The Distance Project

Why I Love ZipCar, by Zach L.

Posted on November 16th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Systems of the World, Urban Planning.

This title sounds like a 4th grade paper I wrote once. I was a good writer in 4th grade, my paper on the Tyrannosaurus Rex was Pulitzer worthy. Perhaps the highlight of my writing career – sadly it was all downhill from there.  4th grade talent notwithstanding, the ZipCar model really is cool.

If you haven’t yet, check out the concept of CarSharing. It is a fascinating model of managing the last mile (always the hardest piece) of public transportation systems. What is always frustrating about Public Transportation in this country is that often you are too far away for the train or bus stop. Getting to your final destination is expensive and difficult.

Parking Zipcars at subway, train, and bus stations solves this problem.  You still have the flexibility to go exactly where you need to, but you didn’t have to battle highway traffic to do it.  Plus CarShare programs  cover insurance and  the fuel for the time you use the car. Love this concept and I hope it spreads all over the country.  Recently the two biggies in this space; ZipCar and FlexCar announced that they will merge in the coming year.  This has to be the biggest no-brainer since XM and Sirius.  Oh right, those two still haven’t managed to figure out the merging process.

We support CarShare as a a key piece of the puzzle and this summer we signed a partnership deal with Zipcar to give all their members a discount on Reware products.  For us there is an interesting cross marketing concept here.  ZipCar and Reware both have been started with the hope that they will make changes to the system, while providing their customers a new service that they use.  Making change and making money. What could be better from a work standpoint?

It seems like there are more and more companies trying to figure out this model, and I envision us partnering more and more often. It makes sense because the customer base is so similar. For the most part the target audience is very mainstream. They live normal lives, they are not out on a commune weaving their own shoes .  But they see the world changing, they see their lives as impactful and if they can spend money with companies that make them feel like their actions are part of the solution, they are pleased.

Call it the Whole Foods model.  I have to go to the grocery store anyway,  why not go to the one that is espousing the values that I want in my life?

There is a growing lifestyle concept that I feel like more and more people are trying to figure out. ZipCar and the other car sharing services fit right into this niche.

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Train travel is fun.

Posted on November 2nd, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Systems of the World, Urban Planning.

I love trains. I love sitting here watching the world go by. I find myself more productive, more creative, more relaxed. I think it is the best way to travel.

For the most part trains could be better in this country. But Amtrak also gets a bad rap. They are working under impossible conditions politically for trains – basically no mandate whatsoever, and trying to service and impossibly vast country. I read recently that the Eastern corrdior trains (Boston to Washington DC) pay for much of the rest of the Amtrak system.

This is about to change – Amtrak recently received a large influx of cash from the federal government, effectively doubling its budget I believe. And it comes at just in time. The roadways of this country exist on a knife’s edge every morning and evening, especially around major metropolitan areas. Anyone who has been on Interstate 95 in the past couple of years will tell you that all it takes is a slight problem to create vast delays.

What if it transitioned to a for profit system? Free market folks claim that prices would go down as services went to compete for your business. I am not entirely convinced of this, but it would be an interesting concept.

First and formost for this to happen though, the US would have to realize the value and potential of rail systems to move people and product around the country. They would have to value it the way we value our roads.

Imagine what the price of a car would be if the Automobile industry had to pay to the upkeep of all the roads. Or maybe it would be on the Oil compaines to keep it up. Imagine the price of gas! Instead road work comes straight out of federal, state, and local taxes. We have essentially deemed upkeep of the roadways critical to our economic well being. And they are, you will get no argument from me on that front. Yet, highways around the country have hit critical mass. Train systems can move massive amounts of people and product on relativley reliable schedules for a 10th of the energy consumption.

SO we should be investing in track maintenance. As a society we should deem track infrastructure critical to urban development. It should at least return to the same level of importance as our highway system.

Just for a little G-Whiz, check out some of the new MagLev train systems and how they work. SO cool.

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Inspiration like no other – The Solar Decathlon 2007

Posted on October 21st, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Urban Planning.

Every two years a group of university students descend upon the Mall in Washington DC for the Solar Decathlon. For anyone who has not seen the event, it is worth a trip to DC in my opinion. I have never been so inspired by the possibilities for the future as when touring the event.

Picture this: 25 University teams made up of students from Architecture, Engineering, and Design programs spend 2 years of there college lives planning, designing and constructing 800 squre foot homes. Each with their own cool approaches to a combination of livability and sustainability.

Every other October, the house roll into town on flatbed trucks and plop themselves down a stones throw from the capital building. But this is not for show, the kids all battle it out in 10 event competition to see whose house will be America’s next top model! Sorry no, I am watching too much reality TV as I write these days. But they do compete and the it is fierce. All the houses have to power a maximum of 800 square feet completely by solar, no exceptions. They must also heat a certain amount of hot water per hour, as well provide good aesthetics for a home, and good communication of their theories through tours and websites.

All of this proved especially challenging in the 2005 when it proceeded to rain for 6 days of the competition.

While the rain was rightly disappointing to many of the teams and a pain for all of the vistors to the houses (For most of the week you get to tour any house you’d like), I actually like seeing whose houses were built tightly and whose leaked like a sieve!

No such problems this year as we had unbelievably beautiful weather for the week and watched a University in Germany take home top honors followed by the University of Maryland.

I spent most of the week on the Mall for the event as we showed off our newest product the PowerCube. There are a couple of observations that I came away with:

- Our good friends Richard King and Wendy Burt at the Department of Energy who run the event, continue to put on an amazing show. The show from the outside was a huge success. Huge crowds, great houses, just a truly fun time. Big up to both of them for pulling it all off yet again.

- The National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden Colorado, is one of the coolest assets the US Government has. In to make sure the show was a success, everyone from the Lab was so knowledgeable, excited about the event, so genuinely passionate about renewable energy. Just a great group.

- The passion and creativity of the students is straight up inspiring. I can’t say this enough, it is just fun to be around that kind of passion for something that will revolutionize our country. They are changing the world.

This decathlon was such a success that there is rumblings of a European version next year as well.

Check out all of the websites for the teams from the SolarDecathlon07 website. So many green products and approach to green building, these websites are a must see if you are thinking about a building project in the near future.

Keep track of this thing as they gear up for 2009 because it is something not to be missed.

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The Power of Hybrids

Posted on October 10th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Systems of the World.

The other night I was at dinner and found myself in discussion with someone unimpressed by the Hybrid car revolution. Fair point from the outside I suppose, but I thought it was worth a little bit of time here to show why hybrids matter.

When it comes to cars, one of the first thing people look at is gas mileage and on that front most of the Hybrids are pretty good, if not mind blowing – somewhere between 30 and 50 mpg depending on the size of the engine. This is better than the national average, but for a regular Civic driver or someone who drives a TDI from Volkswagen, it is not enough to pony up the extra bucks.

Fuel efficiency is a big deal obviously and I don’t want to devalue how important it is in the larger equation. Energy conservation is the single most important challenge facing the U.S. Vehicles are no different, and hybrid technology is addressing this as the technology matures. 

In terms of the impact of hybrid technology though, fuel efficiency is only part of the equation, and I would argue the smaller of the two. What really matters are the emissions.

In traditional cars and trucks a large majority of emissions are produced either when the vehicle is at idle, or moving at slow speeds. Stop-and-go traffic for example, is an emissions nightmare. So much so that cities see significant reduction of pollution when they use more timed traffic lights systems. By reducing the number of times cars have to stop for lights, the pollution levels are lower.

Because a hybrid vehicles operates on an electric motor during these critical times (0 -15 mph), the emissions are reduced by a large factor. The numbers are actually staggering: around 80% of the total emissions in a three mile drive are created during the first mile.

To put the impact of this into perspective next time you are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic that forces you to slow down around 10 – 15 miles an hour, take a look around you and imagine every one of the cars putting out zero emissions. In every major urban area these days, this is a daily occurrence at rush hour.

Idling my not seem like a big deal to the average person, but it is. According to a Washington State University Study, trucks and buses burn in the neighborhood of 840 million of gallons of diesel a year JUST IDLING! Combine that with the emissions quotient and the numbers for trucks are just plain scary.

Trucks at idle, cars in traffic, imagine if every one of those vehicles were producing zero emissions. Hybrid system are a critical answer to these issues, and that is why they matter now.

They matter for future innovation as well. Emerging technologies like plugin hybrid systems up the electric speeds from 0-15 mph to actual cruising speeds – spurts of 50+ mph. The systems are only going to get better.

Most importantly, hybrid systems separate the energy production from the motor. In current examples like the Prius, a gas engine charges batteries which then run an electric motor. At high speeds the combustion engine kicks in as well, but increasingly the electric motor takes the load with the gas engine used for producing electricity.

Future systems will fully divorce the engine from the motor. This will enable a wide variety of energy production sources to be used in cars – hydrogen fuelcells, biofuels, sterling engines, etc. And that kind of flexibility is where innovation will continue develop.

A couple of facts:

• The transportation sector generates 27 percent of U.S. GHG emissions

• There are 200 million registered vehicles in the U.S.,  almost one per person.

• The average U.S. car each consumes 600 Gallons each year.

• 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide is emitted from one U.S. car each year.

• U.S. cars and light trucks traveled 2.7 trillion miles in 2004. That’s the equivalent of taking 10 million trips to the moon.

• Emissions for the first km are 80% of total emissions for the 4km journey.

• The U.S. produces 45% Percent of the world’s automotive carbon dioxide emissions.

• The Toyota Prius reduces normalized tailpipe emissions by up to 90% and greenhouse gas emissions by around 50%.

• The City of Ottawa estimates that reducing idling by only 5 minutes per day in all City vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 384 tonnes and save $80,000 in fuel costs across the fleet.  5 minutes!

         Sources: pewclimate.org, Evironmental Defense, University of Bath (UK), City of Ottawa

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Dressing Well.

Posted on August 1st, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: General, Pop-Culture, Sustainability.

So I have had this small secret goal to make everything I wear have some sort of environmental story – Organic fabrics, low toxicity, made locally, or by Co-Ops somewhere for a fair price, recycled materials – you know, all that hippy crap. The challenging part has been that it has to fit into what I like to wear. I am not a big Tie Dye or Birkenstock wearer, I don’t really like the traditionally “natural” look. No offense to that stuff, but it just not my scene.

Oh yeah, I also hate to shop. There is almost nothing worse than trying stuff on in a store. It sucks; nothing ever fits right, you have to spend the whole day just to find one or two things you like, in the end it is always the most expensive thing in the store that fits the best. I mean, come on I am on a start-up budget here people, I can’t be buying expensive clothing. So generally anything I can do to reduce my time in a clothing store is great.

I have been trying to work this into my clever plan by looking for things that can be worn for more than the six minutes that fashion trends seem to last these days. This concept of the “timeless classic” is probably harder than trying to find eco-fashionable wares. It rarely exists, so in the cases where I am buying on trend I have been trying to buy only one of those things and wear it into the ground. (This is known to many of us the River’s Vest Phenomenon – sorry for the inside joke)

No industry has been more successful with the concept of “planned obsolescence” than the fashion industry. Very clever of them, the clothes don’t wear out in their plan – they just go out of fashion. This is brilliant! Basically you shame people into not being cool becuase their clothing is 3 months old. Fashion is the most second grade concept in adult life.

By the way, that Juice Bag of yours is SO last season, have you seen the new Daylight Series?

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about the little secret plans I come up with when I have to much time on my hands (and, let me tell you, have I got a million of ‘em…). Nevertheless there is some cool stuff out there right now, and my little task has been greatly reduced. Thought I would take some time to point out some of my favorites.

Levi’s Eco
Loomstate

Edun
Mission Playground

Nau

American Apparel Sustainable Edition
Patagonia
Simple Shoes
Terra Plana

Shoes are the hardest, but I just got a pair of WornAgain sneakers from Terra Plana (big up to Riv for the gift). Love these things, I have them on right now. Recylcled rubber soles. Leather from that used to be waste product. Recycled cloth innards. Designs with some funk, how can you beat it!

As I sit blogging in a coffee shop in San Francisco (could I be more of a stereotype right now?), I am feeling right at home with my shoes. At one with the shoe universe you might say. Now hopefully they will be on trend for the next 15 years.

They will right?

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Entry Points: Why Live Earth Mattered.

Posted on July 18th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Pop-Culture, Sustainability, Systems of the World.

I managed to watch a fair amount of the Live Earth extravaganza, here are some quick thoughts:

- Maybe time has marched on, but I didn’t get the same cultural buzz off the concert that the African Relief shows did in the 80’s. Not sure why, but the whole thing felt a little hollow. (Except for Wembley, see point 3)

- The transition sequences, little movies, and statistics were awesome. Not sure who did all of them, but they rule. They felt like they had tangible significance. Loved it.

- It was so obvious how the venue setup matters. Giant stadium seemed energyless for most the most part. The floor area all had seats and they were FAR from the stage. In contrast Wembley looked so impressive. It had huge energy and just seemed crazy cool. Even the smaller venues seemed to work better than Giant Stadium – Brazil looked so fun. But then a free concert on the beach in Rio? How is this not fun?

- Foo Fighters ripped it up. Those guys put on the best set of the concert – by far.

- Bob Geldoff is grumpy someone stole his idea. Check this bit from Treehugger. Love that picture. When did he last sleep?

Ah Live Earth – concerts for the planet. Such an easily ridiculed concept, with such huge implications for the future.

It’s just hard. Hard to watch Madonna tell me that it is time to pay attention to the planet. It has the feel of being chastised by your Mom for not cleaning your room. You know you probably should listen, but this Xbox…is just…sucking…your attention…away…

Time Magazine has a good piece on the concerts – both the good and the bad. An interesting argument comes up in the piece, one that is growing I think. It’s surmised by this quote of Arctic Monkeys’ drummer Matt Helder: “We’re using enough power for ten houses just for lighting,” Arctic Monkeys’ drummer Matt Helder told AFP. “It’d be a bit hypocritical [if we played].”

Hmmm, I wonder if they feel hypocritical every time they play, or just this particular time when highlighting climate change. Sorry I digressed there.

The truth is he’s right. In some ways it would be best if this concert didn’t go on. Massive reduction, conservation and efficiency are the greatest sources of potential energy in the world – especially in the US. Reducing our consumption – less travel, fewer products purchased, reduced electricity use – these things would make the planet we live in fundamentally better.

I started wondering why this quote bugged me so much. I realized it’s because the issue hits so close to home. We produce a product that we call “green”. The Juice Bag incorporates a solar panel for charging your phone, iPod, etc. In our ES line we source recycled fabrics for the bags. But like the Live Earth concert, it is partly true that the world would be less impacted if we didn’t design, produce, or ship a Juice Bag to you.

The flaw in this logic is that as a society we are not consuming less. Concerts for entertainment go on – the Arctic Monkeys will tour all over the world, come climate change or not. People camp out for the “Must Have” gadgets like the iPhone. I drove to work today. These are the realities of our world. These are the systems we live in.

It’s what we have, and while it is nice to dream of consumption disappearing into thin air, the reality is that our consumption is getting worse not better.

So the question is how do you begin to make that transition from where we are, to where we want to be? To a less consumptive place.
I think it begins with systems we use every day. Around Reware we dream of the day where every bag bought is made from recycled materials. Where the process Nau is using is the norm in clothing manufacturing. That it would be expected by the consumer. Sure we would still be buying too many bags as a society, but we will have begun the transition to reduction.

Recycled fabrics and solar panels create what we like to think of as an entry point for consumers to expect this type of thing from their products. We are still buying too much, but we have at least started to think about our system. This sets the stage for the next set of changes we have to make. Recently the New York Times had a good piece looking at this concept.

The crucial point, I think, is at the end of the article. Entry points (done well) really work in this context of transition. Central to the argument, there are a set of social marketing studies that show people who are consuming organic products, are attempting to incorporate other climate mitigation strategies into their daily lives. I can’t find a link to the one I was reading, if anyone has one of these studies send it my way and I will post it.

From our own experiences (and I may have used this anecdote before); we once sold a Juice Bag at a solar show in Arizona. The guy came back the next day and said “This thing works great for my phone, do you think I could power my house like this?” That is a good day for us, and a successful entry point into sustainability through consumer goods.

Entry Point theory is a tricky marketing business though. EPs have to be easily accessible to a wide market regardless of politics, socio-economics, or geographic location. They have to make transition strategies fun and engaging for people who live busy lives. Entry points have to create the same feel for consumers that the iPhone has – A sense of belonging, of identity, of excitement, in product – a hard thing to create in any context. If only we could get Apple on board with some of the eco-theory…

But, this is where pop-culture can be such a powerful tool. And this is where Live Earth matters. Now it wasn’t perfect, some of the artists were annoying and self rightous, but when is that not true? For one day the words “climate change” were on millions of peoples collective minds – whether they liked the idea, or hated it. Climate Change was everywhere. And that is an amazing feet. Amazing.

Like Reware, like Wholefoods, like the Prius, the concert had its impact on the environment that was not ideal. The critical debate should not center around this, the debate should be more around Bob Geldoff’s grumpiness. Did the concert create a successful entry point for people wanting to find out more about sustainability, or did it fail to capture the imagination?

Now that is a question which matters..

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Revenge of the Packaging Vent A Thon – From Left Field.

Posted on July 6th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: General, Systems of the World.

This is a slightly different vent about packaging, but have you ever noticed how hard it is to come out of a “to-go” food situation without three bags, fifteen forks, enough napkins to get mustard off all the mouths in Rhode Island, the sandwich you ordered wrapped in four layers of paper, and various coupons for future use?

Every time I go out to grab lunch from the office these days I come away with four pounds of packaging – to say nothing of the places that pack all of the above into a lovely Styrofoam box. So sweet, I will be throwing that away in about 3 seconds…

But this is not the messed up part, what concerns me most is that when I tell them I don’t want the (bag, napkins, silverware, etc) I feel guilty, like they might feel insulted somehow.

What is that about! Holy crap I have packaging guilt!

This is the weirdest reaction to potential trash I can imagine. Do I really feel they might be insulted? Really?

Whatever – most of the folks behind the counter just look confused. They have just put together about 10,000 sandwiches and packaged them in a perfect system of fluidity. And here I come screwing up the process: He really doesn’t want the napkins? Maybe I will give them to him anyway, just in case. They are as screwed up as I am at that moment.

At least we are in this thing together.

I know, I know, I should be putting last nights stir fry in Tupperware and bringing it from home – Saving money, packaging, and being super enviro.

It doesn’t happen.

First off, I live alone and rarely cook in general. In my situation I actually think cooking is more consumptive (Spoiler Alert: Here comes a rationale for my own behavior, I bet most of you can hardly wait). When I buy vegetables, I end up throwing half of them out as they slowly rot in my fridge. Also I definitely am using less packaging in my current state than buying food and cooking. I just am; being recycling obsessed, I basically have to take out the trash at home every two weeks – and that is usually a small shopping bag sized situation.

And even after that justification, the reality is that I hate eating leftovers at lunchtime – maybe more than Josh Dorfman hates recycling. Also, if I don’t get out of the office at lunch – interact with a couple of people, maybe walk to the river near my office for a second – I lose it.

Does anyone else feel bad not taking the packaging, or am I the only stupid kid doing this? I have no solution for any of this, I am just looking for outside validation.

Maybe I can bring my own plate and the restaurants can just load up the meal. How would that be? You want to see confused? Show up with your own plate at your favorite to-go food option.

While we are on this subject there is a new phenomenon in my nieghborhood in takeout (Again, don’t send me any email about my eating behaviors, I know they are messed up, I don’t need reminding). Many of the foods that used to come in the Styrofoam, now come in a slightly cheaper, but still solid version of Tupperware. At first I was very excited by this change, deeming it a fairly promising step. It has successfully supplied me with all the food storage vessels I could possibly want in my life. This must be killing Glad, RubberMaid, and anyone else who makes this stuff.

But now I am on the fence realizing that all this stuff still gets thrown away in most circumstances. I kind of hope it can be recycled, but because I use mine all the time and don’t throw it away, I am not actually sure this is true.

So do you use yours, or does it get chucked just like the white foam things? Do people recycle it? What up with this?

…And end rant.

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Laziness and the Environment.

Posted on June 18th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Industry, Pop-Culture, Sustainability.

This title looks like I am going to rail on people that are too lazy to care about the environment.

Not True!

No, as I have voiced here before, I am at my fundamental core – lazy. With so much change going on in the world I often feel like I just need a nap. Really it is the personal decision making process that is so exhausting. Should I get the Organic socks, or the recylced ones? Is a hybrid better or worse than running Biodiesel? What if my ethanol is from a corn based feedstock and not Switch grass or cellulosic waste product? Does that make me a horrible person? Should I reclaim some furniture that looks bad or buy new sustainable harvest wood designs?

Can you hand me that pillow, I’m just going to lie down here for a sec…

Fortunately there are many people out there to guide us through our new enlightenment. A Beacon of Green Light as it were. One great example just came out: