Finally…Smart Packaging…
For some time we have been talking about this idea, so I was really pleased to read this…click on the image to go directly to the full article…..
Windvertising…I love this world…
You may want to have a look at: WEPOWER’S PACWIND TURBINES GIVES ADVERTISING A ‘GREEN’ MAKEOVER
Casa Certificada…
As of the 1st January 2009, all houses, apartments, offices, etc sold or rented must have an Energy Certificate. Its like the refrigerators have an A, B, C etc rating…now homes in Portugal has the same thing.
One night in September 2008, I realized that there needs to be an online platform where people can go and find out information and find an “expert” who can calculate this rating. Like the yellow pages of energy certification.
So, we made a proposal to the Government body that manages this stuff here in Portugal and would you know…they accepted it…
I was lucky that the person I wanted to do the site had just left his permanent job (brave guy…leaving his job in a recession…)(but that’s another story…) so the site is designed in Ruby on Rails…my Mum’s name was Ruby so I like this technology…
Today we went live on the first phase…a two week period where the experts will register…
Then we go live to the public, which will allow them to leave ads to request an expert to contact them…
It’s very exciting…and I have to say I am a little proud to have envisioned a project and 5 months later it’s online…
Have a look… www.casacertificada.pt
The Cost of NOT Cutting Carbon
Having been involved in the design and building of Energy Efficient buildings for the last 20 years (in Portugal), and having proved that “yes we can” reduce the energy needs of a building by at least 80% without jumping through hoops nor major lifestyle changes, it’s not easy understanding this CO2 issue.
If it’s a problem…and we do have to assume that we all know that IT IS A PROBLEM, then we know we can fix it. HOWEVER, this implies some change in the way we do things. There is no point just passing the problem on to someone or somewhere else. The problem starts with each of us. The sequestration solution is the equivalent to burying our heads in the sand, so a non starter.
The Cost of Cutting Carbon in Money. The Cost of NOT Cutting Carbon is HUMANITY…I truly fear for my childrens’ children.
Carbon is a direct consequence of energy consumption. We reduce consumption, we reduce Carbon.
Approximately 40% of all global energy is consumed in Buildings. It’s therefore relatively straight forward to understand that our buildings need to be very lean and very mean.
Energy Efficiency: all buildings can consume 80% less energy…It’s possible and it’s not expensive. In the process we create major employment and EcoJobs…
Renewable Energy: Give energy the same order of priority as we do communication. Most of us in Europe pay far more for communication than we do for energy. Get the priorities right. We know we can use wind, solar, biomass, wave energies…get as much as we can out of these Renewable Energies and we are probably on track to providing most of the energy in our buildings. And we create more major EcoJobs
SmartGrids will need SmartBuildings.
Of course we still need to tackle the transport issue and I am sure after the recent debacle of Detroit we already understand that we do need to change our mobility policies.
We can do this…it’s quite easy actually. We do need to think about the environment from a sustainable perspective and not just an economic venture. After all (and as even Al Gore says), what good is all the money in the world, when we don’t have a planet to live on.
(This post responds to a question posted here)
