Local Paper Company Goes Green

According to CSRWire (newswire of corporate social responsibility), Monadnock Paper Mills recently announced “that all its Graphic Arts Printing and Packaging Papers are made using 100% renewable electrical energy and are manufactured carbon neutral.”

Read the full press release.

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Shareholders Push Hasbro to Drop Toxics from Toys

In May, Greenbiz.com reported on this story:

In the wake of new restrictions on toxic chemicals in products across the U.S. and in Europe, shareholders in Hasbro have filed a resolution urging the company to stop using PVC in its products, as well as to produce a sustainability report reassuring shareholders that the company is taking the matter seriously.

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Building a Green City from Scratch

In 2010, Dongtan, China, a city that doesn’t yet exist, will sit 30 minutes from Shanghai’s financial district. When the city opens, 60% of its energy will be generated from renewable sources, and if all goes as planned, that figure will be 100% by 2030. And to add a little perspective to the scope of this project, Dongtan’s population is expected to grow to 500,000 in its first 40 years.

Wired has the full story, ” Pop-Up Cities: China Builds a Bright Green Metropolis.”

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Green to Gold

In this podcast from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies:

Dan Esty, director of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, discusses how smart companies are incorporating environmental concerns into their business strategies. Leading companies worldwide have discovered that thinking green can generate value for their brands and do wonders for the bottom line.

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No Trees Died in the Making of This Book

Melcher Media has created a synthetic paper that is both waterproof and recyclable:

DuraBooks are “green” and good for the environment. Made in such a way to be upcyclable, the synthetic “paper” can be melted down and reused in perpetuity, thus sparing trees and reducing toxins in the earth’s ecosystem. DuraBooks™ are also non-toxic and child safety tested.

In Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, one of the first books printed with the new Durabooks technology, the authors:

argue that the conflict between industry and the environment is not an indictment of commerce but an outgrowth of purely opportunistic design. The design of products and manufacturing systems growing out of the Industrial Revolution reflected the spirit of the day-and yielded a host of unintended yet tragic consequences.

Today, with our growing knowledge of the living earth, design can reflect a new spirit. In fact, the authors write, when designers employ the intelligence of natural systems—the effectiveness of nutrient cycling, the abundance of the sun’s energy—they can create products, industrial systems, buildings, even regional plans that allow nature and commerce to fruitfully co-exist.

GreenMoney Journal reviews Cradle to Cradle.

Buy Cradle to Cradle at Powell’s.

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