Sustainability Experts: Business Heroes of the Future

(Adapted from Career-Opportunities.net)

In the 21^st century, issues surrounding resource consumption, global warming and overpopulation are surfacing more frequently. Concern with rising gas prices and electricity conservation has generated a growing interest in solar energy, hydrogen, wind power and other alternative fuels. Some progressive corporations, businesses and individuals are looking into being more independent of depletable resources, and improving their ability to self-sustain. These organizations consult sustainability experts -- professionals who analyze a business, including the energy it consumes and the waste it produces, finding ways of making the business "smarter" and more sustainable.

What is sustainability?

Sustainability expert Dr. Richard T. Wright defines a sustainable system as one that maintains its capacity to operate without depleting the resources its operation relies on. The best examples, he says, are found in nature. For example, a forest gets its energy from:

• The soil, which is replenished by fallen trees and leaves
  
• The sun, a non-depletable resource
  
• The rain, a self-sustaining system

These characteristics are what makes a forest able to carry on for eons without depleting its energy resources.

Though it’s not likely in the foreseeable future for modern society to continue as a whole without needing outside resources, it is possible for cities, businesses and individuals to adopt characteristics of sustainable systems, thereby reducing the number of depletable resources needed to sustain them. For example, if the area of land needed to sustain the agricultural and resource needs of a city (known as the city’s ecological “footprint”) were self-sustainable, the city itself would be self-sustainable. Though no city has yet reached that point, cities and businesses are taking steps to move in that direction by relying more on non-depletable energy sources such as solar and wind energy, and by conserving depletable resources such as fossil fuels and electricity (more on that later). They make these transitions with the guidance of sustainability experts.

What do sustainability experts do?

Sustainability experts and sustainability firms are hired by firms and other organizations as consultants. Their clients may be governments, cities, corporations, small businesses, organizations or individuals seeking to reduce their ecological footprint. One sustainability consulting firm, SustainabilityExperts.com, helps organizations prevent problems relating to energy, transportation and agriculture. Sustainability consulting firms may consider a business’s energy draw and draft a plan for the use of renewable energy, or assist in a city’s planning to allow more effective use of mass transportation. They may also assist in structure and building design to allow for more efficient use of energy.

Sustainability experts can also address environmental and ecological issues as they affect a company’s reputation. WSP Environmental, for example, considers such factors as a client’s land and water use, waste and emissions control, and outside noise and vibration in order to mitigate any environmental, social and reputational risks the client could potentially face.

Sustainability consulting firms employ agents from a diverse array of backgrounds in order to assist organizations in their quest to become more “green.” As the growing attention on environmental issues continues to create public awareness around the idea of resource depletion, these consultants will see a productive future in creating sustainable, green businesses.

How can I become a sustainability expert?

Sustainability is a new and vibrant avenue of business, so sustainability experts come from a variety of educational and professional backgrounds. Firms especially like to hire people with a background or interest in civil, structural, electrical or mechanical engineering, as well as biology, ecology and other water or earth sciences.

Because sustainability is a new industry without well-established career paths, specific titles, degrees and majors are not as important as the specific focus you take in your field of study. Self-motivation and a clear direction toward environmental conservation and preservation are some of the most important qualities a future sustainability expert can have. Specific details concerning education requirements and salary tend to vary with the hiring firm.

How can my business be more sustainable?

Every business can benefit from the advice of sustainability experts in some way, starting with small but cost-saving energy conservation techniques. Many forward-thinking businesses already use these and other energy-saving strategies:

• Use compact fluorescent lighting, as it uses 1/4 the energy and lasts 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs
• Turn off or minimize lighting when the office is closed
• Use lighter paint schemes in the office, as lighter colors brighten a room with less required lighting
• Use natural lighting when you can -- it's also proven to brighten workers' moods
  
• Use computers and office equipment marked with an Energy Star label -- their efficiency standards are expected to save businesses over $2 billion in the next 5 years
• Set monitors to sleep mode when they're not in use, and turn computers off if no one is using them for longer periods of time
  
• Recycle toner cartridges, paper, and office food waste such as aluminum cans and plastic bottles
• Use motion-activated faucets in bathrooms, as they turn themselves completely off

Source: What is a Sustainability Expert? at Career-Opportunities.net

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CriminalSearches: new service may create more discomfort than security

CriminalSearches.com, the new free criminal background checking service launched July 21 by the friend-finding search engine PeopleFinders.com, already has Internet searchers, as well as Internet bloggers and reporters, in an uproar.

Mistaken Identity?

Bloggers and Internet news watchdogs are already pinning a red caution flag on CriminalSearches.com, launched earlier this week. The new service allows users to do a free criminal background check on any name, where they will be given information such as what that name has been convicted of, where, and around what year. Users can do a more thorough criminal search if they wish, including the person's home address and middle name, but a first and last name is all you really need.

Unfortunately, a first and last name is also what many people have in common. What appears to be making people wary is the quandary between being able to force legitimate criminals out of their protective anonymity, and being able to mistakenly assign criminal status to neighbors who happen to share a namesake with them.

Is your name Jim Jones? You, sir, have a very common name -- in fact, you share it with about 50, give or take, other Jim Jonses who live in California and have been convicted of crimes, including sex and drug offenses. Let's hope your criminal searching neighbors don't find out about you.

Mike Johnson? You have almost the same record, and you can tack behavioral crimes on yourself as well. Fortunately for your neighbors, your criminal prime was in the '50s, so you're likely too old to be much of a bother to anyone. Still, don't park your car next to mine, please, and don't expect my kids to visit your house on Halloween.

Being sure, the easy way

Of course, like I said, users can do a more thorough search and eliminate you from their list of similarly named felons, but how would they? Do your neighbors know what your home address was in 1986? Do they even know your middle name? They might not be sure it's you coming back on their monitor, but they can't confidently eliminate you either, unless they have that information. To regain a feeling of security, they can either be rude and ask you directly, or take the path most neighbors would take -- don't bring it up, and hope you're totally honest. That's what we do every time we walk onto a used car lot anyway, right?

So, you want to keep your own, clean record and retain the trust of your friends and neighbors? Remind them to take this new service, as they should any Internet device, with a grain of salt. Even if it's stolen salt.

See article source

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Environment Mobile Homes

Usually, mobile homes are not associated with terms such as long-term quality or environmental friendliness. Now, a professor of architecture at Mississippi State University (MSU) wants to change this. He has developed the concept of the GreenMobile home, an ultra-affordable and ecological-minded, factory-built housing unit. The first prototypes of these homes, which could be used as regular houses or for disaster relief housing, should be built in March 2008. And their cost is expected to be in the $50,000 range. Not too bad, especially if the value of these houses increases in the future as expects the development team. But read more…

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What is an Urban Planner

A Greener Death

While at McDonald's and after giving up trying to find a CC Cafe which was listed to have wifi service, I discovered the back page with a local piece about Louisiana cemeteries called Louisiana Burying Our Dead. While the piece took the entire back page and published eye catching beautiful photography of some of the best cemetery features, I couldn't find the online version to link to.

The brief feature was able to convey the beauty of a once time honored tradition that has now been left to the past and contains a history that has been mostly forgotten. Back in the early days French and Spanish settlers carried their burial traditions to the state of Louisiana. The cemeteries which was nick named cities of the dead due to the cluster of close nit tombs followed a tradition in which a family member's coffin were removed and the human remains were pushed to the back of the tomb or buried in a chamber called a caveau beneath the tomb one year and one day after they were buried. The process made room for the next family member who passed away.

I've always had an appreciation for cemeteries because many of the monuments, markings and tombs reflected that era's historical fashion preference as well as that era's society accepted practice. The bell tower tomb was often used in the times of epidemics when sickness generated a death like state in appearance only. If a victim found him or herself buried alive the person could ring the bell signaling that they were in fact alive. Thank gawd for modern technology. However, a bell tower could definitely help some online addicts who spend 10 + hours online – could I have mine mobile?

As the population of today's world outgrows what our planet can handle it should be 'interesting' to see how the future of human burial will be handled. Sadly, I see very little consideration of history's practicability of use and reuse of space. Coffins and monuments for the “someday I will be dead -- LOOK AT ME” have been created even a bigger or Nokia_cell_coffinpathetic fashion of vanity coffins such as the Nokia cell phone shaped and painted coffin...What no flip phone coffins? You will be dead! Cut your ass in half, throw you in, flip it shut and you've saved half the space needed for a cemetery plot.

One company has created and designs a great tree hugger happy idea for a coffin -- the biodegradable coffin. The Natural Burial Company has a brand new store in Portland, OR (of course) which just opened at the beginning of January 2008. Customers can choose a variety of eco-friendly burial coffins which are available in multiple colors and can be silk-screened with designs. Too cool :)