News

What is Hubze? Who is Hubze?

By MGJack: www.hubze.mgjack.com

Just imagine this. Would it not be great to have only ONE place you had to go online to be social? Right now many of us have to perform the overwhelming task of signing onto and posting to all our social networking sites. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFinder, Ning and all these other social networks…and the truth is…it is a lot of work. I mean should social networking not be fun and easy to do so we in fact do it. Add to that the fact that many of us use social networking as a business application promoting our business and building are brands.

How do we fix this? Enter Hubze. Hubze plans to simplify your life by giving you a platform where you only have to go to ONE place to enter any content. One place to blog, update, share, chat, email, market and search. One place to simplify your online life.

Hubze is not going to be just another social network. Hubze is not going to be just another online marketing system. Hubze is going to be the ONE STOP SHOP you need! And at Hubze simplifying your online life is only the beginning.

Hubze is all about what it’s founders call “Elegant Organization” This concept allows you to bring all of your social interactions into one place. Twitter, Facebook, Direct Matches, Linkedin, BetterNetworker, Myspace, etc. and post to all of them at the push of a button from one single platform. The Hubze MeCard is only the tip of the iceburg here and will be the first of many other services to come. Recently Hubze let out of the bag that they will provide a service that will allow anyone to customize the look and feel of there Facebook page similar to the customization folks enjoy in MySpace. The HubzeCard will always be a free service for all who sign up. For more information on Hubze and to get the HubzeCard service free go to: www.hubze.mgjack.com  for full details. You must be invited by another Hubze member like me so Click and join for FREE.

Top 15 Green Blogs

Reposted from: GBB.org

There are over 6,000 blogs related to the environment on Technorati, and countless more news feeds, and webzines.. There are hundreds of high-quality, well-written green blogs, so it’s very difficult to limit the list to just 15. This list seeks to balance depth with breadth and rankings popularity with diversity. These blogs represent many different topics, from general interest to news to lifestyle to tech.

1. Treehugger - Launched in 2004 by serial entrepreneur and designer Graham Hill, Treehugger defined a new online green space and quickly ascended to the ranks of the web’s top blogs. With radio, forums, video, television, its own social bookmarking network, and more than 30,000 posts, Treehugger is a comprehensive resource for sustainable modern living. Treehugger publishes posts by over 30 writers around the world updating 24/7. Discovery recently bought Treehugger and the site is now partnered to Planet Green. It’s not hard to see why: with over 2 million unique visitors per month and a Technorati rank of 19, Treehugger is by far the biggest green blog online today. The content is focused on green news, products, and events. Read more…

GreenSmartNow.com Now Certified Member of The Green Business Bureau

Green Business Bureau Helps Businesses Go Green
National Green Business Certification Demonstrates Companies’ Commitment to the Environment 

 HOUSTON, TX February 19, 2010, –/WORLD-WIRE/–As customers demand their business partners prove their environmentally responsible business practices and commitment to serving the planet’s best interest, business owners must implement new processes – but until now have not had an affordable means.

Enter Green Business Bureau’s Green Business Certification. Read more…

GreenCitizens launches “Green Business“, an online directory for firms operating in Green sector

By Pranay Jain

GreenCitizens.net, a first of its kind Green Networking Platform has officially launched “Green Business”, a free of cost online directory for firms operating in the world of Green – Energy, Environment, Carbon, Sustainability or Climate Change.

PR Log (Press Release) More than just an online directory, “Green Business” on GreenCitizens.net, provides a networking and marketing platform to organizations engaged in any aspect of green business. It has been created in a way to provide an interactive platform to all organizations.

Every company gets its own dedicated page on GreenCitizens.net, where it can talk about its vision, experience, its initiatives, projects and achievements, share photos and videos, update its followers of its developments and share news with the entire GreenCitizens community. It will act as a marketplace where you will be able to connect with other organizations, both suppliers and potential clients, pave way for strategic partnerships and create visibility for your organization. Read more…

The 20 Most Popular Stories of 2009

By GreenBiz Staff

Oakland, CA — What to make of the 20 most-read stories among the 2,350 (or so) articles and blog posts we ran during 2009 on GreenBiz.com,ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com,GreenerComputing.com andGreenerDesign.com

It’s hard to make head or tails of them, in terms of the themes, interests, or. Yes, packaging and Walmart seem to be two recurring themes. Rankings and ratings stories always rank high. Beyond that, 2009 seems a muddle — as, perhaps, in real life, it was. After all, what links termites and windvertising?

Themes or not, here are the stories of ours that you, dear reader, clicked on, Googled, Digged, Scribd, StumbledUpon, tweeted (and retweeted) and linked to the most. Do you see any noteworthy patterns or trends herein? Let us know if you do. Read more…

Green Technology -Vancouver 2010 Olympics Shines with Sustainability Stars Program

Green Technology -Vancouver 2010 Olympics Shines with Sustainability Stars Program 

By Brendan B. Read 

In just over a month from now athletes, cheered on by spectators and supported and assisted by their trainers and family will begin competing for medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, being held in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

There is another set of winners from the Games that are already being honored: Games partners, sponsors and organizer VANOC for initiatives that demonstrate positive and measurable social, economic and environmental impacts through the Vancouver 2010 Sustainability Stars program. This showcase will demonstrate to other parts of the world innovations and methods that could help them achieve an improved quality of life while making a difference in the Vancouver area.
To be awarded a Sustainability Star an innovation must, says VANOC: demonstrate two or more sustainability features (social, economic and/or environmental); be directly linked to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games; and produce a measurable outcome. It must also be new to the Vancouver 2010 Games region or the Games in general or significantly scaled up through the Vancouver 2010 Games. Read more…

Obama: US spending necessary to create ‘green’ industry jobs

By Tom Raum

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — President Obama is promoting new U.S. spending to create tens of thousands of clean-technology jobs.

He outlined the initiative Friday after a weak government jobs report raised new questions about the sustainability of the recovery.

“Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future, jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced,” Obama said.

Obama announced $2.3 billion in tax credits — to be paid for from last year’s $787 stimulus package — that he said would create some 17,000 “green” jobs. The money will go to projects including solar, wind and energy management.

He said more than 180 projects in over 40 states — including six projects in Arizona — would receive the tax credits.

He also called for an additional $5 billion in spending for clean energy manufacturing, an idea being promoted by Vice President Joe Biden.

Such initiatives are “an important step toward meeting the goal I’ve set of doubling the amount of renewable power we use in the next three years with wind turbines and solar panels built right here in the U.S. of A.,” Obama said.

Obama spoke after the Labor Department said the U.S. jobless rate was unchanged at 10 percent in December, following a decline the previous month. But the government’s broader measure of unemployment — which includes people who have stopped looking for work or can’t find full-time jobs — ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 17.3 percent.

That, plus the larger-than-expected loss of 85,000 jobs in December, put new pressure on the administration to step up job creation.

“The road to recovery is never straight,” Obama said, although he added that the trend is pointing toward an improving jobs picture.

House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio ridiculed Obama’s effort.

“Instead of wildly pivoting from one issue to the next, the Obama administration needs to listen to American families asking ‘where are the jobs?’ and employers calling on Washington to scrap … policies that are already costing jobs,” Boehner said.

After generating 23 million new jobs during the 1990s, the economy is coming off a lost decade, with no net increase in jobs. Even so, losses have been moderating substantially since mid-2009 as the U.S. economy slowly recovers from its worst recession in decades.

Want more investors? Get better about disclosing your sustainability numbers

By Heather Clancy

The Social Investment Forum has just published its latest report about sustainability reporting among S&P 100 companies.

The good news: almost all of them produce SOME information about corporate social responsibility or sustainability efforts on their Web sites.

The not-so-good news, only six of them produce what the organization calls “A” level reports according to the guidelines set out by the Global Reporting Initiative.

Still, the number of S&P 100 companies making reference to those guidelines has more than doubled since 2004, to slightly more than half of the businesses on the list.

Here’s a comment from one of the program directors, Peter DiSimone:

“The fact that we saw an increase in companies issuing sustainability reports during one of the world’s worst economic downturns clearly demonstrates that ESG information is not a luxury but extremely relevant to companies and their investors. This trend supports the idea that investors look for solid ESG performance in valuing companies, and that more and more companies accept this development and are willing to supply information in this area.”

Personally speaking, I think the big break through for sustainability reporting and for true transparency into smart planet initiatives will come when companies really begin disclosing information about their activities in real time as they happen, rather than on an annual basis. Recently, when I asked one major tech company about how they collect their various sustainability and “green” metrics, they admitted it was sort of a point-in-time process. Since the climate changes every day, how can we accept that these metrics would be so static?

You can read the full text of the press release about the Sustainable Investment Research Analyst Network report, called the “S&P 100 Sustainability Reporting Comparison” here. More information about the full report is here.

Companies branching out with green executives

By Tiffany Hsu
Los Angeles Times

During his more than three decades in real estate, David Pogue served many roles, but environmental expert was never one of them.

That didn’t stop his company, Los Angeles real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis, from naming him the company guru of all things eco- friendly nearly two years ago. Pogue suddenly found himself in charge of making the company and its projects more energy efficient and environmentally conscious, an abrupt switch from his previous property-management responsibilities.

“I’m an outsider, a real estate guy trying to become an environmentalist,” said Pogue, the company’s national director of sustainability. “But I believe in what I do, that it’s something bigger than myself.”

As companies grapple with climate change, try to attract eco-conscious customers and develop alternative energy agendas while complying with regulations, a new kind of administrator is moving into the executive suite to help out.

Sustainability officers and green supervisors, some say, are successors to the diversity managers and innovation specialists of the 1990s — with their focus equal parts corporate responsibility, public relations and profit.

“Our clients expect this,” Pogue said. “A company of our size doesn’t have the luxury any longer of not participating.”

After attending a rigorous series of conferences and cramming in hours of reading on the so-called green industry, Pogue settled into the position. His efforts include connecting CB Richard Ellis with programs such as Energy Star from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, and the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building code.

Positions such as Pogue’s are often placed in the upper echelons of companies, where they are highly visible and directly overseen by the chief executive. At Coca-Cola Co. and Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc., chief executives Muhtar Kent and Ryoichi Ueda, respectively, have adopted the sustainability officer title as well.

Other companies bundle in extra duties, such as dealing with the supply chain. At Levi Strauss & Co., Michael Kobori works on labor standards and general green issues as vice president for social and environmental sustainability.

“Ten years ago, the position I have didn’t exist,” Kobori said. “Now, we are seeing a new generation of business leaders who have grown up with sustainability. There is actually a career path in this field for someone at a corporation.”

Some companies, eager to cash in on the eco-enthusiasm, have been accused of hiring sustainability officers who are little more than figureheads. Instead of greening the business plan and inspiring the staff, critics contend, these executives end up isolated, ineffective or overburdened.

“There’s a danger in creating a chief sustainability officer, because it places all the responsibility of that issue onto one person,” said Kobori. “We’re successful when sustainability gets embedded in all the roles in the company.”

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_14108391#ixzz0bYuj8qG6

Telcos Facing Energy Concerns: AT&T Appoints Energy Director

By Katie Fehrenbacher

About 37 percent of the carbon footprint of the entire information and communication technology sector (ICT) in 2007 was due to the energy consumption of telecom infrastructure and devices, according to the Climate Group (14 percent came from data centers, and 49 percent came from PCs and peripherals). Contrast that with telecom’s carbon footprint figure in 2002 which was 28 percent of ICT’s carbon footprint. Phone companies are starting to notice that trend: this morning AT&T announced that it has hired its first Director of Energy John Schinter.

Schinter will be in charge of managing and reducing AT&T’s energy consumption across its network and direct its energy-related purchasing. AT&T says they are in the process of “reorganizing the way AT&T optimizes our energy use,” and hiring Schinter is one part of that. Other energy-related initiatives the phone company has taken in recent years include: creating an Energy Council within AT&T to enable different divisions to talk together about the companies energy goals, establishing a goal to cut “electricity usage intensity (relative to data growth on the AT&T network) by 15 percent, compared to 2008 levels,” using 1E’s NightWatchman power management software on 310,000 AT&T employee computers and looking at alternative energy for AT&T facilities.

Phone companies, like computing companies, are facing a growing expense due to their energy consumption. By 2020 energy use related to mobile networks will make up 13 percent of the total ICT carbon footprint, according to the Climate Group. But the Climate Group is anticipating that phone companies’ energy efficiency efforts (like AT&T’s) over the coming years could provide significant savings. Energy optimization software could save up to 44 percent, renewable energy for base stations could reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent and adopting a variety of measures like these could lead to “the avoidance of almost 60 MtCO2e in 2020,” says the Climate Group. According to Pike Research “there are sufficient technology and process improvements that could reduce 2013 [telco] infrastructure emissions by at least 101 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, a decrease of 42 percent from business-as-usual (BAU) trendlines,” (more on that on GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

Phone companies are also moving aggressively to get into the business of using their networks for both the smart grid and home energy management. AT&T has teamed up with startup SmartSynch, as has T-Mobile. And telcos with home fiber deployments are rapidly looking to layer on energy management as a service, along with voice, video and data (read more about that on GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

Image courtesy of Ericsson.