While I was picking up my passes for New Music West I decided to have a little look around the offices and scoop some swag. One item that caught my eye was a CD case:

The paper we print on is either recycled or is made from wood that has been logged responsibly. 100% recycled paper stock has been an MMS manufacturing option for many years. And now, almost all of our standard products (booklets, tray cards, DigiPaks, posters) are printed on Forest Stewardship Council certified papers… [MusicManufacturing]

The folks over at Music Manufacturing Services have gone full steam ahead in revolutionizing the music industry. They currently offer the “green CD” packaging including the paper case, potato starch foam tray, vegetable-based inks for printing, biodegradable overwrap, and the entire company is committed to reducing its carbon emissions.

Holding this cardboard and potato-made case in my hands it’s just as light as a plastic jewel case, it has a slot on the side for any additional artist info and the entire cover and back are printable. The only draw back is that MMS is in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, so there’s no location in BC that can supply these cases for local artists. However, I think fans should truly appreciate an artist who has gone out of their way to provide a more sustainable method of getting their music to the masses in this manner.

I have hundreds of jewel cases around the house just collecting dust as the actual CDs themselves ended up in books for under the seat in the car over the years. The MMS cases would definitely take up less room in the home and on shelves. I think it’s great to see an innovation like this, and I’m always a fan of discovering a product is made of potato (is there anything it can’t do?).

A great part about this weekend’s EPIC Expo was the diversity of exhibitors. From office products, to fair trade coffee, electric scooters, and bamboo underpants, EPIC pretty much lived up to its name. I really appreciated the Parks Canada display and DaveO had a chat with Coral over on the happy frog podcast. I stopped by briefly and noticed a large display featuring the Fisgard Lighthouse and Fort Rodd Hill.

The Parks Canada representative gave me some information about the National Marine Conservation Areas of Canada.

National Marine Conservation Areas, or NMCA for short, are marine areas managed for sustainable use and containing smaller zones of high protection. They include the seabed, the water above it and any species which occur there. They may also take in wetlands, estuaries, islands and other coastal lands.

Although they only currently exist in Ontario and Quebec, they are working toward incorporating two sections of BC coastal waters. The first in the southern Strait of Georgia and possibly another up north. However, determining a NMCA is a long process filled with feasibility studies and much-needed input from the population. The studies are expected to be completed sometime in 2008, which will allow the governments of the region to decide whether a NMCA would be practical and desirable.

The Strait of Georgia marine region is the smallest of five marine regions found on Canada’s Pacific coast, yet it is also one of the most productive. It includes a wide diversity of seascapes ranging from the fjords of Desolation Sound to the broad mudflats of Boundary Bay, and from the cloudy sediment plumes flowing from the Fraser River to the clear waters among the southern Gulf Islands. [Parks Canada]

Photo credit: neilbanas on Flickr

The second proposal for BC is the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. The 1470 square km area (part of The Queen Charlotte Islands) was made a BC Provincial Park in 1958 and a National Park in 1988.

The boundary between earth and ocean exists only on a map and the cycle of life in the diverse marine ecosystems of Gwaii Haanas encircles land and sea. Once the NMCAR is established, nearly five thousand kilometres of Gwaii Haanas will be protected. This will be one of the only places in the world where a representative area is protected from mountain top to the great ocean depths. [Parks Canada]

It’s pretty amazing what you can learn when you stop to talk to the good folks who make appearances at these exhibitions. Sure, the Parks Canada booth didn’t have free samples of coffee, wine, organic beer or vodka, but it was truly something I was interested in and I learned a lot just by stopping in for those few minutes.

Photo credit: neilbanas on Flickr

As a bit of a post-mortem since the EPIC Expo is now over, a huge thanks to happy frog (and our crew-chief DaveO) for having us on their team this weekend. They were the official social media sponsors of EPIC and I think we successfully generated a lot of buzz, not only for happy frog but for all the featured businesses and products we got to explore. You can check out all the content we churned out this weekend over on the frog blog.

This post was written for happyfrog at the EPIC Sustainable Living Expo

Here at the happyfrog.ca booth in the concourse of the EPIC Expo we’re blogging and podcasting up a storm. The show continues until 9:00pm tonight and will resume tomorrow from 10am to 5pm. You can’t miss this social media sponsor’s booth as we’re located directly in front of the entrance to the showroom.

Raul got to interview Adria Vasil for his first podcast EVER, which will be posted to happyfrog.

Everything you ever wanted to know about organic beer. Side note: It tastes great, the lager, the pale ale, and the lager… and the pale ale again…

Photo credit: DaveO on Flickr

Big shout out to Salt Spring Coffee for allowing DaveO to borrow a thermos of caffeine to keep us going.

This post was written for happyfrog at the EPIC Sustainable Living Expo

At this time yesterday Mike Holmes was in Toronto redoing a roof and getting a sunburn.

Although we can’t control our flip flopping weather in Vancouver, this city was sure grateful for Mike’s appearance. I had the chance to take some notes during his presentation although my blog post simply can’t express the passion and commitment this man emits, but I’ll try.

Over 7 seasons the TV show Holmes on Holmes has helped over 100 families, 365 days a year often working on 3-5 projects at a time. Mike announced that the final episode of the show will air in June and after that he’s moving on to bigger things.

Going to the next level of homebuilding, Mike’s new show Make it Right will see him in building houses in New Orleans and even heading to Africa to build 5 homes for children. Not only is he going international with the program, but he’s starting up a development company to make: “homes that will not burn down, fall down, blow down, will not mould, are totally enviro-friendly and ‘greener than green’.”

After we had been updated on various projects, and got over the sad news of the show’s ending (followed by the joy of knowing he’ll be spreading his knowledge across the world), Mike launched into his talk that contained so many energy-efficient tips I didn’t have the time to catch them all, but here are a few which he details as various “shades of green”:

Dark Green:

Mike shared a story about a local fire department that was asking him to help promote the use of sprinklers in buildings and homes. Unfortunately he couldn’t back their campaign, “why would I get behind something that would put more water into a house I’m trying to keep water out of?” - “build a house that won’t burn!”

Dark Green:

Lighter Shade of Green:

Even Lighter Shade of Green:

Mike used a few obscenities on stage and laughs them off, “I’m sorry, I’m a contractor!”. Other parts of the presentation were a little too technical for me, especially the explanation of a Thermal Break and Thermal Barrier. Gotta love those vapour barriers, folks.

Unfortunately too many homes are built to ‘minimum code’, and that won’t change until lives are lost. How often do you hear about 100 condos in a complex going up on flames? Minimum code needs to change - there is no reason why homes and lives need to be lost if things are built right.

After a long question and answer period followed by book signing, Mike was catching a flight out of Vancouver. His insights are appreciated and it’s nice to see someone with so much passion for the greater good who is thinking about the future its generations.

The sounds of summer usually include the splashing of swimmers at the beach, the repetitive midi tune of the ice cream man’s truck, and the sound of your neighbour mowing the lawn. It may however be a little-known fact that gas-powered lawn mowers are serious environmental offenders.

Photo by Darren Barefoot at the CAF’s Mow Down Pollution Launch in Victoria

So how can we trim our grass so that its length is still conducive to hours of croquet without loosing the ball in the mossy brush of the backyard lawn? Simple - use an electric mower. To enable Canadians to take another step towards green living, “Mow Down Pollution” is educating Canadians about the eco-friendliness of using electric tools around the yard.

Bring your working or non-working gas-powered mower or trimmer to any Home Depot location between April 17 and 27, 2008 and receive up to a $100 instant rebate on the purchase of a new push-reel, electric, rechargeable or low-emission alternative mower or trimmer. [Mow Down Pollution]

Photo by Darren Barefoot at the CAF’s Mow Down Pollution Launch in Victoria

If you’ve spent a hot summer in Vancouver then you know how terrible our air can get - especially by the time it all blows out to the valley and they warn seniors to stay indoors to due its low and harmful quality.

By bringing in your old mower - or trimmer - you’re not only recycling something old and stinky that takes up space in the corner of the garage, but you’ll also get some green points (which are kind of like warm-fuzzies). You’ll know that achieving that perfect putting-green lawn for your next BBQ get together with the Jones’ won’t hurt clog the air with pollutants that can cause and irritate respiratory problems such as asthma. That’s a good thing - for you, the Earth, and well… Chilliwack.

There are a lot of award sites on the internet, but when it comes to the most trusted and widespread nothing comes close to the Webby Awards, which are handed out annually with winners hand-picked by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The most engaging part for the common internet user is the crowd-powered People’s Voice portion of the Webby Awards.

The Webby People’s Voice honors excellence in 100+ categories including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile. Last year, nearly half a million votes were cast and even more comments were posted to mark the biggest turnout in Webby history. And this year we expect even more spirited participation with addition of 25 new categories. [Webby Awards - About]

In 2007 the locally produced environmentally-conscious social networking site ChangeEverything.ca was a Webby Award honoree. They’ve grown over last year and have now been officially nominated for the ‘web award of web awards’, pitted against the likes of Flock, Bebo, Ning, and Facebook.

If you want to make changes - in your own life, in your neighbourhood or in your world - then Change Everything is the site for you. It’s fun, it’s free and it’s a great way to work towards positive change for you and our community.

ChangeEverything is a social networking site that allows you to…

Basically, it’s an online community of change makers, “Some of us are longtime activists; some of us are community leaders; and a lot of us are just regular people with a few ideas for how we’d like to change things.” [ChangeEverything - About].

Using the web community for social change is a noble feat by this homegrown project, which is powered by those who would like to participate in ‘change’. Being nominated for a Webby Award is an excellent accomplishment, anyone and everyone can go here to cast their vote for ChangeEverything.

A big shout out goes to Rob and Alexandra of Social Signal for working with Vancity to make ChangeEverything a very successful reality for Vancouverites, Victoria, and the Lower Mainland.

I wrote this post by request (although it was my pleasure) for the happy frog and EPIC expo blogs

The man behind the crusade for the honest homeowner is Mike Holmes, and he’ll be on the main stage at the EPIC Sustainable Living Expo this Saturday.

For the last seven seasons I’ve tuned into HGTV’s Holmes on Holmes to watch home renovation disasters be dismantled, torn apart, and re-done the right way.

“I was constantly being hired to do renovations a second time. I had to constantly fix bad work done by other so-called contractors. I hated doing things the second time and I hated the toll bad renovations took on families. Sometimes families spent their life savings trying to create their dream home and instead ended up with no occupancy permit…or a home full of mould…or a dirt foundation…or ice dams on the roof…or crumbling stucco. You name it, I saw all sorts of screw-ups.” [Holmes on Holmes]

The ultimate goal of Holmes on Holmes was to teach people to hire a reputable contractor to complete their projects. I admit, there’s no phrase uttered in Canadian television today that gets me more excited than, “we’re going to gut it!” Sledgehammers and crowbars in hand, the Holmes crew take their time, and bring in the right guys for the job. Showing up fully prepared for a challenge, full of Tim Horton’s coffee, some of the contractors and specialists who arrive on scene donate their own free time to help out the cause of the day.

“Trades people are absolutely critical to society but don’t always get the respect they deserve.” - Mike Holmes

© Holmes on Holmes

Despite the amazing contributions by the Holmes on Holmes crew - arming homeowners with the knowledge they need to avoid devastating damages, financial woes and even court appearances with shoddy contractors - Mike felt that this was still too ’small scale’. Kicking things off with the “Lien on Me” project in 2006, the Holmes Foundation was born.

The mission of The Holmes Foundation is to ensure that all residential renovation and construction in Canada is done right–the first time.

The Holmes Foundation will do this by partnering with schools, businesses and governments to raise the profile and reputation of all skilled trades in Canada, using Mike Holmes’ reputation to encourage young people to pursue careers in the skilled trades and to encourage employers to hire them. [Holmes Foundation]

Not only does Holmes ensure the job is done right, he also uses innovative energy efficient and sustainable methods in his homebuilding. His environmentally conscious efforts and unsurpassed expertise make him an innovator in his field. Also, it looks totally cool on TV when they’re applying that enviro-friendly spray foam insulation.

I’ve been a fan of his for years, even his coffee commercials made me chuckle, and I truly look forward to catching his talk this Saturday at 1:00pm.

Last year I didn’t get out to every festival, parade, or community event however the ones I did attend like the West End’s Block Party were pretty darn fun. Over on Commercial Drive they’ve been closing off the road and celebrating the community on foot (for a single day without vehicles) for several years.

In 2005, the Commercial Drive Festival launched the first community- driven Car-Free Festival in Vancouver. The Festival was wholly volunteer-organized and presented, involving over 30 core organizers and 300 volunteers. It was an enormous success, bringing over 25,000 people out to celebrate the community and party in the street. Since then, the Festival happened in 2006 and twice in the summer of 2007, snowballing in popularity and attracting up to 40,000 people per day. [Car Free Day - About]

For a personal account, check out DaveO’s podcast from Commercial Drive last year.

Photo credit: Stephanie Vacher on Flickr

The Commercial Drive event has been such a success that they’ve expanded to several other neighbourhoods across the city for 2008:

Cambie Street, Kitsilano, Main Street, Marpole, and the West End.

Although the city-wide festival is months away, organizing committees for each neighbourhood are currently meeting. You can get involved by attending a meetup for your block, hosting your own party in one of the neighbourhoods, or if your part of town isn’t covered check out the block party toolkit.