news-record.com

Progress Energy customers are invited to apply to participate in a solar hot water research study that began this month, the company announced today.

The utility company is accepting applications for its new SunSenseSM Solar Water Heating research study, one of several new energy-efficiency programs that are designed to help residential customers save money and reduce their energy use.

Up to 150 customers will be offered a $1,000 incentive to participate in this study and install solar hot water heating equipment. The company will use the measured data gleaned through the program to help determine regional energy-saving capabilities for a potential larger-scale program.

Applications are being accepted and will be reviewed in order of the postmark dates on the envelope. Visit www.progress-energy.com/swh (link fixed) for more information and to download the application form.  

There's been some local buzz on the state of Greensboro's creative class, stemming from an article this week in Yes! Weekly and a post on Ed Cone's blog. Those conversations have focused particularly on the role of artists in the city's economic development, but I've also been pondering the roles of cultural creatives as they relate to the sustainability and green movements.

What I have distilled from this complex dynamic is that both the existence of a creative class and the sustainability movement are outgrowths of the country's shift toward a post-industrial, postmodern society, encompassing every economic and social sphere from religion to education and agriculture. In general post-modernism shuns government or corporate centralization and control and can be ambivalent about certain modern conventions. A postmodern society also aims to leverage (as opposed to disregard) the wisdom of pre-modern civilizations along with modern technologies and understandings of the natural world to deal with challenging ecological and social problems.

Other people have written about the intersection of these roles since sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson termed "cultural creatives" in 2000.

Ray and Anderson described cultural creatives as those who: 

"care deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social justice, and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression. Surprisingly, they are both inner-directed and socially concerned, they're activists, volunteers and contributors to good causes more than other Americans.... What makes the appearance of the Cultural Creatives especially timely today is that our civilization is in the midst of an epochal change, caught between globalization, accelerating technologies and a deteriorating planetary ecology. A creative minority can have enormous leverage to carry us into a new renaissance instead of a disastrous fall. The book ends with a number of maps for the remarkable journey that our civilization is embarked upon: initiations, evolutionary models, scenarios, and the elements of a new mythos for our time. The Cultural Creatives offers a more hopeful future, and prepares us all for a transition to a new, saner and wiser culture."

It seems to me any conversation about the role of cultural creatives in Greensboro and the region needs to include not only their effect on economic development initiatives but also their role in catalyzing a wider consciousness and action around sustainability here. I think particularly of the new Sustainable Greensboro organization, whose founder does most organizing for that online, and the Elsewhere Artist Collective, which maintains a vertical garden in its back alley. And Billy Jones, who was quoted in the Yes! Weekly article, is a passionate recycler who raises chickens at home.

It's clear that the sustainability movement will have more traditional manufacturing components but much of it requires research and education, tinkering and experimenting, community organizing and social networking, and persuasion and criticism through arts and media. And contributions will come from both the formally employed and un- or underemployed.

It might not always be appropriate to rely on 20th century metrics when assessing the strength of a local creative class (or any class in general). Will employment rate or median income statistics remain the best way of judging the community's health, especially when formal wage employment may never return in the same way? How do we best assess how people are getting their basic needs met while having the opportunity to experience meaning and self-actualization?

One quote that stood out to me in the Yes! Weekly article is one by Andrew Brod, a UNCG economist, commenting on the creative economy's lack of stable long-term employment and defined benefits:: "We'll have a much less secure workforce (in the future). The push for an ownership society may not be for everyone. When society turns that way it becomes harder for people seeking security."

In a sense, security is elusive and in the eye of the beholder. And in these economic times many people find that by relying on debt their search for security actually leads to less security. How many of us are truly "free and clear" home and car owners?

Many people will have to make peace with the fact they might never own a home, at least for the foreseeable future. I expect that over time, the American Dream will be less focused on homeownership and owning things in general. In fact,  the famous industrial designer William McDonough envisions consumers leasing many capital goods rather than buying them (such as cars and appliances) so that manufacturers can reclaim and recycle/upcycle them.  And given that cultural creatives have been described as very mobile (although they might not always be that way), it makes less sense for them to be strapped to a lot of material baggage.

Of course, a society that minimizes centralization, has access to virtually unlimited information, and frowns upon environmentally irresponsible business practices begs the question of how people will earn a living and define wealth in the future.

Update: A follow-up thought: I guess a more direct question one could ask is what kind of structures and institutions should dominate economic life in the region in the future? Will publically traded corporations and for-profit companies continue to play a dominant role? Will non-profits and community-owned enterprises? Or self-employed entrepreneurs?

The Greensboro City Swim Meet announced today that it will add 16 recycling cans and 8 recycling kiosks to the July 9-11 event at Lindley Park swimming pool, through a partnership with Aquafina, 107.5 WKZL, Green Day Waste & Recycling and the American Red Cross. The event has been a local mainstay for decades and thousands of parents and their children attend. Wow, just think how much recyclable material went to the landfill before.

The fact that businesses and organizations still announce their recycling plans let's me know how far this practice has to go in the area. On a related note, a special events recycling workshop will take place next week.

Update (July 8): Today I found out that a vegetable garden is going in at the Guilford County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro this month. The garden will be about 6 feet by 20 feet and grow squash and cucumbers and later some fall season crops (cabbage, collards, lettuce, etc.)  County facilities employees will maintain the garden this year and donate the produce to local food banks, said Karen Neill, an urban horticulturist with the extension office.

This is one of the most visible places one could install a garden as the courthouse gets a large and wide spectrum of visitors on a daily basis (although that begs the theft-of-produce question). Neill said County Manager Brenda Jones-Fox, a home gardener, made the request. This would put the number of community/public gardens in the county at at least 18, with another four proposed in Greensboro: Church of the Holy Spirit, the Old Asheboro neighborhood (off MLK Boulevard), Cardinal Manor (at the Cardinal Golf and Country Club) and Brandt Village.

The Cooperative Extension is in the process of expanding its community gardening guide, developing a produce use guide (as in, what do you do with all that kale?), and creating a Web site connecting and informing vegetable gardeners throughout the county, Neill said. Oh, and 16 gardens will participate in the tour I mentioned below. It will take place 4-8 p.m. on July 23, and I will send out a list of participants when I get it.

-------------------------------

It's hard to keep track of all the community gardens going in this year. I received a notice today that Saint James Presbyterian Church in Greensboro will dedicate its new garden on Sunday, July 19. The public is invited to the noon dedication and picnic at the church, located at 820 Ross Ave. Call 273-6658 for more information.

The Guilford County Cooperative Extension is also planning a community garden tour for later this month. I'll pass along the details when I get them. The extension service lists 17 gardens it has helped start in the county over the past five years, but the list does not count any gardens started independently. I hope to find out at some point all of neighborhood, school, agency or faith-based gardens that exist in the county.
 

I just wanted to give you a head's up on a couple events going on this week: 

* The Triad Intentional Communities Network meets Thursday, with this month's subject about co-housing possibilities in the Greensboro area. You can follow the TICN discussions through its blog. 

* Gerald Cecil, a physics and astronomy professor at UNC Chapel Hill, will give a peak oil presentation this Thursday as well. Cecil was featured in a story I wrote about the controversial topic oil last year. Speaking of, an examination of the peak oil debate just came out by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 

From the report: 

"The supply of energy as we have known it is in the process of transition. Today’s “easy” conventional oil that the world relies upon as a primary energy source is being depleted, and, regardless of the exact timing of peak oil production—be it this year or fifty years down the road— the world faces the challenge of adapting to a new model of energy supply. Although the peak oil literature tends to concentrate heavily on the scenarios of peaking world oil production, the true underlying issue is a fear that the transition from conventional oil to substitutes will be expensive and chaotic, leaving insufficient time for supply substitution and adaptation.

"This adaptation process—which involves using more renewable resources and conservation and developing new technology and processes to better access hydrocarbon deposits and more efficiently extract and refine nonconventional sources—has already begun. But the road to the future energy balance—one with dwindling amounts of conventional oil—is far from mapped out."

Jamestown's planning board and steering commitee for the town's master pedestrian transportation plan will meet on Monday, July 13, to hear an update from Jesse Day of the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments. Find here previous stories as well as a community survey completed in June.

 A "Take Charge of Your Future" resource fair taking place this month in Greensboro aims to "help you figure out where you want to go with your life, and how you can be part of creating a greener, healthier, safer planet and community for all of us." Details here. 

It turns out the best places in North Carolina to shop for sustainably-sourced seafood are Whole Foods and Target, according to a scorecard released today by Greenpeace that compares the seafood sourcing practices of 20 major grocers.

Several of the companies evaluated have stores in North Carolina, but only Whole Foods (No. 3) and Target (No. 4) ranked in the Top 5. Charlotte-based Harris Teeter followed at No. 6. (Keep in mind that many companies with N.C. stores were not included in this report, such as Earth Fare or Lowes Foods.)

The organization defines sustainable seafood practices as those that don't exploit endangered, vulnerable and/or protected species, or species with poor stock status; don't cause habitat destruction and/or lead to ecosystem alterations; don't cause negative impacts on other, non-target species; aren't unregulated, unreported, illegal or managed poorly, and don't cause negative impacts on local, fishing dependent communities.

From the press release: 

"Of the 20 largest retailers in North America, nine remain that have made no visible effort to increase the sustainability of their seafood operations and continue to ignore scientific warnings about the crisis facing global fisheries and the marine environment.... Despite the progress of many companies, all continue to stock “red list” seafood like orange roughy, swordfish, or Chilean sea bass – some of the world’s most critically imperiled species. None of the companies featured in the report guarantee that they won’t sell seafood from fisheries that are harming sea turtles, dolphins, seals, sea lions, or other marine mammals."

Here is the entire ranking:

1. Wegmans

2. Ahold USA (Stop & Shop, Giant)

3. Whole Foods

4. Target

5. Safeway (Dominicks, Genuardi's, Pavilions, Randall's, Von's)

6. Harris Teeter

7. Walmart

8. Delhaize (Bloom, Food Lion, Hannaford Bros., Sweetbay)

9. Kroger (Baker's, City Market, Dillon's, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, King Soopers, Ralph's, Smith's, Quality Food Center - QFC)

10. Costco

11. Aldi

12. A&P (Food Emporium, Pathmark, Super Fresh, Waldbaum's)

13. Supervalu (Acme, Albertson's, Bristol Farms, Jewel-Osco, Save-A-Lot, Shaw's)

14. Giant Eagle

15. Publix

16. Winn-Dixie

17. Trader Joe’s

18. Meijer

19. Price Chopper

20. H.E. Butt (H.E.B., Central Market)

Following is what Greenpeace had to say about Harris Teeter, which is based in North Carolina: 

"Harris Teeter’s stated goal is “to offer top quality seafood while being cognizant of the sustainability of supply, environmental impact on marine life and other species as well as social and economic impacts.” Yet, Harris Teeter continues to sell a large number of red list species such as Chilean sea bass and orange roughy. Due to a lack of improvement in its seafood sustainability performance, Harris Teeter has slipped toward the middle of the pack in the Carting Away the Oceans rankings as other companies outpace Harris Teeter in their sustainability efforts.

"Greenpeace encourages Harris Teeter to rejoin industry leaders by taking some significant steps toward a more sustainable seafood operation, especially by strengthening its overall sustainable seafood policy and removing key items from its inventory."

By the way, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Blue Ocean Institute provide shopping guides on healthy and sustainably-raised seafood.

Update: It looks like a Colfax development is also in the running to be the Triad's first green certified neighborhood. Press release here.

-------------------------------------------

Well-heeled home buyers looking for a green residence are invited to a July 20 lot draw at Kensington Place, an Oak Ridge development that is supposed to be the Triad's first green certified neighborhood, according to a press release by Leap Realty in Winston-Salem. The K2 Homes development will feature Energy Star® certified homes, sidewalks, streetlights, streams and walking trails.

The lot draw will be held at Magnolia Manner in Colfax on July 20 at 4:30 p.m. The public is invited to the lot draw event, which will feature presentations by the green partners that are working in partnership with Leap Realty and K2 Homes to develop Kensington Place.

“Although the lots are sited for optimum environmental benefit and construction will meet at least Energy Star® certification, the homes at Kensington Place will look much like other typical homes in Guilford County,” said Sarah Olson, of Leap Realty. “Above all, the development is on a beautiful piece of land and will feature a number of open areas for walking, playing and neighborhood gatherings.”

Kensington Place is certified under the National Association of Home Builders’ “Green Building Standard” for site design and development. Most lots at Kensington Place feature passive solar design opportunities and all are graded with utilities in place. Lots at Kensington Place range from $67,800 to $71,800. Home prices are estimated to begin at approximately $300,000.

Olson said that grading is complete and that the homes will be ready to begin construction immediately following lot purchases.

For more information, contact Leap Realty at 608-2599 or info@leaprealty.net.

DIRECTIONS TO KENSINGTON PLACE (FROM GREENSBORO): Take Hwy 150 West toward Kernersville. Turn right on Pepper Road, left on Grove Park (Pepper Ridge) and drive straight into Kensington Place.

I frequently get notices from Triad companies and entrepreneurs of their efforts to incorporate more sustainable or environmentally responsible business practices. I seldom have time to formally write about them, but  it occurred to me that some of my readers would like to know this information as a way of keeping track of the sustainability/green movement here. So I've decided to summarize these efforts in an occasional blog post.

The first one follows: 

* The Cleveland County plant of Lexington-based Cunningham Brick Co. recently became the first brick plant in the United States to earn a third-party certification of the pre-consumer recycle waste contents of its products. The National Research Brick Center at Clemson University is the only organization in the country to do this certification and the university maintains that 90 percent of brick makers in North America are members of the center. Cunningham's products contain 7 percent to 85 percent certified recycle content.

* UNIFI of Greensboro announced today that it has expanded its REPREVE recycled fabric line to include fiber made from 100 percent post-consumer PET bottles.

* Furnitureland South, of Jamestown, officially opened a green furniture gallery in High Point on Saturday. The opening of the "Eco-Link" followed the company's decision to join the Sustainable Furnishings Council. Many of the manufacturers showcased in the Eco-Link are members of the SFC.

"The Eco-Link links us to the earth and to our vendors who are embracing sustainable manufacturing processes," said Jason Harris, Executive Vice President of Furnitureland South, according to a press release. “This is a first step for our organization to publicly recognize that our earth needs a movement of people to save it for future generations. Our industry can have a huge impact on a problem that is not going away. We just want to do our part."

* Carol and Bill Rawleigh, of Julian, have started a business building and selling The Garden Hive, an easy to manage honeybee hive, for both urban and country gardeners. Find out more about The Garden Hive here.

Update: One entrepreneur who aims to make the Triad greener is 17-year-old Ryan Tury, a rising senior at Northwest Guilford High School. With the help of his stepfather, Randy Orloff, Tury is installing rain barrels as a summer job. Ryan is in the photo standing by a rain barrel that his family installed several years ago. You can reach Ryan at 545-3155 or greenguy@ymail.com if you are interested.