A&K and Fairmont Earth Hour ideas will have tangible results

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Earth Hour is on Saturday, March 28 at 8:30 PM. The hospitality and travel industry seems to have embraced this commitment to environmentalism. There are plenty of noteworthy initiatives out there intended to show support for a planet that could probably use our help. Of course, some are more interesting than others. I’m pretty interested in what’s going on at Abercrombie & Kent and Fairmont.

Upscale travel firm A&K is taking action at each of its 62 offices around the world. Outdoor signs will be turned off, and only emergency lighting will be used indoors. This will save 620 light-hours of electricity. And, they’re going to shut off the air conditioning for 90 minutes before the end of the work day, lowering power consumption for this period by 18 percent.

The company is also turning its corporate social responsibility gaze outward. Sanctuary Camps & Lodges are going to host stargazing parties, thanks to the dark skies. They are also planning to turn off generators and cut power consumption by 50 percent for Earth Hour (at 13 properties in Africa).

A&K’s Sun Boat III and Sun Boat IV will turn off their generators, as well, operating only with emergency lighting. Guests will be able to enjoy the bright stars – because of the desert air – in Upper Egypt. Eclipse in the Galapagos will host a presentation on the Sun Deck and reduce the use of power by 30 percent.And, the company hopes that Earth Hour goodwill is contagious. Employees have pledged to save 2,960 light-hours, and A&K’s suppliers, including restaurants and hotels, have been encouraged to support Earth Hour, with hundreds agreeing to do so.

I’m also pretty impressed with what Fairmont is doing for Earth Hour (which you can track via Twitter). This company’s made it a habit to stay out in front of the market when it comes to corporate social responsibility, and it’s ready to play from Dallas to Dubai – at all 56 properties. In addition to its usual environmentally sound initiatives, some Fairmont properties are taking specific, unique action.

At the Fairmont St. Andrews, guests can choose at check-in the power they want to use: nuclear, solar or wind. They’ll also receive compact fluorescent light bulbs. But, this is just the beginning. If you decide to sweat it out in the gym’s spin class, the energy you create will be converted to kilowatt hours to show just how much power you produce. The class is sponsored to provide a cash donation to the World Wildlife Fund. Kids will be able to plant their own saplings. The initiatives at the St. Andrews property are designed to have lasting results.

In Alberta, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise will light up its side of the lake with ice luminaries. Guests will be invited to gather around a fire and enjoy some old-fashioned storytelling under the stars. This hotel is committed to Earth Hour year-round, with 50 percent of its power coming from a mix of wind and run-of-river electricity generation.

Over in Kenya, at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club, the lantern-lit Boma will be a place for guests to gather and listen to a local naturalist discuss conservation and the environment – the “Maasai” way. It won’t be just lectures, though, as Maasai dancers will provide entertainment.

The Fairmont Zanzibar, Tanzania will celebrate Earth Hour for the entire day. Guests will be invited to sail on historical dhows on clear Indian Ocean waters. Chef Ric and his team will use charcoal grills to prepare seafood on the beach, delighting palates without disrupting the environment.

Are you doing anything for Earth Hour? Let me know at tom.johansmeyer [at] weblogsinc.com or http://twitter.com/tjohansmeyer.

Aussie hotel saves planet from roof

by Tom Johansmeyer on

One flip of the switch changed the Crowne Plaza Alice Springs and upped the ante for hotels around the world. The Australia hotel now uses the largest building-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) system in the Southern Hemisphere. This $3.3 million installation will cut the property’s energy consumption by 40 percent to 80 percent (depending on the time of year), and a broader energy efficiency program could trim the energy the hotel uses by an additional 18 percent.

The hotel’s new green initiative involves the installation of “Energy Eye,” new technology that manages temperatures in guest rooms and minimizes consumption when a room is empty. Further, the Crowne Plaza Alice Springs is replacing more than 3,000 light bulbs with energy efficient alternatives. Jemflo showerheads are expected to save 11,580 kiloliters of water every year. Translation: that’s enough to fill more than 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The Crowne Plaza Alice Springs’ energy program includes the use of live data from the rooftop solar panels to show guests how much hotel is saving at any particular point in the day … on their in-room televisions.

Fresno Yosemite International Airport goes for solar

by Anna Brones on

The airplanes flying in and out of Fresno Yosemite International Airport might still be running on traditional fuel, but the airport itself will be saving $13 million in energy costs over the next 20 years thanks to solar power. Yesterday welcomed the dedication of the new solar array which will provide 40% of the day-to-day lighting, air conditioning, controls and towers of the airport.

Given that the Fresno airport is the gateway to the famed Yosemite National Park, taking steps to be more environmentally friendly makes sense. So if your looking to green your next trip to California, fly into Fresno and be happy that the airport lights are partly fueled by the outdoor sun.

[Via Treehugger]

Product review: Solio Hybrid solar charger

by Leif Pettersen on

How green is the Solio® Hybrid 1000?

The Solio is so green you could toss it in with some lettuce, croutons and parmesan cheese, drizzle Caesar dressing over everything and eat it raw (right before a big helping of ‘tofurkey’, obviously).

This beautifully crafted bundle of eco-feel-good bliss makes the necessary evil of killing batteries a little less disagreeable. Using the glorious power of the sun, it recharges a multitude of devices such as mobile phones, Bluetooth headsets, PDAs, MP3 players, handheld gaming systems, digital cameras, GPS units and more.

Slim and compact (it’s 198 x 68 x 18mm or 7.7 x 2.7 x 0.7 inches and weighs about 0.5 kilos or 1.1 lbs.), the Solio is surprisingly rugged, complete with an integrated carabiner clip so you can affix it to just about anything.

Showers forecasted for the next week on the Appalachian Trail? Give your Solio a base charge before you leave by plugging it into your laptop. Not as eco-friendly, but hey, your mobile phone won’t judge you when its batteries are dead.

Genius idea, brilliant design, but does it really work? People, it works like a charm – though not quite up to the extents alluded to on the box.

Here’s the lowdown: the Solio is not a concurrent charging solution. It’s a two step process. First the Solio’s own internal storage battery needs to be charged up (“cue the sun”), then you can plug in your device which charges itself off the Solio’s battery. This is actually a good thing, because once the Solio is charged, you can charge your device day or night, rain or shine. Furthermore, once charged, the Solio will hold its charge for up to one year.

Now for the downside: while the Solio’s Quick Start Guide gives the impression that you can just clip the Solio to your backpack and it’ll quietly do its thing while you hike the day away, this is not necessarily true. Lengthy testing on my Solio revealed that not only does the Solio need to be pointing more or less directly at the sun to charge (a given, really), but it must be under clear sunlight (i.e. even slight overcast conditions means no charging occurs). So, even if you leave it stationary on a log all day, it needs a little babysitting. As the sun moves, you will need to adjust the Solio. Unfortunately, this means if wanna do that chic clip-it-to-your-backpack arrangement, unless you walk with your back to the sun all day, the Solio will only charge itself in fits and starts.

Which brings us to charging time… The Solio’s alleged charging time is a little ambiguous. The guide states that it will charge from zero to full in 10-12 hours under direct sunlight and 12-48 hours under cloudy conditions. My testing usually required about 16-20 hours to charge under direct sunlight and I was never able to get the Solio to charge under cloudy/overcast conditions. To be fair, I must confess that most of my testing occurred in downtown Minneapolis, in the dwindling sunlight months of October and November. Perhaps under ideal conditions the Solio will perform better.

The Quick Start Guide (printed on recycled paper!), consisting mostly of wordless diagrams, is clever in theory. I loved that they saved reams of paper by not printing full directions in five languages, but equally I spent much longer than I would have liked puzzling over the somewhat non-intuitive drawings.

That said, once you decipher the directions, the Solio is easy to use. The Solio simply has one button and two LED lights, maximizing its juice to power your device. The short learning curve needed to memorize the array of solid and flashing light indicators is a small price to pay for its durability and minimum wasted energy.

It’s important to note that the Solio isn’t compatible with all handheld items. It comes with three output attachments, that plug straight into many devices/manufacturers (Blackberry, Motorola, Nokia, iPod, iPhone), but its compatibility starts to get fuzzy when you get into PDAs, digital cameras, etc. Before you get your heart set on the magic of a Solio, check that your desired device is compatible.

A final minor disappointment is the Solio’s water resistance, in that it isn’t. Admittedly, most devices you’d be charging with your Solio aren’t going to be water resistant either, but the outdoorsy allure drops exponentially when you have to start worrying about keeping your Solio clear of lake/river splash and rain.

Performance and limitations aside, again, this thing is awesome. As a rule, what with its somewhat lengthy charge time, it’s best to only rely on the Solio for one, or maybe two oft used devices. It simply doesn’t have the capacity to keep more things running.

Band on the Run: Soaking in Solarfest in Vermont

by Ember Swift on

There’s not a lot of places more chilled out and easygoing than a festival in Vermont on a beautiful July weekend that runs on solar power and promotes alternative energy and environmental solutions. It’s called Solarfest: The New England Renewable Energy Festival. Going there makes me want to just sprawl on the grass and watch the clouds overhead while simultaneously saving the world.

It can be done! Resting fuels the fight, I feel. And celebrating further fans the flames. Clouds keep us just as informed as anything… and watching clouds clears my head — funny how cloudiness offer clarity — which is just the state of mind needed to tackle the next step in any process. But maybe it’s the sunshine around the clouds that really soaks in and helps us lighten up for a while? (Okay, I’ll stop this metaphoric meandering now and just tell you about the festival!)

Besides the chance to consider our part in the movement for change that is upon us, the music at this festival is always a bonus. This is our third time performing here over the years and it’s always inspiring to take in the rest of the acts. Whoever chooses them has some eclectic and interesting musical taste, for sure, (Break of Reality were amazing!) and I’m thrilled that we’ve been among the artists to provide the score for this event – an occasion I support, wholeheartedly.

Solarfest takes place on a farm in a small town called Tinmouth, Vermont, just a couple hours south of Burlington. It’s in its thirteenth year, I was told, and it’s still very casual, very alive, very non-corporate and staying that way. Someone commented to me later that they were shocked that it was still so (relatively) small after thirteen years — I think there are a just a few thousand attendees over the weekend, if that — and I responded that I thought it was perfect this way.

And I do.

Why should festivals aspire to exponential growth? Yes, it’s good to grow in terms of widespread knowledge; we want people to know about solar energy, alternative fuels, how to make soap by hand without the nasty chemicals, etc. But, this notion that growing in a linear fashion until you’re so big that you need to move locations, hire outside security companies, solicit corporate sponsors and hang plastic banners all over the stage is just, well, counter-intuitive. It’s good to know that people want to come to events like this one, but so too is the natural turnover of people so that new faces replace old ones and that the festival is fresh but still manageable in terms of size.

Sustainable. That’s the ultimate goal. Success. Locally.

Musicians aspire to this kind of linear growth too, imaging that if they sell five hundred copies of their CD one year that the following year they ought to sell at least five hundred and one copies. There is a lot of cultural support for the notion of “more” growth as if it equals “better” when we all know that these two ideas are not often linked – at least, not anymore.

Festivals like this one promotes the notion of a natural cycle of things: the ebbs and flows, mountains and valleys, moments of prosperity followed by wondering where the next dollar will come from. Ultimately, this creates a balance which brings us sustainability. Something living and breathing. Organic and alive. Not just a bar graph rising towards the sky and never looking down on the grounded state from which is began.

For my garden at my house, I never ask it to grow bigger and bigger with every year. In fact, I want it to reach a sustainable and healthy growth level and then remain. I will tend it and it will yield. The next year, I will do the same. All told, the house will be fed by this garden and the garden will never take over the house.

That’s sustainability.

In this same way, Solarfest is a sustainable festival that is not being taken over by its own growth. It has been at its current location for the past few years and it’s nestled sweetly on a farm with hills that roll upwards on the perfect angle from the barn, half of which is transformed into a stage and backstage area. This hill creates a natural amphitheatre and holds the colourful blankets and chairs of hundreds of chilled out people angling smiles towards the lights.

Backstage, the barn swallows swoop overhead and come in and out through the open upper windows of the barn. As the evening rolls in, the stage lights cast an eerie glow on the interior of the barn and the jerky movement of those swallow wings create a natural strobe effect, flickering the lights and casting trippy shadows. You can see the hay stacked high on the far side where performer’s gear is piled; amps upon amps separated by similarly shaped and sized squares of hay just beyond the tarp.

I love it. I smiled at it all and took it all in.

Just before our performance on the Saturday early evening, I took a walk around the grounds. As in previous years, I was moved by the displays and vendors. There were innovative greenhouse designers, book vendors for little known or hard-to-find publications, vegan and non-GMO food suppliers, hemp clothing vendors, kid’s craft areas, etc.

Everyone was smiling. Kids were running around freely and safely. Sunhats were bobbing on the heads of older women walking gently through the grass holding their skirts above their ankles. Men with babies strapped to their chests. Lots of bare feet and beads.

I stopped for awhile and listened to Bill McKibben speak. He was on stage just before us with just himself and a microphone. He is a published author (many times over) and his most recent book is called Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He spoke about the economy of things like support, kindness, belief. He was natural and articulate and he made the audience both laugh and think without sounding pedantic or heavy.

Before the end of his talk, I went backstage again to make sure my equipment was all ready and that we were together as a band. I was cradling my guitar and warming up when the audience cheered for his words and the MC took back the microphone to signal a break between sets.

When Bill walked off the stage and through the backstage area, he smiled down at his feet and just sauntered off. It was self-effacing without being under confident. Is that possible? Perhaps I just saw raw humility. It made me stop for a moment and just stare off and wonder. It made me want to read his books.

I didn’t see him again for the rest of the festival, but I imagine he was there somewhere. At least, his words were.

They have staying power.

As does this festival.