When I was at the Green Summit a couple weeks ago I saw some vendors demonstrating pervious concrete which is porous concrete that water can flow through to the ground. Turns out this is quite a useful characteristic for some applications where traditional non-pervious concrete is usually used such as parking lots, drive ways, and paths. It reduces the heat island effect, helps recharge aquifers, saves space, and reduces toxic runoff.

Probably one of the greatest benefits of this is that it reduces the heat island effect. Concrete already reflects more heat than asphalt because of its light color, but pervious concrete goes a step further. Since it is porous it allows moisture from below to evaporate which acts to cool the concrete. One of the vendors also said that since it has less thermal mass it doesn’t absorb as much heat.

Another benefit is that pervious concrete can help recharge aquifers. Instead of rainwater being diverted into storm drains or water retention basins the water goes straight down to the ground. This helps recharge aquifers and water trees and plants around the area of the lots. Trees around lots with pervious concrete have been shown to live longer and grow wider.

Effective use of land is an issue in cities and since water flows through pervious concrete in many cases the need for retention basins to collect rainwater is reduced or completely eliminated. This is a huge benefit in places where space is at a premium.

Permeable concreate produces no toxic runoff. Most asphalt lots are sealed with coal-tar based sealants, which is the black coating you often see and smell used on streets and parking lots. Run off from coal-tar sealed parking lots have been found to have 65% more polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) than unsealed lots. PAHs are one of the most widespread organic pollutants and have been found to be probable human carcinogens. PAHs have been long associated with causing lung cancer in roofers and asphalt workers according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science. Large concentrations of PAHs can also kill aquatic life. I’m not sure how true this is, but the vendors claim that when automobile fluids are washed down under parking lots that they are filtered out and transformed by microorganisims into inert materials before they reach aquifers.

If you are looking to build a pathway, drive way, or parking lots pervious concrete might just be the perfect alternative to traditional concrete. Vendors are popping up all over the country and here in Phoenix Progressive Concrete Works is probably one of the best known. They’ve done some large installations such as ASU’s Art Museum parking lot.

We’re excited to go to the Green Summit next weekend and check out all the educational sessions and green innovations expo. This is looking to be a huge event and it sounds like we’ll be flooded with sustainability information. We’ll try to soak it up and blog about all we can though! Everyone should attend and see for yourself first hand, general admission is $20 and $15 for students. Hope to see you there.

Here is their official press release:

GREENSUMMIT COMES TO PHOENIX
SEPTEMBER 5-6, 2008

One of the Year’s Top Green Events & Most Affordable Green Conferences
Comes to the Phoenix Convention Center

GreenSummit (www.greensummit.net) is the place to find innovative solutions for a more sustainable world. Leaders in business, government, academia, and the general public will come together to catalyze change for the Southwest and beyond.

PHOENIX, AZ, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 – The 2008 GreenSummit will take place at the Phoenix Convention Center on September 5-6, 2008. Arizona State University and its Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona Public Service (APS), over 100 exhibitors and 100 educational sessions, 10,000+ business and consumer attendees, and international delegates from Europe led by the US Department of Commerce will make GreenSummit one of the premier sustainability events in the country.

The 100+ sessions in the Advancing Sustainability Conference will include a multitude of experts covering topics which will empower attendees to understand how sustainability impacts their careers, their personal lives, and the world around them.

The Green Innovations Expo will feature companies across a broad spectrum of business and consumer industries including – Green Building, Renewable Energy, Business Products and Services, Home and Lifestyle, Transportation, and more!

Attendees will include designers, architects, developers, engineers, government officials, clean tech entrepreneurs, business owners, marketing and brand managers, and the general public, all of which will be attending to become more educated about this timely and vitally important topic.

In addition, “eco-tours” of LEED certified and other green Valley facilities will be given, and on September 3 at a special “Signature Event,” all 18 Valley cities and communities will be coming together for the first time to discuss how sustainability is inherently linked to the future success of the region. This inaugural gathering brings together key decision-makers who will be attending a unique sustainability-focused event hosted by the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Arizona Association of Economic Development, and the United States Green Building Council. Government and business leaders from across the region will be learning about how sustainability is inherently linked to the future success and livability of our communities. An invitation by one of the hosts is needed to attend this event.

The 2008 GreenSummit is the most affordable large-scale sustainability conference and expo on the West Coast, with General Admission starting at only $15.00 and the full Conference Package with access to over 100 sessions for only $100.00 when registered before August 15th.

This is the second GreenSummit event organized by Chris Samila, a Global Studies Major at ASU. In organizing the 2007 GreenSummit on ASU’s campus, his goal was simply to bring awareness of sustainability and green products and services to both his campus and the community. What started out as a “grassroots” event ended up playing host to approximately 4,000 attendees and 55 exhibitors.

“Around the globe massive changes are occurring. The need to become more in balance with our natural environment has catalyzed the growth of an exciting array of new innovations and opportunities,” said Samila. “The term ‘green’ has come to represent a common blueprint for citizens, businesses, and governments for how we can move towards a more sustainable future. The GreenSummit is designed to greatly accelerate this movement and provide a unique platform for leading organizations to showcase the best products, services, and ideas that will make our society more efficient, lighter on the environment, and ultimately healthier for both ourselves and future generations to come.”

For more information or to register for the GreenSummit, visit www.greensummit.net.

I recently came across this write up on the Arizona State University news site and am proud to share it. Kudos to the Princeton review for this category of rating to encourage healthy, positive competition between universities and kudos to ASU for taking some great initiative and striving to be proactive when it comes to solving some of the biggest environmental issues we are facing.

Princeton Review rating based on environmental practices, policies and course offerings

Arizona State University has been named one of the nation’s “greenest” universities by The Princeton Review in its first-ever rating of environmentally friendly institutions.

The “2009 Green Rating Honor Roll” is a numerical score on a scale of 60 to 99 that The Princeton Review tallied for 534 colleges and universities based on data it collected from the schools in the 2007-08 academic year concerning their environmentally related policies, practices and academic offerings.

The Green Rating scores appear in the website profiles of the 534 schools that posted on The Princeton Review’s site (www.PrincetonReview.com) today.

Click here to read the full article on the ASU News site.

With eco-consciousness being taken more seriously in the public eye and “green” as the new buzz word it is no shock that the big companies are doing all they can to manipulate information and paint themselves in a greener light. As you’ve probably noticed this manipulation is called green washing and you’ve most likely seen it all around you. It is hard to know who to trust and the pressure is really on the consumer to be informed enough to know how to read labels and do the research on their own.

A website that is tremendously helpful in decreasing the footwork consumers have to do is GreenerChoices.org. Their eco-label center is a helpful area dedicated to deciphering those labels and buzz words in an easy search format. They have managed to sum up in one space the things some of us have spent years figuring out as we go and some of the new tricks up the corporate sleeves. They conduct their own testing of claimed “natural” products and see if they live up to their claims as well as dispel misconceptions. You will also find handy calculators to figure out the best way to save energy with your appliances, your car, and you can even calculate your overall carbon footprint.

NPR’s Here and Now did an interview with their senior scientist and here is what they had to say:

Green Products
As the environmental movement goes mainstream, companies have rushed to meet the growing consumer demand for “green” cleaning products. But some of the products might not be as “green” as they claim to be. Dr. Urvashi Rangan, the senior scientist for Consumer Union and the project director for Consumer Reports’ greenerchoices.org, evaluates some of the choices.

• Listen to the full story (first 5 min)
• Visit greenerchoices.org

I’m only 16 years late posting this story, but I have a good excuse, in 1992 I was 14 years old, probably hadn’t heard of this magical thing called the internet, and the environment was the last thing on my mind. Someone that did have the environment in mind at that time was 12 year old Severn Cullis-Suzuki and she delivered this powerful speech at the UN Earth Summit in 1992.

The speech is very idealistic, but I hope it moved some of the members to start making some positive changes in their countries and the world. Since 1992 we can all probably come up with many positive and negative changes that have happened. The world probably would be a better place if adults behaved in the same way they teach their kids to act.

So where is Severn now? According to this Wikipedia article she graduated from Yale in 2002, hosted a television program called Suzuki’s Nature Quest on the Discovery channel, launched an Internet-based think tank called The Skyfish Project, in 2006 went back to grad school at the University of Victoria, and is still an active environmentalist.

Visit this link for interview of her by The Collage Foundation.