Green Production Helping the Bottom Line

For most facets of American life, a person can opt to go green – yet film sets, although starting to make the shift towards sustainability, are only in their beginning stages of green production regardless of the costs savings.

In every entertainment budget there is a line item for waste, but not for sorted waste management that accounts for compostable materials and recycling. Budgets don't account for crew members who assess production plans and prevent waste. Yet using less materials, reusing more, and repurposing used materials costs less money than purchasing new resources.

Eco-Friendly Transportation

When you have big plans and are considering various ways to travel, you don't want to take the decision lightly. Whether it's a corporate gathering or get together with family and friends, the importance of getting from one point to the next remains the same. This is especially true if you're somebody who is compassionate about leading a greener lifestyle! Think about it. You come up with a list of great destinations, but your own vehicle just doesn't rise to the level you need.

What should be your criteria when looking into a way to travel? Have you only considered price? What about the impact your trip is going to have on the environment?

Sacramento Airport's Environmentally Sustainable Terminal B

UC Davis Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester

The UC Davis Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester turns food waste into renewable biogas. The facility can handle 50 tons of organic waste per day. A three-stage thermophilic anaerobic digestion system is used with a total working volume of 450,000 gallons. The facility has four California Air Resources Board approved 200 kW microturbines and a 125 kW Rankine-cycle engine-generator for converting waste heat from the microturbines into additional electricity. Approximately 690 kW of the electrical generation capacity is provided by biogas generated at the facility with an additional 235 kW of capacity from landfill gas.

UC Davis Solar Farm

UC Davis solar farm. The 16.3 megawatt SunPower solar power plant generates 14 percent of UC Davis' electricity, reducing the university's carbon footprint by 9 percent. The largest solar power farm on a university campus in the nation sits on 62 acres on the south end of campus.

Electric bus at SEJ conference

Zero emissions electric bus parked outside of Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Sacramento. Chinese electric bus and electric truck maker BYD Auto is planning a major expansion in California. The Lancaster manufacturing plant will grow to 37,000 square metres, increase its employees from 300 to 1,000, and turn out 1,000 vehicles a year.

Santa Monica Bike Share

The Los Angeles region is behind other cities when it comes to bike sharing, but the City of Angels is starting to catch up, with Metro's downtown bike sharing program and Santa Monica's Breeze bike sharing scheme. Long Beach also has a bike sharing program called Long Beach Bike Share.

L.A. Metro - Little Tokyo/Arts District

Leichtag Foundation's Coastal Roots Farm

Sustainable farming is growing in the United States and around the world and the Leichtag Foundation's Coastal Roots Farm in Encinitas, California is an excellent example of the movement to regenerative agriculture.

Sacramento light rail

Cities must make public transportation clean, safe, reliable, technologically advanced and affordable. Otherwise, neglected rail and bus systems lead to divisions between the haves and have-nots and gain the reputation for crime, mentally unstable and homeless people, dirty trains and buses, not being reliable and other maladies that Sacramento and other transit systems in the United States have to deal with because of decades of disinvestment in public transit in favor of the private automobile and the streets and highways that are used by private cars and trucks.

Sacramento Net Zero Community

At the recent Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Sacramento we toured a demonstration project for a net zero community. The homes are powered by rooftop solar panels and include an energy storage unit on the side of the homes along with energy efficiency features and access to public transport and electric vehicle charging stations.

Here are photos:

Green cars at Society of Environmental Journalists conference

I got the chance to test drive some of the greenest cars on the market at the recent Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Sacramento -- from the fully electric zero emissions Nissan Leaf to the hydrogen fuel cell Toyota Mirai. These low emissions and zero emissions vehicles are not the future, but the now. The transition to sustainable transportation has begun!

Photos:

Riding L.A. Metro Expo Line Phase 2 from Culver City to Santa Monica

On a recent visit to Los Angeles I finally got the chance to ride the L.A. Metro Expo Line light rail extension from Culver City to Santa Monica. Now Angelenos can enjoy a one seat ride from downtown Los Angeles to downtown Santa Monica. Passengers can relax while looking out the window at the scenery going by instead of the stress of sitting in traffic on the 10 freeway.

Josh Fox climate change movie screening at D.C. Environmental Film Festival

Biking Brooklyn

World Trade Center Transportation Hub

Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring, Maryland

DC Streetcar grand opening

Pictures and video from the launch of DC Streetcar -- the first time in 54 years that streetcars are operating in the nation's capital. The new line runs from Union Station, through the H Street NE corridor, down Benning Road to its final destination at Oklahoma Avenue. There are plans to extend the streetcar line east to the Benning Road Metro station and west to Georgetown via K Street NW.

New D.C. United stadium will be LEED Gold

Great news soccer fans in the nation's capital! The new D.C. United stadium that will be built at Buzzard Point in Southwest Washington will be LEED Gold certified, the highest sustainability standard from the U.S. Green Building Council. More details on how the new stadium will be one of the most environmentally friendly stadiums in the country from the application for review and approval of a consolidated planned unit development:

L.A. Union Station improvements

On a recent train ride from San Diego to Los Angeles I was very impressed by the improvements being made to Union Station. There are new signs and video boards strategically placed around the station to make it easier for passengers to find their gates and transfer from Amtrak or Metrolink to the L.A. Metro rail and bus system.