How Does One Man Reduce U.S. Dependency on Oil? He Starts with Trucks and Vans

When Clay Siegert is stuck in traffic behind a box truck, he doesn’t groan at the jumbo-sized gas-guzzler: He sees it as an opportunity.
As vice-president and co-founder of XL Hybrids, a Massachusetts-based company that converts commercial fleets to hybrid vehicles, Siegert is out to prove that the business of cargo transport doesn’t have to be a dirty one. XL Hybrids retrofits vans, minibuses and trucks by installing hybrid electric powertrains, so that every time a driver hits the brakes, a bit of kinetic energy is converted into valuable electricity. It’s a winning formula: The vehicles use 25 percent less gasoline, lowering carbon dioxide emissions while also reducing their company’s bottom line.
“When I see a truck going down the road with hybrid technology, I see less emissions, less oil being imported into the country,” Siegert says. “It’s more than just a truck or a van that drives somewhere. It’s those trucks that are going to drive hundreds of miles, maybe just that day. That adds up.”
Siegert spent more than a decade in various positions — at a firm trading energy commodities on the financial markets, a deregulated energy supplier offering a green alternatives to buying from local utilities and a trivia game manufacturer — before returning to school. While earning a master’s degree in supply chain management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Siegert was introduced to Tod Hynes, a lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, who’d developed several wind energy projects. The pair hit it off and decided to collaborate on a new venture, though at the time, they weren’t exactly sure what.
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“Tod was looking for what was next in his career, and we both had an interest in clean technology and clean energy,” Siegert recalls. “Just looking at all the different industries, we kept thinking about all the millions of vehicles on the roads. We crystallized the idea that if you come up with a fuel-efficient technology that’s cost-effective, you could have a big impact on the amount of petroleum and gasoline used in North America and, eventually, globally.”
Because the big automakers (Ford, General Motors, Chrysler) already had huge research and development departments with decades of experience improving fuel efficiency, consumer cars were out of the question. Commercial fleets, on the other hand, were a largely untapped market.
XL Hybrids inked their first major deal with Coca-Cola, the world’s largest beverage company. Though Siegert was ecstatic a big brand signed on, he was also nervous about translating an idea that looked good “on whiteboards, spreadsheets and technical designs” into a reality. “Now you’ve gotta go out and deliver the results,” he thought. Luckily, the company did. Retrofits of 175 Coca-Cola vans hit the roads last year, cutting fuel usage by 20 percent, saving 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and at least $15,000 over each vehicle’s 10-year lifespan.
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Coke is buying more, including 70 this year. XL Hybrids has since brought on PepsiCo, FedEx and the City of Boston as customers. Last October, all the vehicles it had retrofitted reached a collective 4 million miles in service. Already, that means the company saved 800 barrels of oil and over 350 metric tons of carbon dioxide exhaust.
Today, Siegert is tasked with brokering those sales and overseeing daily production. In addition to the official titles printed on his business card, his colleagues know him to be a “strategic planner,” a “supply chain optimizer” and a “sales accelerator.” Above all, he prizes efficiency and affordability. That’s why XL Hybrids skips adding any fancy frills during its retrofits; the company’s technology is available for under $10,000 without government subsidies — a first. “We remove costs wherever we can,” he says. “One of the core tenets of our business, for whatever product [Tod and I] came up with, was that we wanted it to be cost-effective and have a good payback.”
While that sounds like pretty standard business advice, it’s missing from a large swath of the clean energy sector, where customers are expected to pay a premium to get something green. At XL Hybrids, Siegert wants to prove that sustainability and profit can be two sides of the same coin. He’s splicing corporate interests and ecological concerns, in a word, into a hybrid. After all, when it comes to miles per gallon, what’s good for the environment is also good for investors.
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The Bison are Back. Here’s How These Roaming Beasts Are Restoring America’s Prairies

Out on the range, the buffalo are roaming once again.
After a nearly 200-year absence, a small herd of bison have been reintroduced to the Nachusa Grasslands in north-central Illinois, two hours outside of Chicago. This marks the first time since the 1830s that the shaggy beasts have set their hooves east of the Mississippi River. The bison were trucked in last October to graze, spread seeds and churn the soil — all essential to restore Illinois’s tallgrass prairies.
“The word that keeps coming up is surreal,” says Jeff Walk, director of science for The Nature Conservancy’s Illinois chapter, which is heading up the Nachusa preservation efforts. Walk rode with the animals during their eight-hour truck ride from Sioux City, Iowa, and stuck around late into the night to see them unloaded from their trailers.
It was a moment The Nature Conservatory staff had been anticipating for a quarter-century.
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Although it’s known as the Prairie State, Illinois alone has lost more than 99 percent of its grasslands — from 22 million acres to just 2,500 acres, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Starting in 1986, The Nature Conservancy, considered the country’s largest environmental nonprofit, began buying up neighboring farms in an effort to return a portion of the land to its original state. Today, it now owns or has conservation easements for 3,500 acres. Over an estimated 450,000 hours, volunteers and employees have been weeding out invasive species, regenerating the preserved land through controlled burns and sowing and harvesting seeds for wild petunias, hazelnuts and hawthorne berries. But the bison’s return — at a price of $6 million — is the final stage in the landscape’s restoration.
“We can go around and do the small prairie restorations, but a true native prairie ecosystem has to have bison in it,” Brook McDonald, president of the Conservation Foundation, a nonprofit preserving untouched land in northeast Illinois, tells the Tribune. “Bison were such a significant part of the prairie that whole ecosystems depended on them. Without them, those species go too.”
Aside from a roundup every fall when they are vaccinated, the bison run wild on 500 acres of land hemmed in by a wire fence. (This year, the project will expand to another 1,000 acres.) Standing six feet tall at their shoulders and weighing close to 1 ton, the animals chomp down grasses and avoid flowering plants, increasing biodiversity by creating more light and root space. “The other thing is poop,” Kirk Hallowell, a volunteer steward, tells onEarth, the magazine of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The manure fertilizes the soil and attracts insects, which in turn will hopefully bring back the prairie’s native birds, including the upland sandpiper.
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Like the grassland itself, the bison struggle to reemerge from the devastation that came with settling the West. When the first colonists arrived, up to 60 million roamed the continent; by the beginning of the 20th century, however, excessive hunting had decimated the population and only a few hundred remained, the Wildlife Conservation Society says. In tandem, two symbols of the American pastoral are slowly being restored.
“We know that bison will be good for the prairie,” Walk says. “This is a unique opportunity to understand exactly how they influence the natural habitat. It’s a chance to study and learn, and from there, we can share those results with grassland restoration projects around the world.”
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When Tradition Can Help Save the Environment

Despite generations of sustainable farming, Native American tribes have been losing touch with these practices because of health problems and a lack of knowledge concerning ancestral farming. However, some groups, including the ones below, are seeing this as an opportunity for renewal.
Traditional Native American Farmers’ Association
After noticing the move away from traditional farming in his community, Clayton Brascoupé started TNAFA back in 1992 in Santa Fe, N.M. Today, it includes more than one dozen tribes. Education is fundamental to the organization, which is why it offers workshops in seed-saving, home gardening, traditional food production, crop marketing, sustainable design and more.
White Earth Land Recovery Project
The group’s original mission was to resolve the land rights struggles of the Anishinaabes people of White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. However, in the subsequent years, it has grown to encompass a wide range of issues, including agriculture, for the Anishinaabes as well as other tribes. White Earth produces its own food line under the Native Harvest label, as well as hosting conferences regarding indigenous farming. The group also has an impressive seed library, which not only includes collected ones, but it has also rediscovered forgotten strains. After finding squash seeds in an 800-year-old pot, the group was able to grow 50 seeds of Gete-okosomin (“really old cool squash”), according to Sustainable Cities Collective.
San Ildefonso Pueblo Community Farm Program
Anyone who is familiar with the Pueblo‘s current eight acres (comprised of numerous families’ fields) would probably be surprised to learn of its humble beginnings as a small plot in Tribal Councilman Tim Martinez’s backyard in 2010. With crops ranging from traditional varieties of corn, beans and squash to onions, lettuce, carrots, okra and more, the Pueblo is very diverse. Its emphasis, though, is truly on the community. A community-built hoop house keeps crops growing longer, and the produce is sold at local farmers’ markets to members of the neighboring communities. Integral to the Pueblo are the lessons — including watching moon cycles and migration patterns to gauge planting and harvesting times to preparing and tending crops — taught by elders to youths.
To learn about more Native American groups, click here.
MORE: Is It Possible to Grow Something on Every Rooftop?
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The Top 5: America’s Best New Buildings

Undoubtedly, we associate cities with their iconic structures: New York City’s Empire State Building, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, to name a few. But these edifices — so forward-thinking for their time that we’re still in awe of them today — are at least half a century old, making it seem like the era of erecting statement-making civic structures has passed.
Proving that designers are still as innovative as ever, however, are this year’s recipients of the prestigious Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The winners, which will be formally recognized at AIA’s National Convention in Atlanta this May, are diverse “in scale, expense, concept, use, in virtually every aspect,” says Waller McGuire, executive director of St. Louis Public Library and the only non-architect on AIA’s nine-member jury. “The strongest connection between the award winners is that we looked for architecture that respects and elevates the people using it: the people who will ultimately judge it for themselves.”
With that in mind, here’s a selection of five outstanding buildings, all of whose architects paid particular attention to their social responsibilities, impact and energy usage.
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Grab Your Device. Play This Game. Save the Planet

As adults, we’re bombarded by news of shrinking polar icecaps, mowed-down rainforests and species extinction. We’ve come to realize these inconvenient truths, but how should little kids learn about greenhouse gases and changing temperatures? Why should children care?
Junior Explorers, a Brooklyn-based social enterprise, is taking a unique approach to educate a generation hooked on Facebook and Instagram: they’re using online computer games to introduce introducing kids to nature and wildlife preservation. Targeted at ages 5 to 12, the games take children on a monthly “mission,” visiting virtual ecosystems across the globe from Antarctic icebergs to the African veldt. And for a subscription fee of $19 or less a month, Junior Explorers also mails a kit with additional activities and collectibles, bringing the educational content off-line.
“Everyone’s talking about the planet but we want to speak with the generation most impacted: kids,” says Anurag Agarwal, Junior Explorer’s founder and CEO. “By simply combining all things that kids love: animals, gaming, collecting and sharing, we created a truly experiential program that kids and adults can get excited about.”
A seasoned Wall Street veteran, Agarwal’s love of nature motivated him to found the company last year. On trips to the world’s greatest natural wonders — from the Barrier Reef to the Central American rainforests — he was inspired by the beauty, but also concerned it wouldn’t last. With a team made up of former Gilt Group employees, he started the company with a long-term view of reaching kids to create a generation of environmentalists.
Each mission is led by Kia and Kyle, two cartoon kids in headbands and sneakers ready to explore the world. (Eleven-year-old Kia’s role model? Jane Goodall, the chimpanzee expert. Seven-year-old Kyle’s dream job? A field scientist in the Amazon jungle.) The first excursion takes kids to the polar ice caps, where they help reunite a polar bear cub with its mother.
As they complete tasks, children rack up “Give Back” points, which, at the end of each mission, can be allocated to an environmentally-conscious nonprofit of their choice, like the World Wide Fund for Nature or the Nature Conservancy.
So far, after their first month, the company had subscribers in more than 40 states. In the next year, they’re planning to launch the program across the globe with teams based in India, Brazil and Singapore.
When kids are young, every parent recognizes their instinctive love for cuddly animals. But something happens with age, and sometimes that concern for the natural world diminishes. Junior Explorers hopes to reverse that trend, teaching youngsters that maturity means conserving the globe for the next generation.

Why Every State Should Be Like California

The future is looking very green for California.
Starting this year, the Golden State will take its sustainable reputation even further when all food waste from commercial businesses will be converted to energy through anaerobic digestion.
Last September, in response to a desire to keep food waste out of landfills, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1826 into the books. Not only will this measure increase California’s already bustling composting and anaerobic digestion infrastructure, reports Sustainable Cities Collective, but it will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions — namely methane, which is produced by organic waste and is one of the worst greenhouse gases.
“We’ve been really good at recycling in California, such as bottles and cans,” Nick Lapis, legislative coordinator of the nonprofit environmental advocacy organization Californians Against Waste, tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “But we haven’t done as good a job with commercial waste.”
The bill, which requires companies that produce at least 200 tons of organic waste per year (such as supermarkets, hotels and convention centers) to have all of their waste composted and/or anaerobically digested, will go into effect in stages starting July 2015. By 2017, if a company produces at least 100 tons of organic waste, they must comply to the law. And in 2019, commercial producers of 100 tons of total waste will be required to compost or anaerobically digest it.
In a press release, lead author of AB 1826 Assembly Member Wesley Chesbro said, “California is on the forefront of the farm-to-fork movement, but the next step is to move the entire state full circle and transition from fork-to-farm.”
Talk about something that can be digested easily.
MORE: 71 Surprising Things That You Can Compost

Meet the Impressive Girl Who’s Working to Save the Planet Before Her 18th Birthday

Every once in a while, you come across one of those kids who’s extra special. Maya Penn is one of them.
At just age 14, Penn has been doing everything she can to achieve her mission of saving the environment. And with everything she’s accomplished so far, she just might do it.
Penn’s mission first took life six years ago when she started her own eco-fashion line Maya’s Ideas. Not only does she design the clothing and the accessories, she also makes them herself using organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, vintage silks and wools. According to Grist, 10 to 20 percent of her profits are donated to charities such as Live Thrive Atlanta and Captain Planet Foundation.
By age 11, the Canton, Ga., resident decided to expand her enterprise by starting Maya’s Ideas for the Planet, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
And if that isn’t enough, Penn has also given a TED Talk and written and illustrated two children’s books about the environment: Lucy and Sammy Save the Environment and Wild Rhymes. Her books are printed on recycled paper, thanks to a grant from The Pollination Project, on whose Youth Grantmaking Advisory Board she now sits. As a member, she assists in bringing to fruition environmental projects for youths.
“I think it’s really cool that I’m able to help other people,” she tells Grist. “It’s always been my goal to inspire youth.”
Her latest projects involves technology, and she’s actively developing an animated series on pollination.
So, how does she have time for all of this? Well, Penn is homeschooled giving her leeway in how she manages her time, but she believes that anyone can become involved — regardless of their schedule.
“The smallest action leads to the biggest changes,” she says. “It has a big ripple effect, whether that person knows it or not. And that person might have been scared and might have been doubtful. But they went ahead and did it anyway.”
So, if a 14 year old can do it, why can’t you?
MORE: Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson Give a First Grader Terrific Advice About Saving the Earth

What’s the Secret to Making a Town More Prosperous?

As more areas become urbanized, Wheat Ridge, Colo., is going back to its roots. Literally.
At the end of the 1960s, Wheat Ridge turned its focus from its agricultural origins to residential and commercial growth. But 50 years later, it realized that farming was the backbone of the town for a reason. So, starting in July 2011, the town amended its comprehensive plan to make urban agriculture a central part, reports CityLab.
Some of the measures include allowing urban gardens (including for-profit farms), farmer’s markets and produce stands in every zoned area, as well as making the process of starting a farm as easy and efficient as possible. One way? Eliminating urban-garden permits.
“We wanted to move the city forward and encourage investment, but we didn’t want to lose its unique charm, which is largely based on our agricultural history,” Ken Johnstone, director of community development for Wheat Ridge, explains to City Lab. “We weren’t the only city getting grassroots interest in local farming and food production. We saw it as an opportunity to brand ourselves.”
And with these changes, the town’s actually seeing a boost in residents as people are coming back to the area to farm. In 2013, Dan Graeve and wife Christa moved to Wheat Ridge with their two friends Adam Slack and Shannon Dils to start True Roots farm. Although they didn’t have business or agriculture experience, it wasn’t a problem as city planners were there to help them every step of the way.
“We contacted the city as a place to start,” Graeve says. “At that point we didn’t even have a model per se. [The city planner] was willing to just sit down with us and talk about whether there was any city-owned property, or other space [for a farm].”
As Wheat Ridge continues to attract residents, its plan could be an inspiration for others.
“We’ve gotten a lot of attention for it, which is a good thing,” Johnstone says. “I don’t know if it’s a fad or not, but it [works for Wheat Ridge.]”
As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
MORE: This App Helps Urban Farmers Get Their Crops Growing

Could You Fit Two Years’ Worth of Trash in a Tiny Container?

Lauren Singer is on a mission.
The spunky 23-year-old has spent the last two years living a Zero Waste (ZW) life. Singer is so good at it that all of the trash she’s created since then fits in a 16-ounce Mason jar. That’s right: two years of garbage in one jar.
In her amusing and inspiring blog, entitled trash is for tossers, Singer documents her ZW lifestyle and explains why it all started in the first place. As an environmental studies major at NYU, she watched one of her schoolmates bring lunch to class every week, contained in an undue amount of disposable packaging. This weekly ritual induced the sentiment that millennials are the earth’s future and “…here we are with our trash, messing it up.”
According to Duke University’s Center for Sustainability and Commerce, the average American produces 4.3 pounds of waste everyday. That’s more than two and a half times what it was in the 1960s. What’s worse is that approximately two-thirds of this trash could be composted rather than sent to the thousands of overloaded landfills in this country.
In an interview Singer recently did with New York magazine, she said one of the top three things you can do to reduce waste is “…[t]ransition out purchased products and learn to make things yourself.” (Apparently, producing your own toothpaste is one of the easiest ways to make a fresh start.) Which is why Singer is progressing from micro to macro by founding The Simply Co., a company that makes homemade, environmentally-friendly laundry detergent. It was so successful on Kickstarter, The Simply Co. met their target of $10,000 in just 48 hours — and then went on to yield four times that.
Singer explains the fillip to this endeavor in her compelling video: “There are over 85,000 industrial chemicals out there and the majority of ones that are in use today have never even been tested for safety. In fact, cleaning product manufacturers aren’t even legally required to list their ingredients on their packaging. So we really have no clue what’s in them.”
In contrast, The Simply Co. uses only three ingredients in its laundry detergent: baking soda, washing soda and castile soap. If you’re feeling crazy, you can go for the scented version with a fourth ingredient, deriving its lavender fragrance from organic essential oils.
So, for those of us who don’t have time for or are intimidated by the prospect of making our own cleaning products and feel guilty about being part of the problem, think about buying this planet-loving merchandise – but you’ll have to get in line because it’s already sold out.
MORE: Which Common Product Should You Wash Out of Your Laundry Room?

These 10 Documentaries Will Change How You See America

Documentary films are known for sparking social change. (Case in point: Who wants to eat at McDonalds after seeing Super Size Me or Food, Inc.? What parent suggests visiting SeaWorld after seeing Blackfish?) Though 2014’s nonfiction films weren’t massive box office hits, they pointed out injustice and lifted our eyes to the doers making a difference. Here are the 10 must-see documentaries that inspired us to action.

10. The Great Invisible

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 still darkens the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico in the form of altered ecosystems and ruined lives. Named best documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, Margaret Brown’s documentary dives deep beyond the news coverage you may remember into a tale of corporate greed and lasting environmental damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDw1budbZpQ

9. If You Build It

Two designers travel to the poorest county in rural North Carolina to teach a year-long class, culminating in building a structure for the community. In this heartwarming story, 10 students learn much more than construction skills.
http://vimeo.com/79902240

8. The Kill Team

An infantry soldier struggles with his wartime experience after alerting the military his Army platoon had killed civilians in Afghanistan. On the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ long list for best documentary, Dan Krauss’s challenging film shows how morality dissolves in the fog of war and terror of battle.

7. Starfish Throwers

Three people — a renowned cook, a preteen girl and a retired teacher — inspire an international movement to end hunger. Jesse Roesler’s film includes the story of Allan Law, the man who handed out 520,000 sandwiches during the course of a year in Minneapolis, which we featured on NationSwell.

6. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story

A former Navy SEAL (formerly named Christopher, now Kristin) says that changing genders, not military service, was the biggest battle of her life. In retrospect, her SEAL experience takes on new importance as she comes to understand the true value of the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

5. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

An online pioneer who developed Creative Commons with the academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig at age 15 and co-founded Reddit at 19, Swartz crusaded for a free and open internet. Another potential Oscar candidate, the film poignantly recounts how Swartz ended his own life at age 26 after aggressive prosecutors initiated a federal case against him.

4. True Son

A 22-year-old black man recently graduated from Stanford returns to his bankrupt hometown of Stockton, Calif., to run for city council. Michael Tubbs convinces his neighbors (and the movie’s audiences) you can have “a father in jail and a mother who had you as a teenager, and still have a seat at the table.”

3. The Hand That Feeds

After years of abuse from their bosses, a group of undocumented immigrants working for a New York City bakery unionize for fair wages and better working conditions. Led by a demure sandwich maker, the employees partner with young activists to fight their case against management and the food chain’s well-connected investors.

2. Rich Hill

Three boys confront impoverishment, learning disabilities and dysfunctional families in this human portrait of growing up in small-town America. The backdrop to the teenagers’ lives is their Missouri hometown of 1,396 residents, where one in five lives in poverty and where the fireworks still glow every Fourth of July.
 

1. The Overnighters

Our top film and a favorite for an Academy Award nomination details how an oil boom draws a city-sized influx of workers to a small town in North Dakota, where they scrape by on day labor and live in their cars. With the heft, detail and narrative twists of a Steinbeck novel, Jesse Moss profiles the Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke, who welcomes these desperate men into a shelter called “The Overnighters,” to his congregation’s dismay.
 

Are there any documentaries that should have made the cut? Let us know in the comments below.