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With the revitalization of American cities has come increased excitement about public parks; we may have less land to spare than in Frederick Law Olmsted’s day, but we’re finding creative ways to squeeze more open space and greenery out of brownfields, empty lots, and old train tracks. The mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., even turned his unused parking space into a mini-park.

Now, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL) has devised a system that allows you to keep tabs on your city’s progress, and compare your hometown to the burg next door. It’s called ParkScore, and it measures and ranks the park systems of the country’s 40 largest cities. It’s not like Walk Score, where you can type in your address and get a walkability rating for your immediate neighborhood, but I’m sure the data could be used the same way (and similarly co-opted as a real-estate selling point).

And the winners? San Francisco came in first, followed by Sacramento, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Bringing up the rear is Fresno, Calif., where more than 60 percent of the population lacks easy access to public parks. Charlotte, N.C., Louisville, Ky., and Indianapolis are also at the bottom of the heap.

TPL calculated the rankings using a formula that gives equal weight to acreage (both median park size and park acres as a percentage of the city area), service and investment (park spending per resident and playgrounds per 10,000 residents), and access (how much of the population lives within a 10-minute walk of a city park). While dense San Francisco got high marks for access, spending per resident, and park land as a percentage of city area, it fell short on playgrounds and median park size (1.97 acres); other than the famous 1,500-acre Presidio, most of the city’s parks must be pretty damn small. In Phoenix, on the other hand, median park size is 14.5 acres, but at least half the population lacks easy access.

TPL mapped areas in need of more parks by looking at population density, percentage of population 19 and younger, and household income. They assumed that lower-income neighborhoods are generally more in need, which makes sense: higher-income neighborhoods already have more greenery, more single-family homes with yards, and streets safer to play on. Imagine being among the 60 percent of Fresno residents more than a 10-minute walk away from a park, and imagine living in a small apartment with no balcony on top of that. It would be hard to stay sane.

Surprisingly, TPL actually found little discrepancy between low- and high-income groups or old and young when it comes to existing park access. This is a good thing, because it means that although young, dense, lower-income neighborhoods should be prioritized, it’s still in everybody’s interest to advocate for more, and better, parks.

And ParkScore’s ratings suggest that we should be doing just that. The fact that San Francisco came in No. 1 with only 74 points out of 100 shows that there’s plenty of room for improvement in every city.

Parks are an important part of making communities more livable, and not just because they’re pretty-looking and fun; the Trust for Public Land  has documented their myriad economic and health benefits. With more Americans seeking city life over the suburbs, urban parks will only become a more valuable resource. (And if it’s true that trees can help reduce crime, then the greener and leafier the park, the better.)

We millennials may be more interested in urban living than our baby boomer parents, but city dwellers still crave open space and delight in the sight of things growing. In order to thrive in cities, we’ll need better park systems.

And in case your mayor isn’t already as pumped on parks as Ithaca’s, maybe ParkScore can help get the message through.

Filed under: Cities

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ForestEthics.
CA – California, San Francisco
The Senior US Tar Sands Campaigner will work in the US to move Fortune 1000 companies away from Tar Sands fuels and to create greater awareness and concern in the…

Salary: non-disclosed. Date posted: 05/31/2012

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Gridtest Systems/Westlake Village, CA

Marketing Director — Clean Technology Start Up

The role will be the first marketing position in a small venture funded Clean tech company in the Electric Vehicle infrastructure market.
The role requires a mix of product marketing, online marketing activities and some PR skills. Must have excellent copy writing and design/layout skills.
Write and design product collateral, sales tools for international distributors and customers.
Event planning for trade shows and webinars.
Develop new content for Web site, Blog and newsletters. Web site maintenance -working with Web contractors
E- Marketing, Adwords, Analytics, Blog and social media skills. Establish company as thought leader and trusted reference in the market
Public Relations: Develop relationships with tech media and analysts.
Promotional videos for Youtube and Vimeo
Bachelors Degree with at least 10-15 years experience. We can't pay a lot in the first six months but this is an excellent opportunity to get into an award winning start up. The company has an employee stock option plan.

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When President Obama announced a new program during the recent G8 summit to help bolster food and agriculture in developing nations through corporate “pledges,” I was most struck by his choice of partners in the effort. A Reuters report on the announcement read:

The initiative includes a new partnership with agribusiness giants such as DuPont, Monsanto and Cargill, along with smaller companies, including almost 20 from Africa, which will commit some $3 billion for projects to help farmers in the developing world build local markets and improve productivity.

Those three companies are the good food movement’s equivalent of the law firm Dewey, Cheatem & Howe — not the folks it wants to see put in charge of anything, much less “feeding the world.” These companies believe that exporting western-style industrial agriculture to the developing world (Africa in particular) is key to ensuring enough food for a growing population. And they maintain this position despite the growing evidence that industrial agriculture can’t solve the problem.

As a recent report in the journal Nature on the best way forward for agriculture explained, current models suggest that industrial ag just won’t cut it:

… conventional approaches to intensive agriculture, especially the unbridled use of irrigation and fertilizers, have been major causes of environmental degradation. Closing yield gaps without environmental degradation will require new approaches, including reforming conventional agriculture and adopting lessons from organic systems and precision agriculture.

Unfortunately, this “unbridled use of irrigation and fertilizers” is the form of agriculture that Monsanto, DuPont, and Cargill know best.

So I was concerned when I ran across this new study, which found that to date, human-caused groundwater depletion is a greater contributor to sea-level rise than climate change. The U.K. Guardian explains:

Trillions of tonnes of water have been pumped up from deep underground reservoirs in every part of the world and then channeled into fields and pipes to keep communities fed and watered. The water then flows into the oceans, but far more quickly than the ancient aquifers are replenished by rains. The global tide would be rising even more quickly but for the fact that man-made reservoirs have, until now, held back the flow by storing huge amounts of water on land.

“The water being taken from deep wells is geologically old – there is no replenishment and so it is a one-way transfer into the ocean,” said sea level expert professor Robert Nicholls, at the University of Southampton. “In the long run, I would still be more concerned about the impact of climate change, but this work shows that even if we stabilize the climate, we might still get sea level rise due to how we use water.”

Chalk this up alongside dead zones, superweeds, superbugs, antibiotic resistance, and nitrogen pollution as yet another unintended consequence of industrial agriculture.

How does this water study relate to the G8 agriculture initiative? Well, drilling into deep and ancient aquifers using techniques borrowed from oil production is currently a favored technique for improving agricultural productivity in the developing world. And the new G8 program appears designed to do much more of it.

As the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy noted in a post on its blog, these “tube wells” have already been said to cause “an environmental disaster” in Asia. An Agence France-Presse report from several years back noted that:

In the case of India, smallholder farmers have driven 21 million tube wells into their fields and the number is increasing by a million wells per year.

“Nobody knows where the tube wells are or who owns them. There is no way anyone can control what happens to them,” Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute’s groundwater station, based in Gujarat, said.

“When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India.”

Half of the country’s traditional hand-dug wells have already run dry, as have millions of shallower tube wells, causing some despairing farmers to commit suicide, he said.

In China’s north plain, that country’s breadbasket, 30 cubic kilometers (1.059 trillion cubic feet) more water are being extracted each year by farmers than are being replaced by the rain, New Scientist said.

Groundwater is used to produce 40 percent of the country’s grain.

In June, the state paper China Daily admitted that the nation “may be plunged into a water crisis” by 2030 when its population is scheduled to peak at 1.6 billion.

It just seems that regardless of the evidence that practices like these cause destruction, the U.S. insists on continuing a form of ecological arbitrage which offers short-term gains in productivity that won’t be paid for until long after those who’ve enjoyed them are gone.

Ironically, one of the main motivations behind the G8 plan is that we, the richest nations in the history of the planet, are feeling — as the Reuters report declared in its headline — “cash-strapped” at the moment.

As I see it, the best way to feed billions of people is not through more industrial agriculture, but rather through the expanded application of agroecological techniques — meaning working with the land, rather than against it. If a crop requires drilling into ancient aquifers for irrigation, it’s probably not a crop that’s suited for the region in question. And of course, agroecology also calls for minimal inputs of fertilizer and pesticides and no GMOs. I’m not the only one who believes this; the U.N.’s “Save and grow” program for developing world farmers is itself based on agroecology.

All of which is to say that the quest for corporate sponsorship for agriculture in the developing world is misguided. Supporting sustainable efforts in developing nations isn’t about who can write the biggest check. It’s about a willingness to spend our money in different ways. But before that can happen, the G8 governments must accept that the risks from expanding the industrial approach to agriculture — such as the idea that irrigation can contribute to sea-level rise — are real and planetary in scale.

Filed under: Food, Industrial Agriculture

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Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: The success or failure of my No New Stuff challenge hinges on a bottle of mousse.

I stood in the hair aisle of the salon for a good five minutes a few weeks ago, holding an intense internal debate. Was I allowed to buy it? Pro: Mousse could technically be considered a toiletry item, therefore exempt under my original No New Stuff terms. Con: I already owned a bottle of a different hair product. Pro: But that stuff doesn’t work. Con: But shouldn’t I finish the bottle — which would take months under my intermittent blow-drying routine — before re-upping?*

Banning new purchases, even if it’s just for a month, certainly brings fresh philosophical questions to the formerly simple act of buying stuff. Do I really need that dress, that toothbrush, that couch pillow? Could I get by instead by repairing something I already own? And if only a new one will do, does it have to be brand-new, or can I save money and materials by picking up a new-to-me item?

I handled a few key repairs and refurbishments last time around, so it’s time now to consider the secondhand solution. I’m already a huge fan of resale shops and online marketplaces, so I figured that used shopping would be an easy out for my retail desires. That coveted lime-squeezer thingy? That shoe rack I’ve been meaning to buy? Surely Craigslist would have my back.

But, as those of you who also swear by resale shopping already know, I’d ignored the hunter-gatherer problem. Secondhand shopping is fabulous for gathering, or browsing around to discover the bounty of items Lady Luck has brought your way today — as in, “Wow, I never realized how amazing leopard-print salt shakers could look in the kitchen!” But hunting — as in, “I really need size-10 rubber rain boots” — well, sometimes you get lucky, but often, you don’t.

During the past two weeks, I’ve attempted to hunt the following items from Craigslist, Freecycle, and resale shops: shoe rack to declutter the hallway, flower pots for some new herb starts, and throw pillows for our back-aching couch. Along the way, I also tried to gather a desk lamp, a set of cookbooks, and a mini-vacuum. The distinction doesn’t actually matter, because I didn’t get any of them. Either I didn’t find what I needed or I was outbid when I tried to swoop in (the secondhand market around here must be cutthroat).

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t eventually be successful in my secondhand endeavors. My patience may still be rewarded on some fronts, such as with the vacuum or the throw pillows. But for others — well, my fledgling cilantro plant isn’t doing so hot in its stopgap Yoplait container.

Technically, my No New Stuff challenge ends tomorrow. But after a month, the single most outstanding lesson from the exercise is just how arbitrary it all seems. If I stock up on the things I’ve delayed buying when the calendar flips to June, have I really done myself or the world any good? And on the other hand, does it make any sense to let my scrawny cilantro plant die because I can’t find any secondhand garden pots?

Back to that bottle of mousse: I bought it. A strict constructionist would call my monthlong challenge a failure, and strictly, I suppose they’d be right.

But I prefer to think of that purchase as symbolic of the lasting success of the No New Stuff challenge. In the months to come, I will definitely buy some new stuff. There is no way around purchasing a bridesmaid dress in the next few weeks short of dropping out of a dear friend’s wedding, to start. And the long-term consequences of not buying a few new sports bras are too horrifying to consider. I’m sure there will be more.

I hope I’ll approach every one of them like I approached the decision to buy the mousse: thoughtfully, carefully, even with a bit of agony. Of each one, I’ll ask, “Can I realistically do without this? Is there any way to make do with something I already have? Can I pick one up used?” If I can honestly answer “no” to all of those hurdles, then I can proceed to the cash register guilt-free.

And if not? I’ll see you in the home improvement aisle, or the resale shop, or trolling on Craigslist. Give me a wink if you feel the same way. I’ll be the one fervently searching for a lime-squeezer thingy.

*While it would certainly be admirable for me to give up all styling-related energy and resource use, I still live in a world where professional standards dictate I have to look halfway decent on occasion. For me, that requires a gob of styling product and a steady hand with a blow dryer.

Filed under: Article, Green Living Tips

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Ecova/Atlanta, GA

Director, Operations Control Center
Responsible for high performance operations for our 24/7 call center including, but not limited to, planning, directing, implementing, financial budgetary responsibility, continuous improvement strategy, and monitoring. Ensures the highest quality customer service possible to meet or exceed Ecova’s corporate customer satisfaction metrics.

Role Description
• Responsible for the design, implementation, monitoring and performance of both national and international call centers (as planned) supporting a range of Ecova products and customers.
• Manage and develop various response center teams based on product-support skill requirements and service level agreements.
• Assess and set maintenance and improvement direction for key business systems related to all call centers
• Establish a combination of standard and one-off KPI’s to provide a uniform customer experience across all call centers while managing the unique needs of each call center.
• Deliver Best-Of-Class team performance to customers
• Lead innovation effort relative to continuous monitoring center in terms of technology, scalability and service levels
• Develop operational procedures and systems to effectively manage customer connections through various means such as telephone, emails, IM, or other digital format.
• Conduct routine analysis in order to make recommendations to increase the call centers efficiency and automation if necessary.
• Improve processes and management methods to generate higher profit/production and optimal workload conditions.
• Establish and maintain open communications and good working relations with back office departments to facilitate service delivery.
• Manage and maintain call centers staffing and scheduling models, workloads and shift forecast demonstrating high efficiency and low cost.
• Oversee the generation of comprehensive reporting and analysis tools including performance metrics and productivity reports with long term trending models to support corporate business objectives.
• This position requires an individual with exceptional written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to work independently with minimal direction, with a proven track record as a proactive, motivated and results-oriented leader.
• Develop and implement processes to monitor, audit and improve the quantity and quality of sales activities by call center
• Favorable if candidate has call center or support center experience in the facility operations/maintenance arena.
• Assist in development of RTO group goals, objectives and KPI’s.

Role Competencies
• Bachelor's Degree
• Minimum 7 years of management experience working with multiple call centers (national & international) with a focus on program/project management support
• Minimum 7 years people management responsibility including demonstrated experience driving a high performance organization and workforce or organizational design strategy that drives a highly efficient call center.
• Design, implementation and management of distributed call centers
• Design of Automatic Call Distribution and other digital media in support of customer interactions.
• Understanding of the typical call center infrastructure systems: work order tracking, asset management, phone systems, knowledge base systems, interactive training tools, etc.
• MS Office/mastery level
• Advanced interpersonal and coaching skills
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop call center staff members
• Advanced oral and written communication skills
• Knowledge of Avaya phone and ACD systems preferred
• Knowledge Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) preferred
• Advanced technical knowledge
• QA/QC experience
• Financial and performance review and reporting skills
• Advanced client integration
• Problem-solving abilities
• Critical thinking skills
• Ability to manage multiple stakeholder relationships
• Ability to analyze data and trends in order to improve call center performance
• Intermediate – mastery presentation skills
• Budget experience

Ecova Information
Our salaries are competitive and commensurate with experience. We are a performance-based culture and have goal-based incentive programs and generous employee benefits. Our comprehensive benefit package includes medical, dental, vision insurance, life, AD&D, short- and long-term disability insurance. We also offer flexible spending accounts and 401(k) with a generous employer match.

Ecova is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to age, race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation or preference, religion, marital status, citizenship, veteran status, or physical or mental disability.

To learn more about Ecova and to apply online, please go to: http://www.ecova.com/about-us/careers.aspx.

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A version of this article originally appeared on Climate Progress.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has a new report out, “Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas” [PDF]. Unfortunately, the IEA buried the lede — the Golden Age of Gas scenario destroys a livable climate — so the coverage of the report was off target.

For instance, The New York Times opines, “Energy Agency Finds Safe Gas Drilling is Cheap.” And the Council on Foreign Relations headline is similar: “Safe Fracking Looks Cheap.”

That’s true only if a ruined climate, widespread Dust Bowlification, an acidified ocean, and rapidly rising sea levels constitute your idea of “safe.”

Still, the IEA deserves much of the blame for this miscoverage. It’s not until page 91 (!) of the full report [PDF] that the agency explains that adopting its “Golden Rules” for developing shale gas doesn’t stop catastrophe:

The Golden Rules Case puts CO2 emissions on a long-term trajectory consistent with stabilizing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse-gas emissions at around 650 parts per million, a trajectory consistent with a probable temperature rise of more than 3.5 degrees C [6.3 degrees F] in the long term, well above the widely accepted 2 degrees C [3.6 degrees F] target. This finding reinforces a central conclusion from the WEO special report on a Golden Age of Gas (IEA, 2011b), that, while a greater role for natural gas in the global energy mix does bring environmental benefits where it substitutes for other fossil fuels, natural gas cannot on its own provide the answer to the challenge of climate change.

D’oh! Or is that duh?

The IEA was far clearer and blunter when it released its original report, as I wrote last year. At the time, the Guardian story put it well:

At such a level, global warming could run out of control, deserts would take over in southern Africa, Australia and the western U.S., and sea level rises could engulf small island states.

Not exactly a champagne moment.

Also, it’s far from clear that 650 parts per million (ppm) is even stable, in the sense of not triggering carbon cycle feedbacks that cause further warming — or not crossing dangerous tipping points.

If we risk warming beyond 3.5 degrees C, we are courting multiple, simultaneous disasters. Such warming is “incompatible with organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation,’ is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. 4 degrees C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level),” according to professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change in Britain (see here).

Also, the IEA scenario assumes coal use is basically flat from 2020 to 2035, which the report makes pretty clear would require a price on carbon. Without a carbon price, natural gas is a brige to nowhere and can actually crowd out carbon-free sources of power. That was precisely the point made by Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, at a London press conference for the 2011 report:

While natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a fossil fuel. Its increased use could muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables and nuclear, particularly in the wake of Fukushima. An expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change.

The Guardian focused on the crowding effect for its piece Tuesday on the new report, “‘Golden age of gas’ threatens renewable energy, IEA warns.”

To be clear, the “Golden Rules” proposed by the IEA still lead to a 20 percent rise in energy-related CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2035, a time we need to be slashing global CO2 levels. As climatologist Ken Caldeira told me in March, natural gas is “a bridge to a world with high CO2 levels.”

Oh, and there’s a mini-bombshell that the IEA sticks in a footnote when discussing options for avoiding the 3.5-plus degrees C warming:

This conclusion could be changed by widespread application of technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which could reduce considerably the emissions from the consumption of gas (and other fossil fuels); but this is not assumed in the period to 2035.

It’s wise not to assume much carbon capture and storage (CCS) by 2035 given the unresolved feasibility, permanence, and safety issues surrounding CCS as well as the fact that CCS efforts around the world are being scaled back or terminated.

But here’s the footnote:

There is the possibility that the capacities for CO2 storage might be affected by hydraulic fracturing. A recent study (Elliot and Celia, 2012) estimated that 80% of the potential area to store CO2 underground in the United States could be prejudiced by shale and tight gas development, although others have argued that, even if the rock seal in one place were to be broken by hydraulic fracturing, other layers of impermeable rock underneath the fractured area would block migration of the CO2.

Yeow!

I’d been meaning to blog on that study, “Potential Restrictions for CO2 Sequestration Sites Due to Shale and Tight Gas Production.” No, this study doesn’t mean fracking will wipe out all potential CCS storage areas. But it does suggest that an all-out fracking spree — aka the Golden Age of Gas Scenario aka GAGS — will constrict our storage options in the future.

Finally, on my 2011 post on GAGS, Tyler Hamilton, business columnist at The Toronto Star, commented:

Not only is gas threatening to crowd out renewables, cheap natural gas — viewed as an input fuel — is dramatically improving the economics for unconventional oil. More cheap gas means more dirty oil. Not a good combination.

The bottom line is that if your goal is to stay under or as close to 4 degrees F warming as possible, then we can’t be investing significant resources in new fossil fuel infrastructure — especially without a high and rising CO2 price.

Filed under: Article, Natural Gas

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A version of this article originally appeared on Climate Progress.

Climate change is already keeping climbers off Everest. (Photo by Mandala Travel.)

Mount Everest has become a microcosm for the rest of the planet. Once an isolated place for adventurers, the mountain is now extremely crowded, polluted, and facing dramatic changes as global temperatures rise.

As commercial climbing outfits have blossomed over the last two decades, more and more climbers are flocking to Everest. The overcrowding problem became clear earlier this month when the mountain was clogged by a traffic jam of roughly 150 people trying to reach the summit — contributing to the death of four climbers.

The traffic jam made big news. But a couple weeks before the incident, another major event took place on the mountain that only got attention from within the climbing community.

Russell Brice, head of the leading Everest climbing operation Himalayan Experience, announced that he would pull his team off Everest, citing unprecedented temperatures that made climbing too dangerous. Heeding advice from experienced Sherpas worried about the warmth, Brice decided to cancel his 2012 expedition because of unstable ice.

In a blog post, Brice’s crew explained the decision:

• Already at the beginning of the season, the Sherpas were saying that it was too warm when they were setting up base camp. They were working in T-shirts.

• Our Sherpas continuously reported that the icefall is more dangerous and the “popcorn area” is more active this year. They were not worried about taking the risk but they were very aware of the increased hazards.

• In 2011, this risk of the looming seracs on the West Ridge was more acceptable as the debris fell into the Bergschrund, a deep crevasse between the glacier and the mountain. Then we were about 100 meters [328 feet] away from where debris was falling, however, this year the Bergschrund is filled and there is no protection at all. The route has dropped off and now we are only 25 meters to 30 meters [82 feet to 98 feet] away from debris, which is constantly covering the route.

• When we first arrived at base camp at the beginning of April, the crack in the ice block on the West Ridge was pretty small — now it is probably between 5 and 7 meters [16 feet and 23 feet] wide. This means that the pressure within the ice blocks is huge. So far, we only had small pieces come down, however, there is certainly the potential for a huge collapse, which could kill and injure a large number of people.

• We have been recording the temperature at 2 a.m. when the Sherpas are usually leaving to go through the icefall. There have only been a few days when it was colder than -10 degrees C [14 degrees F], which is unusual and not really cold enough to be moving through the icefall.

• Now, it is only the beginning of May and lakes are forming at base camp. Today, on May 8, it is as warm as it is normally at the end of the season and it will only get warmer, which means the danger in the icefall will increase.

This is not the first warning sign for climbers on Everest. Apa Sherpa, a Nepali “super Sherpa” who has been up Everest more than 20 times, has expressed deep concern for the changes he’s seen on Everest over the last two decades.

“In 1989, when I first climbed Everest, there was a lot of snow and ice, but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers,” he recently told AFP News in an interview.

In 2011, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development issued an assessment of glaciers in the Himalayas, finding that glaciers in the region have declined by 21 percent over the last 30 years.

Increasingly unstable ice and rock are making Everest ascents more dangerous. Greg Paul, a climber with Himalayan Experience, explained the decision to abandon the mountain this year: “Russell [Brice] expects an accident of catastrophic proportions to possibly [sic] hit the icefall.”

Filed under: Article, Climate Change

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Greenhome.com/San Francisco, CA

Position: Green Website Customer Service Representative
Location: Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Deadline for Application: June 10, 2012
ABOUT GREEN HOME:
We are a leading, eco-friendly ecommerce website that has been helping Americans go green since 1999. We pride ourselves on the largest selection of green products and excellent customer service. We have sold millions of dollars of eco-products, removed tons of carbon from the atmosphere, saved thousands of trees, and kept countless gallons of toxic chemicals out of our waterways, simply by offering Americans green alternatives to mainstream products. Positioned for major growth and expansion, we are looking for a positive, creative individual who is ready to make a positive change.
ABOUT THE POSITION:
This is an entry level customer service position with flexible weekday hours. Part-time position with full-time growth opportunity.
Primary responsibilities:
• Assist with daily operations including customer service, sales and marketing
• Respond to emails, answer phones, track orders, communicate with customers and suppliers
• Update product copy, images, and prices on our website
• Assist with marketing campaigns, research, reports and overall organization
• Participate in company meetings and green product testing
ABOUT YOU:
You are passionate about green, enjoy talking to people, like to organize and analyze data, have a creative flair with words and want to make a positive impact on our planet through educated consumerism. You have a degree in communications, marketing, e-commerce, creative writing, business or similar.
Your strengths include:
• Positive customer service skills and the ability to handle stressful situations with a smile
• Excellent organizational and multitasking capability
• Confident and witty writing talent
• Efficient excel skills with the ability to learn and master new databases quickly
• Retail and/or product sales experience a plus
• Love a challenge and learning about green products
• Social media savvy (Facebook, Twitter, Blog)
Send us your resume, cover letter, and 300 word writing sample via email. Please no phone calls. Hourly Pay DOE. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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International Living Future Institute/Seattle, WA

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) seeks a Living Building Challenge Coordinator to join our staff. The Living Building Challenge Coordinator will provide support to the Living Building Challenge program by providing customer service to project teams and support to the certification, education, research and outreach areas of the Living Building Challenge program. The successful applicant must be a multitasking self-starter, with a passion for the environment, knowledge of online technologies and strong interpersonal and organizational skills.

The position will be filled in Seattle, Washington and will involve periodic travel within the Pacific Northwest and occasionally beyond. ILFI also has staff and programs in Portland, Oregon, Anchorage, Alaska and Vancouver, British Columbia. ILFI offers a collaborative, team-oriented workplace that treats employees as responsible professionals. While the work is demanding, the hours are often flexible, benefits are generous and good times are frequent.

Description of Duties:
Provide customer service by answering general program queries both by phone and electronically and by providing support for our on-line resources such as the Dialogue, the project portal and declare.
Assist the Living Building Challenge Staff by tracking the on-line Dialogue.
Process and support project certifications and project reviews including performing completeness checks on certification intakes, scheduling project reviews and providing resources and support to the third party auditors.
Support the Living Building Challenge staff with a variety of program research, education development and public outreach programs.
Facilitate the Declare program, manage the database and perform outreach to product manufacturers.
Organize and manage volunteers and interns with special projects.

Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in a field complimentary to job duties.
Strong ability and affinity for basic office computer programs with the ability to learn new software applications. Hardware and software will be Mac based. Familiarity with, and interest in, data tracking systems.
Previous customer service experience or strong people skills.
Friendly, outgoing nature and an eagerness to serve the public interest. A good sense of humor is greatly desired. An ability to go with the flow in a fast paced, high-energy organization is a key to success in this job.
Demonstrated commitment to ILFI's mission.

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