Green Tip

Today there are more choices available in floor coverings than ever before. If you are looking to replace some older, worn out floor coverings with a newer, greener, alternative here's a few possibilities. Bamboo is a very hard, durable flooring available in glue down, floating, and nail down designs. Different colors and stains are available along with different grain variations. Bamboo is considered "green" because of it's rapid growth/harvest cycle time, about every 5-6 years. It can re-sprout without replanting for less energy consumption.
In our area, locally grown native hardwoods can also be considered green, as there is little transportation costs involved. Check with local telephone listings for nearby mills, and ask about harvesting management practices.
Reclaimed lumber from old barn and factory structural beams and sidings is an increasingly popular product available for both flooring and paneling. This recycles wood from a past life to a new "home" giving you a unique new floor with a past history.
Certain "green" tiles are now available featuring both recycled glass, and also reclaimed materials from the ceramic tile industry manufacturing process. These same materials are also being used to manufacture new counter tops.
Carpets are now available with the filaments manufactured from recycled plastic bottles. It is a strong, stain resistant product that also keeps waste plastic from the local landfills.
Cork is regaining a share of the flooring market that it had many years ago. Cork is harvested from cork trees which regrow a new layer for later harvests. It makes for a durable, beautiful floor covering that is very comfortable to walk on with a built in cushion.
When installing many of these products, don't forget to look for low or zero VOC adhesives if possible. There are many available now on the market. One place to check is www.greendepot.com, but new sites are constantly showing up on the internet. I usually do a new search every few weeks for green products. Many are available locally.

"Green" construction tips

For those of you considering new construction and remodeling projects, or just looking to spruce up your existing homes, I thought it might be helpful to post an occasional tip concerning "green" materials, design, etc. As a custom home builder striving to become "greener" in recent years, I'm more than happy to share what I've learned.
Today's first tip can be useful to just about anyone looking to achieve a new look while utilizing a green product. Paints have come a long way in recent years from the old standard of oil based enamels to newer latex paints. Just because a paint is latex based however, doesn't mean that it is automatically low in VOC's { volatile organic compounds }. We have had good success using both Benjamin Moore's EcoSpec interior paints and Sherwin Williams brand Harmony paints. They are both very low in VOC's with almost no odor. There are retailers located in both Syracuse and Cortland for each brand. Good luck painting!

New Ideas and GTG Continues to Grow

It is great to see the voting on the blog and receive input from our friends and neighbors on their thoughts. Growing Tully Green continues to..... grow!!!

We continue to receive requests for displays and new projects taking place throughout the school. Mrs. Edinger's 5th grade class is combining their own research with computer graphic arts skills to design "green" graphic designs to focus on environmentally friendly ideas. Their plan was to convert these graphics into iron-ons and place them onto tote bags for their parents to use (and reuse) while shopping. What a great way to spread the message of Growing Tully Green.

Today a box arrived from the school architects, Highland Associates, that was full of large canvas bags for these students to use in their project. We are planning to have some of these completed student projects on display with Highland Associates for Growing Tully Green. Highland is a LEED certified architect and will also be serving on the panel for the program.

Also keep coming back to the website for this program. New displays as well as related articles and websites are being added on a regular basis. We are excited to bring OCRRA and the Deputy Onondaga County Executive Ed Kochian on board with displays and welcoming comments.

Calls and emails are coming in on a daily basis requesting information about the program. Mark your calendars now and be a part of this important evening of information, innovation and ideas.

Community Conservation - Syracuse.com

Well, momentum continues to build for our Growing Tully Green Community Forum on April 23rd, Today, our event was featured in The Post-Standard - check it out at Community Conservation - Syracuse.com. I am really looking forward to hear more about the windmill project at the school.

We now have a full panel - we'll likely run out of time as it is! I'll let Kraig update everyone on the panel participants.

I'll be one of the panel participants, and I'm planning to share the good things we're doing at IBM. IBM has a long history of proactive environmental action, including exceeding environmental requirements for our products. In the last 18 months, we have been turning that experience "inside out", and providing environmental/green services and technology to our clients, in areas like energy efficient data centers, sustainable manufacturing, green supply chain, advanced water management and carbon management. Of course, we would not be doing this if we did not see this as a growing need expressed by our clients.

This is great news! Think about it - the marketplace (businesses, governments, schools, and organizations of all types) is looking for climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions. And there is an unprecedented level of collaboration among corporate, NGO (non-governmental organizations like the World Wildlife Foundations), non-profit, academic and government organizations. For example, this recent announcement from IBM's website "The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and IBM -- named today by IFI Claims as the leading earner of U.S. patents for the 15th consecutive year -- are initiating this effort in partnership with Nokia, Pitney Bowes, and Sony. The pledged portfolio, dubbed the "Eco-Patent Commons," is available on a dedicated, public Web site hosted by the WBCSD (http://www.wbcsd.org/web/epc)."

What's the big deal? Well, companies can basically "donate" their applicable patents for public use! From the same announcement: "Patents pledged to the Eco-Patent Commons -- originally proposed at IBM's Global Innovation Outlook conference -- feature innovations focused on environmental matters and innovations in manufacturing or business processes where the solution provides an environmental benefit. For example, a company may pledge a patent for a manufacturing process that reduces hazardous waste generation, or energy or water consumption. A pledged patent covering a procurement or logistics solution may reduce fuel consumption."

Next week, I'll be participating in the Sustainable Manufacturing Summit: Corporate Climate Response Chicago. I'll be learning from the other participants, and sharing IBM's experience and capabilities with a wide range of attendees.

So here's the question - and I would love for you to post a comment in response... What is your company or organization doing in response to climate change challenges? Is your organization mostly focused on decreasing your energy usage, or meeting regulatory requirements? Is this climate change issue being viewed as a risk that requires mitigation and/or adaptation? And what about creating "greener" products and services? And what role are you playing in this?

We all wear many hats - parent, spouse, community member, professional, student... We can help be part of the climate change solution in all kinds of different ways! Really, that's the goal from my perspective... let's work to be a part of the solution at home, in the community and at work!

Countdown to the "Grow Tully Green" community forum on April 23rd

On October 4th, 2007, our community received an informative presentation of data regarding Climate Change In Our Backyard. In that presentation, Tully resident and Channel 9 meteorologist Dave Eichorn shared the scientific research linking current changes in climate to human activity, and brought it home, by sharing his own research on changes to local weather patterns. Just a week later, on October 12th, Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work to raise awareness about global warming. During its announcement, the Nobel committee cited the winners "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

So, the bottom line? Most people realize that we are facing some pretty significant climate change challenges - they will affect all of us. In fact, climate change is already affecting millions around the world. Just today, another big ice shelf is breaking away in Antarctica - much faster than predicted by climate scientists.

So what can we do about it? What are we willing to do about it? At the Grow Tully Green community forum scheduled on April 23rd, we'll hear about what many local folks are already doing, and share ideas on what more can be done. There is much good news - more than we can share in just a few hours. And much more can be done, by each of us individually, at our places of work, and right here - in our community!

And for that reason, several of us decided to launch this dialogue, initially with this Grow Tully Green blog, and a Grow Tully Green Book Discussion group. So stay tuned here for more details. And if you have a desire to help with the blog, or the bookclub, or the community forum, please reach out here, or send an e-mail to Melissa O'Mara or Kraig Pritts.

And don't forget to fill out the survey below! We want to hear what you think. Please post additional ideas as comments to this post. Not sure what we'll do with them yet... Let's see what emerges or "grows" :-)