Corey and I went to Food Inc. with a friend last week down at Filmstreams. The theater was packed, which says a lot about the level of concern people have about our food system.

We’ve been aware of the problems with the industrial food system for a number of years. We’ve watched documentaries and read books about nutrition, the food industry, and corporate power in the fundamentals of life. This film pulled together the three elements in a way that hopefully makes an impact with people who are just opening their eyes to the problem.

When we leave a theater our conversation usually starts with, “what was your favorite part?” I was at a loss on this one. There were so many enlightening, fun, confusing, or disturbing elements.

Enlightening:
The segment on how Monsanto is enforces their patents on seeds in the courts. There was a feature on a professional seed cleaner who is paid by local farmers to process their harvest for planting the next season. This process is apparently illegal if the seed (or possibly seed from adjacent farms) is a patented Monsanto product. This poor guy was blacklisted, his friends and clients turned against him, and he was run out of business because of the extent of his legal expenses. What is wrong with our world?

Fun:
An small-scale organic farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms provided thoughtful, whimsical, and grounded insight into his life and methods. I was quick to underestimate him when he first came on camera. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that I had a lot to learn from him.

Confusing:
I don’t know how I feel about the segments featuring Stoneybrook Farms and Walmart. Obviously I make my living by helping businesses play a role in driving sustainability. But it was still difficult to reconcile the massive scale and profit driven business models discussed in the film. The camera also took a stroll through a natural foods trade show and highlighted that many of the natural and organic brands that line the shelves of Whole Foods are now wholly owned by conventional corporate giants.

Disturbing:
The segment on industrial chicken producers. These massive and inhumane operations grow chickens in something like 45 days. These are like pathetically malproportioned and unhealthy versions of real birds. So sad. There were also disturbing images of cattle and hog operations that will make you want to forsake fast food.

This documentary is a must see for anyone interested in learning more about our food supply. Like my favorite farmer said, “People would feel differently about the food they eat if the meat processing facilities had glass walls.” (approximation) This film gives you a look inside.

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Social entrepreneurship is a way of using business to tackle social issues. Furniture on the Street is a social enterprise project that sells contemporary-designed pieces of outdoor wooden furniture. The key is that the tables and chairs are made by unemployed youth and the factory work prepares them for the job market.

As part of the programme, students get a one-year carpentry course and are taught the design process. The good looking planters, garbage bins and benches are made out of reclaimed wood and the frames are made locally.

The workshop activities provided include model-making, teaching basic computer design software skills and visits to timber yards. It’s a way to give the students and their customers a complete environmental focus.

Students can design the benches, work on the graphics and colors and see the concrete results when the products are purchased. And it’s not just a charity–a city council in north London bought ten benches. Says one of the organizers “We use local labor, our frames are made locally, and we have an environmental focus. You’re not doing us a favor. You get a competitive product.”

And they are making money and the trainees are getting jobs. All of them so far have gone on to continue their education and one is studying furniture design at a university. They want to extend the programme now to include fencing and metalwork.

It has been defined as a “halfway house between profits-driven businesses and charities” that can “take the profit motive to parts of the voluntary and public sector that have in the past been hostile to it.”

The gateway to a livable future is found in our communities. Seek it out.

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Source: Treehugger

There are so many good things happening on the transportation front in Omaha. Mayor Fahey recently announced plans and funding for an essential East-West link between the Keystone Trail and downtown which will use dedicated bike lanes. Everyone who lives here knows how important that is. The Young Professionals just completed their Bus Challenge and Activate Omaha has the Bicycle Commuter Challenge in full swing. Omaha recently announced their downtown master plan where pedestrians and cyclists are well accounted for.

Now there is another opportunity to build a positive future for our city. The Metropolitan Area Planning Agency (MAPA) now has a Long Range Transportation Plan survey available for the public to complete. The responses from this survey will be used in updating the Long Range Transportation Plan for the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area for year 2035.

Go to www.mapacog.org and find the link for the survey at the top of the homepage. The 15 question survey covers a multitude of transportation topics and respondents can use this as a platform to make suggestions about the future of transportation in the metro area.

The MAPA Long Range Transportation Plan will provide a vision for the metropolitan area’s future transportation system. Additionally, projects must be identified in the Long Range Plan to be eligible to receive federal funding.

Please take a few minutes to help out. Thanks.

Apparently I’m in a visual mode lately. I promise that I do still read. But work has been busy and in my quick surfing I’ve been spending a little more time looking at bike sites rather than work or sustainability sites. I really should get out and ride.

I thought this was fun. Be wary if you are sensitive to swear words.

Thanks to No Ride Just Drive for the link.

My birthday is coming up and Corey treated me with an early present. She got me a Grub Hoe from EasyDigging.com.

This thing is awesome. I’ve been obsessed with gardening tools for the last year, and since we expanded our planting area this year I really needed something for cutting into untouched soil. In a catalog last year I saw an Italian Grape Hoe being used and really wanted to find something like it. None of the local stores carried anything nearly as burly as I wanted.

Easy Digging grub hoes (Azadas) from Bellotto of Brazil. The head is solid and simple, and the company includes a strong handle and even a file for keeping it sharp. I’m impressed.

I got it out in the garden yesterday and tilled about 300 square feet in an hour. The technique is easy to adapt to and the head sliced right through my hard clay soil with ease. I had a pickup load of aged manure and another of sand delivered. That’s what I’m tilling in now, down to about 6 inches. Next I’m going to double-dig the bed before laying out the plan and beginning planting. There is still a lot of work but I’ve got a ton of springtime energy to keep me going.

I posted a video about this system a few months back, but this updated vid is way better. Yesterday I rode to get my hairs cut and had to lock my bike to a planter near the front door of the salon. I had to wrestle my lock around the base of the cement planter and weave the cable through the rear wheel and frame. I’m not complaining, but I certainly didn’t look as dignified as the people in this video who are dropping off their bikes.

This post was originally published on Eco-Libris’ blog on February 26.

How green is your toilet paper? Not sure? Here’s the guide that will give you the answers: Greenpeace has just released on Monday its latest Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide.

The report is providing customers with important information about tissue products and toilet paper using 3 criteria: usage of 100% recycled paper, at least 50% post consumer recycled paper and bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.

Each category includes ranking of brands, where products that meet 3 criteria are recommended, products that meet 2 criteria are defined as “can do better” and products that meet only one or no criteria at all are “to be avoided”.

Let’s focus for a minute on toilet paper, the most popular product among the ones reviewed in this report. The brand in the first place is Green Forest, which uses 100 percent recycled and 90 percent post-consumer content, as well as chlorine-free manufacturing processes. Other brands that are also recommended are: 365, Natural Value and Seventh Generation.

And who’s to be avoided? Well, when it comes to toilet paper you will find there few familiar names: Scott, Target, Wal-Mart, Kleenex Cottonelle, Chramin, Quilted Northern and Angel Soft. According to the report they all use zero recycled paper (and of course zero post consumer content) and are bleached with chlorine compounds [just take into consideration the follwoing comment from Greenpeace: In the few cases where companies did not respond to our request for verification of recycled content percentages and whitening processes used, we assumed 0% overall recycled, 0% post-consumer recycled and ECF bleaching.]

The report is followed by a very interesting article in the New York Times (”Mr. Whipple Left It Out:  Soft Is Rough on Forests” by Leslie Kaufman), where I learned the astonishing fact that “tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands.”

Why? Well, according the article the main reason that toilet paper made of recycled paper is not as soft as toilet paper that is made of trees. Actually the article explains “it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.”

In other places around the globe the situation is in some way better and in Europe and Latin America, products with recycled content make up about on average 20 percent of the at-home market.

The price for the American’s love for softness is very high - the article brings another devastating fact:

25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide…In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say.

And it doesn’t end with trees - there are the water and energy required in the process of turning a tree into rolls of toilet paper, and there’s also the polluting chlorine-based bleach process used to achieve greater whiteness.

Who’s to blame? well, Kimberly-Clark, which says it’s the American consumer who “like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides”. I wounder if these consumers would make the same choice if they knew that for example 14 percent of the wood pulp used by Kimberly-Clark came from the Boreal forest in Canada.

The answer unfortunately is that in this case we cannot count on the consumer nor on the companies who make huge profits out of these soft papers (An article in the Guardian states that “paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry.”).

Even if consumers in the U.S. will become more aware of their toilet paper’s footprint and choose to buy more recycled paper, my guestimation is that recycled paper usage will be no higher than in Europe (20%). And that’s the optimistic scenario.

So what’s the solution? In one word: regulation. We need global and local regulation that will ban first and foremost the use of ancient forests for manufacturing tissue products. We also need regulation that will put a price tag on the environmental damages made here, so when you buy toilet paper, you will pay their real price and not a price that ignores the environmental costs. Only this way a real change can be achieved. It’s the same with plastic bags and with many other bad habits we have. Voluntary steps just don’t do enough or do too little and we can’t afford too many years of this softness obsession to keep going on. We just can’t.

I’ll be happy to hear more ideas and thoughts how to end American’s obsession to soft toilet paper. Please add your comment!

Link to Greenpeace’s guide: http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/usa/press-center/reports4/tissueguid

According to Trendwatching.com, “while financial woes may hold back some green initiatives, the future has never looked greener.”

Mainly because creating a more sustainable economy is not an option, but a necessity. And we all know that necessity is the mother of invention. Which is why this month, amidst crumbling banks, G20 meetings and stimulus plans, we highlight 12 eco sub-trends that any marketer or entrepreneur can act on today.

Trendwatching refers to these opportunities as an eco-bounty, and they provide the following definition: “ECO-BOUNTY refers to the numerous opportunities, both short and long term, for brands that participate in the epic quest for a sustainable society. Some of these opportunities exist despite the current recession, others are fueled by it, not in the least because of new rules and regulations. Downturn-obsessed brands who lose their eco-focus will find themselves left out in the cold when the global economy starts recovering.”

They break up their trends into 12 categories, ranging from Eco-Frugal to Eco-Naked. Here are a few items from throughout the list that stood out to me:

• Green building solutions retailer Green Depot has recently opened a flagship store in Manhattan that is designed to demonstrate the high-performance eco building materials in action. A light booth made of recycled resin materials, for example, helps shoppers compare light bulbs and paint colors in a controlled setting, while the Zero-VOC Paint Bar serves up a line of paints free of volatile organic chemicals. See also Natural Interiors and Eco-Logisch.
• Dutch creative agency Spranq has developed a new font called Ecofont that’s specifically designed to extend the life of ink cartridges and toner by using 20 percent less ink than traditional fonts. The free, downloadable font is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, and works best at a 9- or 10-point size.
• Bixi is a high-tech public bike system in Montreal (even more sophisticated than Paris’ Velib service) to be launched this spring, using bikes equipped with RFID tags that allow users to track availability online via real-time information beamed to the web from the system’s solar-powered bike stands. Users will pay a membership fee of CDN 78 for one year, CDN 24 for one month or CDN 5 for one day, with the first half hour of every trip provided free of charge.
• Crop to Cup is a fair trade coffee brand with a twist. In addition to buying coffee directly from farmers, representing them in markets and reinvesting in their livelihood, the brand also allows customers to trace their cup of coffee back to the farmer that produced it. Which in turn allows them to learn about the origins of the coffee and engage in a dialogue about the product.
• Philadelphia-based RecycleBank enables households to earn RecycleBank Dollars, redeemable for discount coupons at Whole Foods, RiteAid, Starbucks and participating local companies just by leaving their recyclables out to be collected. RecycleBank containers are embedded with identifying barcodes which collection trucks scan to track how much each household is recycling; the more customers recycle, the more they earn in RecycleBank dollars—up to the equivalent of USD 35 per month. (available in parts of Omaha)
• Luscious Garage is the first woman-owned and operated autoshop in San Francisco dedicated to servicing hybrids with a specialty in converting them to all-electrical plug-ins. Since opening in 2007 this unorthodox auto garage has attracted customers seeking a more friendly car repair experience with the garage’s laid back décor featuring plants and books. So far, the vast majority of customers have been Prius owners, but Luscious Garage is planning to diversify beyond hybrids in order to increase the company’s customer base. Which goes to show that ECO-FEEDER businesses may never be the next HUGE thing but they’re sure fun to start up if you’re the niche/long-tail entrepreneurial type.
• Welsh clothing brand Howies offers a line of super-durable clothing called Howies’ Hand-Me-Down that features jackets, backpacks and messenger bags designed specifically to last for 10 or more years. The company crafts its products painstakingly and uses high-quality components like organic tweed and ventile—an extremely tightly woven cotton fabric that is inherently water-resistant and uses 30 percent more yarn than conventional fabrics.
• And from the map gurus themselves: Google Maps Transit Layer, which is available for over 50 cities worldwide, overlays public transport lines onto the main map view, allowing the user to easily plan a green(er) journey to their destination.

With the help of UrbanVelo I was introduced to the Streetsblog Network. The network is a gathering place for web surfers from around the country to discuss and share information about sustainable transportation, smart growth and livable streets. Think of it as one-stop shopping for transportation policy goodness.

The network is a daily news source, online community and political mobilizer for the Livable Streets movement. We are part of a growing coalition of individuals and organizations in cities around the world working to transform our cities by reducing dependence on private automobiles and improving conditions for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders.

Streetsblog’s purpose is twofold: to create a place where people who blog on smart growth, livable streets and sustainable transportation issues can come together and learn from each other. And to provide a clearinghouse for information related to the transportation bill, or “TEA,” that directs the spending of hundreds of billions of federal dollars. The next such bill is set to come up for reauthorization in 2009.

According the the blog’s editor, “If there is going to be a grassroots movement for change in local and federal transportation policy, then our readers will be among the most active and knowledgeable participants in that movement.”

You’ve got to check it out. I’m amazed at the depth of information to be found. There are crazy links to every imaginable piece of relevant information. And there is a glossary of teams with comprehensive explanation and links to more.

This whole sustainability thing is in need of a major branding overhaul. When you let scientists and policymakers control the sustainability conversation you get definitions of sustainability such as “meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Talk about boring. Talk about uninspiring.

We need leaders who understand that creating an inspiring environmental vision and appealing to enlightened self-interested are the most effective tools for getting those SUV driving, McMansion aspiring mainstream Americans excited about joining the green movement.

And let’s be clear: sustainability is a movement, a human-centric movement designed to enable humans to live on this planet for a long time. But a movement that only promotes the goal of being able to live here for a long time hardly seems much worth joining let alone fighting for. How about living in abundance? How about fostering a vibrant, dynamic society that furthers the human journey? How about living as well as we possibly can?

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To that end, I propose a new definition of sustainability:To live as well as we possibly can while bringing our lifestyles into balance with nature.

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Same goal. Only reframed in such a way that it might just generate some excitement.

This might all sound like semantics but it’s hugely important. Unless the environmental movement examines its communication strategies, it will never attract the type of widespread acceptance necessary to be effective on the scale required to solve the enormous environmental challenges we face.

It’s time to recognize that there is an overwhelming opportunity to frame green choices in terms of personal self-interest environmentalism. The new green value proposition should be: it’s better for you AND for the planet.

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Source: The Lazy Environmentalist

John Burke, CEO of Trek Bicycles, and Andy Clarke from the League of American Bicyclists visited Omaha yesterday and gave a series of presentations to highlight the benefits of and encourage efforts towards building Omaha as a Bicycle Friendly Community.

They discussed how bicycle friendly communities can work to address a myriad of issues for a city. These issues include impacting the obesity epidemic, traffic congestion, pollution, dependence on foreign oil and carbon footprints. Creating bicycle friendly is accomplished through combining good city design and city policy supports with strategically targeted transportation dollars.

I attended the breakfast session, where business and non-profit leaders were introduced to these concepts. John and Andy outlined a number of troubling trends and statistics which they believe should motivate Omaha to rally towards solutions. While they pointed out that there are several solutions to this range of issues, they proposed that the bicycle is the simple solution to several of these complex problems.

John provided 4 examples that prove that bikes can support a metro’s transportation needs. He showed that in the Netherlands 25% of all trips are taken by bike, and in Boulder the number is 21%. He reminded us of London’s congestion reducing strategies, and explained some of the political initiatives that have helped transform Portland.

Omaha was challenged to educate the city’s residents and public servants in order to help develop bicycle infrastructure. The city leaders were challenged to make Omaha a leader in this initiative, and become a model for other cities to follow. They readily agreed that Boulder and Portland have different cultures than Omaha. But they show it can be done. And they believe that Omaha, a city in the heartland, can show that this model can work anywhere in the state.

Kerri Peterson from Activate Omaha (host) opened up by explaining that Omaha has previously applied to be designated by the League of American Bicyclist as a bicycle friendly community. Despite our expansive recreational trail system, the application was denied.

Since then, efforts have been underway to change that outcome. Over $500,000 in private funding has been raised to design and build a 20 mile bicycle loop.  The first bicycle transportation map has been created. The City has instituted a Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee to review and recommend infrastructure improvements. This momentum is just the beginning and we would like you to join us to continue the push to change the physical face of our community.

Kerri also pointed out that the Bicycle Commuter Map was so well received by the city, that the 5000 copies printed were all distributed within 2 months. The supply was intended to last 3 years. They are currently reprinting, and the map is available for download now.

I’d encourage everyone to be involved. Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, along with a well-developed public transportation system, can change the face of the city in which we live.

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Watch a version of John’s presentation.

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The planet is headed for an ecological “credit crunch”, according to a report issued by conservation groups.

The document contends that our demands on natural resources overreach what the Earth can sustain by almost a third.

The Living Planet Report is the work of WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network.

It says that more than three quarters of the world’s population lives in countries where consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.

This makes them “ecological debtors”, meaning that they are drawing - and often overdrawing - on the agricultural land, forests, seas and resources of other countries to sustain them.

WWF’s David Norman says the world will need two planets by 2030

The report concludes that the reckless consumption of “natural capital” is endangering the world’s future prosperity, with clear economic impacts including high costs for food, water and energy.

Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy at the conservation group’s Scotland arm, added: “While the media headlines continue to be dominated by the economic turmoil, the world is hurtling further into an ecological credit crunch.”

The countries with the biggest impact on the planet are the US and China, together accounting for some 40% of the global footprint.

The report shows the US and United Arab Emirates have the largest ecological footprint per person, while Malawi and Afghanistan have the smallest.

(Greenbiz.com) Businesses are becoming greener, not just because it’s right but because it makes sense.

Paul Marerro didn’t consciously try and start an environmentally conscious company. It happened naturally. Working out of a home office in Tampa, Fla., Marerro provides database and application enterprise architecting, report writing and project management services.

As his company grew, he hired a full-time employee in Iowa and added contractors in Cincinnati and Florida. All had worked for Marerro before in traditional offices. But the time for traditional offices has passed, both for Marrero and for a growing number of companies.

“It’s all telecommuting,” Marerro said.If he had more full-time employees, he’d consider a virtual office, which would allow facilities like a conference room and phone-answering service. But for now, he’s happy, he said.

Marerro doesn’t have much waste and while he can’t go totally paperless, waste paper is shredded and recycled. His business cards are made from recycled paper and all invoices are e-mailed. When he visits his largest client in Philadelphia, he walks or takes public transportation around the city.

“The green has worked its way in,” Marerro said. “We consume electricity but nowhere near the amount of an office building. It’s a room in your house.

“Ideally, Marerro said he’d like to grow the business while expanding his green practices to include solar panels for his home and office. “But it’s also nice to have several large clients, stay focused, give quality and there shouldn’t be a lot of waste,” he said.

Real estate executives and facility managers at medium to large companies are sometimes way off when it comes to occupancy rates, says John Anderson. Most think their facilities are being used 80 or 90 percent of the time. Upon tracking the data, they are often surprised to learn that they are using their space less than 50 percent of the time.

Anderson’s PeopleCube office hoteling software allows employees to schedule activities to secure a work space or room or office as needed.

The office and employer of the future invite employee participation and collaboration, which is key, Anderson said.

“You input your own carbon footprint. For example, you don’t own a cubicle so you rent one for a day. You set the air conditioning and lighting as you like, contributing to the carbon offset.”

Facilities represent the second highest expense for large businesses and the No. 1 manufacturer of emissions, according Anderson. Many employers are paying too much to heat and cool conference rooms that are hardly used and to illuminate cubicles too often left empty. Allowing employees to telecommute from home at least part of the week could cut costs significantly.

Traditionally, tracking and analyzing data from workflow patterns involves looking backward. Anderson suggests a mind shift that would require companies to establish baselines before demonstrating and measuring savings going forward.

Using the data more efficiently can help lower carbon footprint by reducing real estate costs and increasing energy efficiency up to 30 percent, he said.”You need to establish what your baselines are before you can demonstrate and measure savings going forward,” Anderson said. “Companies are just starting to do that today.”

John Larson remembers when a U.S. Interstate Highway collapsed three blocks from where he worked in Minneapolis-St Paul in 2007. There was an immediate reaction by politicians and transportation officials who needed to reroute hundreds of thousands of vehicles every day. If these commuters’ companies had put a telecommuting plan in place, that problem could potentially have been solved almost instantly.

Larson is a spokesperson for Results-Only Working Environment, or ROWE, a new way of managing people developed by two women who worked in human resources at Best Buy. The idea of ROWE is to allow flexible schedules, forcing managers to concentrate on outcomes rather than hours.

Best Buy adopted the ROWE plan at its headquarters, staggering arrival times for employees throughout the work day and cutting down on commute times.

“Those 4,000 people in Best Buy — 2,500 to 3,000 still go to work each day but not all at the same time,” Larson said. “People go at all hours so you don’t have a giant crush of cars stalled in traffic.”

Only a handful of companies have adopted the results-only philosophy. “But if ROWE became the status quo, it would have a tremendous impact on the environment,” Larson said.

Anderson’s 65 employees book conference space and cubicles on an as-needed basis, telecommuting when they don’t need to be in the office.

Telecommuting is a huge incentive, PeopleCube’s John Anderson said. It helps employees balance work and home life. Not having to drive an hour or more each way sometimes results in employees spending that saved commute-time working.

“After the salary, the number-one attraction is telecommuting,” he said. “You’re now dealing with millennial kids exiting college and they’re very environmentally conscious. Employees want to know that their company is driving in those directions. It’s a recruiting strategy too.”

Employee participation can sound like a scary proposition for the traditional office scenario.  There are two schools of thought regarding control, according to Anderson: One is that employees aren’t going to help, so bosses have to force them to do what bosses want. The other is that the more employees are included in decision-making, the more they will help.

Educating employees about green office practices is vital, Anderson said.

“You’d be surprised what the employee population is willing to do,” he said. “People are more willing to pitch in if you incent them to participate.”

Incentives include funding transportation if employees leave their cars at home, bringing a homey feel into the office by having living-room type set-ups or having a Starbucks in the building.

Some of the more radical changes in green offices of the future have to do with amenities-based interiors and designs based around increased productivity. Think laundry room at the office so you don’t have to send out.

Some banks, insurance and technology companies are creating positions for sustainability officers dedicated to reducing carbon footprint. Others resist, saying they want to be environmentally conscious but have to have a return on their investment in everything they do. Whether they’re in stocks, paper recycling or can recycling, there’s a prevailing mentality in the executive suite that if you’re not in the office today, you’re not really working.

“Our employees that telecommute are probably more productive than those that come in,” Anderson said. “As long as I’m getting a day’s work out of you I don’t really care. Telecommuting has a high degree of success.”

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Content from Dana Sanchez as posted on Greeenbiz.com.

Saturday was a good day. We woke up early and made ourselves a good ole country breakfast…err…tried. Corey set the recipe for pancakes in front of me and wished me luck. The problem was, the recipe was for 2lbs. of mix, and there is no way we could eat that much. So, I set about using my common sense and public school math skills to freestyle the recipe. I set out to make pancakes…I ended up with a plateful of crepes?

Oh well…moving on. After breakfast we headed down to Fontenelle Forest for a composting workshop co-hosted by the Green Omaha Coalition. We were shocked by the turnout; there were probably 70 people there.

Topics ranged from ‘Composting for Beginners’ and ‘Composting with Worms’, to ‘What to do with Finished Compost.’

I am very interested in the Vermicomposting. It would be nice to have it as an available option during the winter. From what I learned, we can make a homemade setup for our basement. We should be able to compost all winter with no risk of smell. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

My attention started to drift near the end. I have a hard time sitting still inside on a nice day.

So Corey and I decided to wander around the forest to check out the Eco Huts display. The display includes practical interactive displays sharing information about the environment and our homes. The displays were amazing. I’m so happy to see these learning opportunities available to kids.

Cyclists and community organizers from around the metro gathered downtown on Saturday for an all-inclusive discussion of cycling accessibility. The event was hosted at the Midwest National Park Service Headquarters on the Omaha riverfront. I have to praise the location first. The building is situated right at the foot of the pedestian bridge, and has a wonderfull view of the river and downtown. To top it off, the building is Leed Gold Certified.

Corey and I were only able to attend a short portion of the day-long event, but we made sure to join at the portion that was most important to us. We were there for the review of the Omaha Streetscape plan hosted by Omaha By Design’s Connie Spellman.

She gave a concise but informative presentation about Omaha’s initiative to integrate pedestrians, bicyclists, and the environment into our streets. The streets that are now exclusively built for cars. (Did you know that Nebraska doesn’t have a Department of Transportation? Only a Department of Roads. Makes you wonder how we don’t have a better mixed use planning.)

She highlighted the successes in the Benson Ames Alliance master plan. Next year they are beginning the first phase of the streetscape redesign.

Connie made a point to motivate members of the audience to contact their City Council Person and the head of Omaha Public Works to advocate for better bicycle and pedestrian transportation options. She said that these public servants (an underutilized word, but so important in this time of jaded politics) really do want to hear from constituents and act on their behalf.

This summit reinforced the good and the bad for cycling in Omaha. The good is that Omaha isn’t a huge city. It is practical to move around by bike or foot. Also, the bus system has recently added bike racks to the front of busses. And of course, Omaha has over 80 miles of bicycle trails snaking across the city. The challenges are streets that are often poorly designed, crowded with drivers who are impatient and uninformed. And, the topography of our city, make East/West traffic difficult. The hills are challenging, but the bike trails and bike lanes are limited in this direction.

I asked if there is ONE street in particular that we should contact our local representatives about. I wanted to know which East/West street had the greatest chance of being renovated in the near future. She strongly suggested that we advocate for Leavenworth Street. This street is well graded, and is dangerous currently because it carries too much traffic. Redesigning this street can greatly contribute to the quality of life for neighborhood residents as well as cycling commuters.

I’m making my calls this week. I’d encourage you to do the same.