The Planning Lab

The Sustainability Lab: Low Emissions Zone

It seems London is being serious about the environment. After introducing congestion charges for cars in 2003, it is now (starting February 4th) introducing the Low Emissions Zone (LEZ), a congestion charge for large trucks.

I like the fact that the City of London is tackling climate change in a communicative way. Their Lightbulb Amnesty or their DIY Planet Repairs campaigns are creative ways of raising the issues in a way that doesn't alienate its citizens. Obviously, London has severe environmental problems that probably need stronger medicine, but doing something is better than doing nothing.

PSFK
Treehugger
Mayor of London

The Sustainability Lab: Low Emissions Zone

It seems London is being serious about the environment. After introducing congestion charges for cars in 2003, it is now (starting February 4th) introducing the Low Emissions Zone (LEZ), a congestion charge for large trucks.

I like the fact that the City of London is tackling climate change in a communicative way. Their Lightbulb Amnesty or their DIY Planet Repairs campaigns are creative ways of raising the issues in a way that doesn't alienate its citizens. Obviously, London has severe environmental problems that probably need stronger medicine, but doing something is better than doing nothing.

PSFK
Treehugger
Mayor of London

The Sustainability Lab: the bottled water story continues

Fast Company, a business magazine, writes about the economics and psychology of the bottled water industry in this article. Some interesting facts about bottled water:

* Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water last year.

* 24% of the bottled water American consumers buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.

* Americans produce waste from plastic bottles worth $1 billion.

* For the price of one Evian bottle, you can fill the same bottle every day for 10 years, 5 months and 21 days with tap water.

* Half of the price of a typical bottle goes to the retailer, a third goes to distributor and transportation, a tenth is the cost of the water, another tenth is the profit.

* Water-drinker segments include: the "water pure-fectionist", the "water explorer", the "image seeker" and the "struggler".

* The CO2 bubbles in SanPellegrino water are extracted from vulcanic springwaters in Tuscany and trucked the Pellegrino plant in northern Italy.

* Worldwide, 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water. 3 000 children die every day from diseases caught from tainted water.

The Sustainability Lab: the bottled water story continues

Fast Company, a business magazine, writes about the economics and psychology of the bottled water industry in this article. Some interesting facts about bottled water:

* Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water last year.

* 24% of the bottled water American consumers buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.

* Americans produce waste from plastic bottles worth $1 billion.

* For the price of one Evian bottle, you can fill the same bottle every day for 10 years, 5 months and 21 days with tap water.

* Half of the price of a typical bottle goes to the retailer, a third goes to distributor and transportation, a tenth is the cost of the water, another tenth is the profit.

* Water-drinker segments include: the "water pure-fectionist", the "water explorer", the "image seeker" and the "struggler".

* The CO2 bubbles in SanPellegrino water are extracted from vulcanic springwaters in Tuscany and trucked the Pellegrino plant in northern Italy.

* Worldwide, 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water. 3 000 children die every day from diseases caught from tainted water.

The Sustainability Lab part 4: power down your PC

Making your computer consume less energy is a no-brainer. There are three things that you can do:

1. Energy management. Adjust the sleep-time for your screen, harddrive and system.

2. Screen saver. A nice screen-saver like Pixel Breaker makes it less annoying everytime your computer goes idle.

3. Shut down after work. Many people, especially at the office, leave their computers on all the time. Sometimes by habit, sometimes for system backup reasons. At our office, we have set the backup schedule to run during office hours instead.

Part 1: The principle
Part 2: Less sparkling water
Part 3: White glow

The Sustainability Lab: bottled water - from bad to good

About three weeks ago I vowed to drink less bottled water (I've only had one bottle of Ramlösa since then). I have also followed closely the coverage in Swedish media on the water industry. The angle is simple: bottled water produces substantial emissions from transportation. What's interesting here is how the voices of the water bottling industry effectively change the agenda. By switching the argument from environment to health, the soft drink companies become the bad guys.

I've made a simple scheme of this which show the pattern of how the worse option can become the best option by tapping on to another significant macro trend.

Click to enlarge

Also read:
San Francisco bans bottled water
Bottled-water industry fights back

The Sustainability Lab part 4: power down your PC

Making your computer consume less energy is a no-brainer. There are three things that you can do:

1. Energy management. Adjust the sleep-time for your screen, harddrive and system.

2. Screen saver. A nice screen-saver like Pixel Breaker makes it less annoying everytime your computer goes idle.

3. Shut down after work. Many people, especially at the office, leave their computers on all the time. Sometimes by habit, sometimes for system backup reasons. At our office, we have set the backup schedule to run during office hours instead.

Part 1: The principle
Part 2: Less sparkling water
Part 3: White glow

The Sustainability Lab: bottled water - from bad to good

About three weeks ago I vowed to drink less bottled water (I've only had one bottle of Ramlösa since then). I have also followed closely the coverage in Swedish media on the water industry. The angle is simple: bottled water produces substantial emissions from transportation. What's interesting here is how the voices of the water bottling industry effectively change the agenda. By switching the argument from environment to health, the soft drink companies become the bad guys.

I've made a simple scheme of this which show the pattern of how the worse option can become the best option by tapping on to another significant macro trend.

Click to enlarge

Also read:
San Francisco bans bottled water
Bottled-water industry fights back

The Sustainability Lab part 3: white glow

I've now replaced six out of ten lightbulbs in my apartment into low-energy ones. Just like tap water, they are very unsexy, but only use 1/6 of the energy. A no-brainer.

Part 1: The principle
Part 2: Less sparkling water

The Sustainability Lab part 2: less sparkling water

A bottle of my favorite sparkling water, Ramlösa, travels 559 kilometers from Helsingborg in the south of Sweden to Stockholm. That's a long way. The right thing to do here is to consume less sparkling water, so that's what I will try to do. I'll start by not ordering sparkling water at restaurants or buying them in supermarkets and 7 Eleven. Tap water isn't tasty, but it does the job.

Part 1: The principle