Are you signed up for Earth Hour yet?

Earth Hour 2009 will occur on March 28th from 8:30-9:30pm, local time, wherever you are in the world. Mark your calendars! And although (of course) you don't have to be signed up to turn off your lights, getting yourself on the list is a good way to show just how many people are joining forces, as the folks at Earth Hour say, "to show that it's possible to take action on global warming."

Kindermusik is, of course, signed up - and I just got this exciting update:

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Dear Kindermusik,

Excitement is building all over the US and around the world. Here's a quick update on what's developed this week for Earth Hour:

More cities turning out: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis and the Village of Homer Glen, Illinois. We've heard rumblings from Houston and Seattle as well and would also love to get Washington, DC on board. If you're a DC resident, let Mayor Fenty know you want the city to turn out!

Help us turn out the lights on the US Capitol Dome—write to your Senators or Member of Congress.

What goes on in Vegas doesn't always stay there: Earth Hour officially launched in Sin City at a press event featuring a Panda Bear and Vegas showgirls. The Strip will indeed go dark for the full 60 minutes—the only time the lights have been dimmed except briefly in 1998 in honor of Frank Sinatra's death.

Other city news: Chicago held its official launch event last week, with Mayor Daley again pledging his support. Next up? Nashville, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas!

The city of lights goes dark: Paris and 27 other French cities announced they'll take part in Earth Hour, with the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame going dark. A total of 405 cities in 74 countries have pledged to participate—double the number of countries from last year.

And don't forget to mark your calendar...Earth Hour is March 28, 2009, at 8:30 pm. Turn out. Take action.

Thanks!

The Earth Hour Team

Sign up here

Paper, Paper, Paper

Wanna cut through the paper confusion? Ok - two minutes - lend me your ear and let's talk terms:

100% recyclable
Well, this is great - but I mean, shouldn't all paper be recyclABLE? If it's not recyclABLE, it means the maker has mixed in some material that prevents the recycling process. (Speaking of which, did you know that Post-Its are not recyclable? The glue in the sticky part not only makes the paper non-recyclable - but if Post-Its go into a batch of paper to be recycled, often the glue actually gunks up the whole batch, rendering it trash, after all the effort people took to recycle it.) Anyway - yes, of course, recyclable is good. But if something is marketed as "100% recyclable" - look more closely. It could be that they're hoping to confuse people into thinking they're 100% recycl-ED. Which is different.

Recycled
Recyclable can mean lots of things. Virgin paper is recyclable. Recycled paper is, too. What you're really looking for is paper that is both. But let's talk more about THAT, too.

100% recycled - You'll sometimes see paper that contains 100% recycled content. Great. This means NO virgin paper was included in the source material used to create the paper. This paper tends to be more expensive, but sure feels nice knowing no forests were involved.

Some other percentage recycled - It's sometimes difficult to create paper fully out of recycled materials. Each time paper is recycled, its fibers get crushed and shortened - meaning at some point, they just don't make good paper anymore. So many materials and papers only contain a percentage of recycled material. This is fine, of course. Do be wary of companies sending you glossy catalog after glossy catalog (some companies are still really bad about this) touting 10% recycled material. Come on. They can do better than that - and they can also send fewer catalogs. I have a personal mission to cancel every catalog that comes to my house. If I want something, I'm gonna look online anyway, right? When's the last time you actually ordered something from a 1-800 number from a catalog?

Ok - so you'll see 20%, 40%, and upwards of recycled material. You may also sometimes see content differentiated as "post-consumer" and "post-industrial". The main detail here is that post-consumer has been SOLD. Newspapers, books, office paper, all that is post-consumer. Post-industrial includes many of these same thing - particularly newspapers and magazines that have been printed but not sold (these businesses are horrendous about this - some even say they overprint vastly in order to report their "circulation" as high, while up to half of those printed materials are never expected to sell). Post-industrial material also includes waste from the actual paper-making process, which is essentially then just rolled back into the front of the machine. In all, if you're choosy, post-consumer is preferable, though both labels are a little sticky.

Aaaaaah, so if you've read this far, you must really be interested in paper and recycling - or at least annoyed enough at all these opaque labels. Ok, so let's take it one step further:

Ecolabels

What does it mean when you see a label on a magazine that says "Mixed Sources" or "FSC" or "SFI" or "100% recycled paperboard", for instance?

**See FSC icon at right**

The FSC, or Forest Stewardship Council, is the most respected “eco-label” at the moment. They have three labels:

1) 100% - this means all of the material is virgin, but from FSC certified, well-managed (both environmentally and socially) forests.
2) Mixed Sources – though it might sound lesser, actually Mixed Sources means the material is from FSC forests and/or recycled.
3) Recycled – the wording on this is a little tricky, but my best translation is that products with this label are made with post-consumer recycled material. (It’s unclear to me whether all of the material needs to have come from sources that were originally FSC-certified, if that makes sense.)

You may sometimes also see this label


The SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) is a far less respected entity, criticized frequently for having broad, vague certification parameters designed by lumber and paper companies to approve most of the procedures already in place in the logging and paper-making industries. In other words, SFI certification is cheaper and easier. Be wary of this certification, or do your own research. Some of my sources are a couple of years old, but more recent ones seem to echo their predecessors.

Grist

TreeHugger

Credible Forest Certification

Now if you’ve FedExed anything recently, you’ve surely seen this one:

**See 100% Recycled Paperboard icon at right**

I happen to be a big fan of 100% Recycled Paperboard. Do know, however, that 100% Recycled Paperboard isn’t always recycl-ABLE, so keep your eyes open. It needs to be uncoated, for instance. You can pick your battles here, but I want you to know what’s what. I’m still investigating whether it’s possible to get FSC certification for 100% Recycled Paperboard since the original sources can’t often be certified and approved – but this may be more detail than you’re interested in...

Ok. I’m guessing I’ve exhausted the curiosity of even the most steadfast among you. But since you’ve read this far, now just start keeping your eyes open. It’s interesting to see which companies are choosing to do what (and not everyone opts for an eco-label, either – and some are even choosing FSC papers and printers but not including the label on their product), and it will continue to be interesting to watch how this industry unfurls and selects its standards.

Our new (carbon) shoe size

Ready, set, go! Kindermusik is going green. Not in the what-can-we-do-to-make-ourselves-look-green way, but really, truly, in the it’s-time-we-took-a-good-hard-look-at-our-impact-and-did-something-about-it way.

Kindermusik has such a positive impact on the planet in so many ways—giving parents and children the tools to connect, giving children the opportunity to grow and explore . . . but in the meantime, we run an office with lights, computers, hand soap, and paper; we ship boxes of instruments around the world; most of our employees drive to work five days a week . . . if only we could know for sure that it would all balance out to a net positive.

First step? Doing the math. We’ve just completed gathering data for our first-ever “carbon footprint”. Might not seem like a big step, but it is. Think about your own carbon footprint for a minute—the amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas) you produce in the course of a year through traveling by car, bus, train, and plane; through the electricity you use; through the things you send and receive by mail; through the products you purchase (including food) that have been shipped overseas or across the country, etc. It may be a bigger “shoe size” than you’d like to think about, or it may seem silly to calculate it if there’s nothing you can do about it...

But quantifying is the first step towards solving. The whole point of calculating these numbers, of course, is to change them. And when you really think about it, changing them isn’t actually all that hard.

At Kindermusik, now that we know that our headquarters used about 282,000 kilowatt hours of electricity last year, for instance, and our employees drove more than 12,000 miles just getting to and from work, it’s time to get to work. We can’t wait to tell you about our progress.

Calculate your own carbon footprint!
There are lots of “carbon calculators” online – just search “carbon footprint” and you’ll get thousands of hits. Here’s a good one created by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

EPA's Carbon Calculator

And if you’re really interested . . .
Here’s an interesting article on carbon footprinting consumer products (cars, shoes, laundry detergent jackets, milk, beer):

Wall Street Journal article