The environmental impact of a BeGreen Fan Tag at Lolla this year was impressive. For $5, fans helped avoid about 665 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is as much as 39 trees can absorb in one year! To put it another way, it’s like not driving about 738 miles.

Even though Lollapalooza is over, you can still get your BeGreen Fan Tag for ACL, which is October 2nd – 4th, 2009. Visit their website here to snap up remaining one day passes!

Use real cups, plates, and silverware for your cookout to reduce waste. Alternately, look into biodegradable options like:

• World Centric: Corn starch silverware, bagasse plates, and more eco-friendly alternatives in this biodegradable online mecca

• Gaiam: Ready-to-go bagasse dish set with 15 plates, 25 bowls, & 50 cups for just $18

• Eco-Wise: Plenty of options here too, all the way down to bagasse soup and condiment cups.

Slather on the sunscreen and bug spray to ward off burns and pests, but opt for natural eco-friendly options without harsh chemicals:

• The Daily Green: 11 Natural Sunscreens

• The Daily Green: 7 Natural Insect Repellents

• My personal favorite natural insect repellent didn’t make The Daily Green’s list: Buzz Away, containing only natural ingredients like soybean oil, lemograss, and peppermint. Smells great, works great, and doesn’t contain DEET.

Complete your eco-friendly backyard cookout with sustainable food, drink, and grilling options:

• Burning charcoal releases carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and soot, not to mention VOCs when you add lighter fluid. Switch to a cleaner-burning gas or electric grill like those found on this GreenYour.com list

• Provide vegetarian options like Not Dogs, Boca Burgers, or maybe even something fancier off About.com’s veggie bbq recipe list. Be sure to grill these first before the (organic) meat hits the grill.

• No cookout is complete without a frosty beverage. Discover some tasty organic beers reviewed by Grist.org. Their favorite was the North Coast Brewing Company’s Cru D’Or Belgian Style Ale.

• Make a game out of conservation with your kids. Set up a star chart that rewards them for turning off lights, reducing water usage, shutting the doors to the outside, etc. If you’re creative, teaching them about personal and environmental responsibility can be fun!

• Plant an organic family garden. Working with your kids or spouse to design, plant and grow your own vegetables is not only a great bonding experience but you’re also rewarded with fresh, healthy produce throughout the summer and fall. And it’s a great way to save money.

• Create a home recycling center. Even if your community doesn’t have a robust curbside recycling program, search the Internet for other recycling options near your or via the mail. Then set up boxes in the laundry room or garage to collect each item to be recycled. Involve your kids and make the experience fun. Let them know how important it is to reuse and recycle to help protect our natural resources.

• Get out there! Tons of organizations are running volunteer activities, both for today and for Arbor Day on April 24th:
  • US EPA Earth Day Volunteering Opportunities: http://www.earthday.gov/volunteer.htm
  • Natural Resources Defense Council Volunteering Opportunities: http://www.nature.org/volunteer/
  • Arbor Day Foundation Volunteering Opportunities: http://www.arborday.org/programs/events/

BeGreen and Sustainable Waves each contributed to making Earth Weekend even greener. Party goers can purchase a BeGreen Ticket along with their wristbands at www.n9negroup.com to invest in 250 kWh of renewable energy and offset their CO2 emissions for the event. Meanwhile, Sustainable Waves has provided a solar powered DJ booth and a bus powered on cooking oil from the N9NE Steakhouse.

Other highlights to look forward to include eco film screenings with CineVegas, late night parties at Rain Nightclub and Moon Nightclub, and even a signature Earth Weekend organic cocktail, the Watermelon Slice Martini. Who knew green could be so fun?

From the Earth Hour website: 2,712 cities, towns and municipalities in 83 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming.

Apparently, turning off your lights is akin to “voting earth”, whereas leaving them on is a vote for global warming. The VOTE EARTH angle on Earth Hour is, I believe, designed to emphasize that the event is about a show of support, not to actually save energy. Overall, Earth Hour represents a call to action for world leaders to move forward on combating climate change.

Having read several articles (and comments) assuming energy savings was the real goal, I personally never found claims on Earth Hour’s website that it would actually save energy. Although this could be true if enough people participated, most power plants won’t be turning off coal plants in response to some small percentage of their customers’ lights being off for an hour. I think WWF and the folks running Earth Hour would probably concede this, and argue that the symbolic power of the event is much more important than temporary energy savings.

Personally, I would agree – especially at the time like this, when climate change policies are gaining such momentum in the US and overseas. Earth Hour can only serve to highlight this momentum and accelerate it. More power to us (eventually) using less power!

Tuesday held much more of interest. Some of it was confusing, other parts enlightening, but suffice to say it all made me think. I started off in “Welcome to your Posthuman Future”, a fake product launch for a neural implant that basically turns you into an iPhone. You can take pictures by blinking, send emails by writing with your finger on a wall, etc. The weirdest part was that some 11% of the population would get one of these things – if they actually existed. Thanks, but no thanks.

Next, I crammed into the largest room for the final keynote interview of Chris Anderson (from Wired) by Guy Kawasaki (VC guru). They were playful and combative, but also knowledgable while discussing the power of Free and what it means to us. Anderson argued that all digital content will eventually be free because the marginal cost to reproduce it is zero. One current manifestation of this phenomenon is the “freemium” model; a basic free version for 95% of us, and premium paid version for the other 5%. Think Gmail, where it’s free to use but you can pay for more space.

I wrapped the day up with a great session on mobile technology for social good. We heard from the folks at UNICEF, Vodaphone, and others as they described using SMS text messages and mobile internet for charity work. Did you know that more people in Africa have cell phones than in the US or Europe? True story. This panel also utilized twitter most effectively of all the panels I attended; they displayed all tweets with the panel’s hashtag #goodmob, actually took questions from the tweets, and responded to tweets during the panel. Can you say plugged in?

In any case, I really enjoyed getting to immerse myself in the SXSWers and their uber-tech mindset for a few days. Until next year, SXSWi.

First, I stopped by the “If you liked it, then you should have put a Digg on it” panel covering social media for traditional companies. I’ll confess that the title’s homage to Beyonce’s song Single Ladies was what got me in the door, but I’m glad that I went.

Panelists included JCPenney, Carnival Cruises, and H&R Block, who all discussed their activity in the social media sphere. Their stories were mostly of trial-and-error approaches to see what worked; for instance, Carnival discovered that a colorful cruise ship captain gained popularity on Facebook, whereas a traditional brand page did not.

My next stop was intended to be the Twitter for Marketers panel, but it was full and overflowing into the hall by the time I got there. Turns out, SXSWers are a proactive group. We organized an impromptu overflow discussion in the hallway on Twitter, including some basics on how to use it, pitfalls to avoid, and how to manage a corporate “persona” on Twitter.

The talk turned out to be really valuable, as we got to hear from social media reps from IBM, Southwest Airlines, and others. Our ultra-connected group quickly began documenting the session itself, taking pictures, videos, and tweeting about our hallway chat. Check out the video below for a fun overview! I’m the person in the first frame, looking bored but in reality just trying to drink it all in. You can also read a great recap of the session at LaLunaBlanca, or by searching hashtag #tweethall at search.twitter.com

TweetHall – Rejected Connected from LunaWeb on Vimeo.

• Training every new hire on all key tasks at the company, even if unrelated to their actual job
• Offering incentives to quit at the end of the training to retain only the most dedicated new hires
• Not monitoring/limiting customer service call times to ensure each representative spends as much time as necessary serving the customer
• Hiring slowly and firing quickly to protect company culture
• Spending plenty of time defining your corporate values, and sticking to them!

This was an enlightening talk on the value of customer service and repeat customer loyalty. But what can BeGreen learn from this? In the carbon offset industry, we are always combating customers’ feelings of mistrust and skepticism over buying an intangible product in a voluntary market. Our company integrity and attention to customer experience is one of the best answers to questions of transparency.

After the Zappos talk, I went to one of the most fun panels of the whole conference: Suxorz ’09, an “awards ceremony” for the worst social media campaigns of the last year. Panelists nominated the losers, and we helped pick the worst of the worst. Gaffes ranged from simple negligence in moderating user generated content (a la Skittles’ Twitter feed that displayed all tweets containing the word Skittles, leading to some hilariously profane tweets featured on Skittles.com) to the “combination of sleaze and stupidity” that was a Belkin employee paying people 65 cents for fake positive reviews of Belkin products on Amazon.com.

I think seeing what NOT to do just as valuable as learning the opposite. Hopefully, BeGreen can stay off the Suxorz ’10 list during our new forays into social media!

Day 1: Friday, March 13th
Holly and I started off together, attending the “How to Rawk SXSW: The Basics” panel. It was somewhat useful, with a nice review of third party guides and information to help you navigate the conference. Mainly, though, it was a great chance to sit down after waiting in a ridiculous line to pick up my badge.

Bogusky & B Cycle at SXSW

Later that night, I stopped by the official SXSW Mix at Six happy hour, and met lots of web startup types as well as about 5 people from BazaarVoice. I shared some Thai food with the BazaarVoice crew, and rehashed our Day 1 experiences before calling it a night.

As Twitter users ourselves, BeGreen got connected with Twestival organizers in Dallas, Raleigh, and Miami to help green up their events. Even though the Twestival events were planned online, they took place on the ground with substantial electricity usage for lights, sound, and big screens. We decided the best way for BeGreen to help was to donate wind energy to make that electricity carbon neutral.

By retiring renewable energy credits for each city, we helped avoid over 79,000 lbs of CO2 emissions. That has the same environmental impact as NOT driving more than 88,000 miles or the annual sequestration of about 4,700 trees.

Now that’s something to tweet about!

Check out some photos of Twestival organizers in the cities we worked with here.