FLGreenLiving

Come one come all to the newest furniture store in Boca Raton- City Furniture!  Officially opening its doors January 13, 2011, this soon-to-be LEED certified building is another step in greening our South Florida community!  The 94,000 square foot complex, located on Airport Road, is expected to use significantly less water and energy than its other stores.  City Furniture recently closed three nearby stores, but expects this slightly smaller, but green building to generate more revenue than the three closed stores combined.

In the recent years, City Furniture has found ways to recycle their packing materials, but doesn’t exactly sell green furniture.  In my opinion, it is obvious that the only reason this building was built was from an economic standpoint instead of an environmental standpoint.  So, if your looking for sustainable furniture, IKEA has a wide selection at very inexpensive prices.  Or something more high end like Pie Studio (Project Import Export, Inc.) in Hialeah.  Oh, but granted their buildings aren’t  LEED Certified.

To read more on this new building, please refer to the article located in the SunSentinel.

Calvert Investments has recently released their 2010 report of  America’s Green Homebuilder’s.  To be expected, the list has a long way to go from truly calling themselves ‘green builders’, but it is a step in the right direction.  Due to our troubling U.S economy, green building has not received the attention it deserves.  But good times seem to be in the forecast.  According to Calvert, green building is expected to gain momentum and drive our somewhat dormant homebuilding sector out of its current state.   These early adopters are sure to reap the benefits in the years to come.

TOP 10 OVERALL GREENBUILDER RANKING:

1. KB Home

2. Pulte Homes

3. Meritage Homes

4. Toll Brothers

5. Lennar

6. DR Horton

7. Standard Pacific

8. NVR

9. Ryland Group

10. MDC Holdings

To read the entire article written by Calvert Investments, please click here.

From cows to peacocks, Miami Beach is in the hot zone for its newest animal invasion, snails!!!  Traveling across the Atlantic, all the way from Rome to send us a serious message- in style of course. Courtesy of international artistic collective Cracking Art Group and Galleria Ca d’Oro these cuties are now on exhibit till January 3rd, 2011.  The artists intention was to inspire and ignite public conversation about the importance of recycling and its environmental impact.  The 46 (25 large, 21 small) snails are made from recycled plastic with a minimal carbon footprint, and are sure to be a hit at Miami’s Art Basel event in December.  For more details, visit Pink Snails.

Martin County, in east central Florida, is soon to be home to one of the world’s largest hybrid solar panel plants as it nears completion.  The new solar-thermal plant is actually being joined next to an existing combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant.  FP&L’s decision to join the plants together actually saved them millions of dollars as the gas plant already provided the steam turbines, transmission lines and cooling towers.  The project is said to be under the $476 million budget.

Since construction began in 2008, 1,000 workers have come to the plant site.  Luckily, the permanent labor to run this small plant is very small- just maintenance and mirror cleaning crews.

Upon its completion at the end of 2010, the 75-megawatt facility will generate enough electricity to power 11,000 homes.

Source:  South Florida Business Journal - by Paul Brinkmann

Read more: FP&L’s solar plant nears completion | South Florida Business Journal 

MDM Development Group is back in negotiations with Whole Foods to lease out the ground floor commercial space in Metropolitan Miami (Met 3 building) near Downtown Miami and Brickell. The market is said to be 35,000 square feet and much needed in the area.
With the influx of people to Miami’s Financial District, locals were optionless when it came finding organic, healthy supermarket fare. The most recent Publix to open, located in Mary Brickell Village, considered being labeled under their organic label, Greenwise. Once Whole Foods backed out of the Met 3 project a couple of years ago, Publix decided otherwise and remained under the original Publix brand. What a great move for Whole Foods.

Come out every Sunday for Brickell’s first market from 10AM-2PM.

Setting a goal of living green is not only a nice thing to do, it is an urgent priority if we want to leave a livable world to our children and our grandchildren.  One of the many problems we need to tackle is reducing the amount of trash we all generate every year that gets stuffed into our ever-growing landfills.

Here are ten ways you can easily reduce your contribution to this nasty problem. If  everyone followed at least half of these suggestions, our world’s trash problem would be well on its way to being handled.

1) Stop using paper towels and switch to rags for basic cleanups.  Rags are reusable just by washing them.  When you do use paper towels, buy recycled!

2) Get a reusable grocery bag or two, they are sturdy and stop the plastic and paper bag clutter that can get out of hand in our homes too.  And now, there are so many styles to chose from.

3) Donate old clothes to charity or sell them on eBay instead of throwing them away, and buy used clothes from consignment shops, eBay or Overstock.com.   Buying used products as much as possible also helps keep them from ending up in landfills.

4) Recycle EVERYTHING that can be recycled.  Kids are especially bad at making sure things end up in the recycle bin, so be sure to impress upon them the importance of not simply throwing everything into the trash because it is easier.

5) Practice “JIT” (just in time) living.  Most of us buy far too much when we go to the grocery store.  Then we end up throwing away much of it, which ends up in landfills.

6) If you have a baby, use washable instead of disposable diapers. It may be more hassle, but it is better for your baby and for the earth. For traveling away from home, be sure to look for bio-degradable diapers instead.

7) Buy concentrated products such as shampoo, conditioner, dishwashing soap, and laundry detergent.  Packaging is then smaller and takes up less space if it accidentally ends up in a landfill and isn’t recycled.

 Make your own drinks instead of buying them, and use reusable containers such as pitchers and cups.  Limit use of disposable items such as paper plates, cups, and dinnerware.

9) Start a garden and compost table scraps instead of throwing them away.

10) Only buy what you need, and avoid impulse purchases.  Impulse purchases often end up at the bottom of landfills.

Our landfills are dangerously overflowing, be sure to do your part to stop this overwhelming problem.

Airplanes may be convenient and easy, but they are major contributors to global warming as jet fuel is very dirty!  Business culture traditionally has put a high value on “face time” ,meaning actually being in the same room with a client in order to make a deal. But times, they are a changin’.  Recent economic woes have forced travel cutbacks, which is a good thing for Mother Earth.   And technology has come to the rescue.

In the past, the alternative to business travel has been videoconfererencing.  Old style video conference systems were hard to use - the voice sounded like an old CB radio (Breaker, breaker good buddy…), and the people on the other side seemed to have disproportionately small heads.   Enter telepresence - which is the next step up from videoconferencing. Telepresence uses technology to make it appear like you ARE in the same room with your client, even though you may be on the opposite side of the globe. Companies like Cisco, Tandberg (just acquired by Cisco), Polycom and HP have created systems that look like something out of a sci fi movie, but they work - saving both the earth and travel budgets.

These systems require a dedicated room, as the acoustics, lighting, etc. all have to be right so the illusion of actually being there is maintained.  This means making sure your business real estate needs are updated to include one dedicated room if you want to be green and keep more of your green instead of giving it to the airlines.  If your sales people travel a lot, this extra room will pay for itself in short order.

And telepresence does pay off.  California based Cisco Systems uses its own technology, and saved $150M in travel budget last year.

Being green is cool these days, meaning lots of people have made the obvious lifestyle changes like recycling and using less nasty chemicals around the house.  But there are some not-so-obvious changes that are easy to neglect - as they don’t immediately brand you as a ”hip” green person.  If every0ne who has taken the first steps would continue to “green” their lives, the impact would be major.

What are some of these steps?  First of all, although there are some green dry cleaners out there (Ecolav in Brickell being my absolute favorite)- lugging the dry cleaning to and fro adds to your carbon footprint.  Advances in fabric technology means there are many wonderful new suits out there that are actually machine washable.  And “green” laundry detergents are all the ‘rage” these days.

Secondly, green plants clear the air by absorbing carbon dioxide.  Add a few plants to your home or office, they will brighten your day as well as help to purify the air around you.

Ladies, did you know of the toxic terror soaking into your skin right this very moment?  Be sure to check the labels on your favorite cosmetics and do some research to see if any of the ingredients are made from petroleum products.  You will be amazed at how many have really nasty stuff in them.  It is a welcoming surprise to see how many green cosmetic companies are starting to pop up.  Even Sephora has jumped in on the bandwagon with a “green” cosmetics page on their site.

When you go to wash your car, search a little harder and find a green, waterless car wash.  This helps conserve our water resources and keeps nasty detergents from being washed into the earth as well.  In fact, your car stays clean longer too, which means you’ll clean less and spend less!

These changes may seem small, but they are like ripples in a stream that get larger and larger  over time.  Being green is not just a fad - if you truly care about the earth, it becomes a total way of life.

The weather is gorgeous, flowers are in bloom, and brides everywhere are hustling to complete last minute preparati0ns for that traditional June wedding.   The popular Billy Idol tune from the 80’s “White Wedding” runs through our minds as we open invitati0ns to the many weddings happening this season.

What if the lyrics were changed to “Green Wedding” instead?  A green wedding not only helps save the earth, it makes a statement to all wedding guests who might not be as clued-in to earth events as the wedding party.  The more converts we get to the green movement, the greater the benefit to Mother Earth.

Some ideas for greening y0ur wedding include using Evite.com instead of mailing paper invitations.  If you have relatives who are not computer literate, send them ones printed on recycled paper.  How about  a vintage/used wedding dress?  With the beautiful weather upon us, you can hold the wedding and/or reception in a park or ecologically recognized sanctuary while serving locally grown foods at the reception.  And if you haven’t checked out the latest lines of eco-friendly serveware, you gotta go to Bambu.  Instead of manufactured wedding favors, place bags of seeds, h0memade beeswax candles, bags of hand-c0llected sea shells, or other natural items that have no carbon impact. And with reusable tote bags all the rage these days, you can customize your very own for all your guests!

And no, you don’t have to wear a green wedding gown!