Hawaii Green Matters

LEED vs. CASBEE

hawaiigreenmatters — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:57:03 +0000

For green construction rating system, the USA has the LEED and Japan has the CASBEE. The Japanese CASBEE green construction system include the following categories, that the LEED systems seems to be lack of. Those categories are noise pollution and reduction, functionality and usability of spaces, ease of equipment and building component renewal, maintenance management, earthquake resistance, service life of components, reliability of equipments as well as wind and sunlight obstruction and redirection. Check out the cross matrix that I’ve done. Enjoy.

Honolulu: Self-storage founder gives $500k to protect Hawaii forests

hawaiigreenmatters — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:24:12 +0000

Self-storage founder gives $500k to protect Hawaii forests The founder of A-American Storage Management Co. has donated $500,000 to The Nature Conservancy to protect native Hawaiian forests in the Big Island districts of Ka’u and South Kona.

http://www.bizjournals.com/mobile/pacific/blog/morning_call/2011/08/self-storage-founder-gives-500k-to.html

LEED Projects in Hawaii

hawaiigreenmatters — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:46:13 +0000

I’ve created a map for the 39 LEED certified Projects in Hawaii. Enjoy.

http://batchgeo.com/map/18c041717a5ffb571437af377ffced2b

App Guides You to Hawaii-Grown Food -

hawaiigreenmatters — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 03:14:59 +0000

An App for local food. Very nice. Good way to get people to hook up with local food.

http://www.hawaiibusiness.com/Hawaii-Business/July-2011/App-Guides-You-to-Hawaii-Grown-Food/

Reused Furniture

hawaiigreenmatters — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 03:16:07 +0000

It may be a form of green washing but still, it is a good thing for the environment.

“Artek’s program of buying back its used furniture has been going on since 2007, under the name 2nd Cycle. The company originally cleaned up pieces, placed R.F.I.D. tags under seats and tabletops and resold the goods through its retail stores in Finland, where buyers could scan the tags with their Nokia phones for information about each object’s design history. This practice taught consumers about sustainability, said Simone Vingerhoets-Ziesmann, executive vice president of Artek USA. “If a chair is old, it may not have value to us,” she said, “but it will have value to someone else.” With its recent joint venture with the Finnish company Martela, Artek finally has its own manufacturing facility, which executives hope will allow the company to refurbish used pieces and sell them affordably. “

Da Bus is Da Bestest

hawaiigreenmatters — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 03:05:02 +0000

Congratulation to Honolulu the Bus for being named best bus service of the nation by the Brooking Institute in Washington DC.

Hawaii pay highest in electricity

hawaiigreenmatters — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 08:49:22 +0000

Department of Energy survey (March 4, 2010) is just out. Hawaii residents will again be paying the highest cost per kilowatt hour (cents/kWh) for electricity than any other states.

According to the survey, Hawaii pays 26.23 cents/kWh State Electricity Rate Hawaii 26.23 cents/kWh Connecticut 20.57 cents/kWh New York 16.99 cents/kWh National Average 11.33 cents/kWh

Some interesting Hawaii Quick Facts (last updated, March 4, 2010) according to the U.S. Department of Energy:
• 90% of Hawaii energy consumption is from Petroleum.
• Hawaii lead energy demand is in the transportation sector, due in large part to heavy jet fuel use by military installations and commercial airlines.
• 75% of Hawaii’s electricity generation is from Petroleum-fired power plants.

Solution Use less New technology such as wave-to-energy project (2.7 megawatts of electricity 2011), Seawater cooling project, solar and wind

Burden to the World

hawaiigreenmatters — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 08:25:39 +0000

We are born burden to the world. We can live our life as a big burden or a little burden. Turn on every light in the house or just enough to do your tasks. Take a 30 minutes shower or just 5. Buy a new cell phone every 6 months or 36. Use 2 Styrofoam cup a day or 1 ceramic cup in 2 year. Trash our recyclable or recycle our trash. The list goes on and on. The choices are there for us to make and the result would be us being a big burden or a just a little. So when we reduce that burden to a manageable level, we call it sustainable, where we can co-exist with the environment. It is like fishing for food without over fishing. Cutting a few trees to built a home without deforestation. Cool the buildings without depleting the ozone. Getting to places faster without the extra CO2 pollution. Leave no mark is ideal but may be leave fewer trace is more realistic.

Henry Gifford vs. USGBC continues…

hawaiigreenmatters — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:02:58 +0000

“Henry Gifford and his attorneys filed their opposition papers to the USGBC’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint in Gifford et al. v. USGBC, the much-ballyhooed lawsuit that is currently pending in the Southern District of New York (Case No. 1:10-CV-07747)….”

More reading
http://www.greenrealestatelaw.com/2011/05/henry-gifford-files-opposition-to-usgbcs-motion-to-dismiss-amended-complaint/

Waikoloa Kings’ Land Clubhouse

hawaiigreenmatters — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:08:24 +0000

Waikoloa Kings’ Land Clubhouse has been certified LEED Silver