British Columbia

"Paper is a tremendously resource-intensive product to produce," explains project manager Victoria Mills, "and the decomposition of paper in landfills generates methane, a greenhouse gas with 23 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide."

For all those days when you believe your green values aren’t aligned with your workplace but you can’t - or don’t want to - make the eco-entrepreneur step, here are some immediate action steps to try out at the office this Monday.

Remember: while many green teams start from humble beginnings, they can grow exponentially - pent up passion for green amongst employees can be powerful driving force.

Ever wondered how much energy and thought it took to produce that shiny brochure your marketing staff handed to you this week? And no, it’s not just the brand and visual design genius we’re talking about.

A short, weekly “school of hard knocks” history of why paper supply chain management is not as easy as it looks - but can be. A Green Printer dispatch.

Deforestation hurts. Just ask Harrison Ford - he waxed his chest and demonstrated just how close forests are to his heart.

It was a serious two hour talk on climate change realities. And, what did we eat for lunch: steak. A large chunk of medium rare cow meat in tepid gravy. Sauce and solemn speech aside, I found the plat du jour ironic. Here we were, serious business people (some even part of the “sustainability task force”), earnest as heck about doing our part to learn about the adapt prong of the two-pronged “mitigate and adapt” prong to tackle climate change.

Most forests are considered net sinks of carbon dioxide, meaning they store more carbon than they give up, but natural events can upset the equation.

We’ve come this far in our exasperation with junk mail-apalooza and now people are luring us with cold, hard cash (or the beauty of planting a tree) to get us to stop receiving virgin-forest-eating junk mail.

The bean counters in the crowd ask about share dilution to which both MacDonald and fellow panelist Richard MacKellar, former CEO of Brightside Technologies (bought by Dell Inc.) answer “significant” and “don’t expect to get majority ownership in the renewable energy business - it’s just not possible.”

From the back, a keen, 20-something engineering Ph.D candidate piques with the question to the former MIT professor, “where do you see renewable energy going?”

Even lawyers are realizing their impact on their environment. No seriously, lawyers are sharp enough to know that using all that virgin paper cannot be good to the environment. But when it comes to driving internal sustainability initiatives? Many still respond by: "we recycle". Period.

To give an idea of how far we have progressed since the original advocates pressed for electronic recycling programs, Wal-Mart is calling for more uniform U.S. guidelines regarding consumer electronics, energy consumption and recycling.

Warning: so, as the video and Oprah ’s darling du jour and guerrilla closet warrior Peter Walsh so clearly outlines, our pack-rat habits are making us chubby. They can also be a barrier to us going green. We share fast, eco-friendly de-clutter tips for busy lives..

So, for all you energizer bunnies out there, here are a few tips from Montreal based Vivace Design ‘ s Karine Himbeault that, incidentally, we found take 60 seconds or less to actually carry out. Oh and Vivace Design produced a stunning portfolio following their advice. Gone gorgeous green in less than 60? Read on.

Angela Reid, Deputy Leader of the BC Green Party (Canada), discusses the changes that need to be made in order to combat the effects of global warming.

“The final combination of paper choices recommended to the client represented a 10% cost savings, 13% fewer carbon dioxide emissions, and 35% fewer trees when compared to their previous product,” says Nancy E. Landrum of Sustainable Business Design.

I caught the "story of stuff": a 20-minute, fast-paced look at the dark underbelly of our consumption patterns. The clip exposes the links between a host of environmental and social issues while showing you the real cost of that $5 radio (metals from South Africa, 14 years olds from the Congo dropping out of school to work in factories...).