Posts Tagged ‘Go Green’
Go Green! The Green Business Program in Monterey Bay Area, California
Monterey Bay Area offers a Green Business Program which is a multimedia (soil, air and water) pollution prevention effort that makes a positive relationship between the public, business community and government. It is an incentive based program designed to encourage businesses to match or exceed environmental standards.
The Green Business Program takes pride in recognizing the businesses that lead the way in the environmental field within the Monterey Bay Area. By recognizing their good work in the area it allows for other businesses to follow their example. The Green Business Program wants to show businesses that they can accomplish both being green and profitable-and good members of our communities.
To be a certified “green,” participating businesses need be in accordance with regulatory agencies and meet program criteria for conserving resources, preventing pollution and minimizing waste. Their program is designed to assist, recognize and promote businesses that decide to operate their businesses in a more environmentally responsible way. The Monterey Bay Area Business Program wants to encourage and pave a path for more companies to go green.
The Green Business Program was first started in 2003. The program currently provides aide and certification for vehicle service facilities and restaurants. In the near future, the program will set its sets on assisting and certifying printers, hotels, landscapers, dry cleaners, and wineries in the Santa Cruz area.
In 2004 on Earth Day the Green Business Program Partners awarded the first Certified Green Business Awards to seven local auto shops at the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors program kick-off ceremony.
Some of the local agencies that are a part of the Green Business Program Partners include the Sanitation District, Public Works Department Recycling and Solid Waste, Environmental Health Services, City of Santa Cruz, City of Scotts Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant, City of Watsonville, Soquel Creek Water District and the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency.
If your business or one that you know wants to be a part of this program, you can contact the Green Business Program of Santa Cruz, Monterey or San Benito County and they will gladly assist you in answering all of your questions and help you get started making your company a Green Business.
Old to New, Going Green. How do the Two Relate?
It seems that almost everyone is trying to do their part in helping the environment so what are builders doing? How are they making their contribution?
Around the North America many are watching the hit television show Extreme Home Makeover, which is a show wrapped around helping families live a healthier life. Majority of the time, it takes the builders to demolish their old, falling down homes and rebuilding them with brand new ones, but is that what all builders do?
The answer is NO, there are builders and general contractors all around the United States that search high and low for communities that are falling down and homes that are in need of help. Contractors and builders like this have a skill, they can look at the worst in something and a vision a beautiful work of art or masterpiece in a matter of months.
Most of us want new, it’s practical and most of the times comes with a warranty. It is more convenient, not everyone is like that. Many people want the old, to make it into new. They see it as an investment.
Nearly all around the country people are looking and purchasing homes and buildings that are falling apart so they can bring the original luster or appeal back to them they want to give the structure a new found life.
Homes and businesses that are falling apart and need a lot of work can be found at a much cheaper price than new ones which makes it a key factor for business men and women alike. Purchasing a piece of property for a fraction of the price and putting into it what you what have spent on a new piece turns your property into a profit which is what many want.
Look at it this way, why go out and pay $200,000 on a home? When you can purchase a falling down home for $20,000 and invest just a mere $100,000 in it and resell it for $300,000. If you can do that then you have just made a profit of $80,000. More and more people are beginning to do this as a business or a way of life because they want to see the old being turned into new without damaging history or using all new products that are hurting the environment, it’s their way of giving back or refurbishing. Going Green!
The Green Dilemma
The slogan for today’s consumer is “Go Green.” As it seems that the up and coming technologies are almost all based on ideal touted as being “eco-friendly,” the consumer must make a choice as to whether the benefit is worth the added money.
The cost of a certain popular base model hybrid SUV is around $28,850, minus the $750 federal tax credit the purchase price is still $29,110. While the government tax credit sounds great it still passes on an extra $8,000 in cost to the consumer as opposed to buying the same model SUV with a standard gasoline engine.
The hybrid SUV is rated for an estimated 42 miles per gallon, while the standard version only gets around 24 miles to the gallon. This translates to the hybrid driver getting around 120 extra miles per tank of gasoline, and with the price per gallon of gasoline hovering around $2.75 it translates to around $10.30 saved on every 15 gallon tank of fuel used.
That really sounds like an astounding amount of savings and a great buying incentive, but a bit of simple math shows that the hybrid driver would need to consume about 776 tanks of gas, or around 372,000 miles of driving just to break even on the original extra purchase price of the hybrid.
This kind of cost benefit ratio isn’t limited just to the purchase of alternative fuel vehicles. A close investigation of nearly all the present green technology, from electric cars to solar homes illustrates the same kind of debacle. Many times the original added cost of green technology prohibits its widespread usage.
In today’s economy it simply isn’t practical for the average person to outlay a huge sum of cash in the hopes that the investment will pay for itself many years in the future. Not many people have that kind of disposable income.
Market executives, scientists and developers of green energy sources and technology have recognized this as a legitimate problem in getting the green energy movement off the ground. It has finally been realized that the only way to make green energy popular is to make it cost the same as conventional sources.
Is the answer more government intervention? It would seems that the US government has decided to take a vested interest in the problem since recently President Barack Obama promised $2.3 billion in federal subsidies to green energy developers in an effort to allow the development of better and more cost effective energy sources.
In many other countries these subsidies have helped to jump-start the development and distribution of green energy sources. In Germany, for example, the government has subsidized green energy sources in the form of feed-in tariffs which allow the producers of green energy to sell the energy produced at above market prices. This has led to Germany having more solar panels in use than any other country on earth.
These subsidies may assist in getting movement toward green energy started, but the truth is that the only way to make green energy attractive to the masses of to make it at least as cheap as conventional energy sources. Until that happens, the dream of green energy becoming a cornerstone of energy production might remain just a dream.