sustainability in mind throughout their business operations. BAMBOO Designworks strives to create sustainable products featuring bamboo. Their line of BAMBOO Jewelry uses glass fired onto recycled silver to create colorful cloisonne earrings, pins, and necklaces featuring nature designs (often of endangered wildlife) that they package in bamboo gift boxes. They even have a line of BAMBOO Bookmarks featuring laser engraved bookmarks made of bamboo, info cards printed recycled paper, and bioplastic packaging. In addition to their eco-friendly jewelry, BAMBOO Designworks uses a website hosting company that uses 100% renewable energy, they work in an energy efficient building which they plan to convert to solar power in the near future and their next company vehicle will be a hybrid Aptera which is designed to get over 300 mpg! Not to mention that they have been working with us to offset their use of non-renewable energy since 2007. To see their beautiful jewelry and learn more about their green initiatives visit their website: www.bamboodesignworks.com.