My Agenda

This blog has a couple of purposes. They are:

A) an opportunity for me, the blogger, to learn more about blogging, outreach, and the use of new media in order to promote “green” behavior;

B) to vent about my own green living challenges and confess my many eco-sins.

This blog is definately a propaganda tool, and I am trying to make you change your ideology and behavior and essentially make you green like me (sorry). Regardless of my agenda, however, I promise to be up front and honest about everything in this blog, and I assure you that I’m not selling anything (although if you feel like sending me money, I’d certainly be open to it).

Thanks,

          Gwen

4 Comments Add your own

  • 1. Barbara Sanderman  |  March 13, 2009 at 11:17 pm

    I just read your article on “A Call to Go (Nearly) Paperless. I’m writing to you for advice. I am in the process of setting up a new business. I would love to call it gopaperless.com, but that name is already taken. My company will likely be non-profit and it’s mission to take the world paperless, one company at a time. I almost accomplished this for my company, but due to a restructuring and reorganization, many posistions in the company were effected, including mine. How was I accomplishing this large task. First, I would take the individual task, break it down, figure out how to create the same task purely online. Then I would review the paper records, determine which needed to be retained and for how long. And finally I would destroy and recyle the balance. Most of the recordkeeping, as you can imagine is financial or legal. However, I was able to determine that 85% of the records could be destroyed, either because they had passed their retention period or were not required to be retained in the first place. A final step, as your article addresses is to change the way people work. Many people print out documents, just to read them or take notes. There are more efficient way. So the last step is training and maintaining a new system. So, what do I need from you? Contacts and support and any ideas you might have that will help me accomplish my goals.

    Reply

  • 2. gwen  |  March 14, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    Hi Barbara,

    I’m no paper expert, but I love that there are people like you working to make this happen and I’m happy to help in any way I can. If I were you I’d contact Hayden Hamilton, who created Greenprint (http://www.printgreener.com/) – any client you work with would probably want to use his software (which makes print jobs smaller so they use less paper.

    Office employees can be encouraged to reduce or eliminate printing using guilt and green lingo, or companies can simply institute a “print only when necessary” policy that is enforced like any other office policy (eg do your own dishes, dress code, etc). I’m sure there are lots of success stories – like the story of your own office – and it’s always best to base your methods on established best practices.

    And with regards to your website URL, I’d go for a .org instead of a .com – there will be more options available and it makes good sense if you’re starting a non-profit.

    I hope this is helpful. There’s also this great Grist article on the subject – maybe you can contact this author and ask him for advice, too: http://www.grist.org/biz/tp/2006/01/03/printing/index.html

    Good luck and let me know how it works out! -gwen

    Reply

  • 3. Jody Ochs  |  March 20, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    Hi Gwen,

    I just read your uplifting article on Alternet, What’s for Dinner May Be About To Change.
    I am writing to ask you about HR 875. Have you read the entire 230 pages? Do you not think that this Resolution poses serious risks to the Organic Farmer?

    Reply

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