efforts in reducing climate change

Clearly we love penguins – we just launched our penguin-inspired bottle design. And we love homes. So what about penguins’ homes? Antarctica is where a lot of them live, and due to global warming its ice sheets are melting fast. We sure wouldn’t want our home to melt, so we’re taking steps to minimize our impact on the climate.

With global warming as one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced, we believe businesses have a role to play in finding solutions. We at method are keen to be leaders in showing that a low-carbon business can be a successful business. Here’s what we’re doing:

• We offset all the carbon emitted by the work travel and daily commute of all our employees, as well as for the energy used by our offices and to make our products.
• We work with our suppliers and factories to help identify the most energy efficient ways to produce our products.
• We design products that take less energy to make, ship and use - for example concentrated laundry detergent and bottles made from recycled plastic.

But that's not all. You can make an impact too. There is a wealth of great tips to reduce your carbon footprint. Here are some of our faves: 

• Eat more veggies. Meat takes over 10 times the carbon to produce one serving than veggies do. One pound of beef produces 12 pounds of carbon.
• Ride a bike or take public transit. Cars are among the biggest producers of carbon in the US, so try leaving it in the driveway more often. 
• Better insulation for your home. This is an easy one: save money on heating and AC bills, and reduce your footprint by updating your insulation.
  

To check out some more tips on what you can do to help reduce climate change, visit the EPA website to learn more. 

people against dirty, for dirt

Though we may be people against dirty, we do make one exception for the grimy stuff…compost! A family of happy, well-fed worms resides in our 3rd floor kitchen, and chomps the day away while the rest of us work.


Much to our delight, our hunky San Francisco mayor has just made sure that we’re not the only ones reveling in green bin fun. Gavin Newsom signed a new law that mandates composting across the city and county of San Francisco.

While worm-haters will eventually be fined for not separating out their food scraps, the city will first spread the message through an educational campaign. Seems like a cool way to put the carrot before the stick. We’ll be on the lookout for pizza boxes that instruct the masses to recycle a clean box and compost a greasy box (see Gavin’s demo piece above). As if the boxes are ever grease free.

The good people of San Francisco already have much to be proud of – our fair city already diverts 72 percent of waste bound for landfills to recycling and composting programs. The new pro-worm, anti-methane law will hopefully help the city meet its 2020 goal of sending zero waste to landfill. And you wonder where we get our inspiration from.

Gavin Newsom image credit: John Cote/The Chronicle, SFGate.com

saving the bay

This past Wednesday, 26 of us embarked on our first 2009 Eco-Maniacs volunteer event.   

If you don’t know, in order to encourage volunteerism in our local community, we’re given 3 days per year that we can use volunteering at one of the company-sponsored volunteer events or for an organization of our personal choice.

For this event, we partnered up with Save the Bay for a wetlands restoration project at Bair Island down in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay.  Save The Bay is the oldest and largest organization working exclusively to protect, restore and celebrate San Francisco Bay.  

Here are some of the highlights from our trip:
 
-       We learned about the ecosystem of our SF Bay and the importance of the wetlands.

-       We canoed out to Bair Island.

-       We planted 1,000 seedlings of native alkali heath.

-       We removed the non-native and highly invasive “pepper weed” plant.

-       We removed trash.

-       We tested the water’s phosphate levels.

-       Unearthed a dead jackrabbit.

-       Made a communal lunch of sandwiches, organic fruit, and cheez-its….yum!  Then composted the food remains.


All in all the day was a great combination of San Francisco Bay education, outdoor recreation, teamwork, and wetlands restoration. 
 
For pictures of the day check out our Flickr and Facebook pages. Feel free to comment!

If you are interested in learning more about Save the Bay and the advocacy work they do to protect our local treasure you can click here.

Happy World Wetlands Day

Did you know today is World Wetlands Day? Though most of us haven’t heard of this day, February 2 marks the celebration of the signing of the UN-sponsored Convention on Wetlands back in 1971 in Ramsar, Iran, which created the Ramsar list of globally protected wetlands. Since World Wetlands Day began, government and non-government agencies and citizens alike take February 2 to raise public awareness on the values and benefits our wetlands bring to us. This years theme is “Upstream Downstream: Wetlands connect us all.”

So what are wetlands anyway? They are invaluable ecological assets, providing fish and wildlife habitats, protecting and improving water quality, and helping store floodwaters – they effectively give environments the ability to withstand and rebound from floods, drought, and other disruption. They’re also among the most productive and diverse ecosystems, comparable to rain forests and coral reefs. Wetlands play an important role in our ecology since they provide dense nutrients and are ideal habitat for fish, amphibians, insects, birds and mammals. Who knew swamps were so useful?  Knowing how our upstream/downstream activities help or harm our wetlands is vital to protecting these ecosystems.

The EPA is taking a big part in this fight to protect our wetlands. To learn more and find out how you can help, visit the EPA website.

post Park(ing) Day wrap up

Last Friday we set out to build our own mini park in downtown SF and Chicago's Lincoln Park in honor of National Park(ing) Day. The day started off early and by days end we had built a park with a mini putt-putt course and a spot to kick up your heels and relax. In the end, we made new friends who stopped to putt or chat with us and were even visited by a few local reporters who helped us spread the word that we need more green spaces in urban cities. We had a blast and already can't wait for Park(ing) Day 2009! 

Go ahead... ask us anything

Ever wonder what the heck the difference is in all the different plastic ratings (you know, those numbers in the triangle usually found on the bottom of plastic containers)? Or ever want to ask how lil bowl blu got it's sleek design? Well, send us all your questions you ever wanted to ask of our resident greenskeepers (consider them our resident "green" walking encyclopedias) and of our design team (you know, the people who make our stuff easy on the eyes). Be sure to post them below in our comments section and be on the lookout in the future as we pick certain questions to feature back on the blog. Ready... set... ask!

Win a new omop kit from PETA!

PETA is a big fan of method for our cruelty-free practices, and they're sponsoring a contest to win one of 5 new brand new omop starter kits.  Each kit includes the omop, a reusable microfiber mopping pad, three compostable sweeper dusters, and a bottle of our non-toxic floor cleaner, as well as one of our stylish "Plastic Bag Rehab" totes.  Head on over to Caringconsumer.com to register to win!

an end to the junk

I don't know a single person who enjoys the afternoon trip to the mailbox, only to find it's full of grocery store coupons and "Don't miss this chance to consolidate your student loans." Junk mail is wasteful and, usually, pretty annoying. So, as I was checking my inbox this morning, I was especially happy to read my daily Ideal Bite:

GreenDime is a company who will go through the effort to call and email and write and call again, on your behalf, to keep your address off the junk mail lists. For a dime a day, GreenDime will stop the junk mail flowing into your mailbox, AND plant a tree! According to their estimates, 100 million trees are chopped down every year for junk mail sent in America.

I know I'm not alone in thanking this company for helping us make our lives full of a little LESS waste. Do you know of other companies with similar mantras? Let's hear 'em!

a date with the garbage man

Whoever thought walking through a building full of trash wasn't fun, is dead wrong!! method employees, this week, were treated to a tour of the San Francisco Recycling Center. We were privy to an insider's look at what really happens to those blue garbage cans...

I should note that this recycling center in San Fran is one of a kind! It manages to recycle 90% of the material that comes through its doors! That's thanks to conscious consumers who throw their recyclables into proper receptacles, a city that cared enough to invest in an easy-to-use 3 bin system for garbage, ALL recyclables, and compost and a recycling center with the technology and manpower to devote to the daunting task of sifting through 20,000 tons of material/hour!!!!

Little Plastic Subway Cars

Do you know those fish tanks that have little plastic castles at the bottom of them? Seems ridiculous right?  Not for the fish on the eastern seaboard.  But instead of plastic they have steel and instead of castles they have subway cars. Confused?

All the way from New Jersey to Georgia fish are making new homes in subway cars, armored tanks, naval ships, and tugboats. These massive steel units were strategically dumped in the ocean to serve as artificial reefs.

In the mid-Atlantic region, there is very little exposed rock.  The subway cars are acting as a hard surface or "artificial exposed rock" which is attractive to various oysters, mussels, and food sources vital to local fish populations. These artificial reefs become beacons of marine life.