A while back, I wrote in this space about the demise of my microwave and its impact on my eating habits, sleep schedule, and carbon footprint. A big thank you to all of you who wrote in with suggestions – there were so many good ideas, many of which I have since adopted. I’ll update you soon with more details about the recipe ideas, stove reheating tips, appliance and furniture shopping guidance, and more that I received from several readers.

I also appreciate the concern of those who felt skipping dinner would be unhealthy. Believe me, I am the last person in the world to advocate not eating as a way to lose weight. Apart from the obvious health implications, I just love to eat. So even if it were a good idea, I couldn’t ever pull it off!

That said, I do believe there are many food and beverage choices we can make that are healthier for us and for the environment. For example, over the past few years, more people have chosen to drink bottled water. While some environmentalists have expressed concern that these people are replacing tap water with bottled water, beverage sales data show this simply isn’t true. People are replacing sugary packaged beverages – not tap - with bottled water, a much healthier and less carbon-intensive option.

Over the past few years, the increase in bottled water volume has closely mirrored the decline in carbonated soft drinks and sugary fruit drinks. In other words, people are substituting bottled water for other packaged beverages that are less healthy and have a higher environmental impact. Soft drinks and fruit drinks use lots of refrigeration energy, result in agricultural impacts (e.g., energy, pesticides, fertilizers) from growing sugar, corn, and other ingredients, and require manufacturing of flavors, preservatives, and other chemicals. (You’ll recall from the Wall Street Journal article that refrigeration is a major carbon emissions source for beverages that require chilling.) Soft drinks also require extra packaging to hold in the bubbles.

So as people choose bottled water instead of soda or fruit drinks, they not only contribute to the overall greening of the beverage industry, but also do so in a way that is healthier. In fact, the switch to bottled water has eliminated about a trillion calories from the American diet over each of the past couple of years.

Trillions of calories – now that’s a lot of weight. Personally, I think FIJI Water tastes much better than the sugary stuff, so I’ll happily choose that when I’m on the go. And if it helps me cut out a couple hundred empty calories, doesn’t need chilling because it tastes good at room temperature, and avoids the conversion of land to agricultural use and the manufacture of preservatives (who needs those?), so much the better!

Many of you may already have seen the photos of President-elect Barack Obama and family taken behind the scenes on Election Night. And if you haven’t, they’re available on Yahoo! News and President-elect Obama’s Flickr photostream.

Regardless of your political views, there was much to celebrate that night – a peaceful transition of power, the nation’s first African-American president, and more. And the FIJI Water team found something else to celebrate too - the fact that our new president-elect has great taste! Check out the FIJI Water in the Obamas’ suite.

October 9th was a special day in Utah. The Major League Soccer team Real Salt Lake, in partnership with FIJI Water and other sponsors, unveiled a new flavor of green – a stadium. Rio Tinto Stadium seats 25,000 and is just 15 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City. The dramatic views of the Wasatch and Oquirrh Mountain ranges are bound to make visitors feel like they’re much further away. The stadium will host soccer, football, and rugby matches as well as community festivals, concerts and other events.

Eager to get the scoop on the exciting debut match up? Click here.

As one of Real Salt Lake’s exclusive sponsors, FIJI Water is proud to supply the stadium with a carbon negative beverage to support their green initiatives. Real Salt Lake’s Chief Business Officer John Kimball observes, “It is important to relay the message that everyone – from individuals and families to small businesses and large corporations – can do their part to improve our planet…”

But the planet isn’t the only one that benefits. Real Salt Lake will contribute to 12 local charities and will donate $7.5 million to local K-12 soccer teams. They will also reserve 500 seats at every home game for underprivileged youth, free of charge. Youngsters in Utah – more of whom play soccer than any other sport – must be thrilled.

Grown-ups have a reason to cheer, too. The Economic Development Corporation of Utah estimates that the stadium will create 100 full time jobs as well as 75 more in supporting local businesses. Even more people will benefit from the improved transportation infrastructure and increased revenues for education. And of course, they can enjoy sporting and entertainment events from world-class performers.

If you’d like to see the view from the inside of Rio Tinto Stadium, take a look at their live webcam.

Fiji is normally the focus of our social development projects, but today we’d like to share an exciting opportunity to help children in the United States – and to have a great time!

You and a guest will travel to Los Angeles with ‘NSYNC star Chris Kirkpatrick to watch a taping of Dancing With The Stars. Roundtrip airfare, hotel, car service, and dinner with Mr. Kirkpatrick are all included.

Proceeds will go to the Chris Kirkpatrick Foundation, a non-profit organization which provides underprivileged children with access to proper healthcare and education through scholarships.

If you are interested in helping children by taking a trip to Los Angeles with an ‘NSYNC star, don’t hesitate – there are only two days left to place bids! Click here to place yours today.

In September I went home to visit my mom for the first time in six months. I was a bit surprised when she told me that I absolutely must join her at an interfaith meeting being held at a church across town. With only a day and a half at home, I hadn’t expected to spend Saturday morning with a new church group.

As usual, mom knew best. The meeting was hosted by a church (I won’t mention the name in the merits of privacy but they should feel free to chime in!) whose members had spearheaded the effort to calculate their collective carbon footprint. They started with electricity usage and converted these kWh into greenhouse gas equivalents (which you can try here). Next, they looked at emissions from their parishioners’ travel to services. To do this, the green group asked church members to volunteer their home addresses; these were used to create a map of the area with thumb-tacks showing where people commuted from. For those who chose not to provide a home address, the average distance of the sample group was used. By taking the total distance traveled by all members and dividing by the average car’s fuel efficiency the faith group calculated the amount of gasoline used. Their final step was to translate this amount of gasoline into carbon dioxide (which you can do here).

 
Needless to say, I was impressed. They had gone beyond examining the church’s stand alone emissions to include the environmental impact of the parishioner’s travel to church as well.

As it turns out, my mom had brought me there to offer advice on carbon footprinting. Trying to do my part, I suggested they take an entire life cycle look at their operations. That is, in installing new patio doors, what type of wood was used? Was it certified sustainable? Where was it shipped from? How will this affect the insulation of the building? Throughout the morning, other members with a wide range of expertise educated us on topics including wave energy, waste vegetable oil as a diesel substitute, Equal Exchange Coffee, compostable packaged goods and the carbon footprint of meat.

It was refreshing to see a small but very diverse group coming together to address local environmental stewardship. Political debates about the effectiveness of a carbon cap-and-trade program versus a tax and other issues related to climate change could take years to settle. In the meantime, we need to act – and this is something that people across many faiths recognize. As Gandhi said, “When the people lead the leaders will follow.” The Interfaith group is planning a second meeting this Winter – I may have to take another trip home.

On October 6, the Wall Street Journal published a fascinating article titled “Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints.” Among other things, it reported lifecycle carbon footprints for these consumer products: milk, beer, detergent, a fleece jacket, hiking boots, and a Prius.

The footprint analyses found that transportation often represents only a small percentage of a product’s carbon footprint. Factors like raw materials production (e.g., raising cows for milk, making packaging) and usage (e.g., refrigeration for perishable products, driving a car) play a much larger role.

This is consistent with the studies I wrote about earlier this year in “Debunking the Food Miles Myth,” which showed that the ways in which a product is made, grown, packaged, etc. have an impact on its carbon footprint that often outweighs mere transportation distances.

It’s encouraging to see other companies taking action to measure and report their products’ lifecycle carbon emissions. In brief, here are the footprints. (For your reference, the carbon footprint of a 1L bottle of FIJI Water is 1.3 pounds CO2eq, or 573 grams.)

• Half-gallon of milk from Aurora Organic Dairy: 7.2 pounds CO2eq
• Six-pack of beer from Fat Tire Amber Ale: 7 pounds CO2eq
• Laundry detergent from Tesco: 31 pounds CO2eq
• Fleece jacket from Patagonia: 66 pounds CO2eq
• Pair of hiking boots from Timberland: 121 pounds CO2eq
• Toyota Prius: 97,000 pounds CO2eq

And…

• Transparency about a product’s full carbon impact: Priceless

Sorry, I had to do that. I’m a sucker for those MasterCard commercials. But seriously, we at FIJI Water think it’s fantastic that all of these companies are not only measuring their products’ footprints, but also sharing them with the public.

On September 22, Oracle Corporation awarded FIJI Water an “Empower the Green Enterprise” award. This award recognizes customers who are using Oracle products to support green business practices and sustainability initiatives.  

The winners were selected by a panel of seven judges, including three sustainability experts: Cody Sisco, manager of Advisory Services at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR); Daniel Esty, green thought leader and co-author of Green to Gold; and Mike Sweeney, executive director of The Nature Conservancy’s California chapter. 

FIJI’s IT team has been hard at work finding ways to make our software and hardware systems greener. In May 2008, the team reconfigured our enterprise software systems – using a tool called Oracle VM – so that we could put them all on one physical machine. This achievement reduced the need for extra hardware and cabling, physical space, and electricity, and we now use 8 CPU boxes where we once used 32. This work, along with replacement of old servers with energy-efficient ones, resulted in data center energy savings of 20% for production servers and 59% for test servers. There are also financial benefits; the energy bill for our hosted servers has dropped by about two-thirds.

In addition, the IT team has used Oracle’s auto-notification features to eliminate paper usage for invoices and purchase orders in our Fiji offices. This will help us avoid printing about 12,000 pages per year. While the direct impact of this change is relatively small – equivalent to saving one tree – we believe every bit makes a difference.

 
“Global businesses recognize that environmental responsibility is good business,” said Oracle Chairman, Jeff Henley. “Whether green projects are driven by an organization’s desire to protect the environment, reduce costs, produce eco-friendly goods to meet growing consumer demand, or comply with increasing levels of government regulation, the results can be both good for the environment and good for business. Oracle’s ‘Empower the Green Enterprise’ awards showcase the success of environmental IT initiatives and the tangible business benefits our customers across the world are realizing by pursuing green practices.”

Other award recipients included: Alcoa, Australian Vintage Limited, BT, Dell, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Ingersoll-Rand, Intercall, Interface, Motorola, National Ignition Facility & Photon Service, Novartis International AG, PG&E, Standard Parking, Sun and Supervalu.

Learning to recycle was the first environmentally-conscious lesson for many of us. It also found its way into bake sales and car washes as a means to raise some money for a school field trip. While I can’t remember the last time I took part in a bake sale, recycling is something we all (hopefully) do on a daily basis. It’s very easy to do, but because it’s so simple, it’s also easy to forget!

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” has emerged as a mantra of modern conservation, and we at FIJI Water wholeheartedly support this. Recycling allows a container to live a second life as another good, minimizes landfill use, and lowers the carbon footprint of our product by at least 25%! These are some of the reasons why we insist on having recycling bins at our many events across the country. By promoting recycling, we hope to remind everyone that like blue jeans, recycling is still very much in vogue.

Beyond raising awareness, our support for recycling is about results. In the first half of 2008 we supplied 331,000 bottles of the world’s best water to a variety of events and venues. If every one of those bottles goes into a recycling bin, that represents a reduction of 33 metric tonnes of CO2. To achieve the same reduction, you’d have to pledge to walk to work for the next year – and to convince eight of your friends to do the same!

Because our product is carbon negative, each bottle results in a net reduction of carbon from the atmosphere. Add this into the equation, and by drinking & recycling 331,000 bottles of FIJI Water, we avoid or remove 53 metric tonnes of CO2. This has the same impact as planting over 1,200 trees!

Below are some photos of our stylish recycling bins at various events. I think you’ll agree they not only raise awareness and reduce emissions, but add a touch of class. Stay hip and recycle!

Hard Rock Hotel’s Save the Planet Golf Tournament in Las Vegas 

De La Mar Hotel’s Yacht Showcase held in Greenwich, CT

Aspen Food & Wine Classic

Barbara Chung, FIJI Water’s Senior Manager of Sustainable Growth, delivered an international keynote address on July 24 at the 2nd Annual Climate Change Summit in Sydney. You can view the presentation and listen to the speech online.

What made Australia an appropriate venue for sharing the story of FIJI Water’s path to sustainable growth?

• FIJI Water and Australia are in the same boat…often literally when it comes to their products.
• The effects of climate change are already apparent in both Fiji and Australia, with rising sea levels in Fiji, and heat waves, less rain, and increased drought in Australia.
• The food & beverage category represents a vital export contributor and economic growth opportunity for both countries. FIJI Water comprised almost 20% of Fiji’s exports in 2007, while food exports comprised almost 20% of Australian merchandise exports in 2005, with beef, dairy, fish, grain, and wine as the leading contributors.
• Because of their distance from their major export markets, both FIJI Water and Australia are sometimes challenged by “food miles” misconceptions.

As Barbara explained in her introduction, “What I want to do today is share what we’ve been doing at FIJI Water, of course, but more importantly share with you the lessons we’ve learned on our path to sustainability in the hope that it would be helpful to you as well.” At FIJI Water, we think of sustainability as a journey, not a destination, since there is always room for improvement in how a company does business and how we as individuals live our lives.  And it’s much easier (and more fun!) to travel this road when we can all help each other do so.

I’m proud to be a new member of FIJI Water’s sustainability team, and I’m looking forward to engaging with all of you about our initiatives and ideas. What you want to call it – sustainability, corporate social responsibility, or just doing things the right way – is a journey more than a final destination. Because of this, I’m open to recommendations, ideas, and criticisms. You can voice your feedback to help us continue to be the best.  We’re proud of our product, and we want to ensure that every bottle makes a difference.

Looking forward to enjoying the journey,

FIJI Green Guy