Providence, RI - Natural Awakenings

Evergreen Cooperative Initiative (ECI):
Businesses and community groups in
Cleveland, Ohio, determined that they
needed to solve the problem of joblessness
in low-income areas by creating
living-wage jobs and then training
eligible residents to fill them. They
developed a new, cooperative-based
economic model, based on green jobs
that can inspire other cities with similar
economic woes.
The ECI is a community undertaking
in which anchor institutions like
the Cleveland Foundation, University
Hospitals and the municipal government
leverage their purchasing power to help
create green-focused, employee-owned
local businesses, which to date include
a green laundromat, the hydroponic
greenhouse Green City Growers, and
Ohio Cooperative Solar, which provides
weatherization and installs and maintains
solar panels. The solar cooperative will
more than double Ohio’s solar generating
capacity from 2011 levels by the end of
2012 (see EvergreenCooperatives.com).
CALGreen: Updated building codes
may not generate much excitement
until we consider that U.S. buildings
account for a lion’s share of carbon
dioxide emissions (39 percent), and
consume 70 percent of the electricity
we generate. The U.S. Green Building
Council (USGBC) reports, “If half of
new commercial buildings were built
to use 50 percent less energy, it would
save over 6 million metric tons of CO 2
annually for the life of the buildings—
the equivalent of taking more than 1
million cars off the road every year.”
The California Green Building
Standards Code (CALGreen), which
took effect in January 2011, sets the
highest green bar for new buildings in
the country. It requires that new buildings
achieve a 20 percent reduction in
potable water use, divert 50 percent of
their construction waste from landfills,
use paints and materials with low
volatile organic compound content and
provide parking for clean-air vehicles.
Multiple key stakeholders have been involved
throughout the process, including
the California Energy Commission
and the Sierra Club.
“We really tried to bring together
an entire spectrum of people and
groups with different perspectives and
Sustainable development
includes fighting poverty,
increasing social inclusion
(including advancing the
status of women) and protecting
the environment.
expertise to build a consensus,” says
David Walls, executive director of the
California Building Standards Commission.
“If we were going to put something
in the code, we wanted to make
sure it was right.” (See Tinyurl.com/
CALGreen-Home.)
Renewable Portfolio Standard: Texas
leads the country in electricity gener-
COMPELLING
INTERNATIONAL
ECO-INITIATIVES
Aruba is working with Sir Richard
Branson’s Carbon War Room program
to transition to 100 percent renewable
energy.
Germany has committed to drawing
80 percent of its electricity from
renewable sources by 2050.
India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency
signed an agreement with the European
Union to reduce its carbon
emissions by 77,000 tons in the next
3.5 years.
Norway has pledged $140 million
to boost sustainable energy in rural
Kenya, including replacing kerosene
lamps with solar alternatives.
Source: CloudOfCommitments.org
24 Rhode Island Edition RINaturalAwakenings.com
ated from wind power. One complex,
in Roscoe, features 627 turbines on
100,000 acres that cost $1 billion to
build. Much of the rapid growth of the
state’s wind industry can be credited
to Texas’ Renewable Portfolio Standard,
legislation passed in 1999 that
mandated construction of renewable
energy, including solar, geothermal,
hydroelectric, biomass and landfill gas,
in addition to wind.
It further mandated that utilities
generate 2,000 megawatts of additional
renewable energy by 2009, then
5,880 MW by 2015 and 10,000 MW
by 2025. The 10-year goal was met in
six years, and Texas has added many
green jobs, increased tax revenues
and provided security against blackouts,
which is critical in the event of
extreme heat or drought (see Tinyurl.
com/TexasStandard).
Edison Innovation Green Growth Fund:
Clean technology is booming despite
the economic recession and attracting
serious investment funds. According to
a report by Clean Edge, Inc., venture
capital investments in clean technologies
increased 30 percent between
2010 and 2011, from $5.1 billion to
$6.6 billion.
New Jersey entrepreneurs are
upping their state’s potential in this
arena with the Edison Innovation Green
Growth Fund. The program proffers
loans of up to $2 million for companies,
research facilities and nonprofits
engaged in producing clean energy
technologies, ranging from energy efficiency
products such as LED lighting to
solar, wind, tidal, biomass and methane
capture. A condition of the loan is that
a project must employ 75 percent of its
workforce from New Jersey, or commit
to growing 10 high-paying jobs (minimum
$75,000 annually) over two years
(see Tinyurl.com/NewJersey-EDA).
Grassroots Leadership
Elinor Ostrom, the political economist
who won a Nobel Prize in economics
but passed on just before the start of the
Rio conference, dedicated her last blog
post to considering the event’s impact.
Titled “Green from the Grassroots,” the
post stressed the priority of a multifaceted
approach to curbing emissions.
“Decades of research demonstrate