Earlier this spring, President Barack Obama ordered his cabinet secretaries to find $100 million in budget cuts for the current fiscal year, to show that the government was serious about belt-tightening.

In a few short months, they responded with $102 million in savings by making small changes.

According to some government reports, some of the 77 spending cuts included:
• Making double-sided copies at the Department of Justice, a savings of half a million dollars.
• The Forest Service will no longer repaint its new, white vehicles green immediately upon purchase.
• The Army will start packing more soldiers onto R&R flights.
• The Navy will delete unused email accounts
• The Air Force has proposed replacing its specially formulated jet fuel with commercial aviation fuel, which will save nearly $52 million next year.
• The Office of Thrift Supervision, a division of the Treasury, identified and eliminated unused phone lines costing $320,000.
• Both Homeland Security and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chose not to renew their subscriptions to newspapers—a savings of $47,160.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to save $3.8 million by refurbishing and reusing or selling its emergency trailers instead of scrapping them.

Although these cuts are miniscule compared to the immense size of the overall budget, it just goes to show how simple it is to find ways to cut costs these days by making simple adjustments.

Hopefully, the government will lead the way in energy savings as their next mandate. Imagine the savings that can be had by switching to CFL lights, adjusting the thermostats, using motion detectors to regulate both lighting and air conditioning/heating, switching to water-saving toilets, etc.

Actions speak louder than words, so these new behaviors will set a new tone, both in Washington, and for people everywhere.

Let the President now challenge all Americans to reduce their energy consumption by just 1% per year. In a decade, energy usage can be reduced by 10% or more-without any significant sacrifices by the American people.

In a society where people want to have their cake—and eat it too—small savings are probably the surest way for the mainstream to “get with the program” and reduce their carbon footprint.

Here’s to a greener planet.
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

It was recently announced that Wal-Mart is requiring its suppliers to measure the environmental cost of making their products so Wal-Mart can calculate and post an eco-rating for each item.

Since the government is not able to move forward on green initiatives of any consequence, this move may be the turning point in forcing manufacturers to go green. For those that have stayed on the sidelines, this ambitious program will certainly force companies to redesign products, including clothing, electronics and detergent.
This program will be phased in several steps.

In the program’s first phrase, Wal-Mart will be asking its suppliers to answer about 12 questions about such topics as water use, according to Jay Golden, a professor in the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University and co-director of the consortium of about 12 universities working with Wal-Mart on gathering scientific data and setting new design standards.

The next phase involves creating a database and metrics for sustainability, Golden said, and the third is to translate that information into a ratings system consumers can understand.

Like its stand with RFID and other labeling requirement, Wal-Mart is leading the way for change, due to its economies of scale. These are welcome changes for the environment and should help to educate consumers about the carbon footprint of products, from manufacture to distribution.

Watch for package sizes to be reduced, the rise of more local supply of products or regional manufacturing hubs and concentrated formulas for food and drink.

These standards will probably be picked up universally, as manufacturers try to standardize their labeling and packaging.

Kudos to Wal-Mart for spurring the change this country needs.
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

Bamboo is currently being used in thousands of products right now in major mainstream retail stores—including Wal-Mart, Target and JCPenney. A few years ago, there were only a handful of products available with bamboo as one of the major raw materials-such as place mats and window coverings. Today, bamboo is used in clothing, USB drives, kitchen utensils, flooring, keyboards and more. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a room in your house where a bamboo product cannot go. It is estimated that the annual sales of bamboo goods can be over $20 billion by 2012.

Why the proliferation of bamboo? Bamboo is the closest thing yet to a Super Crop. Not only does it grow extremely quickly, but it doesn’t need pesticides or very much water. According to an article by GreenBiz.com, bamboo plants sequester four times as much carbon dioxide as hardwood trees (taking in 62 tons of CO2 per 2.4 acres versus 16 tons per 2.4 acres of trees) and puts out 35 percent more oxygen. And it can be harvested every 5-10 years, much faster than trees used for other forest-based products.

“In clothing, bamboo has a soft-feel, phenomenal wicking properties and is a natural anti-bacterial, making it a great raw material for performance and casual wear clothing”, according to Robert Piller, President of EcoMarketingSolutions.com. Many of his embroidered shirts are made with bamboo, as companies appreciate its look, feel and green benefits. Businesses can now choose between bamboo shirts and organic clothing, recycled cotton, bamboo, hemp and PETG (recycled soda bottles) for eco-friendly clothing.

Nearly a century ago, George Washington Carver discovered several hundred uses for the peanut. Who will be the George Washington Carver of the bamboo plant?

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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.