Dr. Seuss stories have the warmed the hearts of children and adults alike for years. The Lorax, a popular favorite, will be hitting the silver screen soon and this time it’s about going green and not just with ticket sales. The Lorax is about a creature that speaks for trees and fights against the industrialization in their area. Universal Pictures, who will be releasing the film, has partnered with over 70 companies to teach others about the environmental lesson the book provides. Instead of focusing on toys, the companies plan to focus on things like planting trees and conserving energy. For example, the EPA is using the Lorax to promote low-power appliances carrying the Energy Star label. And Seventh Generation, a brand of green cleaning products, is planning to put “Lorax Approved” labels on millions of items. [Read this article]

It’s always interesting to learn how the leaders in any Top 10 list emerged as the front-runners, especially in the sustainability arena where green rankings abound. The compilers of the Green Building Opportunity Index have decided to augment their detailed report, issued last summer, with profiles of some of the 10 top-ranked markets. The San Francisco profile, for example, lays out the factors that brought the city to the lead position. Those elements include office market conditions in the city, investment potential, market adoption of LEED and Energy Star and certification under those standards, green building and retrofit policy for commercial property and performance when it comes to state energy initiatives. The profile also looks at green culture in San Francisco – the state of its green economy, innovation, planning and land use, transit ridership and its walkability. [Read this article]

The “Green Button Project” is based on a simple concept – give the customer his or her utility billing information in a form that is actually usable. Click a green button on the utility’s website and billing data is delivered and can be used by various apps. The Green Button will prove to be a catalyst to innovation. “Killer apps” will follow once the data is available. Making data available is the essential first step to enabling innovation in this area. Smart teams can create better ways to make sense of utility information for the customer. It can be usefully combined with other data sources, like property information, to deliver new insights. If there’s a mortgage lender out there interested in genuinely better underwriting, a loan applicant’s energy expenses are only a click away for refi loans. For home sellers, delivering a year of energy expenses to a Realtor or homebuyer is a click away. [Read this article]

Answer: they both win, because at least they are benchmarking their building stock. Energy benchmarking of public and private buildings is on the verge of a boom. From California and Seattle to Austin and New York City, states and cities are requiring benchmarking in various forms to get everyone thinking about energy use – and then, hopefully, to do something about it. For the cities of New York and Washington, D.C., the thinking and doing is already happening. Both municipalities have released reports recently with the results of their benchmarking efforts and, to some extent, have outlined what the next steps will be. “If you look at the bigger picture, governments are looking hard at measuring in their facilities – that’s accountability to their tax payers,” said Andrew Burr, Director of the Building Energy Rating Program for the Institute for Market Transformation, a nonprofit that works to promote energy efficiency and green building. Baselines like the one Washington, D.C. and New York are building will allow for year-over-year improvements. [Read this article]

Rutherford B. Hayes was one of those obscure 19th century presidents with facial hair who left faint marks on our collective memory. History buffs will recall that Hayes, the Republican governor of Ohio, entered office in 1877 following the disputed election of 1876, whose ugliness made the 2000 affray seem like an ice cream social. The ill-mannered among Hayes’ Democratic opponents referred to our 19th president as “Rutherfraud.” Hayes, with an earnest and upright reputation, pulled remaining federal troops out of the South, instituted civil service reforms, banned alcoholic beverages from the White House, and kept his promise to serve only one term. Hayes also appointed Carl Schurz, a former Missouri senator and German immigrant, as his secretary of the Interior. In the days when management of extractable resources on federal lands could charitably be described as loose, Schurz laid the groundwork for establishing national forests and putting public timberlands under professional management. [Read this article]