Green Business

You don’t have to try to be perfect. Just do a few things to start making your life and your business green - common sense things.

One thing that many people forget is that even small changes are important. Reducing green house gases on a large scale, for example, through the use of alternative energy, is very important but one can start by simply being diligent in recycling cans and bottles. Everything is important and everything makes an impact. Being “aware” is much more important than people realize. Always keep in mind how you can reduce your impact on the world and its resources.

Companies are finding out that reducing their impact on the environment can actually lead to a cost savings for their business. But let’s be realistic here, not every energy savings technique will result in a cost savings, but maybe in a few years they will. This is where having a green business becomes interesting.

One of our goals at Green Business is to add value. Here is a list of resources to help green up your life and your business. You might find these sites interesting because being a little more environment friendly isn’t as hard as you may think. Many of you may already know of these websites and many more may not, but these should be bookmarked and always kept on file - they are just that helpful.

1. TreeHugger - Presenting a whole bunch of ways to go green in your life, this site is a great place to start if you want to make your life a little cleaner for the environment. How to green your water and how to green your electricity are just two tips that Tree Hugger’s “go green” area offers its readers.

2. David Suzuki Foundation - Filled with so many different and important resources, from areas focusing on solving global warming to creating a sustainable economy, this is a site that has a more academic approach to fighting global warming.

3. Natural Resource Defense Council - This is one of my favorite sites, and they do have an area of their website devoted to greening a business.

4. Green Markets International - Non-profit organization whose goal is to increase the use of alternative energy. This site seems to be designed for the intellectual in all of us.

5. About.com Sustainable Development - This area of the website About.com presents a number of useful articles about sustainable businesses.

The criteria was strict and the decision was difficult to make but here they are, the ten best environment websites in the world.

1. Alternative Energy News - This web site has always been a favorite of mine when looking for news about alternative and renewable energies. I have had the pleasure of meeting its founder and webmaster Alex Ramon. He’s dedicated and passionate about all things environmental, and lucky for us he started this website a couple of years ago. Incorporating up-to-date videos and well written articles, Alternative Energy recently integrated its sister site, Energy Planet, a renewable energy directory, into the mix. Alex has also created a search engine focusing on the environment. Alternative Energy is, and will continue be, the leader in environment news. This makes Alternative Energy News the best environment website in the world. Congratulations, Alex!

2. PESWiki - This great website focuses on renewable energy solutions, and it is community-built. The “Wiki” phenomenon has not left out the environment as illustrated by PESWiki. Being entirely driven by people who have a zeal for the environment, only the best and most relevant articles and information is presented. At this site, all of us have the opportunity to help increase the awareness of, and to learn about, the environment. Everyone has an opportunity to add their two cents and present information that they feel is vital to saving our planet. This is a site that is growing at a very fast pace and in my opinion they have only scratched the surface as to what it can offer, and what it could mean to the environmental community.

3. Live Science - Easy to read, entertaining, and fact driven are just a few of the reasons that I have Live Science rated as the third best environment website in the world. It reminds me of National Geographic, but with more text to go along with beautiful photography. Definitely a website for both the serious and the arm chair environmentalist. One beef I do have is that I saw an advertisement for British Petroleum. That aside, this is an excellent site.

4. About My Planet - A web community devoted to the environment, About My Planet has very well written articles by a number of knowledgeable people. Consistently updated and beautifully designed with a wonderful balance of inviting images and text, this is a website that stands head and shoulders above many others. A recent addition to About My Planet is a service called Grow. Entirely based on stories from it readers, Grow creates wonderful and intelligent dialogue from its users. About My Planet has done it right and I am a regular visitor.

5.BusinessGreen blog - Based in the UK, this is a blog filled with well written articles by author James Murray. Geared towards readers interested in green and sustainable businesses, BusinessGreen blog offers its readers a well thought-out perspective in this fast-growing area of the world’s economy.

6. Meet the Greens - This site keeps the kids in mind. Smartly focusing on educating our children in a fun way about the environment, this site is highly interactive. Using animation and other highly visual techniques to keep its readers attention, Meet the Greens is a website for all ages.

7. National Geographic - Yes, the one and only National Geographic. Their main site is wonderful, but don’t forget to go to the link titled environment. Beautifully laid out, like the magazine, their online version is full of stunning pictures. Their writing team is pumping out some top quality articles at the site, adding to its overall appeal. It is obvious that the transition that the magazine made to the current online version was a successful one.

8.Digg - Many people aren’t even aware that Digg has an area at its site devoted entirely to the environment. With thousands of articles in its archives, it is a great tool to browse for your own enjoyment, or to do some serious research.

9.Inside Greentech - A website full of articles and up to date news about green technology. Growing in leaps and bounds over the past few months this is a website that could easily crack the top five in a year or two.

10. Green Business - I couldn’t make a list of the ten best environment websites and not put Green Business on it. We offer articles and news about businesses that focus on keeping the planet livable - hopefully for generations! Some articles will be serious, while others will be more light-hearted. The one thing in common is that they will be written with my love of our planet in mind.

There you have it, the ten best environment websites in the world. As the internet grows, as well as our consciousness about our fragile planet, new and exciting environmental resources will emerge. These resources will provide two fundamental things, they will both educate and offer us hope for a fantastic future.

Wind turbines having been taking a beating in the media recently. People having been saying that not only are they ugly to look at, but they are noisy. I decided to get an impartial opinion on the subject, so I asked Jimmy Pickett, an oilman from Calgary, his thoughts. He’s been working in the oil industry, in one capacity or another, for thirty years. Our conversation was short and to the point.

“What we need is oil, more oil,” Calgary oilman Jimmy Pickett proclaimed. He continued “These wind mills are loud and they’re an eye-sore.” I asked him about the pollutants that oil refineries emit. He responded by calling me a liar and saying, “It’s not the refineries that make the pollution, it’s the people who keep driving all of them cars.” He then asked me if I knew what my carbon footprint was. I asked him if he knew what his was. He responded, “You keep turning this around and blaming the victim. By the way, building wind turbines in areas far enough away from homes so people aren’t disturbed by the noise is a cop-out. Just stop building them, and stop experimenting. You’re a jerk.”

How can one argue with that?

Not since the invention of sliced bread has their been such interest in a new product. With precision and silence this new device, rivaled only by goats and cows, is making inroads into suburbs across America and forever changing the face of the landscaping industry.

Without the need of fuel and producing no greenhouse gas emissions, the push-mower may one day go down as the world’s most ingenious device.

Move over, iphone. Step aside, time machine. There’s a new kid on the block!

Large oil companies - specifically British Petroleum, have hit a new low. The term Carbon Footprint has become the newest fad in environmentalism. Basically, British Petroleum, as well as other oil companies, is asking us what our environmental impact is. To this I say, “Screw You!”. How dare oil companies turn the tables around and start pointing the finger at the individual.

It’s their latest, great public relations campaign to put the onus on us. Instead of looking in the mirror, which is exactly what these companies should be doing, they’re taking the easy way out and are asking us how we are destroying the planet. I guess it’s a lot easier, and cheaper, to throw money into ad campaigns designed to camouflage what they are actually doing - raping the earth.

Stop with the crap and clean up your own backyard before telling me to clean up my insignificant mess.