Sustainable energy possibilities rarely find their way to consumers

From bits of science:

Test projects in which governments and companies demonstrate sustainable energy and material inventions are not adopted by the market and other companies. Research by the VU University of Amsterdam shows many such inventions are done, but the amount that ends up being used is practically negligible.

The research mainly focuses on the construction industry, where a large scale introduction of energy saving measures has been held off. Techniques like solar heating, solar boilers and sun directed allotment have proven highly effective in test cases but have only been sparsely applied in regular construction.

THE POWER OF WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING: INFOGRAPHIC EDITION

From Pr2 Squared

Humanities Gateway earns top ranking for sustainable construction

From myUCIrvine.com

Sustainable construction features and green amenities included in UC Irvine’s Humanities Gateway building earned a LEED Platinum rating this month from the U.S. Green Building Council. A platinum designation is the council’s highest honor, and it is UCI’s first. The campus has received eight LEED Gold designations.
“This designation demonstrates UCI’s commitment not only to mitigating the campus’s impact on the environment, but to holding down costs as well,” said Wendell Brase, vice chancellor for administrative and business services.  “At UCI, we are proud of our leadership role in building energy-efficient facilities that save both natural resources and money.”

Is Canada Ripe for a Housing Correction?

An interesting article today from the Economist - entitled House of horrors, part 2 - claims that the bursting of the global housing bubble is only halfway through.

MANY of the world’s financial and economic woes since 2008 began with the bursting of the biggest bubble in history. Never before had house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Yet the bust has been much less widespread than the boom. Home prices tumbled by 34% in America from 2006 to their low point earlier this year; in Ireland they plunged by an even more painful 45% from their peak in 2007; and prices have fallen by around 15% in Spain and Denmark.

7 Reasons To Use Twitter To Help Your Business

Love it or don’t see the point of it, Twitter is here to stay. If you’re already tapping into the vast opportunities social media presents your online store ecommerce venture, then chances are you’ll know a good chunk of your customer base are already tweeting and re-tweeting on a regular basis. But how your customers use it and how you as a business use it are different sides of the same coin – so take note of our top tips for using Twitter for business:

Sustainability Article in Aggregates Manager Magazine

I was interviewed for this article in Aggregates Manager Magazine, check it out!

Sustainable operating practices — which have roots in the business strategies of many European construction materials companies — are making their way into the ideology and operations of their North American counterparts.
For example, Lafarge North America Inc.’s various business units have taken a cue from their global parent company, with each business unit forming a sustainable construction committee. Each committee represents all its product lines, including aggregates, ready-mix, asphalt, cement, pre-cast concrete, and gypsum within that business unit, says Ted Matson, Lafarge North America Inc.’s director of marketing for aggregates in western Canada.
“During the last two years, we came up with a marketing plan that primarily identifies risks and opportunities that are related to sustainability,” he explains. “Here in western Canada, almost all of the newly designed buildings have some sustainable construction dimension to them. There’s an increased awareness of it internally within our own organization and, at the same time, externally within the construction industry.”

When Making Decisions, First Know the Opinions and Seek Dissent

I came across this interesting post on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network. Stephen Wunker discusses why Peter Drucker distrusted facts.  He pulls in this interesting quote from Drucker's book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

"Most books on decision-making tell the reader: First find the facts. But executives who make effective decisions know that one does not start with facts. One starts with opinions...The understanding that underlies the right decision grows out of the clash and conflict of divergent opinions and out of serious consideration of competing alternatives. To get the facts first is impossible. There are no facts unless one has a criterion of relevance."

 Wunker goes on to highlight five theses that support this claim:

1. If we do not make opinions clear, we will simply find confirmatory facts. "No one has ever failed to find the facts they are looking for."
2. An opinion provides an untested hypothesis. Once we have clarified the hypothesis, we can test it rather than argue it. "The effective person...insists that people who voice an opinion also take responsibility for defining what factual findings can be expected and should be looked for."


3. Decisions are judgments, not a choice between right and wrong. Oftentimes they are "a choice between two courses of action neither of which is probably more right than the other." So we must understand the alternatives fully.


4. Big decisions may require new criteria. "Whenever one analyzes the way a truly great, a truly right, decision has been reached, one finds that a great deal of work and thought went into finding the appropriate measurement. The effective decision-maker assumes that the traditional measurement is not the right measurement...The traditional measurement reflects yesterday's decision. That there is a need for a new one normally indicates that the measure is no longer relevant."


5. Ironically, opinions break executives free of pre-conceptions and poor imagination. Disagreement is a safeguard against being a prisoner of the organization and seeing an issue just as underlings want. Drucker quotes the famed General Motors boss Alfred P. Sloan, who after hearing executives unanimously support a decision reportedly said, "I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give us time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about."

I find the Sloan quote very interesting; where he implies that a decision is not considered effective unless dissent is present, and if there is no dissent then go out and find some!

Do you seek dissenting opinions when you make a decision?

Social Media Revolution 2011

The latest video with all of the updated mind-blowing facts!

7 Surprising Facts About Energy Efficiency (Infographic)

From WellHome:

There’s no doubt that energy efficiency and conservation is becoming increasingly popular and more of a priority both for individuals, corporations, and nations. Over the past few years, some surprising strides have been made in how we utilize energy efficiently – including how our homes can be improved upon through energy audits and with insulation, energy-efficient windows, and a properly sized HVAC system. The following graphic shows 7 facts about how energy efficiency is changing and moving forward.

The New Workplace Currency

Source: Cisco Connected World Technology Report

Lafarge wins Network Rail ballast contract

From Railco.com:

Granite from Lafarge will be keeping the country’s railways on the right track for the next five years, after the company secured a prestigious multi-million pound contract.

Network Rail, which owns and operates most of Britain’s rail infrastructure, has awarded a framework contract to Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete UK to provide ballast and other crushed rock material from Mountsorrel Quarry, near Loughborough.

The contract is worth, potentially, £35 million over the next five years with Lafarge hoping to supply more than a million tonnes of product a year, a fifth of Mountsorrel’s annual output.

Amazing Time-lapse Video of a Dam Removal in Washington State