CoffeeBerry is the hot new thing.
What is it? Until now, the only coffee options we’ve had came from the roasted bean or seed of the coffee plant. Growers often just threw away the lush red fruit of the coffee plant because it was too perishable to process. But with new patent-pending technology, the fresh, ripe coffee fruit is now available as a whole powder, as well as in a concentrated extract form. This is what we call CoffeeBerry. Hey, they even have a CoffeeBerry website, from which we pretty much lifted the sentences above.
We spotted it in the wild recently, as an Abundance Health product. And hey, if LaMont endorses it, then we’re on board too!
Environmental-themed education for your kids creates an understanding of our relationship to our environment, fosters knowledge, skills and attitudes, and promotes awareness. And with that in mind, David Suzuki Foundation has developed the Nature Challenge For Kids - NC4K, of course. Go for it!
We love articles on saving gas, and what doesn’t save gas. Consider it a hobby. Enjoy.
Food manufacturing facilities, the fifth largest energy-consuming manufacturing category, have in front of them the tough task of reducing their energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions when the food manufacturing facility is, particularly, a frozen one. The problem? Temperature-controlling a facility that is similar to running 200,000 refrigerators.
In fact, no frozen food plant has ever been LEED-certified by the United States Green Building Counsel. That is, until Contessa Premium Foods invested $6 million in green innovation to become the first LEED-certified frozen food plant in the country and the first energy-efficient frozen food plant in the world.
Their new $40 million Green Cuisine Plant opened in Los Angeles earlier this year. And next month, the company will introduce their new Green Cuisine packaging to reflect the eco-friendlier meals that are now being produced at the plant.
We hate to start the day off with a rant, but here we go. In the second round of our ‘Jeers To’ campaign, we bring you Loblaws and Liberté.
Purchased: Several containers of Liberté Organic yogurt at our local Loblaws grocery store over a period of a few weeks.
Found After Opening: Mold on top. Because it happened more than a few times, this was obviously a product, shipping, or store problem.
Action: We contacted both Liberté and Loblaws about this, looking for some sort of resolution (just a few coupons to cover the cost of our wastage would have sufficed).
Responses: Loblaws said “any type of compensation does have to come directly from this vendor, as they are responsible for the quality of the product.” Liberté did not respond at all.
Verdict: Great store. Great yogurt. Poor form.
Thanks for everything Loblaws and Liberté. Jeers.
ELLE.com has put together a list of the twenty greenest Hollywood celebrities around and garnered their best tips for going green. Secrets to eco-success abound. From Leo to Willie to Natalie. Enjoy.
Read the ingredients list on your deodorant, shampoo and other cosmetics lately? Lots of multi-syllable words you’ve never heard of? Be wary of those. We smear and spray ourselves daily with concoctions that contain potentially harmful chemicals, some of which have been linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities and other major health problems.
Not to worry, help is here! Come on in to Lindsay Coulter’s Green Spa, for a demonstration on how to pamper yourself (and your friends) the safe and healthy way.
According to Reuters, more than two billion trees have recently been planted around the world as part of the UN’s campaign to combat climate change. But there’s more. The worldwide tree planting campaign is aiming to reach a total of 7 billion by the end of 2009 – that means just over one for everyone on the planet.
The United Nations says the campaign has exceeded expectations since it began in late 2006 with a goal of planting one billion within a year: two billion have been planted already. That means another 5 billion by late 2009.
The tiny, windswept Norwegian island of Utsira, is home to what is said to be the world’s first full-scale system for cleanly transforming surplus wind power into hydrogen. Let’s read on, shall we?
Spotted at our local bakery the other day - Cameron’s Coffee.
Port-Perry based Cameron’s Coffee puts out some delicious fair trade, organic coffee. But what’s special about Cameron’s as we see more and more of this stuff hit the market? To start, their operation is powered by green energy provider Bullfrog. Also, Cameron’s developed the first Forest Stewardship Council certified retail package in the world. Further, they are the first coffee roaster to import and sell the world’s only environmentally sustainable coffee (solar dried Costa Rican coffee sourced through the Mesoamerican Development Institute). Wait, there’s more - Cameron’s recycles their coffee chaff to local area farmers. They even re-use their burlap bags by donating them to local consumers for their personal use.
And finally, the best part, it’s delicious coffee.
Mad Mats are outdoor rugs designed to look like real living room carpet but made of 98% recycled polypropylene plastic - used soda bottles, milk bottles, packing, and the like.
Here are the highlights: each rug is reversible, they are constructed using a unique flat weave and soft tubular threads that will not absorb dirt or stains of any kind, they can easily be rinsed off with a hose.
Produced under fair trade conditions.
A U.S. Energy Department report is, uh, reporting that wind turbines could provide 20% of the country’s electricity supplies by 2030. This could be a key move in delaying development of new coal plants and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the Toronto Star, wind power is the fastest growing renewable energy source in the U.S., powering 30% of power-plant capacity last year.
Is the sweet sorghum plant the miracle crop that we’re looking for to provide cheap animal feed and fuel without straining the world’s food supply or harming the environment? Some scientists say it might be.
It has high positive energy balance, producing about eight units of energy for every unit of energy invested in its cultivation and production, roughly equivalent to sugarcane and about four times greater than the energy produced by corn. Sweet sorghum requires little or no irrigation, limiting the use of fuel-burning water pumps that emit carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change…
CarbonTeeshirt.com produces carbon-reduced, climate neutral “Carbon T’s” using 100% organically combed cotton and organic, water-based dyes.
The manufacturing process is also pretty green - their climate neutral manufacturing facilities use sustainable energy generated from solar power and wind power. No fossil fuels are burnt in the manufacture of the t-shirts and the organic cotton is even planted and harvested without mechanization.
For every Carbon Tee that is purchased, a donation is made to the Plant A Tree Today Foundation (PATT), which is currently working in Asia to campaign for better environmental practices and implement reforestation projects.
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