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On The Road | News & Events | In The Media
On The Road
CFGG Publisher Valerie L. Robertson will visit eco-friendly shows and events throughout the country, and will bring back any ideas that she thinks might interest the readers of Cape Fear’s Going Green. In this “on the road” section she will write short, first-hand accounts about what she finds.
Swarthmore, PA
Lax Entrepreneurship Conference: Sustainability
I traveled to my alma mater in March for the annual Jonathan R. Lax ’71
Conference on Entrepreneurship. I often consider going, but because the topic this year was “The Business of Sustainability,” I finally took the time to make the trip back to Pennsylvania.
The Conference was held in the new Science Center at Swarthmore College, a LEED certified building I’d visited previously. This event was a chance to spend time in the building and enjoy the way the light travels through the space. All presenters were alumni.
Keynote speaker Chris Laszio, co-founder of Sustainable Value 
Partners, gave a presentation based on his new book, Sustainable Value. “Sustainability for Competitive Advantage” discussed sustainability-driven business leadership and emerging sustainability practices used by DuPont, Wal-Mart, and other global industry leaders.
Mid-afternoon roundtable sessions offered the chance to share ideas with attendees and with experts in diverse fields. I chose to attend David Hochschild’s session on “Getting Clean Energy Passed.”
The final session was a case study of an emerging company, Carbon Trap Technologies, working on development and marketing of a technology 
to chemically remove carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion; the byproducts of their process can produce useful products with significant market value.
It was energizing to spend time with these various experts. However, one benefit of the conference for me personally was that I started thinking about the effect we can all have by checking to see what schools we’ve attended are currently doing to promote sustainable ideas and teach those to the student population. Some of us are active in what our children’s schools are doing, to recycle, or to teach eco-friendly concepts. But we have another opportunity – colleges and schools of all levels do care about what alumni think. You don’t have to wait for them to solicit your input: you can check any school you’ve attended and express an interest in their incorporating green ideas into the everyday experiences of our young people.
Eugene, OR
Good Earth Show
January 2008 Going Green traveled to Eugene for the third annual 
Good Earth Home, Garden & Living Show in January. Eugene embraced sustainability so early that a green living show attracts a wider variety of exhibitors than seen in some cities. Building codes allow straw-bale homes; companies sell electric cars for street use; and there are 40 CSAs, which allow people to buy a subscription for weekly boxes of fresh local food to be delivered to them seasonally.
The show brought more than 250 exhibitors and 40 free seminars emphasizing health, sustainable and locally produced choices for home, garden, and more.
We heard speaker Eric Corey Freed, principal at organicARCHITECT, a green design and research firm in San Francisco. Freed is the author of the newly-released Green Building for Dummies book, and says that he was the first author for the Dummies series to
insist that his book be printed on recycled paper. We also met Skip Wenz, who in the early 1990s founded, and for ten years directed, the Ecological Design Program at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture. Skip will contribute regular columns to future issues of Cape Fear’s Going Green.
We’ll give future reports on what we found at the fair, but in the meantime, here are some of the images we brought home. And, to learn more about the show, visit eugenehomeshow.com.
Washington, DC
Field Trip to the Solar Decathlon
click here for a complete photo gallery
Twenty teams of architectural students descended on the nation’s capitol last October, and they brought their 
houses with them. They came to compete in the third Solar Decathlon, a competition in which student teams showcase their ideas for better living with solar and demonstrate how well they can make those ideas really work. The house they bring to Washington must be a fully-functional, energy-efficient, completely solar-powered home.
Students devote up to two years designing and building the competition home, which they then must disassemble, transport and reconstruct on the grassy Mall running between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument.
During the nine-day Decathlon, the homes are open to the public, and students are judged in part on how well their signage and student-led tours convey information about the workings of their design. Homes compete in ten different contests, and receive scores for each. The home with the highest score is winner of the overall Solar Decathlon. The competition is designed to make sure the entire two-year process is a valuable training ground for learning to use solar technology, while mindful of the comfort, appeal, and livability factors that are necessary components of any home-building enterprise. >>read more
(Click to download the complete article in .pdf format).
Learn much more about these projects – design philosophy, illustrations, mechanical specs, photographs, materials used, and information on how the house will be used - by visiting the teams’ individual Web sites. Go to www.solardecathlon.org/teams.html to find direct links to the 2007 team Web sites and contact information. You can also track the progress of the teams that will complete in the fall of 2009.
In our spring issue there was only room to share a few photos from the Solar Decathlon; click here to view more photos, to show you the variety of creative offerings brought to the Mall.
News & Events
CFCC Students Win Sustainability Competition
When we went to press with our Spring issue, we included an article on the spring North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition. What we didn’t know until hours later was that one of Ron Wilson’s teams from Cape Fear Community College, WON the competition in Raleigh! Team member Alyssa Halle is writing us an article for our June/July issue, so look forward to learning more about the design process from her.
Onslow County Distributes Cape Fear's Going Green
Kelly Lowery of Keep Onslow Beautiful in Jacksonville gave a “Go Green” presentation to members of the community on April 14. She used copies of Cape Fear’s Going Green as handouts for the 35-40 attendees of the conference, to offer them additional insight on the whole green process.
In The Media
Recently Launched Sites
by Andrew Gray
Going Green Publications recently launched its new Web site, goinggreenpublications.com, to complement Cape Fear’s Going Green magazine, which premiered this winter. The site offers a calendar of green events, a list of resources, a glossary of eco-friendly terms and a forum for users to discuss green topics. The site also allows access to current and back issues of Cape Fear’s Going Green.
The hope is that the Web site will bridge the gap with the print version and allow people to learn about green projects and services available in their own community.
“The site will expand the reach of the printed paper and places no limits on the amount of information we can provide for green and eco-friendly events in the area,” said Valerie Robertson, publisher and editor. “As people learn more about events, organizations and activities, they will form their own networks of like-minded people.”
Greater Wilmington Business Journal
Vol. 9, No. 6 April 4-17, 2008
"Going Green"
by Ben Steelman
A new local magazine is showing up on the shelves at eco-friendly businesses around Wilmington: Cape Fear's Going Green, a guide to eco-friendly activities, products and services along the Lower Cape Fear.
The editor-publisher is Valerie L. Robertson, a local quilter, techie and former employee of the Star-News, and the list of advisers/contributors includes local naturalist Andy Wood (Backyard Carolina), Gwenyfar of Daughtry's Used Books and Kathleen Jewell of Pomegranate Books. Features in the premiere issue include highlights of this year's Wilmington-area solar and green building tour, a look at Topsail High School's electric-vehicle class and a photo of an orb spider as "centerfold."
The monthly is free at its local outlets. (You can get it by mail for $24 per year.) To further reduce the magazine's carbon signature, an online edition should be available later this month at www.GoingGreenPublications.com.
Wilmington Star News
Posted December 12, 2007 1:33:12 PM
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