About Green Mountain Energy
Eco-Action Tip #3
In the United States, food typically travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to plate, as much as 25 percent farther than in 1980. Transporting our food that far means higher energy consumption, lower quality produce, and less local agricultural investment. Visit your local farmer’s market and make a meal entirely from local food - you’d be surprised how good it feels!
About BeGreen Business
Carbon offsets for your commercial enterprise.
As Green Mountain Energy's commercial carbon offset division, BeGreen Business delivers innovative and cost-effective carbon reduction tools to commercial sector clients seeking to improve their environmental position. The solutions include a wide range of carbon reduction products and services including Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), forest sequestration projects, LEED consulting and other carbon reduction strategies. These allow companies to reduce their carbon footprint and offset the carbon emissions associated with business activities like transportation, manufacturing, electricity usage, and employee commuting and air travel.
BeGreen Business Case Studies
At BeGreen Business, a wealth of experience and powerful relationships put us in a unique position to offer carbon management solutions designed for next generation businesses.
Method
Method takes aim at global warming by offsetting their corporate carbon footprint
Founded in 2000, Method is the leading innovator of premium home care products. Their cleaners, soaps and other products in standout packaging may have caught your eye at major retailers such as Target, Wegman's, Costco, CVS, Safeway, Albertson's, Duane Reade, Waitrose, and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Method came to Green Mountain Energy Company's BeGreen Business division to make its operations even more sustainable. We helped Method offset its carbon footprint with Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and Forest Sequestration Offsets.
Wind energy RECs were used to offset the estimated emissions from Method's electricity usage for their corporate headquarters in San Francisco, CA and satellite office in Chicago, IL, as well the electricity used to create their products at 13 different manufacturing locations around the country.
Trees planted through Green Mountain's partnership with American Forests will help offset the estimated emissions associated with Method's natural gas usage at their corporate offices, and employee commuting and air travel.
Offsetting Method's carbon footprint is a core strategy in our commitment to sustainability as a business. Green Mountain Energy Company helped make offsetting possible," said Adam Lowry, Method co-founder. "It is a milestone to have achieved this and we look forward to building on the program."
Tree Sound Studios
Tree Sound Studios allows musical artists to record using 100% renewable energy.
Atlanta's largest and most unique recording facility, Tree Sound Studios is a blend of vision, precision, and the desire to make great music. Their client list is filled with musical giants including REM, the Beastie Boys, Dave Matthews and the Indigo Girls.
Tree Sound Studios is also led by people with a strong commitment to a sustainable business and lifestyle. They wanted to run on renewable energy to extend the environmental efforts they already make, such as purchasing organic cotton t-shirts for promotional use, using eco-friendly office supplies, and planting a tree for every ticket sold to their events. Our challenge was to give Tree Sound Studios an easy and cost effective way to meet their green power purchasing goals and demonstrate their leadership as the most earth friendly label available today.
By working with Green Mountain Energy Company to purchase renewable energy credits, Tree Sound Studios covered 100% of their electricity usage for 2006 and beyond. The 2006 purchase alone helps avoid over 196,000 pounds of CO2, as much as not driving over 218,000 miles. To put this in perspective, it's had the impact of planting about 11,800 trees or recycling over 484,000 aluminum cans.
This solution also allows Tree Sound Studios to pass some of the benefits of choosing renewable energy on to their clients, enabling musicians to produce albums in a carbon neutral way. In 2007, any album produced at their Norcross, GA facility will be made with renewable energy.
Kiehl’s
By committing to cleaner Green Mountain EnergyTM electricity, Kiehl's Since 1851 offsets the electricity usage from 10 of their stores.
Kiehl's Since 1851 is an "old-world apothecary" that specializes in high-end skin, hair and body care products. Based in New York's East Village, the company draws from an extensive wealth of cosmetic, pharmaceutical, herbal, and medicinal knowledge developed and passed down through the generations. The result is high-quality products made only of the finest ingredients.
In addition, Kiehl's has a philosophy of philanthropy and stewardship that includes a strong commitment to renewable energy. Specifically, the company worked with Green Mountain Energy Company to offset the electricity usage at ten of their store locations.
By buying renewable energy, these Kiehl's stores together will help avoid over 613,000 pounds of CO2 pollution — as much not driving approximately 681,000 miles.
This solution, combined with green power contracts already in place at other Kiehl's stores, means that all of Kiehl's stores now use renewable energy to offset all of the pollution created by their electricity usage.
A product of 