Saturday, March 28, 2009

UAE's Gulf News supported Green Living!

I am glad to announce that many people are supporting Green Living! The response to this blog within 2 months is heartwarming (not global warming ;-)..)!

UAE’s leading newspaper Gulf News featured a story on this blog, published today (29th March 2009). Link to the article in Gulf news about blog- http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/General/10299425.html Or http://www.citigroup.com/uae/gcb/comm_services/images/press_clips02.pdf
Gulf News appreciated the Green Habits and Green Living approach. I would like to thank Gulf News for the acknowledgement of my efforts!

Many people are writing to me to show their support. My request is to please comment or suggest on the blog so that other people also can see your words. Your Green suggestions are always welcome!

It's Earth-Hour Today!


It’s Earth-Hour today!The countdown is about to end.
To support Earth-Hour we have to switch off all lights at 8.30 pm wherever we are! We need to spread awareness of Earth-hour wherever possible Office, friends, family, schools, local authority etc. I have already informed most of my friends and family about Earth-Hour.
During Earth Hour 2008, lights dimmed at Sydney’s Opera House, Rome’s Coliseum, New York’s Empire State Building, and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Even Google’s homepage went black. In total, more than 50 million people participated in Earth Hour last year.
Visit http://www.earthhour.org/home/ for more details.

Earth Hour 2009 will be even bigger, with some of the world’s largest cities, including Bangkok, Chicago, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, London, Manila, Mexico City, New York City, Paris, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto joining WWF in turning off lights. Tens of millions of people around the world will demonstrate concern about the future of the planet by doing something simple yet remarkable - they will turn off their lights for one hour.

In Dubai, a lantern parade is going to take place from iconic Burj Al Arab to mark Earth Hour. http://www.gulfnews.com/Nation/Environment/10201111.html. Nevertheless, as we are staying far away it is not wise to spend petrol for Earth-Hour! Several other companies and organisations are going to take part. Last year Dubai was first Arab city to join the movement.
My Plans for Earth Hour-
I remember last year we religiously switched off all lights, equipments even A/C and TV during Earth Hour and called up friends and family and told them ‘switch off your lights quickly!’ This year we have planned for it and I would like to share it with everyone here. My husband and I will go out, have a walk around during earth hour of-course switching off all lights in our home. After coming back we will have a romantic candlelight light dinner (to prolong earth-hour). We already follow Green living by reducing unnecessary energy consumption. However, today on earth hour we will have dinner for which fuel will not be required, special menu for the dinner! Thus, we have planned to cut off energy use for not just hour but for whole evening.
Happy Earth-Hour to you all!!!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

New Carbon Footprint Calculator

Hi everybody, I came across a very useful carbon footprint calculator. You will find the new calculator at the bottom of this page. Before, there was a CO2 calculator for vehicles on this blog. However, this new CO2 calculator is quite proper and more systematic covered all carbon usage in our life! It is a good measure to check how green you are!
There are options to calculate your carbon footprint for house, car, bike, flight, public transport and secondary. When I calculated my carbon footprint, it came 2.3 tones /month. The average footprint of UAE people is 37 tones/ month. Thanks to Green Living that I save that much energy than other people in UAE! The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tones. The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tones. The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tones. Now my target is to reduce my carbon footprint up to 2 or less than that!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Make your Workplace Green!

We spend most of our time in offices. That is why if we want to follow Green living, our office also should be Green. Here are some techniques to make your office green.
- Waste papers should go into shredder or recycler.
- Before recycling, use blank side of waste papers to do rough work.
- Don’t print or copy if not required. - Make compulsory printing on both sides of paper and double-sided photocopy.
- Maintain different bins for different recyclable materials. Give importance to waste management - Use Coffee mugs and glass instead of plastic cups. Consider gifting all employees coffee mugs and glass on which company logo is printed. - Remind staff to turn off lights or terminals.
- To save electricity, put computers, printers, copiers and fax machines in standby or sleep mode after about 20 minutes of inactivity. The shorter the period, the more energy is saved.
- During lunchtime, tea-coffee breaks, meetings turn off lights and A\Cs of your workplace.
- Make your websites green. Background black and text white. If background is black, it consumes less energy.
- Instead of taking elevators use stairs. You will save energy and have exercise too!
- Avoid keeping unnecessary extra equipments, share as much as you can in between each other to reduce energy consumption.
- Every day before leaving for home, checkout you have switched off all equipments you use.
- Provide task lightings instead of lighting up whole office room.
- Promote day lighting in offices.

- Reduce use of toilet papers
- Introduce water efficient taps or half-flush toilets.
- If there is any leakage in office, toilets treat it immediately.
- If you have half-used bottle of water lying around the office, use it to water the plants in or around office.
- When it is weekend check all equipments computers, copiers, projectors, fax machines, coffee maker, kettle, microwave etc are switched off and unplugged. Also, make sure all taps are rightly closed, not dripping.
- Try not to give car to everybody. Arrange transport for employees so that instead of separate vehicle they will share one vehicle.
- Hold a contest among employees with a prize for the best ideas for reducing waste and cutting energy consumption in your company’s daily operations.
- Make No Smoking policy in office.
- Award a green employee every month
- Organize tree plantation program for employees around and in office
- Lastly, if any co-worker or even cleaner in your office is unaware of energy conservations, aware those by telling green tips.



Here is special poster I made, which we use in our office...

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Wipe Out Waste Campaign in UAE


In UAE, a local paper Gulf News has started a campaign recently 'Wipe Out Waste'
And residents are supporting this campaign by reducing wastes in their regular routine.
There are some interesting articles explaining how to wipe out wastes. After reading those articles I find it is in line with my Green Living campaign! So I am also a supporter of Wipe Out Waste campaign by Gulf News, and I'll follow zero waste lifestyle! Below is given link to Gulf news online paper.
http://www.gulfnews.com/indepth/wipe_out_waste/index.html

UAE govt. has already declared to build green buildings is compulsory. The authority of water and electricity of Dubai (DEWA) has issued some energy saving tips for residents (I found the booklet in Global Village, and I am quite impressed by seeing UAE oriented energy saving tips which can be used in everyday routine). Last year under Go Green campaign, Gulf news urged to 'say no to plastic bags'. They gifted jute bags to all their subscribers, the bags are really good looking and useful. (But people are still using plastic bags in supermarket). I think cheap jute/ cloth/ paper bags is the solution, because in market those green bags are above AED 30!
UAE really needs to go green, one gets a real high life here, spending more energy and heavy on pocket, which means no saving (in any way ;)..).
Good to see that Local governments, news papers, many local organisations, businesses and even residents of UAE are going GREEN!