It’s been awhile since we have posted a green post. It’s really not from a lack of ideas, but more of which ones to post. Then we watched this video this week and thought how much better can it get? It’s a Ted Talk that’s informative, 5 minutes long, and includes some rules to live by. Enjoy – and don’t forget to shake and fold!

You’ve probably read about Nest by now, but if you haven’t, check them out. It’s not everyday something so ordinary and taken for granted gets an intuitive, well-designed and urgently needed overhaul (even though nobody really realized the need for it). Nest tells us that our thermostats control up to 50% of our energy bill, so why have we waited so long? Check out more about why they made it.

The Nest is a “learning thermostat,” designed to be easy to use and save money by programming itself, letting you manage it from the cloud,  and giving you tons of info and feedback to help you learn how to save even more. It’s good for the planet, and it’s good for your wallet. And it’s great design. Win-win-win.

We bought one for the office, and are excited to see how/if it transforms our energy usage. Watch for updates!

What’s an everyday product you think is in dire need of a redesign? Let us know in the comments.

It’s hard to believe it’s been over four years since our very first Green 2.9 post. Since then, we’ve implemented various (successful and not-so-successful at times) strategies in our effort to be as responsible as we know how when it comes to environment, social, and financial sustainability. We believe that these three arenas work together to form a complete view of what it means to be a sustainable company that contributes to the continued good of our world – both now and in the future. And we know that we’ve just begun to scratch the surface.

A small forest, a few swimming pools, and energy to spare…

2011 was a good green year for us. As you can see in the graph above, we met or exceeded nearly all the goals we set (with the exception of  aluminum cans recycled, but that’s because we drank even less soda this year, so we’ll toast to good health on that failed goal). We recycled more than we ever have this year. Our paper usage for printed projects was way up due to some large projects at the end of the year that used 100% post consumer recycled content paper. We made a few calculations based on the savings from those projects. When compared to using 100% virgin fiber paper, we saved …

405 trees provide enough oxygen for over 200 people to breathe for a whole year. It feels good to know a small forest is still alive because of a simple choice in paper!

That’s nearly 200,000 gallons of water! It’s hard to believe how much water goes into making paper. Now, if only we could get our own swimming pool in the R29 back yard…

Recycling paper uses much less energy than creating new paper. And, if your paper mill utilizes green power, that’s even more of a bonus. We calculated the paper we chose this year saved 125 million BTUs, which according to data is enough energy to power the average American household for 510 days. How would you like free electricity for over a year?

It’s Electric…

Speaking of electricity, we installed a new system in late June to help us get real-time feedback on our electricity usage. The Current Cost system is working well. It helped us find that our programmable thermostat is working (we weren’t sure at first) and also how our electricity ebbs and flows with our habits. We continue to monitor it and adjust our usage accordingly for maximum savings.

Our Footprint’s Getting Smaller…

We also met our carbon footprint goal this year with a footprint of 393.4 acres. That’s down from 510 last year, and we hope to get it down to 380 next year. We realized that transportation plays a large role in an office’s carbon footprint. So we give a shout out to all the bikers and train-takers out there!

Well, that’s one long post. Any green questions or suggestions out there? We still have a lot to learn.

Remember that you can always download our green designer checklist and green print form any time.

Here at R29, we love being green. It’s something we believe is at the heart of responsibility in this world. We have been tracking our recycling, print usage, and carbon footprint for several years now, and in doing so have found that one area we could improve upon is electricity usage.

For example, the average American household uses 908 kWh per month of electricity (source). The average household in Illinois uses less than that – about 728 kWh per month. Last year our average monthly usage was 1,856.5 kWh (and the year before that was even higher). Now, granted, we have more employees with more electricity demand than a household has, but we don’t think we necessarily need more than double the amount of electricity, do we?

There’s only one way to find out.

In order to do that, we recently purchased an electricity monitor to help us in this endeavor. If we can get real-time feedback on our electricity usage, it will be easier to change our habits and reduce electricity waste (and money!). Current Cost made it easy to get up and running with monitoring our electricity usage, which we’ve been doing for about the past 2.5 weeks. Our electricity usage data is automatically uploaded to the web every 5 minutes for us to view. Each day’s chart has been overlaid in the image above to give you the average idea of how our power usage goes. In the past two and a half weeks, so far we’ve learned:

1. Our programmable thermostat is indeed working (we weren’t so sure)
2. It seems most of the spikes in energy occur because of the air conditioning
3. We have about 600 watts of power always on. If we could eliminate that 600 watts, we could save about $560 per year (although we can’t completely eliminate it, we could reduce it if we find what’s causing the drain)

And so we begin our journey into electrical awareness and reducing our consumption. Will you join us?

• View our live electricity usage any time here
• Consider joining us in our endeavor – we’d love to hear how your office is reducing electricity usage.

Earth Day 2011 is tomorrow! We all are grateful for our planet; consider pledging an act of green at the Billion Acts of Green campaign. As a design firm, one green act to incorporate in your projects is calculating the impact of your print projects. Check out Neenah’s Eco paper calculator here. Or, pre-empt your paper choice with a greener option by doing a super quick search on your favorite brands here.

Looking for some green entertainment? This year is DisneyNature is releasing their third annual Earth Day film: African Cats. Disney will donate a portion of the proceeds to savannah preservation where the movie was filmed.

This year’s Earth Day nearly falls on the one-year anniversary of the BP Gulf Oil disaster, which was yesterday, April 20th. One year later, the communities are still struggling to rebound after the devastating disaster.  Here is a great collection of recent photos from the region. BP is suing Transocean, the operator of the rig that exploded. But, on a positive note, all the fishing waters have been reopened, and life is slowly returning to a more normal state.

How do you celebrate Earth Day? Any green news or tips we’re missing? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Also, you can find out more about what Rule29 is doing to be green here.

Welcome to our 2010 installment of all things green at Rule29! If you haven’t been following along our green progress for the year, please check out our Green Thumb page for monthly reports on recycling and print usage.

We are happy to not only report our successes but be transparent about our challenges. The graphic above represents our little R29 forest that we’ve started over the past two years. So far in our tracking, we’ve saved 39 trees due to choosing responsible papers from our friends at Neenah and Appleton Coated. In 2010 alone, we calculated that we saved 13 trees, which amounts to 4,596 pounds of wood! While that may not seem like much compared to a whole forest, 6 of you readers would have all the oxygen you need for an entire year due to those 13 trees. So breathe easy.

Here is the full report:

While we are happy about our progress, you can see that we didn’t quite make most of our goals this year. We want to be honest about it, share our successes and challenges, and seek feedback, all in the hopes of working together for the greater good.

Here’s a category breakdown of the goals and the results (columns in the above chart, left to right):

• Recycled: This is the weight of the goods we recycled from the office during 2010. We weigh it every week before putting it out for collection. We exceeded our goal by 3 pounds!
• Cans: We didn’t make it near our goal of 687 cans. But hey, that’s not all that bad. Less pop consumed is better for us!
• Footprint: This is our carbon footprint. The high number is deceptive; in this column, lower is better. We finished too high due to the inclusion of more air travel this year, along with more water usage from a leaky toilet (which was promptly fixed upon discovery).

The next 5 columns all have to do with resources saved due to printing on papers with post-consumer recycled content and those made with renewable energy. We didn’t quite hit any of our goals, as you can see, and we will touch on that in the “What didn’t work” section below.

What worked in 2010:

• Our in-office recycling program reached an all-time high. Keeping recycling bins around and installing an easy-to-use tracking system (big scale and chart) has made recycling part of our culture at R29.
• Our aluminum can crusher is still going strong. We think it makes recycling fun.
• Using the improved Eco Paper Calculator from our friends @NeenahPaper. They even have a great Eco Calculator iPhone app!

What didn’t work in 2010:

• Creating extra work for employees and printers. We have had difficulty getting data on all of our print jobs returned to us. This is due to an extra step for both the employee and the printer to fill out a “green form”. We are revisiting this process to make it easier and quicker for both ends.

Overall, the green process at R29 is one that we are continually trying to improve upon. It is becoming more and more a part of our culture, and we are welcome to any ideas and suggestions you might have in your own endeavors. What green successes did you have in 2010?

A few months ago I was sitting on a plane, having already perused SkyMall twice, convinced I had to have five quirky new gadgets that I didn’t need. But before things got carried away, I put SkyMall down and reached for the National Geographic, looking for something more interesting and perhaps enlightening.

And, even though I honestly didn’t expect it, that’s what I found.

Electricity. I take it for granted. When I flip the switch, I expect instant light. When I wake my computer up, I expect its screen to cast that cool hue across the room. When I plug in the coffee maker in the morning, I don’t even consider the possibility of there not being enough electricity to power up my morning brew.

But I have to admit, I have no idea how electricity gets from point A to point B (or where or what point A even is). All I know is that I pay the bill, so it better be there. Which brings up an important point. In this digital age, why do they still have to pay someone to go out to your house and visually read that meter? Doesn’t that seem a little… pre-internet?

The article brought up the fact that meters are still the same basic technology that existed in the 1920s. And the grid that supplies all of our power hasn’t changed much since the ’60s. And we are pushing it to its limits.

Electricity is all about instantaneous supply and demand. It can’t be practically stored long term on large scale like a giant battery. So when you flip on your light switch, the power that instantly lights up the room was created a fraction of a second ago miles away. So there are actually people holed up in rooms with 30 screens monitoring and managing the real-time demand for electricity. If there’s not enough, they call to a nearby power plant to send more electricity. If there’s too much, power lines can overheat and dangerously sag, threatening short circuiting and power outages. That is exactly what happened in August 2003, if you recall, when there was a blackout from Ohio to New York City for days.

This tightrope balance is managed every day by power networks, and it has been that way for 50 years. Isn’t it time for a change – for a smarter system?

Cue the Smart Grid. You’ve probably heard about it by now. It’s a new system being introduced around the world that gives customers and power companies better data on electricity usage. This data allows customers to make better choices about when and how to use power, lowering their costs. And it streamlines the electricity system for power companies, so they are able to manage energy demand more efficiently and reliably. Sounds great, right? But the smart grid has had trouble gaining traction. For example, the grid has been introduced in Boulder, Colorado, but only about 10% of customers there have a smart meter. The reason is the high initial cost of replacing your old meter (about $200 according to the article). But this investment, shared by a whole city and eventually the whole nation, will pay for itself in time, not only monetarily, but also in the lower amount of CO2 emissions. Currently power production creates 38% of the U.S.’s total CO2 emissions, but a smarter grid could greatly reduce that percentage.

Maybe you knew all this. I don’t remember  learning this in school. Do you? I would encourage you to check out the smart grid and read the article to get the whole picture. And if the Smart Grid comes to a city near you, opt for joining it. As the number of power-hungry devices in our lives continue to increase, a more reliable power grid is the way to go for our future.

Although this eco index will not be ready for the public just yet, it kicks off a new beginning towards an eco-fashion future. This is really exciting when you think about the fact that the average American population sends 23.8 billion pounds of clothing and textile waste to landfills each year, and according to the Textile Recycling Organization 95% of that is recyclable. I also was reading that ILO estimates that there are 128 million child labourers between the ages of 5 and 17 worldwide, 126 million of whom are engaged in hazardous work, and 73 million of whom are younger than 10. That statistic is ridiculous, I sit and think of my young nieces and nephews and it makes my stomach sick.

Yet, like anything, there are always drawbacks.

Some steps I can handle and I can afford. From today until the day I die I have given up Polyester—never really liked it anyway! Polyester is not biodegradable, so everything we’ve dumped in landfills around the globe will be with us for about another 200 years. And because most polyester is blended with other fabrics, it has become difficult for the garments to be recycled into something else.

Measuring the environmental impact on apparel and footwear is very interesting and helpful. When shopping for simple t-shirts and pajamas I am “in” and will be interested in checking and comparing ratings on my purchases from Target. But when it comes down to the whole of my wardrobe I am not sure how well it will work for me personally. There is a point for myself when I can only go so far in becoming “green”. I turn lights off, I recycle like there is no tomorrow, only buy natural cleaning products, give clothing to Goodwill, and even recently invested in a rain barrel for watering my garden… but this is where I have to take a break and say,”Earth, I am sorry but in the name of fashion I must disobey the green laws and buy what truly makes me happy and what I can afford.”

If I do all that I can on every other aspect of saving the Earth can I cheat a bit with non-green fashions? I appreciate those that can and want to wear only cotton, hemp and sustainable clothing. I have searched online for shoes and clothing websites that design accordingly, but it is just not my style for the most part. Although I have found some super cute sites the problem is having the money to invest in the clothing. If they were not so pricey I would be able to conform to this, but the price tags are not for my budget. It makes you wonder if it is so important to live “green” why they make it so hard for the average american to afford to do so. Ecouterre is a very informative and super cool website to check out fashion trends and what is going on in the world. There is a long list of eco-conscious designers on the website and those out there that can afford to shop from them I can only hope to be there one day also!

Is there any pocket-friendly, fashion-forward, non-hemp clothing websites out there that I have yet to find? Share your favorite eco-fashion finds in the comments.

I know it’s taboo to talk about winter in the middle of a Chicago summer, but I am going to break my own rule and do it. Last year my husband and I bought a quaint 1920′s tutor style house in Elgin, an older suburb of Chicago. We were first time home buyers, which meant not only did we have a new mortgage to pay every month, but we also had to purchase some bigger ticket items to help maintain our small slice of Americana. We went ahead and got the lawnmower (great deal off Craigslist) and several other items, but we decided to hold out on the snow blower. Needless to say 3 shovels and seemingly 1,000 snow days later, we caved and got our little 5.5 horse power Honda.

As my husband was snow blowing our driveway one morning, I looked outside to see that each one of our neighbors was doing the same. I counted 7 snow blowers going up and down their respective drive and walk ways and then each retreat back into their homes. It was actually shocking to me that I had never noticed this before and a little disturbing that none of these 6 other snow blower owners had ever offered to help us out after seeing us over the past couple months with our little shovels.

By no means do I mean to hate on our new neighbors, as they have been more than generous as we have gotten to know them, but my point is more about wondering is it good or even right that we collect so much stuff and keep it to ourselves? Is sharing what you have a thing of the past? Do we really need all these snow blowers?

The answer, of course, is no. We don’t need all this stuff and the truth is we know it. In fact most of us have probably let out exasperating sighs when looking in our garages, basements, closets and at the cost we pay for storage spaces. (According to The Self Storage Association, there is over seven square feet of self-storage for every person in America.)

So we have a lot of things. Authors Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers in their book What’s Mine is Yours suggest that there is a reason we have been collecting all these things. The 20th Century in the United States was defined by hyper-consumption. Credit, advertising and what we owned were the measures of value in society. So no wonder you have to rent storage space!

In the same book though, Bostman and Roo say that things are shifting and that the 21st Century is one of Collaborative Consumption. This means instead of measuring value in the gaining of things, value will be determined by reputation, community and what we can access. This idea has interesting implications across all areas of life, but especially around the stuff we own.

There are many reasons for this shift in thinking. The financial downturn is one, along with efforts to be more environmentally conscious. People and businesses are continually looking for ways to save money and reduce their footprint. In addition to these factors, faith and trust in big government and large corporations is beginning to wain and communities are starting to look inwardly to provide for themselves and their neighbors. For the first time in a long time, bartering is on the rise. So is sharing.

This brings me back my neighborhood of snow blowers. Be it for financial reasons or environmental, communities and groups of neighbors are starting to pool their resources to meet the needs of the group. From family style dinners to sharing of lawnmowers or other appliances people are sharing what they have.

And some people are even making a business of it. Remember all the stuff you have in your basement, closets, storage spaces that have been collecting dust for months? Years? You don’t want to sell it or give it away, but it could still make you some extra cash. Could be someone in your area might be willing to rent it from you. You’re not using it anyways right? Renting or loaning it out might be a good way to bring in a couple extra bucks.

The site NeighborGoods.net helps you do both of these and helps you find others to borrow or rent from.

Other sites are popping up all over connecting people who have something with people who need something. Craigslist and eBay are the big players we all know about, while Zopa (peer-to-peer lending), Swaptree (swapping goods) and Zipcar (carpooling) serve on a more personal/local level.

Sharing does have its risks (I’m sure you have already gone through all the reasons why no one is going to touch your stuff) but the reality is collaborative consumption is the way society is turning and like many technological advances there are some really big benefits.

Like most things, I suggest start small and be smart. If you don’t already, lend something you own to someone you know. And maybe borrow something from them. Set dates or a time frame for the loan so you know when you will be getting your property back and vise versa. As you become more comfortable and a little less attached to your things, possibilities are endless.

Let us know if this is something you’ve tried. What are the cons and pros you’re experiencing? Is there anything you wish you could borrow or lend?

One of our current interns, Dawn Bjork, is a lover of all things green and fashion related. We wanted her to write about her recent experience designing ecofashion clothing for the ReVamped show in Chicago. We think her work and ideas are quite amazing; please read about her participation and insight below!

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Just recently I was involved in a green fashion show called ReVamped. EarthShare of Illinois sponsored the event, and it was an amazing night! For those of you that do not know about EarthShare of Illinois, it is a non-profit organization that participates in public and private sector workplace giving campaigns on behalf of its member organizations. I was pretty amazed that I had never known until a few months ago about ESIL, seeing that they contribute to places that I visit and read about all the time, like Shedd Aquarium, Lincoln Park Zoo, National Wildlife Association, and more than 60 other organizations….they are pretty amazing.

The night was about celebrating and promoting the beauty of eco-conscious lifestyle practices. What was super amazing about the event was that it didn’t only promote some really cool fashion designers, it also awakened the guests to all sorts of green “things.” Eco-tools gave away some of the best make-up brushes that my eyelids have ever had swept across them, and they’re good for the earth! What I have found in my searches as I attempt to go as green as possible is a couple really cool sites that help show you the green life. EcoFashionWorld is a website that is the ultimate resource to all designers, brands, and stores in ecofashion. TreeHugger.com is also one of my favorites informing the world on eco-conscious practices. Along with them is Terracycle.net, which coincidentally supplied ReVamped with a gown made by designer Christina Liedtke that is being displayed at the Terracycle store in Times Square, made completely out of M&M wrappers (600 of them to be exact).

Although I was one of them, I must admit the designers’ concepts that were showcased were unbelievable. If we didn’t show that going green can be a fashion decision that stems to all angles of your life, I am not sure what would! Each designer spun their own story: Sarah Trutter made her pieces out of plastic garment bags, muslin and scrap fabric; while Sofia Vintage transformed vintage pieces into a new collection, bringing a completely new breath to old thrown out clothing. Ogi Merziers collection was also unbelievable. To construct one of her pieces, she collected empty chip bags and orchestrated a dress made from, well, someone’s garbage. I also went a completely different route and used old patchwork quilts and felted raw wool that came from one of the coolest animals on the planet, the alpaca. (On a side note, I was watching Jay Leno last night, and he had an alpaca on his show. The best part was that the alpaca master was speaking of how the alpaca could be a tremendous help in cleaning up the oil spill. He showed how the fibers soak up an enormous amount of the oil, and all that is needed is to shave the animals and soak it up. People may think I am crazy, but my love for the alpaca has now grown to an even higher level.) I also used cookie tins of old abandoned buttons that were forgotten and now have been given a new life.  Each one of us designers was inspired by and drew from the idea of bringing new life to what was garbage in someone else’s eyes.

Becoming green is definitely a trend right now; the question is whether or not it will be something that the world recognizes and realizes is life changing and could, if not done soon, be life threatening. This is one trend that in my book I hope is forecasted to last forever.

Are there any cool websites, designers, stores where you live that showcase the love for all things green? And don’t forget check out EarthShare of Illinois, become aware of their greatness for all that they do, and watch for next years’ ReVamped fashion show.