Just a couple weeks ago our small company quietly passed a significant milestone-we exceeded 100,000 pounds of carbon avoided. Back in May of 2006, we made the switch to wind power for 90% of electricity needs.  A month later, we became a completely carbon neutral company. We calculated all of our carbon usage and began to purchase credits from NativeEnergy. Each June since, we recalculate our carbon production including travel for business and to and from work. We’re now entering our third year as green company.

This year I won’t detail all of the calculations (you can see how we offset our carbon production in previous years) but interestingly, even as the company has grown to twice the number of staff, our carbon production (and offsets) have remain steady. Much of the credit for this lack of growth in carbon production has to do with the fact that many of us ride our bikes or carpool to the studio. Carlos, our system administrator has even made the move to an electric scooter. The Vectrix has a range of about 30 miles, enough to get to work, and after a quick charge, back home.  Sixty miles-per hour and no tail pipe!

To see more on how and why we became a climate neutral company, visit our climate neutral page.

A new and improved version of  KQED’s QUEST Website, which we helped to develop, is now live. QUEST is an ambitious project utilizing all of KQED’s platforms to not only broadcast science and nature programming, but to also build a community supporting further exploration in the area. Ideum worked with KQED to design a website promoting community participation via an interactive mashup-driven website.

The most recent version of QUEST includes a number of improvements intended to simplify the navigation of the site’s ever-expanding content. With nearly 100 television broadcasts and around 65 online radio broadcasts, the initial sort features (time based) became difficult to use. The radio/television tab can now be filtered by topic and type and the main map features the latest five items instead of search features.

You’ll also notice that blog posts are now displayed as items on the main site’s map - a feature we were able to implement using data from the geopress plugin for WordPress. This feature means that all of KQED’s great content can now be available within the Google Map Mashup. Since the purpose of KQED QUEST is to explore “the stories behind Bay Area science, nature and environmental issues,” this addition makes perfect sense. Take a look at the KQED site or check out  KQED Quest in our portfolio to learn more.

In 2005, we helped design the Nevada Clean Energy website. The Nevada Clean Enerby Coalition is devoted to finding alternative energy sources and opposing the massive Granite Fox power plant, which was to be built in Northern Nevada. Last year, Sempra Energy decided to try to sell its interest in the plant. Just today we found out they’ve given that up as well!

Here’s a copy of the “Withdrawl of Application” presented to the Public Utilities Commision of Nevada.

This is a great victory for all of us in the West who are concerned about our energy future. It shows that a small but dedicated coalition can make a difference, even when they’re up against a multi-billion dollar company (Sempra’s revenues in 2006 were $12 billion). We hope Sempra will pursue sustainable energy production, rather than dirty coal-fired power. Congratulations to the Nevada Clean Energy Coalition and people of Northern Nevada!

At the beginning of last summer, we decided to make Ideum carbon neutral. (See We’re a Climate Neutral Company or our Climate Neutral Page.) Since then we’ve been using wind power and purchasing credits to offset our carbon production. As of today, we’ve avoided nearly 50,000 pounds of carbon, the equivalent of planting over 2,000 trees.

Just today, I’ve renewed our effort and have adjusted our carbon usage. For example, last year at this time we had five employees and now we have ten (although two are part-time). 90% of our electricity still comes from wind, but some of the other factors have changed. Here’s how are carbon usage was recalculated.

• Electricity (the remaining 10% from fossil fuels): 1,742 lbs of carbon, an increase of 20% from last year. Lots of new computers. (Calculated from the Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program)
• Travel to work: 26,660 lbs of carbon (13.3 tons). 10 employees, 240 working days, 145 total daily miles= 35,525 miles annually. Some of our employees bike, walk or car pool, and this has kept the figure down, although it is still higher than last year with double the number of employees. (Calculated from An Inconvenient Truth > Carbon Calculator)
• Air Flights: 9,500 lbs of carbon. 10 medium, 4 long, and 2 extended flights. A 30% reduction from last year. Much less air travel with new, longer-term projects. (Calculated from An Inconvenient Truth > Carbon Calculator)
• Natural Gas: 3,200 lbs of carbon. The same as last year. (Calculated from the Carbon Footprint, had to convert English pounds to US dollars)

The total amount of carbon that we needed to off-set was 41,300 pounds, up from 32,052 pounds last year. Today we purchased 21 one-ton “RECs,” or renewable energy credits, from NativeEnergy. Our cost is $252 a year to off-set our carbon production. If you add in the extra $12 a month for electricity from wind, our final cost is a nominal $396, just over $1 per day.

Perhaps this weekend’s Live Earth concert will inspire other companies to examine their carbon footprints and consider becoming climate neutral.

Since Ideum became “climate neutral” back in June, we’ve avoided 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. This is the equivalent of removing 517 cars from the road or planting 764 trees. As we mentioned at the time, the cost of zeroing out our carbon emissions was relatively inexpensive and the process was simple. We have a page that explains more about becoming carbon neutral.