Save the Blue Butterfly!

Guidance Green Volunteer Opportunity

Who:
Everyone is invited to join us, including spouses, children, friends, family.

When:
Saturday, February 7, 2009, 9:00 AM to Noon.

What to bring:
Restoration supplies will be provided by the Palos Verdes PLC. Please wear sunscreen, dress appropriately and bring a bottle of water.

Where:
Defense Fuel Supply Point (DFSP)
3171 N. Gaffey St.
Los Angeles, CA 90731

View Larger Map.

What to Expect:
Volunteers will be enhancing endangered Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly habitat by planting Lotus scoparius (deerweed), which is the food plant for the butterfly, and/or removing non-native plants that may be overtaking the habitat. This will also help the threatened California gnatcatcher, a small gray bird that is also on the endangered species list.

Signing Up:
Please let our Guidance Green team leader, Catherine know by Wednesday, Feb. 4th, if you will be participating and whether or not you will have additional adults and/or children joining you, along with their names.

We hope to see you on Saturday!

Ale Espinosa
Guidance Green

Paper Holiday Cards? Not Guidance...

Each year, around 2.5 billion paper holiday cards are sent in the United States — enough to circle the planet 10 times! That is why this year, Guidance opted to send digital holiday cards to clients, vendors, partners, friends and family members in an effort to reduce additional, unnecessary paper waste. It's all part of Guidance's continued commitment to green living and sustainable business practices.

Paper Holiday Cards are so last holiday season! Spread the word...

Alejandra Espinosa
Guidance Green

Green Your Holidays with Guidance Green!

Guidance Employees Invite So Cal Neighbors To Join Them In Recycling ‘Gently Used’ Items By Donating To Charity; Drop Off Items at Guidance Headquarters in Marina Del Rey

Guidance invites its Southern California neighbors to green their holidays by joining the company in donating “gently used” items to local Southern California charities.

Anyone is welcome to donate gently used clothes, shoes, accessories and toys. Drop them off by Friday, Dec. 12, at Guidance headquarters in Marina del Rey: 4134 Del Rey Ave., Marina del Rey, CA 90292. Click here for the Google map.

Guidance will deliver the items in time for the holidays. For more information, contact Catherine Lanzarotta at clanz@guidance.com.

“This is the season for us to share something of ourselves, and this is a fun way to do it,” said Jon Provisor, Guidance owner and CTO. “Plus, what better way to honor our company’s commitment to reuse and recycle than to give someone else a chance to enjoy the items we don’t need anymore – and to make it easy for others to do the same. We welcome any chance to get to know our neighbors here in the Marina. Come on by and donate.”

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Anyone who considers themselves green in any way should read this book. In fact, everyone should read this book. It’s a much needed paradigm shift from eco-friendliness to eco-EFFECTIVENESS.

The back of the book explains it best.

“Reduce, reuse, recycle,” urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, such an
approach only perpetuates the one-way, “cradle to grave” manufacturing model,
dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of
waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance no wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.

Waste equals food.

Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new. They can be conceived as “biological nutrients” that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Or they can be “technical nutrients” that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being “recycled”—really, downcycled—into low-grade materials and uses. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice and show how anyone involved in making anything can begin to do so as well.

Posted by: Wanda Shapiro

Guidance Green Pictures

Coastal Cleanup Day with Heal The Bay
September 20th, 2008

Tree Care Event with Tree Musketeers
July 19th, 2008

Guidance Green Picnic
July 11th, 2008

iPhone Applications for the Environmentally Friendly

If you own an iPhone, you are probably as addicted to their AppStore as I’ve been over the last couple of months. From silly (yet shockingly addictive) mobile games to restaurant-finder apps, there are over 4,900 applications to choose from (and counting!). There’s really something for everyone at the AppStore. Even for those who care about the environment, like the members of Guidance Green. Check these out:

Local Reuse
Did you know the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 2008 Americans will send over 12.5 million tons of reusable items to their local landfills? You can help reduce that number by listing your items on Local Reuse, an iPhone application that lets users post and search for used goods in their area.

Green Tips and Go Green
So many eco-friendly tips, so little time to learn them … so why don’t you learn them on the go?! With Green Tips and Go Green, you’ll get a brand new eco-friendly tip every time you launch the application. They are both fairly similar, but each will give you a different tip. Double the tips, double the fun!

Enjoy the apps!

Alejandra Espinosa
Guidance Green

--------

Local Reuse™ is a registered trademark of Gigoit, Inc.
Green Tips is a copyrighted work of MacAppetite.
Go Green is a copyrighted work of Webworks and Applications, Inc.

California Coastal Cleanup Day

September 20th, 2008
9am to noon
Over 70 coastal sites throughout
Los Angeles County, Calif.

For the 18th consecutive year, Heal The Bay, a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds healthy and clean, has organized the Coastal Cleanup Day. This year's event will take place at over 70 different locations throughout Los Angeles County on Saturday, September 20th from 9am to noon.

As expected, Guidance Green will be there to help collect what Heal The Bay predict as the 1-millionth pound of trash they have collected in 18 years. The Guidance Green team will report at Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey, CA.

If you'd like to join us, here's how:

• Download and print a copy of the Coastal Cleanup Day flyer to display on your car dashboard to benefit from the free parking from 9 to noon.
• Download and print the event's waiver and sign it. Bring it to the event with you.
• When you arrive at Dockweiler State Beach (or any of the 70 CCD-participating sites), turn in your waiver at the registration table or station #1.
• Proceed to station #2 to receive a safety and education talk with instructions for the day and to know where to clean, what to clean, and why.
• Once you are instructed you'll be ready to receive your cleanup supplies (trash bag, recycle bag, data card, pencil, and glove) from station #3.
• Please return everything at the wrap up of the event at 11:30am. Each site will have special instructions to follow day of, so pay attention to your cleanup captains.

Please note:

• All minors under the age of thirteen must be accompanied by an adult.
• All toddlers and babies must be with their parent at all times.
• All scouts, cubs, and youth groups should follow a reasonable adult-to-kid ratio for the safety of all participants at this event.

If you're wondering what to bring to the event, here's a list:

• a water bottle
• a hat
• sunscreen
• close-toe shoes
• appropriate clothing for a day of cleaning (if you plan on attending a beach site like Dockweiler State Beach, wear layers; if you're going inland to clean, wear clothes that will allow you to work in creek beds and rivers)

Cleanup supplies are provided by the California Coastal Commission at all sites.

For more information, contact Heal The Bay at (800) HEAL-BAY or visit their webiste at http://www.healthebay.org/.

See you on Saturday 9/20!