Now travelers who check-in to their flights ahead of time can receive a link on their cell phones or PDAs that they scan at the TSA security checkpoint and at the gate. Apparently, there are now 30 airports and 5 airlines piloting the technology.

If there are any pilot airlines or airports reading our blog, check out EDF's online Paper Calculator so you can calculate the environmental impacts of this cool new innovation. Thanks for reducing the paper waste AND my frustration when I search for that crumpled piece of paper at the bottom of my travel bag.

Now fully updated with the latest scientific information, it is a robust tool for understanding how different paper choices affect the environment – whether you want to know how many trees were spared by reducing paper use, or the energy savings from choosing recycled content versus virgin.

Random House, Staples, PepsiCo, Wells Fargo and Starbucks, among others, have used PaperCalculator.org to manage their paper purchases. In total, the tool saw 27,000 uses in the past year.

So what’s new with version 2.0? We updated national recycling rates, electricity and grid information, and now include the production of fillers and coatings to more comprehensively address the full lifecycle of paper. We also changed one of the metrics from “total energy” to “net energy” to reflect energy that is created by burning paper – or the methane that decomposing paper creates – at the end of its life.

What does this mean for your calculations? The table below compares the latest version of PaperCalculator.org with the old, based on the results calculated for 100 tons of office paper (known in the paper world as "uncoated free sheet"):

As you can see, recycled content remains the most environmentally preferable option. While the difference in net energy decreased due to the increased efficiency of virgin pulp mills, for example, recycled content still enjoys an advantage over virgin pulp.

While we’ve updated these numbers with the best available industry data, it’s important to remember that these are industry averages and any individual paper supplier’s numbers may be higher or lower. To understand your suppliers, check out our paper supplier evaluation form and start asking questions.

If you want to know more about the science behind the calculator, check out our Paper Task Force Report and White Papers on several of paper’s environmental impact areas.

Ready, set… calculate!

The project began over a year and a half ago in response to a growing number of inquiries we were getting from companies confused by the plethora of "green" solutions being recommended to them by the media, vendors, and suppliers. Some of the questions included: what's more important local or organic? What do I do about bottled water? Is this biodegradable package really more environmentally friendly? Frankly, they were confused. And no wonder.

Chefs and dining managers make dozens of decisions each day that have environmental impacts. Everything from the type of seafood they purchase to how long they run their ovens. And so in partnership with Restaurant Associates, we set out to provide clear, concise information to dining companies on where to prioritize their efforts and which science-based, environmental best practices to implement. We also knew our best practices had to be affordable to achieve widespread adoption throughout the dining industry.

Our full set of recommendations can be viewed at edf.org/greendining. I won't bore you by repeating the content that's available on the site. But, I do think it's useful to highlight some of the more surprising results from our project's two pilot sites – Random House and Hearst Corporation (both Restaurant Associates clients) – who worked hard to implement the best practices over the past several months:

1. Sustainable food doesn't have to be expensive. There's often an impression – and I admit I'm just as guilty – that good, environmentally friendly food costs more. This is sometimes the case, but we found just as many instances where the environmentally preferable option cost less. For example, reducing high cost, GHG intensive, red meat items in favor of chicken or vegetarian menu items can save a company thousands of dollars each year. Purchasing arctic char – a “green” list seafood species on EDF's seafood card – actually turned out to be more affordable than many red list species (and it makes sense, as red list species are often scarce and shipped long distances). So, sustainable food can be affordable food after all.
2. To save energy, it's not necessary to buy the latest energy-efficient gizmo (although restaurants should, given quick paybacks). We found dollars on the ground right there for the taking by just being smarter about when appliances are turned on and off. Coffee urns, for example, can be big energy hogs when they're left on 24/7, even though they may only be in use a few hours each day. By conducting an appliance audit, posting operating times, and educating their employees, one of our pilot companies was able to identify thousands of dollars in savings each year on their utility bills.
3. Food waste represents opportunity. Food waste (much of which is pre-consumer kitchen scraps) can represent half of a restaurant's waste stream. And because food waste consists of lots of water by weight, it's heavy and costly to haul away. By composting this material or installing a digester to break down the organic matter into liquid, a restaurant can significantly cut waste hauling costs and divert tons of waste from landfill each year.

So, those were just a few of the surprises. Not all of the Green Dining Best Practices instantly lead to cost savings. But, enough of them do that we're confident you can implement a wide range of best practices at No Net Cost by investing any savings in initiatives that do cost a bit extra. And that should make these Best Practices easier for dining companies – and their customers – to swallow.

Innovations Review 2009 covers advances in business sectors from food service to agriculture to real estate to financial services.  For just a sampling, check out:

• High-tech computer systems that monitor real-time weather data and soil conditions to help companies reduce the water needed for crop irrigation and commercial landscaping by 15-40%.
• A new mortgage program that is boosting sales by offering homebuyers lower interest rates if they elect to install solar panels in their new homes.
• Annual employee performance reviews that now tie environmental results to compensation, up to the senior executive level.

We hope that Innovations Review 2009 will provide your company with useful models and inspire your team to go even further.

Talk and follow the conversation about Innovations Review 2009 with the tag: IR2009

COMPASS grew out of an earlier software tool called MERGE that EDF developed through our partnerships with SC Johnson, Bristol Meyers Squibb and Aveda in 1996-2001. The goal of those partnerships was to create an easy-to-use software program that companies could use to evaluate the environmental profiles of different product and packaging designs. Bristol Meyers Squibb and Aveda each used MERGE to redesign packages to reduce environmental impact.

In 2006, the SPC, an industry working group of packaged goods companies and packaging suppliers, conducted a review of available environmental packaging design tools. Selecting MERGE as the most promising among them, SPC approached EDF about updating and redeveloping MERGE for use by a broader group of companies. We licensed MERGE to GreenBlue, the non-profit organization that convenes the SPC, for its use as the basis for COMPASS. Our Senior Scientist Dr. Richard Denison, who was the original developer of MERGE, served as a peer reviewer for COMPASS' new methodology.

The new COMPASS tool is supported by updated datasets, includes additional packaging materials and environmental metrics, and includes specific packaging fabrication processes not included in the original version of MERGE. It should be a good resource for companies looking to understand and improve the environmental impacts of their packaging. A license will run you $750 ($500 if your company is an SPC member), but you can get a pretty good sense of the tool’s capabilities by using the free trial. Check it out and share your thoughts with the Innovation Exhange community!