Whole Travel Blog

Who owns one of the world’s largest vehicle fleets? Here’s a hint: it’s not Google or even Nascar. It’s the United States Postal Service, purveyors of your daily mail and walkers (er…drivers) of mail routes nationwide. With a fleet of aging, fuel-inefficient automobiles, the USPS recently announced a huge undertaking: replacing 6,500 vehicles with more efficient vehicles, including 900 hybrids and 1,000 alternative fuel vehicles.

Reducing the carbon footprint of your snail mail

The USPS currently has well over 200,000 vehicles in its fleet, so this is only a small percentage of the overall picture, but it is hopefully a proof of concept for the government agency that going green is the way to be.

In New Orleans, Louisiana, there will eventually be a 100% Cradle to Cradle Flow House. The design plans were unveiled by William McDonough & Partners last week, the first in a series of duplexes that hopefully revitalize the Lower 9th area of New Orleans that was devastated during Hurricane Katrina.

Cradle to Cradle Design: The Flow House in New Orleans

The entire philosophy behind Cradle to Cradle design is that the materials can be reused for other projects or recycled into the environment if and when the current structure completes its useful life. The local community in the Lower 9th provided substantial input during the duplex’s design to make sure it reflects the true need and desires of the local culture. There is ample daylighting and passive ventilation to keep energy needs low, and photovoltaic panels on the roof can hopefully completely power the structure and put power back into the grid.

McDonald’s is probably one of the last places you’d think of when you’re looking for a green restaurant. With a reputation for fast, unhealthy food and even a movie about it (Super Size Me), the chain is fighting an uphill battle when it comes to positive publicity. However, we want to give credit where credit is due. The country’s largest fast food chain recently opened a new restaurant in North Carolina, complete with electric vehicle charging stations.

Can they charge your EV as fast as they can make your burger?

We want to commend McDonalds for taking a step in the right direction. They have a long way to go before they’re serving healthy meals, but if a business as large as McDonalds can make a small change, the ripple effect can be huge across the industry.

Starting next week, the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Environment and Environmental Design (LEED) certification standards will be revised and require building owners to submit data about how much energy and water they use on an annual basis, and seek re-certification every two years. The USGBC says the data collected by annual reporting will help improve future revisions to the LEED standards. Senior Vice President of LEED, Scot Horst, said in a press release Thursday, “[this information] will bring to light external issues such as occupant behavior or unanticipated building usage patterns, all key factors that influence performance.”

Thursday, Continental Airlines announced the results of its January 7 biofuel demonstration flight. Not only was the flight successful, the biofuel showed approximately 1.1% greater fuel efficiency over traditional jet fuel. So, not only was the fuel made from renewable sources, it actually beat traditional fuel outright. This type of fuel is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% as well.

Flying the greener skies

“We look forward to working with our partners as biofuels go through the certification process, and we hope to see these fuels proceed into commercial quantities in the near future,” said Leah Raney, Continental’s managing director of global environmental affairs. Hopefully it’s not long until we see all jet fuel from sustainable sources.

The United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection held a hearing titled “It’s Too Easy Being Green: Defining Fair Green Marketing Practices” yesterday. Subcommittee leaders suggested that rules and enforcement practices be put in place over the next few years for green marketing initiatives. This is great news for all consumers, because it will be the government’s first attempt to curb greenwashing and hold companies accountable for their actual environmental and socioeconomic performance when they want to call themselves green.

Is this green?

In his opening remarks, the subcommittee chairman, Bobby Rush, expressed his interest in “…taking up the truthfulness of ‘green’ advertiser claims, consumer perception of ‘green’ claims and the respective roles the Federal Trade Commission and privately run certification and labeling programs in regulating and validating these proliferating claims.” We think this is a great idea, as there are so many certification programs in travel alone it’s difficult to navigate all the information. Whole Travel is looking forward to being part of the solution. Send us your comments and we’ll be sure to pass them along: sustainability@wholetravel.com.

Finding alternatives to plastic has been difficult at best over the past few decades. The problem is that oil is traditionally derived from oil, which both consumes fossil fuels and produces greenhouse gases. Recently, however, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announced a simple process that turns cellulose (plant fibers) into plastic.

Making Plastic From Plants 101

While this process is still quite a ways off from commercial application, it shows promise as a way of creating alternative plastics. With so many of today’s products packaged in some form of plastic, finding a sustainable way to replace our fossil fuel-derived types would have a large impact on the environment, both consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases.

Calling  Ocean Sports Lovers

You have all seen plastic on any beach you have every been to.  It is time to clean things up, but with a global movement to create change.  Please join us in the first ever, joint ocean sport World Ocean Day clean-up event, in honor of our oceans, and Project Kaisei which is setting off on a big mission this summer to the “plastic vortex” in the Pacific to help find solutions to our ocean/waste problem.  In the end, this all comes back to us on land, and our sports communities will be some of the leaders to bring about change in the ways we use, re-use or recycle plastics - so they don’t make their way to the vortex in the future.

This is a global problem, and the United Nations estimates there are over 100,000,000 tons of plastics in our oceans.  That is our playground!   Please help out.

You can take part with your club/team or individually by signing up on our site:  http://www.projectkaisei.org/world.html

Get out on the water for 3 hours on June 6th or 7th, and see how much waste you can pick up from the sea or shores.   You can have a local event after, and in the case of us in Hong Kong, we will sort the trash that is collected with a local school so that the children can see what was captured.  We will do this on June 8th, Monday, World Ocean Day.

We suggest that every group gather donations/pledges for your cleanup, and we suggest that 50% of these donations go to your local charity of choice, and 50% are given to Project Kaisei to help us get out on the water to the Plastic Vortex this summer so that we can film a National Geographic documentary, and test ways of cleaning some of this up.

We look forward to hearing from you!   Send us an email at   oceanday@projectkaisei.org  with the basic details we need from the website.   We also then hope you can get your own local PR from this.  We can send you a press release about the global event, and you can include your own segment on your local team/group, so that you can show your community what you are doing locally, and globally, with us.

Please feel free to pass this video clip around as well:

World Ocean Day - Ocean Sports Cleanup, June 6/7th, 2009

Thanks for your efforts, and we look forward to having you on board for this Inaugural World Ocean Day Event with all of the ocean’s sports lovers.

Sincerely,

Doug
Project Kaisei Team
www.projectkaisei.org

I spend a ton of time driving to and from climbing spots, and flying to and from climbing spots. There are a few simple practices that I have adopted in my travels to help my traveling become a bit greener.

1. Keep my own coffee mug in the car. That way when I stop at Starbucks to get coffee, they can use my mug, and not use their paper cups.

2. Use Google Maps on my cell phone. Almost every cell phone has the ability to either download a Google Maps app or connect to Google Maps. Use your phone to get Google Maps directions to your destination rather that printing out all the directions and maps. It saves a ton of paper!

3. Bring an empty reusable water bottle to the airport. You can’t bring water through security, but you can bring an empty bottle! That way when you get into the terminal, you can fill your bottle up at the water fountain and save having to buy and use a plastic bottle of water at one of the airport stores!

Nothing fancy about it, but every little bit counts!

Happy Adventuring!

Brandon Hensinger

Ascent Adventure Consultants- Bringing Adventure to Life

Because the past 8 years has left public land managers and forest managers with meager funds to maintain trail management teams, search and rescue teams, and more, there has been limited access to some of the country’s most beautiful and precious outdoor recreation resources, for activities such as hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing and camping. Understandably so, since without the infrastructure to support this type of land use, the land managers have no choice but to restrict the activities. This is something that the Access Fund specifically targets and works on with these land managers, however the Federal Government has made it extremely difficult because ultimately they are the ones providing the lack of funding.

BUT NOW THE GOOD NEWS….

Barack Obama, along with promoting an excellent energy plan, and making the oil companies use their windfall profits to help consumers, is also planning on increasing appropriations for public land….and therefore will most likely help to give access to many, many areas.

Their administration needs our support to get this done. Please visit Outdoor Alliance and choose to Take Action, and send letters (via the website) to Barack Obama, to help open up access to these public lands.

Along with a better energy management and energy use system, the funds that are going to be provided to these land managers will help conservation of our natural resources, including “roadless areas” that will be protected. This country is taking a turn in the right direction!

Thank you and Happy Climbing

Brandon Hensinger

Ascent Adventure Consultants- Sustainable Rock Climbing in North Carolina