Finally, after months of screening questions and some minor adjustments to our services description, Green Gurus has been approved by Co-op America.
We’re very thankful to join the ranks of approved businesses, non-profits and other entities enrolled in their ranks of Do Green Gooders 
and look forward to our first appearance in their National Green Pages, coming soon to the online version and in the Fall for their print version.
We’ve added their seal of approval throughout our site (and will be adding it here to our blog soon).
Again, we’d like to extend our thanks publicly to Co-op America for approving us and look forward to the changes this process has inspired us to take.
Electronics in the United States should have a UL (Underwriters Laboratory) tag on them somewhere, in Europe, it’s the CE tag.
Guess how much electricity your computer uses and then take a look at the tag and see what the maximum power consumption is.
Power is measured in Watts, W (Watts, Volts and Amperes are always capitalized since they are named after people). Sometimes, on battery-powered devices, the power is not stated, but the current (in Amperes or Amps) and the potential (in Volts) will be. In this case, you multiply the current (in Amperes or Amps) with the potential to get the maximum amount of instantaneous power your device uses (in Watts). Typically, cell phones use 3 to 5 Watts and laptops use 35 to 50 Watts. Coffee makers are typically 900 Watts. Wow.
When you use power for a duration of time, you can determine how much energy has been used. If you use your cell phone at a power level of 5 Watts for 1 hour then you have used 5 Watthours (Wh) of energy. A battery’s capacity is how much energy it holds.
Take a quick gander and count up the amount of power you are using right now. You may have to catch the refridgerator if its running. You can also split that up between your housemates. Honestly, it will take some real effort to determine how much power you use at any moment, there is a lot of power that was put into making the products in front of you. This is okay, as long as we are aware that our power and energy usage and continue to clarify where it comes from and educate our selves to the direct and embedded energies that fuel our lifes.
Right now, my direct power use is about 100 Watts (two computers and a cell phone) and its daytime so I don’t need to worry about lighting and the alarm clock by the bed is on but I don’t see it. I’m sure Im not counting everything, but I’m getting closer.
In 1998 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology issued its vision for each person to live under 2000-Watts, the current average in the United States is 12,000 Watts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Watt_society
There is a new design paradigm emerging, one that replaced the brute-force method of getting it done. In the past, adding more power or energy meant getting more functionality (more gas give more speed). Now, the elegant design challenge is to get more functionality with less energy (go farther with a hybrid-electric car with regeneative charging from breaking). Where does this lead? All the functionality with no to minimal energy. This is beauty.
And, this is enegy awareness and it spreads. Electrical power is political power. Know your power and energy.
We’re pleased to announce the addition of one of our green consulting team members Ryan Wartena, here to our blog team.
He joined our open source collective a few months back and has quickly become a core voice in our operations. His wealth of knowledge spans a great many topics: sacred geometry to PV and battery systems design, to business development to so much more. He’s really all around quite a bit of fun too, which we feel is an important part of the creative and professional processes…why else would or should you do something if it doesn’t bring you some measure of joy?
Anyway, we welcome him here to our blog and look forward to his future posts!
First off a quick, Green Gurus team update on current events…
Last week while Shena was prepping for her time at the South By Southwest festival, Ryan continued working on one of his new solar flower designs, Elizabeth continued pouring over the latest Plan Check plans for one of our clients, Doug continued work on his thesis draft, Brent worked on the latest fabrication plans, Evonne carried on in Second Life, and I hit up Greg Wendt, Jeff Hayes, Sarah Shewey, Kipp Stroden, and Ferris Kawar’s Green Business Networking monthly night.
This was the first night that I had been able to make it out since hearing about it several months back. I ran into several great people I’ve been talking with recently and many more great faces, all from around the LA startup and sustainable business circles.
Several previous contacts included Michael Moss / Founder Green Nectarine, Jenn “1luv” Breckenridge, and Ben Clayton / Gliving, Watts Up America, etc. I also got to put some names to faces we’ve been hearing more about recently, like Scott Badenoch / Founder Creative Citizen and Melanie StJames / Executive Director of Empowerment Works. Other new faces included Olivia Kuhn-Lloyd / Cause + Capitalism Blog Author, Laura Beatty, Kacy Palmieri / Earth Day LA, Kristofer Youngstrom / Engineer at Digital Housing & Administration, and the Heart Beet Gardening gaia’s.
A few people were asking after more networking nights at this event and the LA Green Drinks was mentioned more than once, which we posted about last year here. Others range from Lunch 2.0 to Dealmaker, to LA’s Largest Mixer to Mashable’s return with “MashMeet LA 2.0“, and many, many others.
Some handy online resources include LA Times “Emerald City” blog, Siel’s “green LA girl“, the Green Group, etc….you just have to keep at it, digging around online, joining various social networking groups, meeting up at the local business mixers in person, and all the rest. Whatever the case may be, we’d love to meet up with you in person at the next LA Green Drinks or other event of your choosing…
Feel free to contact us here if you need help figuring out what to hit up next, carpooling arrangements or any other details.
We look forward to meeting up with you sometime soon!
Whole Foods just made a bold step in further establishing itself as the leader in health conscious and sustainable grocery retailer with its decision to stop using plastic bags, in its press release today:
“…it will end the use of disposable plastic grocery bags at the checkouts in all of its 270 stores in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. with the goal to be plastic bag-free by Earth Day, April 22, 2008.”
Check out their newly created section for more info on their reusable bag program and more:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/byobag/
Thanks to Whole Foods for raising the bar in grocery retail!
A few of of us attended the monthly Green Drinks in Culver City last night.
We were joined by a few others including Michael Moss (MossCadora), and some of Ryan and Elizabeth’s friends and colleagues including OneLove, Shiko and Cris Wagner. The gathering was held at the Living Green and ran from 7pm on.
I met several interesting people including Rony Alcalay of Hemptations, who sounds to be doing a great job with his hemp clothing line. Also in attendance were:
- Karen Feinberg, one of Living Green’s sales reps
- Andrew Mannle, senior editor at Arcwire
- Matt Diamond, president of Diamond Lane Entertainment
- Barent Roth, industrial design-principal at Grow-Design
-each and every one was a pleasure to speak with.
We look forward to attending many a Green Drinks in the coming weeks and months. Feel free to drop us a line if you’d like to meet up with any of us sometime.
Yes. But do you want to be and more importantly, should you be?
I think the answer to both these questions is a very loud yes. Why? How about a question as answer: Why not?
The time is now, more than ever, to immerse yourself in the sustainability movement and expand your working knowledge as wide and deeply as you can. We here at Green Gurus are doing so every day and just can’t get enough. But maybe that’s a bit much for some right off the bat or you just like to take your time when learning new things and embracing new, emerging trends. That’s fine too.
But the bottom line is such that you might just have to at some point.
New and existing companies are embracing the triple bottom line (economic, environmental and social values) more and more. And in today’s marketplace, the old-school mindset (or paradigm) of having to “beat the competitors to market” still prevails for many - though we definitely see a future of greater love and support through even more ancient systems such as bartering of time, energy, resources, etc. rather than continuing to isolate and compartmentalize things from each other, all in the name of progress.
Supported by each other, we can do so much more than just progress; we can continue to evolve harmoniously with the world around us.
Anyway, in the meantime, why not start or continue expanding your knowledge of some area that interests you, be it organic and local grown food, fair trade products, sustainable building design, energy reduction, or whatever else it is that tickles your fancy? The skills you begin building or adding on now will not only serve to enhance your life, but that of your family’s, friend’s, co-workers, and neighbors.
If you’re not sure what interests you, feel free to let us know and we’ll work together to figure out.
While things have been pretty quiet on our website recently, we’ve been quite busy behind the scenes with the filing of our LLC status, redefining our mission statement and much more. Read on below for more info on all the latest…
First of all, we’d like to welcome our newest team member, Elizabeth Marley, our first resident, sustainable architectural designer. She’s a graduate of the Los Angeles-based school, the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
Also, our mission statement has been coming along and we’ve posted it on our about page here. Feel free to let us know what you think of it, we’d appreciate the feedback, just as we would on anything else about our company.
Lastly, we’ve begun work in earnest on our non-profit side of operations over the last few weeks, and things are moving along nicely. Our website is registered, hosting has been activated, a blog and other info will be up in a few days, and much more.
Check it out here, soon:
www.greengurus.org
The last week has been a bit quiet…and will most likely continue to be so for the next week or so.
We’re in the midst of moving our base of operations, which has proved to be taking longer
than initially expected. Our new space is currently under construction and we hope to be moved
in soon.
In the meantime, we have been working some more on our Green web hosting services, which we
hope to roll out later, towards the end of the year probably (hopefully sooner).
If you’re interested in our hosting services, please contact us for more info.
We’ve created a 10 Steps 2 Green list for people and businesses to refer to when evaluating where or how to begin, on their own path towards sustainability.
Some of the items listed are quite simple while others quickly reach a level of
complexity and cost not all of us can yet obtain. So really it’s just a nice spring-
board from which one can quickly and easily evaluate and than implement those
steps most fitting to them.
We’ll be expaning upon this in the future with more detail, product and service
provider recommendations, and some similar lists of recommendations or steps,
for other area’s not mentioned already.
And of course, highly customizable plans based on your needs are available via
our consulting services. Feel free to contact us for a quote anytime.
