My New Footprint

I am very pleased to say that my footprint has reduced over the course of 3 months, while I have been enrolled in Sustainability Marketing. In the beginning if everyone in the world lived like me, we would need 5.3 earths to sustain that lifestyle, BUT now we would need 4.6. This is a little bit of a shock to me, because I did not think I did enough to make an impact on the way I live. I was able to make progress on most of my reduction goals but never really succeed at them all with flying colors. Again this footprint is larger than it should be, but because I do fly very frequently, my footprint automatically gets increased by 1 whole earth, and this will change in the next year or so when I lose my special privileges of being able to fly for free on Alaska Airlines, a privilege I will miss greatly. If I was not flying as much my footprint would be reduced to 3.5 earths. 

I do know that this class has definitely made me more conscious of my actions and has shown me how to live a more sustainable life. Maybe more importantly, this class has taught me how to take all of the sustainable efforts of companies with a grain of salt and to really research what companies are doing and saying, because there can be a large disconnect in what they are actually doing and whether or not it is effective. I hope to continue to live a more sustainable lifestyle and hope that I can be of influence to those around me to be mindful of their actions and the impact it has on the environment. I will continue to try and live with a sustainable approach and set goals for myself in the future to lessen my impact. 

This is my new and improved ecological footprint at 4.6 earths:

Here is my original footprint, before I knew how my actions effected the planet, 5.3 earths:

Harvesting Rainwater

So I was recently at home visiting my family and I had some extra time on one of the mornings to have some coffee and be outside in our backyard. My dad installed a very large koi pond with two large steams going into it. so it makes for a great place to spend time when it is nice outside. As I was watching the pond and streams I was curious as to how we could make it more sustainable, there had to be something that could help make it more resourceful. So I started looking into it, I found the that rainwater harvesting is probably the easiest way to reduce the impact of this yard. The pond requires a lot of water to run normally, and if we could get that water from harvesting rain, it would be of great benefit. I wasn't sure if there was an atheistically pleasing way to do it, without having the large tanks to store the water. I found a company online who helps harvest rainwater and supply it to your ponds and streams. Below us a photo of how it would generally work, beginning with capturing the water and storing it underground, then filtering it, and finally allowing for use within the backyard. 

I am hoping to have a pond and waterfall in my backyard in the future, and I plan to incorporate sustainable design into the entire yard. If possible I will definitely be taking advantage of harvesting rainwater to use on the yard itself, and limiting the amount of water I need to take from local water supplies. I hope to see most yards turning to a more sustainable design in the near future as more and more people realize how much they can actually affect their ecological footprint and try to reduce it. 

Tiny House Movement

I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed the other day and saw an interesting post by one of my friends. I clicked on this post and learned about the Tiny House Movement. This was very interesting to me so I looked further into it, and there is actually a documentary being produced for this vary movement. You can watch the trailer here: Tiny House Documentary .

This way of living dramatically reduces your footprint, it empowers a simple way of living without having to build a mansion to enjoy your life. With the size of homes in america doubling, this movement is aimed at reversing this lifestyle. The house shown is only 89 square feet, that is smaller than my bedroom at home. You have to be very intimate with whoever you are living with for this to be comfortable. The couple kept referring to the world being their living room, with less costs and less maintenance time, these homeowners have more cash and time to enjoy themselves outside of their homes. Plus, the house is built on a flatbed trailer, so if you really want to go travel and enjoy yourself, your house can come enjoy it too.

There are many attributes to this home that would take some getting use to, if we are accustomed to the typical way of living in America. This will show you some of the adjustments made: Tiny House. One aspect that I am not sure I could adjust to is the composting toilet. I hope the smell is much different than an outhouse. The number one way to reduce your footprint is to simply refuse services or products, and tiny houses allow you to do that very successfully. So I commend all those who are able to live comfortably in tiny houses, I will have to think long and hard on whether or not I could muster up the courage to live in a house smaller than most rooms.

Making the Skies Greener

One of my previous posts was in regards to InCycle technology and its benefits for Alaska Airlines operations. The new cup is allowing for reductions in energy use in multiple areas, especially in the area of weight. The most efficient way to reduce environmental impact in the skies is to reduce the overall weight of the aircraft that is being fueled. These new cups have allowed them to significantly reduce the weight of each aircraft, creating a situation where they simply do not need to use the fuel. What I am learning in the airline industry is that it is extremely difficult to reduce the impact a company has on the environment, but the most effective method to do so today is by reducing weight. Alaska has implemented a number of initiatives to help reduce their footprint over the past few years, some of them are: 

• Reducing weight by making catering carts more efficient, boarding less water on aircraft, removing unneeded insulation blankets, and replacing heavy pilot flight bags and paper manuals with iPads. 
• Keeping a young, fuel efficient fleet and always looking for more innovative designs to alter planes into more fuel efficient aircraft. Recently, they have adopted the use of winglets on the edge of the wing which increases fuel efficiency by 3-5% and can save up to 100,000 gallons of fuel per plane each year (WOW, that is a lot less fuel, but the somehow the fares continue to rise)
• Implementing 'Greener Skies over Seattle" has led to technology advances across their network, not only when flying in and out of Seattle. From this they have developed Required Navigation Performance  (RNP) technology which is leading the industry in GPS enabled navigation. This allows them to fly the shortest route possible between two points, reducing fuel consumption. 
• Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest was established with Alaska and 35 other stakeholders in and around the northwest to help develop biofuels that can be used to fuel aircraft. In November 2011 Alaska had its first biofuel flight.

Alaska continues to be ranked #1 in fuel efficiency compared to major competitors across the states. You can find more information regarding their goals to reduce their footprint at their website here: Alaska Airlines Environmental Responsibility

Sourcing for Good

After learning about sustainable design I started looking for products that were designed from a sustainable perspective. Once I did my research I found many products, but one stood out to me in particular, 3M's Agave Leaf Kitchen Sponge. 3M's approach was to find a recycled source material to make something from. They found their solution in Tequila, in one Mexican state where 41 million gallons of Tequila were produced from 700,000 tons of agave, but when producing tequila only the juice of the plant is used, nothing else. So some scientists began to think of different ways they could use the plant, and they did just that, made a sponge from agave leaves. The sponge is not made entirely from the agave fibers, it is made up of 50% of the sustainable material, but the packaging is made up of completely post-consumer recycled materials, so overall this product is a success in sustainable design. More than one area of the product was re-designed to become more innovative and green.

You can find more about their process here: 3m's Solution to Sourcing Sustainably 

I plan to look for this sponge at the store the next time I am in need of cleaning supplies. I am not 100% sure if my roommates will adjust to the new look or not, but I think it is worth the try, and besides, its a non-scratch sponge how could you go wrong?

Alternative Fuel Sources for Vehicles

After doing some research regarding electric vehicles for a project I am completing I found a lot of good information on alternative fuel sources for cars. I found that there are many different ways to run an engine and that there is a lot of research and development going into making cars greener. This is what I found most interesting.

In the past several years gas prices have been rising to historic heights. This has led to the increase of exploring of multiple new technologies or alternative fuel sources to help power vehicles, to get away from the reliance on gasoline which continues to rise in price due to the constant rise in oil prices. Many people really become annoyed during the summer when the price historically always spikes-when we all want to vacation and go on road trips with family and friends.

Unknown to most, there are many alternatives currently available besides a completely electric vehicle that are on the roads and available in dealerships. They range from hydrogen to coal to biodiesel to ethanol to liquefied natural gas. We will cover a few here. To begin, one of the more promising alternatives is using hydrogen fuel to power a vehicle. The most positive effect of using hydrogen is what emits-water vapor. Hydrogen can be used with two different types, a fuel cell-which generates electrical power quietly and efficiently, without pollution to power the car electrically- or an internal combustion engine that has been engineered to use hydrogen instead of gasoline. The fuel cell uses a chemical process with oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity to power the vehicle and again the only byproduct is water vapor. Currently this is being done with a Honda FCX in southern California. For use in an internal combustion engine, gasoline is simply replaced as the fuel source and the vehicle is powered by hydrogen. Some studies on a BMW hydrogen powered vehicle have shown reports of the vehicle actually improving air quality around it, since when were cars known for helping the environment?

Now why aren’t we all using hydrogen yet if it is so easy to reengineer the vehicles engine? Hydrogen is very difficult to extract in an efficient manner. It is usually combined with other elements creating a difficult process. Once extracted, storing liquid hydrogen in tanks is safe, but if it escapes into the environment it could be potentially dangerous-if it is combined with oxygen in some rare instances it can react explosively or catch fire easily. And surprisingly hydrogen flames are very difficult to see, creating a problem. The average person would not be able to notice the flames and fight them in a quick fashion. Burns can also be an issue if liquid hydrogen comes into contact with skin. As of the moment there is not an infrastructure in place to scale hydrogen powered vehicles across the nation or world to make an immediate impact. Hydrogen still has some time to develop and work the quirks out before it is seen on the road more often.

Another alternative that might be more recognizable to most is the use of ethanol. If you have ever been on the road and started to smell French fries it is either the nearest McDonald’s or it could be the car in front of you. Ethanol is made from plant matter or in some cases fry grease. But for those more health conscious there are other options, most popularly corn or sugar cane. Ethanol can be used in the normal internal combustion engine, it simply replaces gasoline. But not all vehicles are capable of burning this fuel. Most automakers have numerous flex-fuel engines that can run on gasoline or ethanol, they would use E85, a blend of fuel that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. This would definitely help in reducing gasoline prices and the dependence on expensive oil. But this definitely a tradeoff, it takes a lot of energy to create ethanol but does limit the dependence on oil. The infrastructure is growing for ethanol and there is a large network of ethanol fueling stations already in existence.  One downfall is that farmers could make more money producing crops for ethanol than for eating. This would cause most farmers to invest more into ethanol crops, in turn causing food prices to rise.

Another exciting alternative fuel source compressed natural gas. Could you imagine fueling your car from home? Simply using the common natural gas line to a lot of residential homes, you could refuel right from home instead of taking a trip to the gas station. Compressed natural gas is the same fuel some people might use in their homes for cooking and heating, supplied by the regional gas company. Compressed natural gas is stored in tanks after it has been compressed, so in addition to the gas line the car owner will need a house capable of compressing the gas before fueling up. The use of compressed natural gas begun in 1998 in Honda’s Civic GX-the compressed natural gas is cheaper and burns cleaner than typical gasoline. This would not solve all of our problems, but we would definitely feel it in our wallets, with more cash to spend on sports game tickets and movies with a friend rather than fueling our vehicles. Some of the disadvantages of compressed natural gas is the amount of gas that needs to be stored for a vehicle to have a sufficient range.  In comparison to gasoline natural gas takes up a greater amount of space than gasoline does, and it would possibly need multiple tanks. To put a gas pump in at home is expensive initially, but over time savings will be had with refueling. Like many other alternative fuel sources, compressed natural gas does not have a network of available pumps. There is little or no infrastructure at all to help sustain this new alternative fuel. This in turn leads to the decreased range of a compressed natural gas fueled car compared to the original gasoline fueled car.

There are many new and old alternatives available today and a higher demand for replacing traditional gasoline powered vehicles on the road. This demand is leading the way for more research and availability of alternative fuels for normal everyday people. It is exciting to watch and only time stops us from seeing more and more alternatively powered vehicles on the road way.  

InCycle Cup

I was on Facebook the other day and noticed a post by Alaska Airlines (who I worked for over the past summer) about switching all of their coffee cups to this new locally made, InCycle cup. It is made right here in Washington state, in Arlington! I was interested because they said it was made of 50% post-consumer products and is 100% recyclable. So, I looked up the cup and found a couple interesting videos. I learned that more than 25 billion plastic cups are thrown away each year in the United States, that was shocking. The InCycle cup is completely recyclable! This video shows the process of making an InCycle cup:

The InCycle cup is trying to help promote sustainability by making a coffee cup that is made from recycled water bottles. One cool thing about these cups is that they do not cost more than the standard plastic cup, so it is even easier to make a choice to switch to greener products. If you can't avoid using plastic cups, then you might as well choose one that can be recycled and is made from recycled materials. 

This caught my eye, especially because I feel like it is extremely hard for the airline industry to become sustainable, but Alaska is doing a lot to make improvements to their business. They have made it easily available to read their sustainability report from 2012. It is the biggest link on their "About Us" page of their website. Because of my interest in Alaska, I am going to look into their sustainability report and see what they are doing to improve their business and become more sustainable. I think they have a pretty big goal ahead of them if they are going to try to green their operation, but I know that it would give them a big competitive advantage if they succeed in this.