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Big Foot – Little Foot

Written by: Dixie Schmatz

Article Overview: Everyone is talking about their “carbon footprint.” Are you wondering what that really means?

Big Foot – Little Foot

A carbon footprint relates to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Most carbon dioxide is emitted from burning fuel and using power. This means your transportation and electrical use are the biggest contributors to your carbon footprint. Almost everything you do, however, contributes to your carbon footprint in some way. Manufacturing your clothes produced CO2. The farmer who grew your food produced CO2 when he plowed the field with his tractor. Your coffee produced CO2 while it was being shipped from where it was grown and processed.

A company that is trying to reduce its carbon footprint could do things like
o Reduce its energy use – This has a direct correlation to the amount of CO2 used.
o Substitute fossil fuel energy use with solar or wind energy – This allows a business to continue doing what it was doing before but reduces the CO2 directly produced. (Of course CO2 may have been produced as the solar panels or windmill were being built. -- None of this is too easy.)
o Buy carbon credits – This is a somewhat controversial practice that lets a company reduce their footprint without changing what they do.
o Buy products produced closer to them – This reduces the CO2 associated with transporting products the company uses
o Plant trees – Trees take in CO2 and convert it to oxygen thus actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere. They store the CO2 in their leaves, stems and trunks so when the tree dies the CO2 is re-released into the atmosphere. (That is why there is a big concern about beetles killing off HUGE amounts of timber in the western US and Canada, and the loss of so much rainforest. With each tree lost, we lose the ability to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and more CO2 is released into the atmosphere.)

There are lots of different footprint calculators on the web. It is very complicated and most of the calculators are very simplistic. Our site has links to several or you can just look up “carbon footprint” in a web search engine.

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Article Tags: beetles, burning fuel, buy carbon credits, calculators, carbon dioxide, carbon footprint, co2 emissions, controversial practice, direct correlation, energy use, fossil fuel energy, oxygen, plant trees, rainforest, solar panels, stems, trunks, web search engine, wind energy, windmill



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Jennifer Barney: Barney Butter - Despite the well-known health benefits of almond butter such as vitamin E, fiber, protein, phosphorous, no partially hydrogenated oils and more magnesium than spinach, many people either don’t like almond butter’s taste, don’t like its grainy texture or think it’s a facial scrub. But Jennifer Barney is determined to change all that. It was only a few years ago that, armed with a blender and bags of blanched almonds, Jennifer started whipping up addictively delicious batches of almond butter for her kids. Several burned out appliances later she succeeded in creating the familiar taste, texture and consistency of jelly’s better half, peanut butter. While the kids clamored for more, neighbors knew Jennifer could sell it. She started a business, supplying almond ambrosia to stores across California. After partnering with an investor she recently moved into her own peanut-free manufacturing plant complete with custom-built equipment, making Barney Butter the only almond butter safe for those with peanut allergies. Barney Butter is already well-known in California, Oregon, Florida, Arizona, Washington and Nevada. By January it will line the shelves of every Fresh Market across the country, heading toward household name fame along with Jif and Skippy. This kind of success is hardly a surprise because as anyone with a peanut butter palate will tell you, Barney Butter is pure almond joy. What we learned from Jennifer: Be a dreamer, but be realistic. Set time and financial limits. Once you’ve used them up accept that something isn’t working and you need to go in another direction. It may end up being the best decision you’ve ever made. I can’t believe it’s not peanut butter When my kids were teething they wanted “real” food. I searched for almond butter but could only find coarsely ground almonds, not anything smooth that they would eat. I thought, “With a little sweetener and salt I can make great-tasting, smooth almond butter!” It wasn’t the entrepreneur in me talking. It was a mom thing. I just wanted to make almond butter that looked and felt like peanut butter for my kids. The Juiceman Cometh I broke blender after blender until I finally invested in a heavy duty machine. The one that worked best was The Juiceman I found on eBay. I burned through at least four of those but my kids loved my almond butter! I didn’t tell people what I was doing because really, somebody might have locked me up. Spread the word - spreadable almonds! Eventually I started giving my almond butter to friends. It was a hit and everyone encouraged me to start a business. At the time I only had experience in birthing children. That’s it. I had no experience in business, manufacturing or food science. But I did know that starting a business was risky. My husband and I invested a small amount of our savings that we would be ok with never seeing again. Separation anxiety I knew my almond butter would separate while sitting on store shelves so I investigated the peanut butter industry’s methods for avoiding that. You would be amazed what you can find online. I found a University of Georgia professor who had written a research paper in 1996 about the application of palm oil to peanut butter for stabilization. I called him. He explained everything I needed to know. I’m sure he had no idea he was talking to a crazy blender-breaking housewife. The taste of success By law I had to hire a contract manufacturer to make and pack my product. But to save money I had my friend’s dad design my logo. Then I made labels on sticky paper, cut them out and stuck them on the jars myself. The friendliest mom and pop stores were happy to stock my almond butter because I was local. I did lots of store tasting events to make sure my product sold. Foot-loose and peanut free Eventually we out grew our co-packer. We needed a bigger space but couldn’t afford to invest one more cent in the business. I went looking for an investor and through one of my suppliers found not only an investor but a partner. At that point I could afford to expand and I now have my own peanut-free plant and state-of-the-art equipment. Almond butter and jelly We’re working on going national. Peanut butter is such a staple, but almond butter is healthier and is perfect for people with peanut allergies. I think that this is something people will love. It’s exactly like peanut butter but made only from almonds. Curiosity is key I’m sure at Ladies Who Launch you see this all the time in entrepreneurs but when I was developing my product I didn’t see it as work. I really enjoyed what I was doing and I was driven by curiosity. It became something of an obsession. I was determined to get it right. This Featured Lady was profiled by Ladies Who Launch Associate Editor Susie Lacey.
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Show up at your new neighbor's door with a gift. It always goes over well – just remember to button your blouse. 3. You Are a Reflection of Your Mother (Company): Nobody likes a poorly kept lawn except the lazy bum that lives behind it. Maintain your public face on the social networks, shine your shoes, crease your pants, embrace your OCD. It may not be your homepage, but it is a home away from home. Maintaining several of these online presences is work, but so is business. 4. Keep An Open Mind: There's an appropriate cliché for every situation – all your eggs in one basket comes to mind here – but I prefer my grandfather's chestnut: "You drove your ducks to a damn poor market." Poetic, that man was. For a long time it was search, search, search. Before that it was email, email, email. But now you need to integrate your campaign. Search is a staple, a pillar of your online campaign, but we also know that Wikipedia ranks consistently number one in the SERPs. 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Instead of competing with his biggest fan, Obama endorsed the site as the official MySpace campaign headquarters. That was the brilliant part. After the page "got too big" for the original operator, the campaign crew took staged a coup to wrest control of the page from their biggest fan. That was the not so brilliant part, even if politics is mean by nature. 7. Watch Your Mouth: Again with the clichés that still hold true – if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Steve Rubel learned the hard way that stream-of-consciousness blogging can have you saying something you wish you hadn’t. Transparency doesn't mean total access. 8. Don't Be a Fake: Who do we dislike most in civilized society (aside from the violent)? Liars, cheats, and thieves. We don't like them because we view them as betrayers. That principle applies online, too, when your network discovers you're not what you say you are. And the mob's wrath is one that is hard to endure. 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