There are four weeks to go in 2012 and it prompted me the other day to check on my Practically Green list of goals. How did I do? Where am I behind? In reviewing, a decent amount were checked off. But I got a nice jolt seeing all the things I meant to do but haven’t yet. Here’s what I found:
Highest Impact: Take public transportation to work regularly
How? I moved our office to some place I could get to on the train. OK. I know. That’s sort of cheating. But in addition to the eco-benefits, it’s saving me a ton of money, and I’m catching up on all my GreenBiz and NYTimes newsletters. And yes, truth be told, I’m having lots of Facebook and Twitter fun.
Favorite: Purchase sustainable office furniture
How? Our office furniture is entirely second hand (except some cool Herman Miller Sayl chairs that we won at a conference). My favorite Craigslist find was some used Steelcase conference room chairs. I love that the proceeds are helping a preschool purchase some much needed classroom supplies.
Not done, but racing to squeeze in: Use a home energy monitoring device
I have the Powerhouse Dynamics system picked out (thanks primarily to the founder being a neighbor). The problem is they want me to count my electric circuits. It’ll take me ten minutes. Or so I’ve been saying for six months…. Somehow Practically Green’s own sense that this easy strikes me as optimistic!
Most looking forward to: Canceling my yellow pages delivery
‘Nuf said.
Most likely not to happen by end of the year: Bike to work one day a week
There is snow falling as I write this post, which means this goal is definitely moving to 2013. But that’s okay! The great news is that we get to start all over again in four weeks.
How are your green goals going? What did you accomplish that you are most proud of so far? What’s hardest to get off your list?
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2 Comments to 'Adventures of our CEO: 2012 Practically Green Goal Check-In'
December 3, 2012
We’ve made a lot of progress on some of our goals, less on others.
The cold weather and more importantly the early sunsets are making biking to work a bit too dangerous right now.
We have made a lot more progress towards becoming net-zero at home. We’re at 97% solar power year-to-date for electricity from our solar awning. http://www.greenlifestyleconsulting.com/p/going-for-solar-series.html
We have also worked to make major energy efficiency improvements at our church upgrading a 30+ year old oil boiler and gas furnaces to high-efficiency boilers and upgraded much of the lighting to LEDs.
And we contributed our time, energy, writings and passion to the campaigns this year, for which Massachusetts has elected a senator that believes that climate change is a problem and we need to address it head on.
Looking forward to what new green things we will do in the coming year!
December 5, 2012
Jon–You are my inspiration on the solar front! That might have to my goal for 2013!! In addition to biking to work…
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