"Green Education Foundation"

“Green Education Foundation”

http://www.greeneducationfoundation.org/

Green Education Foundation “provides sustainability education resources to K-12 classrooms” (“Green”). Their target age groups are these youth, but also their families as well as they can carry out their knowledge and transfer them into their families. Their objective is to promote and enhance environmental education (“Green”). The organization believes that enhancing the youth’s awareness of environmental education, will be effective to enforces people to save the environment.

This organization features what I personally believe is the most important to increase environmental awareness, through education. Without the knowledge of what is happening in the world, without understanding why it is happening, ways to prevent them, it is almost impossible to improve the environmental situations. Bringing awareness from a young age will also increase its effectiveness as they will be able to carry out the awareness and preventing the worsening of the environment in the future.

The Unlikely Greening of Walmart

When one hears Walmart, thoughts of green friendly practices and local farmers are probably far from anyone’s mind. Walmart is often equated with our consumerism, focus on low prices that don’t reflect true costs, corporatism, and, to many, all that is evil. It’s difficult then to reconcile this image with the changes Walmart is making in how they do business. In the past five years, Walmart has begun using hybrid 18 wheelers, recycling the plastic from their water bottles into dog beds, and carrying more environmentally sustainable products. It’s newest initiative focuses on the produce each Walmart sells.

Walmart is the biggest grocer in the world. This past Thursday, Walmart announced that it would be buying produce from more local farmers worldwide. In the United States, it is aiming to have 9% of purchases be locally grown produce by 2015. Farms will be held accountable for how much and how water, energy, fertilizer, and pesticides are used. Buying from small and female owned farms is also being incorporated into this initiative. In addition, each store will try to buy produce from areas close to the store or along main transportation corridors so that transportation costs are reduced. The new focus on local is only part of the new push. Walmart also plans to only buy palm oil from sustainable sellers and Brazilian beef only from producers who are not harming the Amazon as these two industries are huge contributors to the deforestation of the Amazon. These new goals are admirable and give hope that corporations have a conscience and a big picture view of the changes that need to happen. Seeing as Walmart is huge not just domestically but internationally, the example they’re setting of environmental and economic sustainability not being mutually exclusive is important. I must skeptically question how well these initiatives are kept to and how large an impact they make, but it is undeniably a step in the right direction for Walmart and corporate responsibility.

Walmart’s Greening

Abound Solar

http://www.abound.com/default.asp

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/07/06/obama-pledges-2b-stimulus-funds-solar-firms

Abound Solar company creates state of the art solar panels that produce more power for a fraction of the cost. They use cadium telluride in comparison to normal crystalline silicon. It only takes about 5 months to create more energy than it took to make the panels which is also 5x faster than the traditional solar panels. Obama has also given a $400 million for them to expand their plant in Colorado and create a new one in Indiana. This plant construction will create 2000 jobs and 1500 permanent jobs. This production will also be enough to fuel 200,000 homes. It is great that there are amazing advancements taking place in the world of green energy.