The Green Team

PETCO Park

100 Park Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92101

Baseball season opens this month! How green is the home of San Diego's Padres? As one of the newer baseball parks, PETCO Park was built with the environment in mind. The park's sustainability efforts are managed by a Green Committee and they have won a slew of conservation awards.

GOOD: Here are just a few things to feel good about while you cheer on the San Diego Padres...

Building construction. The park location itself has helped revitalize a previously neglected part of downtown itself. Its construction incorporated an existing building, the historic Western Metal Supply Co. The kids' playground is partially made of recycled materials and some of the flooring elsewhere in the park is made of recycled rubber. 

Recycling. The people at PETCO are finding ways to recycle as much as possible, right down to cooking oil, food waste, uniforms, grass clippings, and wire hangers used by the dry cleaning service. Plastic packaging is collected and used by an outside company to make decks, railings, and fencing.

Water Conservation. Bathroom water flow is minimized and field irrigation is carefully timed to avoid waste. 

Energy Efficiency. A master computer system monitors and controls all heating, cooling, and lighting systems for maximum efficiency. Motion sensors assure that lights and air conditioning are switched off when PETCO offices and suites are empty or the doors open. Compact fluorescent lamps are used wherever possible and recycled when they burn out. 

Education. Recycling is deeply ingrained in the PETCO Park mission, from employee training videos, newsletters, and handbooks to Jumbotron messages and signs for the fans. The team also hosts "Green Night" and several recycling nights.

BAD: Just by the virtue of being a ballpark, PETCO is a huge consumer of land and resources and a huge generator of trash. However, SGSD is glad to see the measures PETCO Park and the Padres have taken to ease their impact on our environment and hope to see even more in the near future.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Be sure to leave the car home and take the Trolley right to PETCO. Once you get there, grab some fish tacos or a veggie burger.

BOTTOM LINE: 4 Stars ****

Saving the planet one cup at a time

Cafe Moto

2619 National Ave., San Diego, CA 92113

Store hours: M-F/8 am - 5 pm

Coffee. You drink it every day, so there's lots of time to ponder its impact on the planet. From an sustainability point of view, few foods are more controversial. What country is it from? How are the workers treated? Is it shade grown? Organic? Does it come in a styrofoam cup? Is it from a chain or the corner bistro? Fortunately San Diego is home to one very progressive little bean brewer: Cafe Moto.

GOOD: Cafe Moto is a small, family-owned business that sells only organic and fair trade products. They brew coffee and package their wares in a downtown building made of recycled materials and powered exclusively by the sun and natural gas. They even donate their old burlap coffee bean sacks to the San Diego Zoo. Apparently tigers love to play with them!

BAD: The actual shop is out of the way and while several local business sell their coffee, it can be hard to find. But then staying small (a good thing) is one of Cafe Moto's goals.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Buy Cafe Moto coffee, tea, chocolate, and other gear online or at their downtown headquarters. Or look for Cafe Moto coffee served at the Landmark Theatre in La Jolla. What could be better than an indie movie and cup of joe you can feel good about?

BOTTOM LINE: 5 Stars*****

Celebrating a Sustainable Valentine's Day... the San Diego Way

Chuao Chocolatier Cafes

The Lumberyard

937 S. Coast Highway 101, Encinitas, CA 92024

Del Mar Highlands Shopping Center

3485 Del Mar Heights Rd., San Diego, CA 92130

University Towne Centre

4465 La Jolla Village Dr., San Diego, CA 92122

Chuao Chocolatier (pronounced chew-WOW) creates "unusual, unexpected and delicious flavors using their secret blend of premium chocolate and fresh natural ingredients."

GOOD: Not only is Chuao chocolate locally made (in North County), its founders, two brothers from Venezuela, are committed to social responsibility. They give to local charities, are working to lessen their environmental impact, and have founded the Aguasanta Growth Initiative, a program dedicated to cacao restoration. In Venezuela, the source of Chuao cacao, farmers are typically paid well and treated fairly. However, the highly prized Venezuelan cacao crop itself needs help. The goal of the Aguasanta Growth Initiative is to provide the tools, education, and support necessary to grow and care for this special plant in a way that will preserve it for many generations.

BAD: The price. Good stuff doesn't come cheap, but yikes.

RECOMMENDATIONS: If you visit one of the local Chocolate Cafes, order a Winter Hot Chocolate with whipped cream or Spicy Maya gelato (depending on the season), then take home a Firecracker bar as a fun gift. This chipotle caramel fudge truffle with popping candy, salt, and dark chocolate is a real conversation starter. Chuao chocolates can also be found all over the country at places like Whole Foods, Bristol Farms, Wegman's, and Crate & Barrel.

BOTTOM LINE: 5 Stars*****

This place is just plain awesome.

Ralphs vs. Vons

Faced with two choices for convenient grocery shopping, which do you pick? Ralphs or Vons?

Always be skeptical of corporate sustainability reports (often part PR campaign) but here's a quick list of measures taken by these major grocery retailers to help reduce their environmental impact, according to their corporate websites:

Ralphs (Kroger):

• collected and recycled 9.1 million pounds of plastic grocery bags in 2007
• reduced office paper usage by 455 tons
• diverts leftover food to food banks, composting, and animal rendering plants
• trains grocery baggers to "Strive for Five", or putting at least 5 items in a bag to reduce the number of bags used
• eliminated 68,000 pounds of PVC by switching to smaller, recyclable Eco-Flexx advertising billbaords made of polyethylene
• working to reduce the weight of plastic milk and water bottles, saving an estimated 1.8 million pounds of plastic resin
• reduced overall energy consumption by 22% since 2000, shooting for 30% by 2010, mostly by updating lighting fixtures and refrigerators
  
• reducing the carbon footprint of shipping fleets by improving insulation, reducing mileage, and training drivers to slow down and reduce idling time, and using and selling fuels that are 85% domestic ethanol/15% gasoline, thus saving an estimated 1 million gallons of diesel fuel over the next three years

BOTTOM LINE: 2 Stars **
Lots of small efforts, like recycling and encouraging behavioral changes, are good, but Kroger has yet to stand up and make big changes. Their sustainability report reads more like a list of things they hope to do, rather than things they've done.

Vons (Safeway):

• buys enough wind energy to power all 300+ of their fuel stations, all stores in San Francisco, CA and Boulder, CO, and their corporate headquarters
• currently developing 20+ solar projects around the country
• 550 trucks in California and 79 in Arizona run on 80% petroleum diesel and 20% biodiesel made from soybean oil grown and manufactured in the U.S.
  
• designing more efficient buildings, including no-heat freezer doors
• recycled more than 500,000 tons of cardboard and plastic in 2006, thus keeping 85% of their solid waste out of the landfill (the state mandates only 50%)
• first major retailer to register with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the only voluntary, legally-binding greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system in the country
• award winning: 2005 EPA Green Power Purchaser of the Year Award, 2006 City of San Diego Recycler of the Year Award , 2002-2006 WRAP (Waste Reduction Award Program) Awards, and 2007 California Flex Your Power Award for energy efficiency

BOTTOM LINE: 3 Stars***
Big box stores should never be our first choice, but when that's the only choice, I would choose Vons over Ralphs. Flashy moves like wind power and joining the CCX might not always be as effective as lots of smaller changes, but Safeway is sending the right message to other large retailers without being too showy about it.

What are your thoughts??

La Jolla TJ's Produce Stand

(Near UCSD, in front of Trader Joe's)
8657 Villa La Jolla Dr # 210
La Jolla, CA 92037

GOOD: Living near a Trader Joe's is a great thing. Except for the sad produce selection that usually necessitates a bigger chain grocery store nearby. And frequenting the farmer's markets in La Jolla or Hillcrest sounds great, but only if you remember when they're open and happen to be in the area at that time. But the La Jolla Village Trader Joe's has a special bonus - an independent produce stand just out front. You can't beat the convenience. SGSD used to be skeptical of the produce man's prices and the origin of his wares (bought at Ralph's and sold for a higher price?), but recently he's started indicating exactly where each fruit and vegetable comes from. Turns out it's all local and seasonal. Fresh onions, tomatoes, avocados, strawberries, and more from Vista and Escondido. And now he takes credit cards.
BAD: The produce stand isn't always open, especially not later on weekday evenings. Some items might cost more than you could find in the Ralph's next door. And you have to be careful not to pick the rotten onions. But... a generous bag of mini avocados is only $2.
BONUS: the gorgeous smell of fresh berries and some friendly salesmen
RECOMMENDATIONS: choose recipes and make a list ahead of time - so you don't buy unnecessary veggies that end up going to waste - and bring your Trader Joe's reusable shopping bags.

BOTTOM LINE: 5 Stars *****
The price of everything is going up, but we've been paying too little for food of little quality for too long. Fresh, local, seasonal fruits and veggies are worth the extra money for the environment and your health. And, hey, here's a convenient place to get it all.