A while back, I wrote in this space about the demise of my microwave and its impact on my eating habits, sleep schedule, and carbon footprint. A big thank you to all of you who wrote in with suggestions – there were so many good ideas, many of which I have since adopted. I’ll update you soon with more details about the recipe ideas, stove reheating tips, appliance and furniture shopping guidance, and more that I received from several readers.

I also appreciate the concern of those who felt skipping dinner would be unhealthy. Believe me, I am the last person in the world to advocate not eating as a way to lose weight. Apart from the obvious health implications, I just love to eat. So even if it were a good idea, I couldn’t ever pull it off!

That said, I do believe there are many food and beverage choices we can make that are healthier for us and for the environment. For example, over the past few years, more people have chosen to drink bottled water. While some environmentalists have expressed concern that these people are replacing tap water with bottled water, beverage sales data show this simply isn’t true. People are replacing sugary packaged beverages – not tap – with bottled water, a much healthier and less carbon-intensive option.

Over the past few years, the increase in bottled water volume has closely mirrored the decline in carbonated soft drinks and sugary fruit drinks. In other words, people are substituting bottled water for other packaged beverages that are less healthy and have a higher environmental impact. Soft drinks and fruit drinks use lots of refrigeration energy, result in agricultural impacts (e.g., energy, pesticides, fertilizers) from growing sugar, corn, and other ingredients, and require manufacturing of flavors, preservatives, and other chemicals. (You’ll recall from the Wall Street Journal article that refrigeration is a major carbon emissions source for beverages that require chilling.) Soft drinks also require extra packaging to hold in the bubbles.

So as people choose bottled water instead of soda or fruit drinks, they not only contribute to the overall greening of the beverage industry, but also do so in a way that is healthier. In fact, the switch to bottled water has eliminated about a trillion calories from the American diet over each of the past couple of years.

Trillions of calories – now that’s a lot of weight. Personally, I think FIJI Water tastes much better than the sugary stuff, so I’ll happily choose that when I’m on the go. And if it helps me cut out a couple hundred empty calories, doesn’t need chilling because it tastes good at room temperature, and avoids the conversion of land to agricultural use and the manufacture of preservatives (who needs those?), so much the better!

In September I went home to visit my mom for the first time in six months. I was a bit surprised when she told me that I absolutely must join her at an interfaith meeting being held at a church across town. With only a day and a half at home, I hadn”t expected to spend Saturday morning with a new church group.

As usual, mom knew best. The meeting was hosted by a church (I won”t mention the name in the merits of privacy but they should feel free to chime in!) whose members had spearheaded the effort to calculate their collective carbon footprint. They started with electricity usage and converted these kWh into greenhouse gas equivalents (which you can try here). Next, they looked at emissions from their parishioners” travel to services. To do this, the green group asked church members to volunteer their home addresses; these were used to create a map of the area with thumb-tacks showing where people commuted from. For those who chose not to provide a home address, the average distance of the sample group was used. By taking the total distance traveled by all members and dividing by the average car”s fuel efficiency the faith group calculated the amount of gasoline used. Their final step was to translate this amount of gasoline into carbon dioxide (which you can do here).

Needless to say, I was impressed. They had gone beyond examining the church”s stand alone emissions to include the environmental impact of the parishioner”s travel to church as well.

As it turns out, my mom had brought me there to offer advice on carbon footprinting. Trying to do my part, I suggested they take an entire life cycle look at their operations. That is, in installing new patio doors, what type of wood was used? Was it certified sustainable? Where was it shipped from? How will this affect the insulation of the building? Throughout the morning, other members with a wide range of expertise educated us on topics including wave energy, waste vegetable oil as a diesel substitute, Equal Exchange Coffee, compostable packaged goods and the carbon footprint of meat.

It was refreshing to see a small but very diverse group coming together to address local environmental stewardship. Political debates about the effectiveness of a carbon cap-and-trade program versus a tax and other issues related to climate change could take years to settle. In the meantime, we need to act – and this is something that people across many faiths recognize. As Gandhi said, “When the people lead the leaders will follow.” The Interfaith group is planning a second meeting this Winter – I may have to take another trip home.

On October 6, the Wall Street Journal published a fascinating article titled “Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints.” Among other things, it reported lifecycle carbon footprints for these consumer products: milk, beer, detergent, a fleece jacket, hiking boots, and a Prius.

The footprint analyses found that transportation often represents only a small percentage of a product’s carbon footprint. Factors like raw materials production (e.g., raising cows for milk, making packaging) and usage (e.g., refrigeration for perishable products, driving a car) play a much larger role.

This is consistent with the studies I wrote about earlier this year in “Debunking the Food Miles Myth,” which showed that the ways in which a product is made, grown, packaged, etc. have an impact on its carbon footprint that often outweighs mere transportation distances.

It’s encouraging to see other companies taking action to measure and report their products’ lifecycle carbon emissions. In brief, here are the footprints. (For your reference, the carbon footprint of a 1L bottle of FIJI Water is 1.3 pounds CO2eq, or 573 grams.)

• Half-gallon of milk from Aurora Organic Dairy: 7.2 pounds CO2eq
• Six-pack of beer from Fat Tire Amber Ale: 7 pounds CO2eq
• Laundry detergent from Tesco: 31 pounds CO2eq
• Fleece jacket from Patagonia: 66 pounds CO2eq
• Pair of hiking boots from Timberland: 121 pounds CO2eq
• Toyota Prius: 97,000 pounds CO2eq

And…

• Transparency about a product’s full carbon impact: Priceless

Sorry, I had to do that. I’m a sucker for those MasterCard commercials. But seriously, we at FIJI Water think it’s fantastic that all of these companies are not only measuring their products’ footprints, but also sharing them with the public.

On September 22, Oracle Corporation awarded FIJI Water an “Empower the Green Enterprise” award. This award recognizes customers who are using Oracle products to support green business practices and sustainability initiatives.

The winners were selected by a panel of seven judges, including three sustainability experts: Cody Sisco, manager of Advisory Services at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR); Daniel Esty, green thought leader and co-author of Green to Gold; and Mike Sweeney, executive director of The Nature Conservancy’s California chapter.

FIJI’s IT team has been hard at work finding ways to make our software and hardware systems greener. In May 2008, the team reconfigured our enterprise software systems – using a tool called Oracle VM – so that we could put them all on one physical machine. This achievement reduced the need for extra hardware and cabling, physical space, and electricity, and we now use 8 CPU boxes where we once used 32. This work, along with replacement of old servers with energy-efficient ones, resulted in data center energy savings of 20% for production servers and 59% for test servers. There are also financial benefits; the energy bill for our hosted servers has dropped by about two-thirds.

In addition, the IT team has used Oracle’s auto-notification features to eliminate paper usage for invoices and purchase orders in our Fiji offices. This will help us avoid printing about 12,000 pages per year. While the direct impact of this change is relatively small – equivalent to saving one tree – we believe every bit makes a difference.

“Global businesses recognize that environmental responsibility is good business,” said Oracle Chairman, Jeff Henley. “Whether green projects are driven by an organization’s desire to protect the environment, reduce costs, produce eco-friendly goods to meet growing consumer demand, or comply with increasing levels of government regulation, the results can be both good for the environment and good for business. Oracle’s ‘Empower the Green Enterprise’ awards showcase the success of environmental IT initiatives and the tangible business benefits our customers across the world are realizing by pursuing green practices.”

Other award recipients included: Alcoa, Australian Vintage Limited, BT, Dell, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Ingersoll-Rand, Intercall, Interface, Motorola, National Ignition Facility & Photon Service, Novartis International AG, PG&E, Standard Parking, Sun and Supervalu.

Learning to recycle was the first environmentally-conscious lesson for many of us. It also found its way into bake sales and car washes as a means to raise some money for a school field trip. While I can”t remember the last time I took part in a bake sale, recycling is something we all (hopefully) do on a daily basis. It”s very easy to do, but because it”s so simple, it”s also easy to forget!

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” has emerged as a mantra of modern conservation, and we at FIJI Water wholeheartedly support this. Recycling allows a container to live a second life as another good, minimizes landfill use, and lowers the carbon footprint of our product by at least 25%! These are some of the reasons why we insist on having recycling bins at our many events across the country. By promoting recycling, we hope to remind everyone that like blue jeans, recycling is still very much in vogue.

Beyond raising awareness, our support for recycling is about results. In the first half of 2008 we supplied 331,000 bottles of the world”s best water to a variety of events and venues. If every one of those bottles goes into a recycling bin, that represents a reduction of 33 metric tonnes of CO2. To achieve the same reduction, you”d have to pledge to walk to work for the next year – and to convince eight of your friends to do the same!

Because our product is carbon negative, each bottle results in a net reduction of carbon from the atmosphere. Add this into the equation, and by drinking & recycling 331,000 bottles of FIJI Water, we avoid or remove 53 metric tonnes of CO2. This has the same impact as planting over 1,200 trees!

Below are some photos of our stylish recycling bins at various events. I think you”ll agree they not only raise awareness and reduce emissions, but add a touch of class. Stay hip and recycle!

Hard Rock Hotel’s Save the Planet Golf Tournament in Las Vegas

De La Mar Hotel’s Yacht Showcase held in Greenwich, CT

Aspen Food & Wine Classic

Barbara Chung, FIJI Water’s Senior Manager of Sustainable Growth, delivered an international keynote address on July 24 at the 2nd Annual Climate Change Summit in Sydney. You can view the presentation and listen to the speech online.

What made Australia an appropriate venue for sharing the story of FIJI Water’s path to sustainable growth?

• FIJI Water and Australia are in the same boatÖoften literally when it comes to their products.
• The effects of climate change are already apparent in both Fiji and Australia, with rising sea levels in Fiji, and heat waves, less rain, and increased drought in Australia.
• The food & beverage category represents a vital export contributor and economic growth opportunity for both countries. FIJI Water comprised almost 20% of Fiji”s exports in 2007, while food exports comprised almost 20% of Australian merchandise exports in 2005, with beef, dairy, fish, grain, and wine as the leading contributors.
• Because of their distance from their major export markets, both FIJI Water and Australia are sometimes challenged by “food miles” misconceptions.

As Barbara explained in her introduction, “What I want to do today is share what we’ve been doing at FIJI Water, of course, but more importantly share with you the lessons we’ve learned on our path to sustainability in the hope that it would be helpful to you as well.” At FIJI Water, we think of sustainability as a journey, not a destination, since there is always room for improvement in how a company does business and how we as individuals live our lives. And it’s much easier (and more fun!) to travel this road when we can all help each other do so.

On Tuesday, August 26, MTV hosted its Rock the Vote party at the 5 Degrees nightclub in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. The party’s theme was “Rising Stars: An Evening to Celebrate the Next Generation of the Democratic Party.” Read the rest of this entry »

We’re delighted to have as guest bloggers today our friends at Conservation International. Read on to learn more about our partnership to protect the Sovi Basin and how you too can help Conservation International protect rainforests around the world.

The more than 300 islands that comprise the nation of Fiji are a true biological wonder. Dramatic volcanic mountains that gave birth to these islands tower above lush verdant forests. Many of Fiji”s plants and animals are unique to the islands and have evolved very little since their ancestors inhabited the forests.

The crown jewel of Fiji”s spectacular biodiversity is the Sovi Basin, located on the island of Viti Levu. The basin is surrounded by volcanic peaks which form a bowl shape between them. The end result is one of the world”s most impressive geological structures.

At Conservation International, our goal is to protect the world”s natural biological diversity and demonstrate that human society can live harmoniously with nature. That is our mission and it guides us in everything we do.

Our partnership with FIJI Water reflects that spirit. Ours is a strategic and focused partnership whose primary goals include the protection of Fiji”s Sovi Basin, a crucial source of freshwater for the nation of Fiji and for the planet.

To that end, Conservation International”s Global Conservation Fund will contribute to a trust fund set up by The FIJI Water Foundation to protect the Sovi Basin. The fund was launched with initial funding from FIJI Water owners Lynda and Stewart Resnick and the combined donations of more than 700 FIJI Water employees. The fund will go to support the annual management costs of protecting the Sovi Basin.

One of the most unique aspects of this funding is the compensation of local communities to protect the land around the basin. The goal of that is to provide a different source of income to communities who traditionally become susceptible to logging interests and the one-time payoff that comes with cutting down a forest. The trust will also support a facility to distribute small-scale grants for community development in and around the Sovi Basin – providing new opportunities to those communities to prosper and thrive. The National Trust of Fiji is responsible for management of the Sovi Basin, and will receive and administer revenues from the fund.

But this is not just good news for Fiji. This is good news for the planet because this ambitious and forward-thinking partnership to protect the rainforests of Fiji will result in about ten million tons of carbon dioxide stored in these forests will remain out of our atmosphere. Since deforestation accounts for 20-25 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in our atmosphere – double that of all the world”s cars, trucks, and planes combined – protecting Fiji”s rainforests protects us all.

So join us and help protect an acre of rainforest by visiting www.conservation.org and click the “Protect an Acre of Forest” button. For as little at $15 you can help Conservation International protect an entire acre of tropical rainforest. Because what is lost there, is felt here. We”ve enlisted longtime Conservation International board member Harrison Ford to help with the cause. Click here to view the startling public service announcement that”s generating a lot of buzz.

FIJI Water has renovated its Los Angeles office with the goal of achieving LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified status through the U.S. Green Building Council, which takes into account water savings, energy efficiency, materials and resources selection and indoor environmental quality.

We recently moved into this beautiful new office space, the design of which considered our employees, our company and the environment in every detail. LEED focuses not only on environmental benefits, but also employee health and well-being, resulting in a workplace design that’s good for people and good for the environment.

One of the office’s most striking features is the abundance of soft and natural light. The workspace walls are slightly lower than those of typical cubicles and include window panels along the top for maximum exposure to the building”s natural light while still providing privacy. In addition, our management team elected to have only four offices in this space, all along one wall, and those offices have large interior glass walls that allow an abundance of natural light to come into the general work area. The natural light is complemented by “barrel lighting” which provides direct and indirect (reflected) light that is much softer and easier on the eyes than traditional direct lighting.

Each workspace is designed efficiently and comfortably. My personal favorite is the multi-purpose mobile filing cabinet that doubles as cushioned seating for visitors. It’s almost as comfortable as the Knoll Chadwick ergonomic chair that every employee has! (In fact, all of the office furniture was manufactured by Knoll, which specializes in sustainably-made furniture that promotes employee comfort and well-being, and has a LEED-certified plant itself.) Other workspace features include:

• Tower cabinet with shelves to store binders, books, etc.
• Narrow cubby for hanging coats or sweaters and for storing personal items like yoga mats and purses
• Flat screen monitors that take up less desk space
• Floating shelves for in/out boxes, pencil holders, etc., keeping desktops free of clutter

The new workspace was manufactured using clean technologies like VOC-free adhesives, low-VOC paints, and recycled steel, aluminum and fabrics. It also includes bamboo floors and cabinetry. Bamboo is a “rapidly renewable building material and product (made from plants that are typically harvested within a ten-year or shorter cycle),” to quote the LEED application form. In other words, bamboo grows and regrows super fast (I have some in my garden, it grows like a weed), so it’s more sustainable than traditional wood materials.

Other less readily visible but equally important features of the new office include the following:

• The lighting power density is 25% more efficient than required by the Title 24 standard. (Title 24 is California’s energy efficiency standard for residential and non-residential buildings.)
• 90% of the kitchen appliances are Energy Star certified. The only exceptions are small appliances like toasters that don’t normally receive an Energy Star certification.
• The bathrooms now have dual flush toilets, resulting in a 30% reduction in water usage. (Incidentally, these are very common in Fiji and other countries, but still unusual in the U.S.)

We were awarded maximum LEED credits for our successful effort to recycle everything possible when disposing of the previous office materials. In total we recycled over 75% of the construction waste.

We hope to have more good news about our efforts toward LEED certification status once the project is complete and all credits are tallied. Stay tuned for updates!

Hi everyone! I know I haven’t posted in ages…my apologies! I’ve been unusually busy and short on time the past few weeks.

It all started when my microwave stopped working three weeks ago. I suppose it was due…it was quite old. However, it was part of a microwave-oven combined unit, and the oven still works great. So I didn’t want to replace the microwave, because that would also mean replacing a perfectly good oven. And the prospect of sending a good oven to landfill – or even recycling – was just too much for my devoted green heart to bear.

Because I’m usually busy, I try to save time on cooking dinner during the week by making a big meal one night and then microwaving leftovers for another night or two. I like to dress up the leftovers with freshly sauteed vegetables, grated cheese, or something else quick and easy. Without a microwave, I figured I should cook smaller meals each night, just enough to eat for that night, then start from scratch the next day. (I’ve tried reheating leftovers on the stove before, but the food kept getting overcooked.)

It was certainly nice to eat a freshly prepared dinner every night…but after a week I just couldn’t handle the time sink any more. So I decided to just eat a good breakfast and lunch each day, and not eat dinner any more unless I was out with family and friends. Hey, that could help me lose weight too, and who doesn’t want to lose a few pounds? And I could use the extra time to catch up on everything I’d fallen behind on (like this blog!) during the Week of Freshly Prepared Dinners.

Filled with hope and good intentions, I launched my new dinner-less resolution. But I don’t like the feeling of overeating at any meal, so I’d eat a normal, moderate breakfast and lunch, and then when “dinnertime” rolled around, I’d be pretty hungry. As it got later in the evening, I’d be sooooo hungry. Oh, it was painful. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when even a piece of chocolate isn’t satisfying.

So I started going to bed earlier and earlier to avoid feeling hungry…in bed by 8:30 pm or 9 pm, and up by 5 am. You’d think I’d at least be able to catch up on my life in those spare morning hours, right? Nope. Whether it’s running errands, or working, or whatever, most businesses and services aren’t open that early. So I’d spend a lovely few hours working in my garden…and falling further behind on everything I needed to get done. Or – like last night – I’d hang out late with friends, then forget to reset my alarm and still wake up at 5 am, and stumble sleepily through the rest of the day. (And the blog continued to languish.)

I was explaining this to a co-worker (who noted my sleepy expression), and he pointed out that I’d reduced my carbon footprint over the past couple of weeks by not cooking, eating, or getting a new microwave. I’d saved energy by not cooking, avoided emissions from food production by not eating, and saved money and energy by not buying a microwave. That put a smile on my sleepy face.

To make a rough estimate of the emissions I’ve avoided: A week’s worth of dinner for me – back when I had a microwave – might have looked like this with a glass of wine every night:

• Monday: Grill 8 oz organic steak, eat half of it with a baked potato and steamed broccoli. (I usually offset the healthiness of the broccoli by putting generous amounts of sour cream or butter on the potato.)
• Tuesday: Go vegetarian and make daal, a curried lentil soup. (Takes me back to Fiji where this is a staple dish.)
• Wednesday: Slice leftover steak thinly, pile onto toasted ciabatta bread, add grated Havarti cheese, and reheat, then top with freshly sauteed button mushrooms and Vidalia onions. (Heaven. You gotta try this.)
• Thursday: Microwave leftover daal. (It’s almost the end of the week, I’m keeping it simple.)
• Friday: Eat a serving of sushi. (Happiness.)

Okay, I had too much fun writing that menu. I love to eat. But I’m sleepy so I’m going to keep the calculations simple. Let’s say I eat the steak and fish and drink the wine, but pretend the non-meat stuff has no carbon footprint. (Vegetarian options often do have a lower carbon footprint.)

An 8 oz conventional steak results in about 8,300 g CO2eq across its lifecycle, and an 8 oz organic steak causes about 4,980 g CO2eq. Sushi-grade tuna, during the summer months, results in about 1,120 g CO2eq per 3 oz serving. And a bottle of wine causes about 2,650 g CO2eq and holds about 5 glasses.

So 4,980 (steak) + 1,120 (tuna) + 2,650 (wine) = 8,750 g CO2eq per week from the food and wine’s footprints alone. And 3 minutes in the microwave means about 30 g CO2eq, so if I’m reheating stuff twice a week, that adds another 60 g CO2eq. So I’m avoiding at least 8,810 g CO2eq per week in my dinner-less state…and definitely more, since I’m not counting emissions from cooking or turning on my kitchen lights, or the lifecycle carbon footprints of the potato, sour cream, broccoli, lentils, ciabatta, cheese, mushrooms, onions, rice, nori (seaweed), herbs and spices.

At this rate, in a year I’d avoid about 0.5 tonne CO2eq (8,810 g CO2eq/week * 52 weeks * 1 tonne / 1,000,000 g). According to Conservation International’s carbon footprint calculator, my annual carbon footprint is 8.2 tonnes. So if I can keep skipping dinner for a year, I’ll cut my carbon footprint by at least 5%! Not as big a reduction as I’d like, but every little bit counts.

So what do you think? Should I replace the microwave-oven unit? Buy a new standalone microwave…and a new microwave cart to put it on? Sponge free meals off my neighbors? Go out to eat every night and support local businesses? Just keep on skipping dinner and going to sleep at 8:30 pm? Do you have tips on how to reheat food on the stove successfully? Discuss!