This online tutorial will guide you through the process of linking your shipment information to greenshipping.com, so you are always up to date on your shipment tracking. How to Track your packages

The Economics of Climate Adaptation Working Group, a member of the Swiss Re Center for Global Dialogue, released their report, Shaping Climate Resilient Development, today. The Report concludes that the global cost of climate change will be around 19% of the world’s GDP by 2030. Some key risks associated with climate change that the report discusses are increased droughts which will lead to a $7billion dollar loss in Indian agriculture and increased hurricanes equaling $33 billion/ year for mitigation and repair in Florida.

The report then calls for global decision makers to take action and begin investing in climate change mitigation.  Such investments would work towards significant increases in renewable energy, energy efficiency and SMART grids.  The main call for action is for decision makers to integrate climate change adaptation with economic development. So, the key question becomes “How can we reach our development targets while accounting for current and future risks?” instead of “How can we minimize the damage from climate hazards?”

The Economics of Climate Change Working Group does not state that their report is a concrete solution to such a complex issue, but hopefully it will help the world’s economic decision makers (and us) begin to think of development as it relates to climate change risk.

So, what would happen if USPS decided to reduce or cut Saturday delivery service?  According to some investigative research on this very question by Pablo Paster of Treehugger, the atmosphere might become a much cleaner place.

Currently, USPS drivers spend a total of 1.2 billion miles on the road each year and 90% is attributed to letter delivery.  “Cutting six days of home delivery service to five days would cut the miles driven by delivery operations by 1/6th, or 167 million miles.”  Potential savings of GHG emissions to our atmosphere due to this cut back would be around 211 million pounds per day.

Sounds like a pretty good idea.

From Dr. Vino's Website

In May, National Geographic published a small expose on “The Toll of Wine”. The article is based off of research by Pablo Paster (Climate Check) and Tyler Colman (Dr. Vino). Transport tallies for the shipment of a 750 mill. bottle of wine are estimated for shipping and trucking from Napa, U.S., Sydney, Australia, Bordeaux, France and Santiago Chili to L.A., Chicago and New York city.

The Results:

Trucking from Napa to NYC has the largest impact at 4.4lbs/ bottle shipped where as shipping from Bordeaux, France to NYC has the smallest impact at 0.3lbs/ bottle shipped (Yes, this is even smaller than trucking from Napa to LA which equals around 0.6lbs/bottle shipped).

So, it is clear that trucking is a lot less efficient than shipping but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should import all of your wine. Shopping for local wine (as well as food) is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. But, if you must get a Pot de Bordeaux, a bottle of Calistoga, a flagon of Yellow Tail or a carafe of Casas Del Bosque delivered to your door, Greenshipping is a great way to offset those emissions!

Here are links to the study and comments about the article:

Dr. Vino: “The Tolll of WIne”

Treehugger: To Ship or Truck?

Green Energy News is a web based journal that is focused on reporting breaking stories in the renewable energy industry. This great article is about our work and collaboration with BEF and the power of offsetting carbon emissions.

The OIA (Outdoor Industry Association) eco working group, which is comprised of 60 outdoor businesses, is working on the first ever ECO-INDEX for the outdoor industry.  So Far, they have created an Eco-Index Framework, Phase II Project Plan and Green Guidelines for Packaging.
Here is what they came up with:
OIA Eco Work Group

Packaging Design Principles & Guidelines

Approved and Published 9/29/08

The following are guidelines for business sustainability efforts in the area of product packaging, both in terms of consumer point of purchase, display packaging, as well as shipping and protective packaging throughout its entire supply chain.

REDUCE

□ Do we need it?

□ Minimize material usage or eliminate packaging completely

□ Use single materials and avoid laminates or multiple materials

□ Substrates shall be separable without the use of tools

□ Minimize size of packaging (reduce shipping space)

□ Examine the package-to-product ratio

REUSE

□ Create packaging that can be reused within the retail operations.

□ Packaging that can be reused within and between retail stores, distribution centers, and

factories

□ Consumer packaging that can be reused or has alternative use

If creating reusable packaging consider the following:

How many customers will actually reuse the packaging vs. throwing it away?

Can it be done without using more material than non-reusable packaging?

Will it be compatible throughout the supply chain (i.e. transportation, distribution centers, retail store, etc)?

RECYCLE

□ Create packaging compatible with recycling systems (can a person in the average city recycle

this at home or at our retail stores?)

□ Single material (multiple materials reduces recyclability of packaging)

□ Avoid laminates, films, wax, or wet strength additives and coatings

□ Avoid pressure sensitive adhesives, closures, foil stamps, aluminum tags, etc.

□ Avoid adhesives and coating (they contaminate the recycling process)

□ Avoid metallic, uv-cured or fluorescent inks (they contaminate the recycle process)

If creating recyclable packaging:

Movement to educate via the graphics and clearly label as such

Actively support recycling as the end-of-use destination for all the paper we use.

Packaging shall declare the approximate recycled content for each material

Recyclable packaging needs to be recovered by brand owners to guarantee that it is recycled

The retail stores shall include a free service whereby the packaging material can be collected and returned for reuse or recycling

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

□ Maximize use of post consumer recycled content, agricultural waste or textile scrap

□ Maximize use of sustainable materials

□ Use materials with high recycle rates

□ Identify all packaging being used by our vendors

PAPER OR PAPERBOARD

□ Post-consumer recycled content, agricultural waste, textile scrap, etc.

□ FSC certified paper and wood products (this ensures no old growth or clear cut forests)

□ Unbleached, totally chlorine free or process chlorine free paper

□ Acid free paper

□ Water based and/or soy based inks

□ Avoid wax and other wet-strength additives and coatings

□ Avoid plastic film laminations, extruded coatings or foil stamping

□ Avoid inks with solvents

□ Avoid uv-cured printing inks, metallic inks or fluorescent inks

□ Avoid pressure-sensitive adhesives

□ Avoid film applied over a cut-out “windowing”

□ Avoid wax coatings, e-beam inks or uv inks on corrugated cardboard

PLASTIC

□ Post-consumer recycled content

□ No PVC

□ Do not mix resins or incompatible attachments

□ Biopolymers: be cautious about additives such as coupling agents, plasticizers, fillers, dyes,

and pigments

Pretty Cool Huh!  Good luck OIA!

Tracking goods and services has become a major part of consumer life. We like to know where our things are and when we will get them. In the past decade, customers have increasingly been able to track everything from packages, to flights, to Pizza delivery and now CO2 emissions. Companies have caught onto this customer need to track and are offering more in depth ways of tracking the where, when and how of a good or service.

Greenshipping.com is proud to be one of these Companies. We give our customers an easy to use service that tracks two things:
1. Your Packages: Where it starts, where it ends, what mode of transportation it uses en route and, most importantly, an accurate arrival date.
2. Your Packages’ C02 Emissions: Calculated by tracking the packages’ weight, the transportation mode used to deliver it and total miles traveled based on Professor Arpad Horvath’s extensive research on emission profiles of freight transportation.

Check out the USA Today article on Track-a-Holics, then become a Greenshipping.com Track-a-Holic and easily track your packages and their CO2 emissions.

Green Shipping is headed to the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market and Expo in Salt Lake City from July 21 – 24. It is the biggest expo in the the industry and we are excited to see some great new outdoor products and hope to spread the word about Greenshipping. See you all there!

That’s right, the 1968 launch of Apollo 8 was powered by hydrogen fuel cells, a technology that Francis Bacon adapted for NASA’s use. This efficient and “carbon neutral” power source has been continually used by the space industry ever since. The more impressive thing is that the by product of fuel cells is water, and NASA is able to capture it for the astronauts to drink. Now, that sounds like Waste = Food/Cradle to Cradle to me!

So, why aren’t fuel cells a regular source of energy?  Why can’t I fill up with hydrogen?  Well, the sourcing of hydrogen and the process of converting it into energy are not yet sustainable and are more costly than gas.  However, many companies around the globe are working on creating renewable hydrogen, therefore lowering costs.  This is definitely a technology with a huge Green potential.

Check out the BBC article for more info!

As the green movement continues to move through industries, more and more innovative new technologies find their way to the market. The new MotionPower Technology by New Energy is a speed bump used in areas of slow moving traffic that will harness the kinetic energy from cars and convert it into electricity.

There are estimates that we drive around 6.3 billion miles every day in the U.S. If the kinetic energy generated by moving vehicles was captured at any given moment, it could produce enough electricity to power over a quarter million homes each day.

Here is an article on Cleantechnia and Treehugger about the device.