Whole Travel Blog

Horses love the outdoors, so why not give them sustainable homes? That’s exactly what Blackburn Architects, a full-service architectural planning and design firm based in San Francisco and Washington DC, is doing. Their Greenbarns use passive lighting and ventilation, specify low-VOC materials for construction, and even offer additional solar panels and rainwater harvesting to take them almost competely off the grid.

Greenbarns - Let Your Horse Be Green

While the US Green Building Council (USGBC) does not yet have LEED certification for agricultural buildings, simply putting solar panels on the roofs of these barns could have a significant impact on the environmental footprint of ranches and farms around the world. A single barn roof of solar panels can often power an entire farm in the Midwest, and most farms have 2-3 barns.

Eat Green, Live Green?

If you’re in Long Beach, California, check out the M/V Auriga Leader. It’s docked at the Port of Long Beach and hosts an amazing 328 solar panels that provide up to 10% of the ship’s power.

Auriga Leader: powered by the sun

The ship is part of a demonstration by Toyota and Japan’s NYK Line, and it directs solar power into the ship’s main electrical grid, helping to power the thrusters, hydraulics and steering, and provide 10% of the ship’s electricity. While 10% may seem nominal, supertankers can require enough energy to power 5,500 homes while at port, so even small percentage improvements are huge savings for the earth.

Garbage giant Waste Management announced last week at the US Conference of Mayors that it will be distribution BigBelly Solar’s solar powered trash compactor in North America. These units will mostly be sold to municipalities and events venues, and 15 have already been installed at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, the new home of the New England Patriots.

Compacting your trash with the power of the sun.

The solar-powered trash compactors look like traditional trash cans, but they are outfitted with solar panels that power a motor that crushes the trash. What does this mean for sustainability? Garbage colleciton can occur less frequently, offsetting carbon emissions by the trucks and distribution network. Small things can really make a difference!

Telefonica, the largest company in Spain, is constructing a 12-building complex to bring 40,000 employees to one main campus in Madrid. The buildings are using a special type of glass to reflect the hot Spanish sun, and panels stick out from the building to act as sun visors. Each of the buildings is to be connected by a covered walkway that will be the world’s largest rooftop photovoltaic installation with 15,000 solar panels capable of producing 4 million kWh annually. Landscaping will be native vegetation which requires minimal water, and that amount of water will be provided by rooftop rainwater collectors.

Distrito C - Telefonica's New Madrid Headquarters

Taiwan recently finished construction of an amazing solar-powered stadium that can generate 100% of its electricity from the sun. The dragon-shaped arena can hold 50,000 spectators and is made with over 8,000 solar panels.

Taiwan's solar-powered stadium can seat 50,000

The stadium will officially open in July for the 2009 World Games. In addition to the solar panels, the stadium integrates many other sustainable features such as permeable paving and maximum use of domestic materials and local labor. In addition, a plot of land adjacent to the stadium was set aside for development of public lands, including bike paths, sport parks, a pond system and green open spaces.

On days that the stadium is not being used, the government plans to feed surplus energy into the local grid, where it will meet approximately 80% of the neighboring area’s demand. This equates to approximately 660 tons of carbon dioxide per year!

I was recently going through National Geographic’s Top 50 Jungle Ecolodges and found one that was particularly interesting. The Chalalan Ecolodge in Bolivia is nestled along the shore of Chalalan Lagoon. The villagers build the community-sustaining solar-powered cabins with the help of Conservation International. All local architecture and materials were used in the construction, so you’re guranteed to get an authentic local experience, with a great level of luxury for such a remote jungle ecolodge!

Chalalan Lodge Room

And if you’re looking for a retreat that is truly off the beaten path, Chalalan Ecolodge is the place for you. It’s a 5 hour boat ride from the nearest civilization, right in the middle of Madidi National Park. Here’s the dock where you’ll arrive:

Chalalan Lagoon

With traditional family-style dinners, music performances, dances, moonlight canoe trips and some of the best jungle environment you’ll find in Bolivia, Chalalan Ecolodge is on the top of our lists of places we like to go! If you’ve been to Chalalan, we’d love to get your feedback on their page on our newly-released user reviews section (just scroll to the bottom of the description section).

This past weekend, San Francisco hosted an outdoor music festival in Golden Gate Park, Outside Lands, that proved to not only be jam-packed with such notable acts as Beck, Radiohead, Ben Harper, and Jack Johnson, but also, to be eco-friendly. Artists jammed on a solar-powered stage, music lovers feasted on organic, sustainably farmed foods, and various eco-education opportunities abounded. Ecomomentum discusses the event here. Check out the festival’s “Eco Lands” website for more detailed information.

Richard Branson has yet another Virgin endeavor – to transform one of his private islands, Mosquito Island, known as the destination wedding location for a handful of a-listers (Google’s co-founder Larry Page, among them), into the “most environmentally-friendly resort on the globe.”

Included in the eco-friendly plans for his resort are villas powered purely by wind technology and solar panels, air-conditioning “captured” from the cool thermal airflows, meals coming from the island’s organic orchards, and bio-fuel powered beach buggies.  If Branson can inject some much needed energy into  the airline industry, (and he is already planning commercialized trips to the moon), let’s hope these goals are within reach too.