Nevertheless, We Persisted | Overcoming Creative Blocks (A New Series)

Today we are starting a new series called "Nevertheless, We Persisted." These videos are going to focus on how to deal with the craziness that this world throws at you. In this first video I get into my recent creative malaise and how I overcame feeling so very uninspired. One of the keys for me was getting myself organized to take on the world, so I am also sharing the websites (MindMeister and Trello) I used for that.  We are making these videos in hopes that our experiences can help you when you have to confront similar issues and that our tips can benefit others positively. 

Check it out:

Is It Green? | Testing Sustainable Products: JUICE BEAUTY | PART ONE

As we promised in our introductory video, we are going to look into a variety of sustainability topics. Today we are taking on what it means to be a "green product." This is a very confusing area to investigate because there are many ways a product can have an impact and almost as many ways of certifying their eco-value. 

We decided to start small by looking at a particular brand, dissecting their sustainability claims and trying out a selection of their products. First up is Juice Beauty, an organic beauty and skincare brand starting in 2005. 

Check out our video that talks all about Juice Beauty's Eco-Values and the products we will be testing. And stay tuned because part two, where we will be discussing our findings, will be coming out in the end of July. 

Adventures in Sustainable Food Systems | Grow-Your-Own

You can find ways of being more sustainable in almost every part of your life. I've found that creating a more sustainable food system to be one of the most interesting, fun, and rewarding you can try. You can participate in so many other ways, like shopping locally and seasonally, becoming vegetarian or vegan, choosing minimally processed products, and so much more. Today, I'll just be sharing my experience creating my own little vegetable garden, but if you want us to discuss those other topics, just let us know. 

My Little Garden 2016

In Spring 2016, after spending way too much time falling into the gardening and allotment videos on YouTube, I decided to start my own little veggie garden. Growing interesting varieties of vegetables, organically and with the seasons really appealed to me. I set out with a bit of knowledge and a lot of pent up winter energy and created a cute little garden of veggies that ranged from peas to tomatoes to eggplants to peppers. Most of it was from store-bought plants, but I was proud of myself nonetheless. That was last year in the garden, which you can follow along with in these videos, which stop in July, sorry-- life got complicated. It was 2016 after all (the worst year ever).

Back in the Garden 2017

This year I kept up this gardening project and started everything from seed to some mixed results so far. It's July 2017 now and the garden is, against all odds, becoming a real garden. There peas to pick, a massive overload of lettuce, and the tomatoes I grew from seeds are blooming. It's so satisfying. Here are the videos I've produced so far this year (including one released just this morning). Expect new blog posts when there are new videos on the channel. 

Hello Green Boxes PRODUCTIONS!

Hello folks! Daphne and Leila here with some news. After working on "The Do More Good Project" for awhile now, we have decided to turn it into something new beyond a simple video series. We are calling our foray in video-making Green Boxes Productions. This will be a platform to share our experiences, advice, knowledge and more. We will be producing weekly videos on a wide range of topics all of which are tied to our over-arching desire to do some good in this crazy, mixed-up world of ours. 

Our official announcement video is launched on July 8th, check it out here and also visit our YouTube page. There's a lot of videos on there right now with some wide-ranging interests, but starting with this video it will be much more focused on creating positive change in the world. 

The GREEN BEER Adventure: Maine Edition

Hi GBC Blog-reader! Daphne here. Just wanted to share this blog from my personal website because it's all about a certain type of green business, the green brewery. I hope you enjoy!

I didn’t set out on my week-long Maine vacation intending to come back with a bunch of content for my blog. I thought I would take some photos and videos of the food and the views and throw those together into a quick post and maybe a fun vlog. That is until I set off on what I thought would be a quiet beer tasting tour and what I am now retroactively calling THE GREEN BEER ADVENTURE-- Maine Edition. I was so inspired and impressed by the brewing and sustainability culture I found that I’m sharing what I’ve learned right here!

My father has always been into craft brewing; well at least as long as I can remember. So it seemed quite natural that during our vacation he would want to try some of the breweries that had been springing up over the past few years in the Southern Maine and Greater Portland area. To me, it seemed like a good idea, especially if we got to try some wheat beers (my favorites) and not too many hoppy beers (not my cup-of-tea). We started our adventure right down the street from our beach house atSouthern Maine (SOME) Brewing Company, where I picked up the “Maine Beer Trail” A Guide to Maine’s Best Breweries-- basically a super-long check list of breweries all around the state. And let me tell you there is nothing I enjoy more than a challenge to visit different places on a list. Yeah, I was sold on getting to as many as I could. Over the next couple of days we continued our journey and visitedAllagash Brewing Co., Maine Beer Co., Sebago Brewing Co., Oxbow Brewing Co., and Tributary Brewing Co. I enjoyed sampling the wide-range of tasty and sometimes odd brews and was sometimes even more excited and rather surprised to find out how many of these breweries were highly committed to promote positive environmental and social impact in their communities. (I'll only be talking about a couple of those breweries in this post. Check out my BREWERIES OF MAINE post to find out more about my tastings at all of the breweries I visited.)   

Bottling area of the Allagash Brewery

Craft brewing is part science and part art and from what I’ve seen requires a lot of time, energy, and passion to master. It’s that commitment to quality, attention to detail and the “hands-on” nature of this industry that, in my opinion, have made it a great incubator for sustainability ideas. Besides their forward-thinking nature and pursuit of quality, the craft beer industry is the perfect microcosm for testing sustainability ideas. The smaller size of the breweries can make adopting new practices and installing new technology more manageable. Breweries can have a wide-ranging impact from energy to water to agriculture to waste management to transportation to building use and probably even more that I haven’t even thought of. With these sustainability challenges there are also great opportunities to make a big difference.

My Alma Mater, University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment

I first came across greening trends in breweries several years back in Michigan (another great state for craft brewing) when I started my Masters program at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) at the University of Michigan. As part of the degree, students are required to complete a Group Thesis Project that developed practical solutions for a real-world challenge. Curious about previous projects, I perused the past and soon-to-be completed projects and there I discovered that a team was working with Arbor Brewing Company/Corner Brewery to green their operations. They focused on the energy use of the facility and discovered many opportunities for reducing consumption cost-effectively. Their work gave me just a small taste of all the interesting and innovative ideas percolating in the industry. Now, after the first leg of my GREEN BREWERY ADVENTURE, I know even more and want to share what a couple of breweries I visited are doing.

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Allagash Brewing Co.

Allagash gets top marks for their devotion to odd yeasty brews and also environmentally-conscious business decisions.

Favorite Beer: All their beers are pretty great as they tend focus on the yeasty-aspects of brewing. I’m biased because those are my favorite types of brews. My favorite out of the ones I tastes was the Curieux - a Tripel Ale aged in Jim Beam Bourbon barrels.

Social and Sustainability Initiatives: While on the brewery tour, the guide highlighted several sustainability initiatives.

• They use heat reclaimer technology to improve the energy efficiency of their processes.
• Leftover grain and yeast used during brewing are recycled going to feed cattle and fertilize crops for local farmers.
• Allagash ships their beer across the country. Instead of incurring transportation costs (financial and CO2) shipping their empty kegs all the way back to the brewery, they participate in a pooled-keg program calledMicroStar. Empty kegs are redistributed to participating breweries nearby instead.
• They also claim that they have reduced the amount of water needed for their processes far below the industry average. Definitely great to hear, but I’d love to learn more about what went into that and if those best practices can be used at other breweries.
• More about their Eco-gash program here.

Allagash Tasting Room

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Maine Beer Co.

Maine Beer Co., it sounds like an unassuming place. Simple. Straight-forward. Focused on making good Maine beer. Their motto of “Do What’s Right” and front-and-center solar installation, however, betray their deep commitment to environmental and social sustainability.

Favorite Beer: They are definitely focused on making hoppy beers. In spite of that I really enjoyed the Weez - a Black Ale that was deep, dark and had notes of coffee and chocolate. A nice alternative to a Porter in this hot weather.  

Social and Sustainability Initiatives: Visiting their Freeport facility, I knew that they definitely considered sustainability in their operations. After visiting their website, I was surprised to find how rooted the company is in doing social and environmental good.

• They have signed the Clean Water Pledge as a member of Brewers for Clean Water, a group that is working with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to protect clean water and the Clean Water Act
• They offset 100% of their electricity consumption through certified wind credits and the installation of solar panels at their Freeport location.
• Spent grains and organic liquid waste goes to local farmers.
• Philanthropy places a big part in their business. Maine Beer Company participates in 1% for the Planet, donating 1% of their gross sales to environmental causes. They also highlight the work
• They also tout the phrases “Be Committed. Be Generous. Be Respectful.” Respect referring to the way they treat their employees paying they what they are worth, covering 100% of their health benefit costs and offering a fully funded retirement pension, among other things. This way of doing business is refreshing, though perhaps shouldn’t be as unusual as it.
• Check out their site for more information about how they support people and the planet.

Solar installation at Maine Beer Company

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I chose to talk about these breweries because I loved their beer and I loved their sustainability work. As I mentioned before I did visit a few other places.They weren’t overtly displaying their environmental and social responsibility to the average customer, so I’m not putting them in this post. Do check out my next post where I’m sharing my photos and thoughts about those places that their beers.

Of course, this is just a very small sample of breweries in Maine and even smaller compared to what’s happening nationally and globally. I’m sure this is just a small taste of what’s happening in the industry on a whole and I’m making it one my sustainability missions to learn more. Hopefully I’ll be visiting more breweries and connecting with brewers and sharing it all with you fine folks soon! If you have thoughts and suggestions about where I should visits make sure to let me know in the comments or via email. I’d also love to hear from you if you have questions about making your own business more sustainable. This is what I do for a living and want to help.

If you liked this post and want to keep up to date about my Green Brewery Adventure, make sure to follow me on social media to find out when I’m posting new content. I also write about all kinds of topics ranging from food to travel to sustainability to geek culture, so there’s something for everyone. Thanks for reading! Come back soon!

Also check out Green Boxes Twitter for thoughts just about sustainability and social good!

What is Green? | Daphne's Thoughts on Sustainability

'Being Green' has taken off in a big way.  People use green and sustainable as buzz words and or some bandwagon to hop onto or even and something to avoid all together. I know some environmentalist colleagues who are a little bit bitter about this. I tend to take everything in stride and look at this as an opportunity to share my own view of 'green.'  I work this is field because I see so much potential for real change that celebrates all that sustainability has to offer us. The innovations, the opportunities, the new paradigms, and of course the preservation of the natural beauty of our planet, it doesn't have to mean that everyone needs to sacrifice everything they hold dear. But I still understand why sustainability is scary for some. Change can be scary and daunting, but I think that if we take these challenges head on and face them bravely, as we have with many other we have in the past that we needn't be afraid.

I always knew that I loved science and nature and hiking and the beach and bird watching and Elsa the Lion, but I didn't always know I wanted to become a sustainability professional. My desire to pursue this as a career really came from my first job out of college at Environmental Defense Fund. There I worked on projects that worked with business to infuse sustainability into their operations. It just made so much sense to me and started me on my journey into an environmental career.

I know many people think of sustainability professionals and imagine that we are advocates on street corners asking for signatures and donations or people who are 'hippies' focused on the preservation of nature at all costs or a whole range of crunchy, granola folks out to change the world. I have nothing against those type of people and have made many environmentalist friends in my life who do just that and are making and have made big changes in the world. It's just not the type of environmentalist I am. My time at EDF and subsequently my MBA and MS in Natural Resources at the University of Michigan, heavily influenced me in that I view sustainability as a pragmatic optimist. I want to work to create major change in the way we address sustainability, but I want to do that working within the structures we have by infusing it into the way we legislate, do business, our communities, and mindsets. 

That's just a little bit about me. Stay tuned for thoughts from Leila and Melody in the next couple of weeks. 

Welcome to Our New Blog!

Sustainability and our firm are ever-changing. We are starting this blog to share more about us, our team, our new projects, our perspectives on sustainability and what's happening in our field. We also want to promote an open dialogue with our clients and colleagues to better understand how to address the challenges and seize the opportunities that we face as a community.

Stay tuned for our first official post coming tomorrow!