Switzerland

In case you wonder what the greenest country in the world is, you don’t have to worry now. 1000 Green Steps is here to tell you the top 3 greenest countries.  This list is generated through Environment Performance Index (EPI) calculation.

1. Switzerland
Switzerland is a country synonymous with scenic Alps, posh pocketknives, fine chocolate, world-class watches, and of course, a clean environment. The country’s achievements and measures in environmental protection can be seen in people’s daily lives.

2. Norway
Through the action plan, the Government wishes to ensure that sustainable development is given a permanent place on the political agenda. The Government considers it important to link the sustainable development effort to central political processes and economic policy documents.

3. Sweden
Finnish national sustainable development policy is a wide-reaching participation of various societal actors both in the definition of the contents and implementation of the measures. The approach is already referred to as the “Finnish model”, in which broad-based, multi-stakeholder participation is combined with high-level political leadership.

Happy Green Living!

The French Constitutional Council has rejected a tax on carbon emissions strongly backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy that was to take effect Friday. But his ruling conservative party said the measure would be redrafted so it could be passed into law next year.

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Congratulation USA! Maybe some of you have already heard the green achievement of your country. This time 1000 Green Steps don’t hear city or county but really COUNTRY! America converts their vehicles into electric drive transportations.

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) already loan $1.6 million for Nissan to modify its Smyrna, Tennessee plant to build battery electric vehicles as well as the batteries to power them. The loan came from DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVMLP), a $25 billion program authorized by Congress in 2007. Nissan has to be able to produce about 150,000 electric vehicles a year and 200,000 battery packs. Those vehicles will be ready at 2012!

Not just that, that same DOE ATVMLP loan had approved 8 other companies to do the conversion of USA vehicles into electric drive transportations. Those companies mentioned above are Tesla Motors, Maryland Science Center, Altcar, Maya Electric, Electrovaya, Exxon Mobil, IBM’s Big Green Innovations and IBM Almaden Institute.

Congratulation and Happy Green Driving!

Ecotourism

Have you ever heard the term ‘ecotourism’? In case you’re not used to that term, the definition of ecotourism according to Wikipedia is travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strives to be low impact and (often) small scale.

1000 Green Steps will recommend this to you because it has some positive benefits compared to ordinary travel journey.

Firstly, this kind of travel will allow tourists to enjoy and discover our nature and those travel agencies were still able to gain profit for that, but it will not let our environment left unprotected.

Another benefit of ecotourism is that this kind of travel will educate tourists about nature in its own unique, unexplainable, and active way. That will awake city people that everything is not always the same as what it says in the picture.

1000 Green Steps say: Make them feel it, and they will never forget it.

Happy Green Living!

Green Roof

2009 Awards of Excellence: OMP goes into Chicago! We all know that Chicago was an old city built in 1673 and it is very well-known for its beautiful architecture. Here is where those skyscrapers were born and finally reach other sides of the globe.

After more than 100 years, Chicago finally made a new innovation by approving Green Roof. Since 1999, Chicago has planted 24,000 hectares of Green Roof on top of the buildings, shops, and offices. One of the largest benefits of Green Roof is Water Management ability, where Green Roof can absorb up to 50-60% amount of raindrops. After Green Roof absorbs raindrops water, when the sun shines, then the plants will be able to transpire again and return the absorbed water into our atmosphere. A little amount of water will stay on the soil to be used for plant’s growth. The residue will go to a water pipe which makes even more benefits because it makes the building doesn’t need Town Water Management where water pipe upgrading and expanding could be very expensive

Start putting Green Roof and save your money on water pipe. That saves our environment a lot, you know?

Happy Green Living!

Habitat Suites

When you are thinking about having an eco-tourism journey, be ready to rest your body inside an eco-friendly hotel. 1000 Green Steps recommend Habitat Suites Hotel as the most eco-friendly hotel in Texas considering ‘green’ features they offer to their customers. Those features include:

• They are solar-powered
• Grounds maintained with the use of natural, nontoxic fertilizers and pesticides
• Nontoxic, phosphate-free, natural cleansers used in cleaning
• Air ozonators/ionizers used for clean air quality in suites
• Biodegradable, recycled, unbleached paper products/recycling program
• Ladybugs populate our grounds, fostering healthy plants, the natural, chemical-free way
• About 20% of our energy needs are satisfied by our on-site 18 Kilowatt 108 solar panel PV (photo-voltaic) system

By those features 1000 Green Steps believe that they have good reasons to make Habitat Suites win awards and the latest was in 2006 they received the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce first ever environmental award, the “Greenbelt Award” and 2007 got us another “Greenbelt Award“

Room Rate starting from $137/night

Happy Green Living!

At the climate summit meeting in Copenhagen, Ban Ki-moon as The UN Secretary asserted that Three days of action from ministers are needed to “seal a deal”. Yes, it is possible for that climate talk to change the history of human race, but the governments remain deadlocked on many key issues, including the size of emission targets, finance, and verification of emission curbs.

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The union Forest and Environment ministry is rejected the World Banks aid for tiger conversation program, this decision is taken at a meeting held by National Tiger Conservation Authority.

Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh Who is also chairman for National Tiger Conservation Authority, said he wants to accept this offer but conservationists were opposed this move. He refused to give more details on this.

He said to reporters “Personally, I was very keen that the World Bank provide us with funds, at least for ensuring livelihood for villagers living on the fringes of the tiger reserves, so that they do not try to return to their original habitat. But because of the reservations of wildlife experts and officials, I have shunned the plans. In a nutshell, no aid from the World Bank.”

Some of the officials at Forest and Environment ministry said this offer from World Bank came with lot of pre conditions and failed to motivate the confidence of the conservation specialists.

By making a ‘climate deal’ in Copenhagen last week, Obama has made it clear that he is going to put up more concern for comprehensive climate legislation in the Senate next year. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the fact that “countries like China and India set carbon-intensity targets for the first time in history” should bolster the administration’s legislative effort.

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“CLIMATE INJUSTICE”

After a long muddled arguments of politicians and country leaders, a deal was finally reached on Saturday (December 19), but it turned out that it does not solve everyone’s big question: ‘Is it that bad?’ From a conference that was originally intended to produce a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, those gentlemen end up with an agreement among the world’s largest economies to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but no formal consensus on the part of the 193 nations present — and no prescription for what comes next in the global negotiating process that is nearly 20 years old.

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