Yahoo! is committed to being an environmentally responsible company, and we make constant improvements to our operations to work smarter and more efficiently.

In the past year, we made great progress in increasing our number of Green office buildings around the globe, continuing to push the industry standards for energy-efficiency in data centers, providing meaningful content to our users, and spreading grass-roots impacts through the Yahoo! Employee Foundation (YEF) and the Yahoo! Green Team.

Here is a summary of some great green things that have been happening at Yahoo!:

GREEN ON THE NETWORK
We don’t keep sustainability to ourselves!  We serve the Yahoo! community with smart lifestyle tips every day at Yahoo! Shine Green .  And, we’ve just announced an exciting partnership to promote the launch of America’s most fuel-efficient five-seat car, the Focus Electric, with “Plugged In,” Yahoo!’s first reality competition series on Yahoo! Screen.  Read more about this electrifying programming on Yodel Anecdotal.

Search Trends:

• Searches on Yahoo! for “electric vehicles” are up 2168% this month.
• Hybrid car searches are up 259% this month on Yahoo!, 59% of searches come from males
• Earth Day searches are spiking 226% this month on Yahoo! – searches for Earth Day activities are also spiking.  72% of searches come from females.

GREEN AT WORK
On the data center front, we’re proud to have the best Clean Energy Index score in Greenpeace’s report on the IT industry for the second year in a row. Our Lockport data center also won a Finalist spot in Uptime Institute’s highly competitive Green Enterprise IT annual awards.

And, last year, Yahoo! offices received LEED® Green Building Certification for our Sunnyvale, New York, and Bangalore, offices and our Omaha Data Center.  Additional third party Green Building designations have been awarded to our offices in Dublin, Milan, and Singapore.   As of today, 35% of Yahoos work in designated “green” buildings, up from 0% in 2010, and climbing quickly towards our 2014 sustainability goal of having 60% of Yahoos working in green certified offices. 

GREEN IN THE COMMUNITY
Yahoos contribute their time, talents, and treasure to environmental causes all over the globe.  Through fundraising and grant championships with the Yahoo Employee Foundation (YEF), Yahoos have contributed their own money and efforts to deliver nearly $400,000 in grants for environmental organizations. 

YAHOO! GREEN TEAM
The Yahoo! Green Team is taking action with events around the globe, including Tree-Plantings (Bangalore), E-waste Recycling (Atlanta), Free is Good Re-Use Fairs (Barcelona, Ho Chi Minh City & others) Trashcan Retirement Parties (Sunnyvale,  Beijing & others), Stair Climbing Celebrations(Taipei), Mugstock events (Omaha),  Green Speakers Breakfast (Dublin), Lights-Off Hours (Manila, Singapore, Seoul, etc.) and many more.

Happy Earth Day, from the Yahoo! Green Team!

So what makes Yahoo! so green?

Our company takes a 360-degree approach to being an environmentally responsible company, inside and out. This strategy is especially successful because it’s closely aligned with our financial and audience goals. We do this in three ways:

1) We walk the talk. We are industry leaders in energy efficient design and green operations for our data centers, from our free-cooled Yahoo! Compute Coop in upstate New York to goat-powered landscaping at our data center in Quincy, Washington. Our green practices are implemented in our office buildings around the world as well, and with our award-winning employee commute program.

2) We engage our 600 million online customers to be green in their own lives. We provide answers to their common questions and catch their attention with surprising information. Yahoo! Green is the No. 1 environmental site on the Web globally, and we feature green content regularly on Yahoo! News, Shine, Autos, and other properties.

3) We leverage the passion and commitment of Yahoo! employees worldwide. Our global volunteer green team helps to make life at Yahoo! even greener. Popular initiatives include our 2010 Earth Day “Search-Off” at 17 offices in a dozen countries, our “Chuck the Cup” campaign to reduce disposable coffee cups, and a real-time energy monitoring dashboard at our global headquarters in Sunnyvale.

Our ongoing energy efficiency and environmental efforts are a priority at Yahoo!. We will continue to identify ways we can lead our industry in energy efficiency, reduce our environmental impact, and encourage both our employees and hundreds of millions of customers around the world to be greener every day.

- Christina Page, Director of Climate and Energy Strategy, Yahoo! Inc.

For the first time ever, Yahoo! invited this diverse group of women—who cover topics ranging from living a vegan lifestyle to the impact of political issues on moms—from across the U.S. and Canada to Headquarters for a day (and a couple nights) of inspiration, education and fun. Dubbed “the mother of all conferences”, conversations were sparked between the 62 attendees and Yahoos from Shine, Flickr, Yahoo! Safely, Yahoo! for Good, Yahoo! Green, Social Products, Yahoo! Editorial, Yahoo! Accessibility and Ad Products.

The small group setting allowed for interesting insights, personally relevant conversations and honest, actionable feedback. Yahoo! was able to showcase practical products, services and areas of expertise that were immediately helpful to the bloggers. And the bloggers were able to connect with various Yahoos to tell us what they’d like to see from our products and how Yahoo! can be even more relevant to them as bloggers, moms and consumers. Like each moment of the day, the success of the event and Yahoo!’s relationship with this vital audience, was summed up in a tweet and a couple blog excerpts:

Caffandaprayer: Brands wanting to a) create brand enthusiasts & b) educate tech-savvy users about new/updated products could learn from Yahoo #ymotherboard.

Beccarama, a Yahoo! Mother Board member from New York wrote, “Yahoo! Takes Women Seriously. Yes they wanted to hear from us the mom-blogging community, but they also have an incredible amount of savvy, funny, smart women leading and managing their company.”

Suddenly Single Journey, a Yahoo! Mother Board member from North Carolina wrote, “Oh how I loved loved loved our morning breakout sessions. We worked with Flickr and Shine. How many people can say that? And everyone wants to help us be even bigger and better. How often do you have a corporation like Yahoo! urging you on to success, backing you and supporting you every step of the way.”

Read more about the event and see what the attendees had to say at YodelingMamas.

I for one say “no” to a guilt-ridden, obligation-filled Earth Day.  Instead, let’s have some fun!  That’s what we’re striving for with our Yahoo! Earth Day program.  On our Earth Day microsite and Yahoo! Search, we’re highlighting some of Earth’s biggest puzzles.  Ever wondered why ladybugs have spots?  Or what’s the world’s only immortal animal?  You can find the answers to these questions and more using Yahoo! Search or by visiting earth.yahoo.com.

We’re also featuring common things people search for such as how to turn your old electronics into cash and global warming myths and facts.  And just to balance out all the noise about what we should do, we’re highlighting the five things NOT to do for Earth Day.  Bet you didn’t know that organic isn’t always the best.

The Earth doesn’t really care about national borders, so we’re excited that 22 countries around the world are helping raise awareness of Earth Day by changing their Yahoo! front page logos and linking to relevant Earth Day information.  Our employees are getting into the spirit of fun, too.  Seventeen offices around the globe are holding celebrations.

For instance, in our Sunnyvale headquarters, we’re holding a Search Off where employees will challenge each other to find answers to one of a hundred green trivia questions using Yahoo! Search.  The first one to find the answer wins an eco-friendly prize.  Everyone at the celebration gets free gelato – green tea, pistachio, or mint-chip (because they’re all green!).

And here at Yahoo!, we agree that Earth Day shouldn’t be just one day.  That’s why we’re proud to run the #1 environmental destination on the Web:  Yahoo! Green.  Every day of the year, you can find ways to improve your life and the world.  We also have a vibrant Twitter and Facebook community so you can keep up with the buzz every minute of the day.  We even held a lively Twitter Party (#YEarth) earlier this week where people could ask and answer questions about being green.

Now I’m off to find out if earthquakes are really on the rise or if it just seems like they are.  I hope you’ll join me at http://earth.yahoo.com or follow us on Twitter at @YahooGreen

-Erin Carlson, Director of Yahoo! Green

*Ranking of green sites based on Comscore, March 2010 data.

Today is Carol’s birthday!  As you know, she’s been working overtime since she arrived at Yahoo! in January. However, we heard that when she does get some time away from work, she likes to get her hands dirty in her garden.  So, in celebration of Carol’s green thumb and purple spirit, the Yahoo! Green Team got together and planted an herb garden right here at Yahoo!’s headquarters in Sunnyvale   This is the start of Yahoo!’s first ever Purple Garden, and we’re dedicating the garden to Carol.

To get ready for this birthday dedication, a dozen or so Yahoo! gardeners gathered on a Tuesday morning several few weeks ago, ready for some gardening action. They dug into planter boxes and planted basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, mint, parsley, dill, and purple sage.  The garden boxes were distributed around our main courtyard to soak up the sun.  Today, after a few weeks of growing, the plants were ready for their presentation to Carol!

The Purple Garden is more than just lovely landscaping.  Our café’s Catering Director (also an avid gardener) helped us to select herbs which would not only grow well in the Silicon Valley climate but also be most popular in Yahoo!’s cafés.   That’s right – the herbs in these garden boxes will be used right in our very own URL’s Café.   We’re very excited about this opportunity, especially since our café is installing a food waste dehydrator, which converts food waste back into a nitrogen-rich soil fertilizer.  We’ll be using that very fertilizer to provide nutrients back to the Purple Garden plants, giving us a small taste of the human food web right here at work.  And Yahoos can take extra nutrition home with them when they snap off a sprig of thyme or mint for use in their own home-cooked meals.

Growing an herb garden at the office is a great way to remind ourselves that the combination of good planning, hard work, and attentive dedication can reap great rewards.  Fresh, flavorful, and delicious rewards, in this case!  Happy Birthday, Carol!

Danielle Bricker

Yahoo! Green Team

]]> http://ycorpblog.com/2009/08/28/happy-birthday-carol/feed/ 22 http://ycorpblog.com/2009/06/30/serving-up-greener-data-centers/ http://ycorpblog.com/2009/06/30/serving-up-greener-data-centers/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:54:58 +0000 David Filo http://ycorpblog.com/?p=1853 This morning, at a press conference in Buffalo, New York, with New York Governor David Paterson and Senator Chuck Schumer, we took another big step forward in addressing climate change. We announced plans to build one of the greenest, most energy-efficient data centers in the world.

This is significant because data centers represent the majority of our energy consumption. Keeping Yahoo! running smoothly for more than 500 million people around the world calls for a lot of server power. So we’ve made it a priority to become a leader in designing and building data centers that are environmentally sustainable, investing millions to design facilities that make the best use of the energy we consume.

Here’s what makes us so proud of our future New York data center plans. First, it will be powered by one of the cleanest utilities in the country – fed predominantly by renewable hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls. And second, a record 90% of that energy will power the servers. To put that in context, the industry average is 50% or lower, with the other half dedicated mostly to keeping the servers cool.

For data center geeks, we expect our Buffalo Lockport, NY, data center design will have an annualized average PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.1 or better. To achieve that, we’ve come up with a unique building design that we call the Yahoo! Computing Coop (because it looks like something chickens live in), which is angled to take advantage of Buffalo’s microclimate, using 100% outside air to cool the servers.

We’ve been pushing green data center standards since we started building our own data centers two years ago. For example, our facilities in Washington are powered by zero-carbon wind and hydroelectric sources, and we use free cooling for most of the year, dropping energy consumption by 40-50%. As we build more capacity to meet demand, we’ll continue to focus on innovations and inventions that improve energy efficiency. And we’ve been sharing best practices to encourage the entire industry to put smarter policies in play.

And we’ll continue to push ourselves hard to lower our impact. Today we’re committing to reduce the carbon intensity of our data centers by at least 40% by 2014. In other words, we’ll decrease our average electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from our data centers around the world. We’ll get there through a combination of innovative data center design, improving how we utilize our servers, cloud computing, and locating our data centers in areas where cleaner energy is available.

Reducing our carbon footprint has always been a priority and we’ve decided to focus all our energy and investment on that philosophy. We will no longer purchase carbon offsets as announced in 2007. Instead, we’ll focus our resources on reducing our carbon impact while helping the rest of the industry do the same. We believe creating highly-efficient data centers will have a greater long-term, direct impact on the environment and gives us the best opportunity to play a leadership role in addressing climate change.

So the next time you check your email, do a Yahoo! search, or get the latest environmental info on Yahoo! Green, you can feel good about putting some of the greenest data centers in the industry to work.

David Filo
Co-founder and Chief Yahoo

It’s not that I’m lazy or don’t care. I tell my son a hundred times a day to turn his bedroom light off when he’s not in his room, my security lights are on a timer so I don’t forget to turn them off, I’ve learned how to brush my teeth with a few drops of water, I use organic cleaners, I eat organic food, etc.

But I’ve found that there just aren’t that many useful and truly ‘green’ consumer products on the market.

I’d love to own a small hybrid car but I don’t think my wife, two kids, baby, blind black lab and a I would fit very well, even though I am on a diet. I recently found some interesting looking coasters made from recycled CD’s, but just because I think it’s cool to have a Def Leppard coaster on my coffee table doesn’t really help anything, does it?

Yahoo! Green’s Make it Green campaign (launched last month) could tangibly help change all of this by inviting regular people from around the world to submit ideas that will improve our lives and ‘green up’ our planet.

You don’t have to be a scientist to enter and you don’t have to have a patented product either. That’s because Yahoo! has teamed up with the company I work for, Edison Nation. We have tons of expertise and experience reviewing products, handling intellectual property, and partnering with manufacturers and retailers to put products onto store shelves.

If your idea is selected, you will earn $2,500, a share of sales for up to twenty years and possibly be featured on PBS’ Emmy award winning invention show Everyday Edisons.

So if you think you have a great green idea, don’t delay — Make it Green ends June 30th!

Kermit and the planet thank you.

Michael Cable
Director, Edison Nation

• Buzzing the world: There’s news and there’s news people really care about. That’s what Yahoo! Buzz helps you filter. And now the site has made it even easier to keep tabs on what your contacts and the greater community find most interesting. As part of a fresh redesign, a new “Buzz Updates” tab surfaces the submitting, voting, and commenting activity from your friends and others. And given Yahoo! Buzz’s runaway success as the (insert shameless self-promotion) most popular social content service in the US, Yahoo! Buzz got its passport and just landed in India. Now readers all over India can keep tabs on what’s hot in everything from Bollywood to business in Bangalore. More here.
• Just tell me: The iPhone is truly the one thing I’d want on a desert isle, but let’s face it — its keyboard leaves something to be desired. That’s why Yahoo! Mobile just launched voice search for our Yahoo! Mobile iPhone app. Now you can search for anything — flight numbers, restaurants, gas stations, web sites — by just moving your mouth. You can also customize your “My Interests” tab with your voice — just click on “add anything” and say the topic you want to explore and add to your page. Our voice-enabled search is now available on more than 80 different devices/platforms – from Blackberry (including the newest ones) to Nokia to iPhone and Windows Mobile. Download the app or your update.
• Catch that play?: You can read about sports online, but it’s video that really gets the adrenaline flowing. Yahoo! Sports just revamped their video player so you can do more with the play-by-play. It now has a larger viewing window and you can watch videos in full screen. You can also share links or embed your favorite plays in your blog or what-have-you. And handy big thumbnails make it easier to browse through the video library. Check out this Lakers’ dunk. And then go get air sick.
• Group update: Six months ago, you might have noticed activity updates from your friends popping up in places like Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Profiles. They’ve included activity on Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Music, delicious, and more. This week, Yahoo! Groups joined the fray. Now the questions, answers, advice, and photos you share with your group can also become an update for your Yahoo! connections, offering more airtime for the content you’ve created. And don’t worry — you have complete control over what you want to share. Read more here.
• Make it green: If you fancy yourself a MacGyver type and have an idea for a great new “green” gizmo, get thee to Yahoo! Green‘s new “Make It Green” campaign. We’re searching for the best new green products and do-it-yourself projects so we can turn them into real products. What’s in it for you? A chance to star on the PBS TV show Everyday Edisons, a check for $2500, and the glory of knowing that your little planet-saving idea is lining the shelves of stores. Not particularly inventive? That’s ok — just go give a thumbs up to whatever idea you like best. You’ve got until June 30th. Check it out.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

If anyone out there has created these solutions, or has other green ideas that can improve our lives while helping the planet, we want to hear about them. We just launched Make It Green, a campaign to find the best new “green” products and do-it-yourself projects from everyday people. Make It Green is the newest addition to Yahoo! Green, the # 1 green site on the Web (Comscore, April 2009).

The best ideas will be brought to market as real products on store shelves, earning you $2,500 and a share of the sales. Plus, you could be on the PBS TV show Everyday Edisons. If you don’t have an idea (yet), you can give the “thumbs up” to your favorites to help us determine which ideas will be selected to go to market.

Some of my favorite ideas that have already been submitted include ultrasonic mosquito repellant, a solar clothes dryer, and a hybrid hair dryer. Check out the idea gallery to see other innovations. Who knows, you might get inspired enough to submit an idea of your own.

To take these products to market, we’ve partnered with Edison Nation. They have tons of expertise and experience reviewing products, handling intellectual property, and partnering with retailers to put the products onto store shelves. That’s why there’s a $10 submission fee – to help offset some of the cost of doing all that review.

We’ll also be showcasing some of the great green ideas at Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA, on May 30 and 31. The do-it-yourself community has been hacking solutions to everyday problems with everyday materials, so we’re excited to learn about those ideas, too.

With more than 500 million users, we know there’s phenomenal creativity and innovation out there. Whether you’re submitting an idea or just voting on one, we want to get great ideas in front of the right people to make a difference. So get busy – the program ends on June 30.

Oh, and by the way, our lawyers also want to make sure you understand that terms and conditions apply – see the Official Innovator Agreement (PDF) for details.

Erin Carlson
Director, Yahoo! For Good

I’m not the only one who’s worried, and that’s why this year’s Yahoo! Green Gift Guide is chock full of gift ideas for any budget. We’ve got the Top 10 Green Gifts Under $30. But going beyond that, we put together ideas for ways you can make your own gifts and give gifts of experiences. Many of these ideas are free, and they also show that the holidays don’t always have to be about buying more stuff.

There are some great gift ideas for everyone on my list. At the risk of spoiling the surprise, Dad’s getting the business card holder made of a reused circuit board (for less than $20!). My sister with three kids gets the babysitting gift certificate or maybe the eco-friendly cleaning service. Her kids will get the do-it-yourself gum and candy kit and the Earthopoly game. For Mom, I’m thinking a cooking class or a driving monitor that tracks miles-per-gallon and gives tips on how to save gas. And for my wishlist, I’ve got my eye on this hot organic bamboo dress and the snazzy vegan heels.

The gifts are recommended by green experts, so you can feel confident they’re good for the planet. But they’re also really unique. I never thought about a rubber drum set or a coat rack made of wine bottles. Other items push the limits of “unique,” like an urban chicken coop – get fresh eggs right in your backyard! Or the oddest one yet – a bidet toilet seat that squirts water and blows warm air, all so you can avoid the resource use and waste of toilet paper.

The Green Gift Guide also has a ton of useful information beyond the gifts. The ideas for wrapping, decorating, and entertaining in an eco-friendly way also save money. And it answers those burning questions like, “Which is better, a real or a fake Christmas tree?”

So check it out. Every time I pull up the Green Gift Guide, my holiday anxiety goes down, and my hope goes up for a season of giving that makes both my family and my bank account happy.

Erin Carlson
Director, Yahoo! For Good

In response, as part of our climate and sustainability efforts at Yahoo!, we are partnering with Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) to reduce electricity demand on the hottest days of the year (like today).

When a demand response event happens, the Yahoo! facilities team is alerted by PG&E. Then we let Yahoos know that we’ll be letting our buildings run slightly warmer, and turning off lights that are decorative or near windows.

When we got the call for an event during an unseasonably hot day in May, we were able to reduce our electricity consumption on campus by 13.5% . That’s enough to power roughly 750 California homes. A second event came in July, when temperatures outside reached 95 degrees.

What’s the impact of these kinds of programs? They avoid the need to build additional and costly “peaking” power plants that sit idle 90% of the time except during extreme demand spikes. It’s actually cheaper to reduce energy than to build power plants. In turn, they avoid greenhouse gas emissions (and air pollution) during the curtailment period. It can also help avoid potential blackouts.

During the event, we encouraged our employees to watch how our actions affected our power load in real time via our Green Screen, an online energy monitoring dashboard that tracks energy consumption building by building at our Sunnyvale headquarters. You can see an image below of the results, with a drop-off in energy use starting at 2PM.

Yahoos also received free compact fluorescent light bulbs to help them save money (over $37 per bulb!) and energy at home, along with light bulb recycling information and energy savings tips from Flex Your Power, a state-sponsored energy savings campaign.

If you aren’t a Yahoo! you can still do your part to reduce energy use at peak periods at home. Set thermostats at 78 degrees in the summer, to reduce the load on your air conditioner; shutoff unnecessary lighting; and use appliances like coffee makers, laundry machines, and processing equipment either before noon or after 7 pm.

For more info on saving energy at work and at home, check out Flex Your Power.

Chris Page
Director, Climate and Energy Strategy

As part of Yahoo! for Good’s Purple Acts of Kindness program, a monthly initiative that surprises and delights our local community with random acts of generosity, we reached out to Yahoos all over the country to invite them to share a story about someone they know who could put a $50 commuter check to good use. In just a matter of hours, we gave away commuter checks to 100 deserving individuals. Here are just a few of their inspiring stories:

• “I’d like to get commuter checks for my girlfriend. She commutes every day from San Jose to Oakland on the Capitol Corridor train. She wakes up at 5am every morning to catch the limited schedule. She doesn’t get home till 7:30. She could take the easy way out & drive everyday to save time, but she really wants to help the environment by taking another car off the road.”
• “My girlfriend currently commutes back and forth from Fremont to Oakland. She is a single Mom who is a nurse for the Children’s Hospital in Oakland. She has to be at work at 5:00 to 3:30.I know she could use the pass to save on both money and sleep. =)”
• “I’d like to give my dad a commuter check because at age 58, he has taken up riding Caltrain and his bike to and from work (3 mile bike ride to the station, Caltrain from Hillsdale to San Jose, and then an 8 mile bike ride to his office).”

To find out how you can deal with high gas prices and help the environment at the same time, check out these tips on Yahoo! Green.

Connie Chan
Associate Manager, Yahoo! for Good

Photo from richardmasoner

• Would you like to touch our SearchMonkey?: If you’re a developer or site owner clamoring for a chance to monkey with enhanced Yahoo! search results, sign up for a developer preview of SearchMonkey or mark your calendar for our May 15th developer launch party. It’s our first step toward a totally new open Yahoo! strategy. Buh bye, links and abstracts. Hello, rich results with data like images, deep links, ratings, reviews, etc.!
• Circle of refinement: Yahoo! Local just made narrowing search results vastly easier with that rockstar of geometry: the circle. Looking for a greasy spoon for breakfast, but want one close to the ocean? Click “expand map” on your search query results and move that circle around to whatever ‘hood you’re looking for and make the radius bigger or smaller. As you move the circle, the business results automatically update. Brings new meaning to search radius. More here.
• Share your Flickr love: See something on Flickr and just can’t contain yourself? In this world of instant gratification, it’s now easier than ever to share photos, videos, sets, and groups with Flickr’s simple new “share this” button. Everpresent on the upper right side, it beckons you to email, link to, blog about, or get the HTML code to embed pictures and videos. What’s more, it will auto-complete screen names of your contacts as you type. All the more easy to spread the love. More here.
• Ain’t nothin’ better than free: You’re about to toss your old bottle cap collection when you realize there just might be a 10-year-old aching for a Nehi Red to complete his. That’s when you go check out our “Free is Good” microsite, launched in honor of Earth Day. It’s based on the old “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” adage and it’s there to help you find reuse groups in your neck of the woods. In addition to the warm feeling you’ll get inside from getting cool stuff and keeping other stuff out of landfills, you’ll have a shot at scoring eco-friendly prizes like a Smart car, a trek to a national park, a trip to an eco-resort, a home energy audit, local organic food or public transit for a year, or even free toilet paper (hey, who doesn’t need that?). Get thee green!
• Gimme your digits: You’ll never have to ask that again with the new MyBlogLog feature that lets you instantly add your MyBlogLog contacts and other members to your address book. They’ve rolled out one-click access to vCards (for Outlook, Thunderbird, Address Book on Macs, etc.) and hCards (for you more sophisticated microformats fan). Your info will reflect whatever you specified in your privacy settings. There’s nothing quite like portable data. More here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

September 19, 2003 should be memorable as my son Davis’ fifth birthday. Instead, we remember it more clearly as the day we started the very long recovery from Hurricane Isabel, which had hit our small Virginia town the day before. We lost just about everything in the bottom three feet of our garage to floodwater.

Several months later, I read about the local Yorktown Freecycle Yahoo! group and quickly joined. I immediately saw how it could help my town in its recovery efforts (which is, I might add, STILL ongoing five years later as friends and neighbors continue to shell out to repair floors and foundations).

The group proved useful just a few days after I joined. I had posted a want for a lawnmower and within 48 hours, I heard from “uubooklady.” When she let me know that her husband had recently bought a new mower to replace their 1985 Toro and that we were welcome to it, I was elated. I’ve always been happy to use hand-me-downs, and Deron Beal’s brilliant idea to use modern technology to share belongings locally via the Freecycle Network was a perfect match for my earth-friendly leanings.

When my husband Jim went to retrieve his “new” mower, lo and behold, his work colleague Ellis came pushing it out of the garage! These men worked mere feet from one another at NASA, yet they would have never made the lawnmower connection if it hadn’t been for Yahoo! Groups and the Freecycle Network.

I started FreecyclePoquoson for my own town that very week and have been happily moderating it ever since. We’ve grown to almost 600 members and we connect neighbors on a daily basis.

I’ve given away furniture, kitchen items, clothing, toys, and office supplies. I’ve received puzzles, games, craft supplies, used egg cartons (we raise hens and reuse cartons), even empty Kool-Aid Jammers (which I sew into very cool purses). I also get nearly-expired bread each week from a guy I met on Freecycle, who rescues it from grocery stores. I’m now known as “the bread lady” because I put a giant stack (we’re talking over 100 loaves) on my porch for neighbors who might be too proud to get food from the food pantry but are happy to keep it from being tossed into the landfill.

There are literally MILLIONS of similar stories about how helpful the Freecycle Network has been in people’s lives. I’ve seen time again how, while Freecycle often begins with an experience of a person receiving, it inevitably turns into discovering the joy of giving.

Freecycle, through Yahoo!, makes every day Earth Day and provides a modern, free, easy to use format to prove true the old adage, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It sure beats spending hours having a yard sale or trolling sales!

Davis is nine now. He’s never known anything other than listing his old “stuff” on Freecycle. I don’t know when Poquoson will fully recover, but I do know that Freecycle and Yahoo! have and will continue to play an important part in the healing process… both for our community and for Mother Earth.

Traci-Dale
Yahoo! Groups user
Moderator, FreecyclePoquoson

Empowering green actions through our employees and across our business is something we take very seriously (we launched a consumer-friendly resource for all things green called Yahoo! Green and pledged to be a carbon neutral company last year).

The Green Screen, which uses the Building Dashboard technology by Lucid Design Group presents energy usage in an easy to understand way and gives anyone who approaches the touch screen kiosk the ability to play with the information. Data can be viewed in megawatt hours, tons of carbon, or dollars. So, for example, you can see how many pounds of carbon have been emitted per person on the Sunnyvale campus from our energy usage that day. Employees will also be able to see energy consumption across buildings and compare trends viewed over time. We’re displaying dozens of “Green Tips” too – such as how to take advantage of our award-winning commute options, or where to shop for green products online. In addition to being available in our cafeteria, the Yahoo! Green Screen will be available to all employees worldwide on our corporate intranet to engage participation through suggestions, providing feedback, and just taking part in their local offices.

So now, when we lower the thermostat by 2 degrees in one of our buildings, we can immediately see the effect on energy consumption (and even carbon output).

Our hope is that this opens a healthy dialogue about our energy usage and empowers our employees to be more aware of our impact on the environment, and engages them to take action in their own way. This is one of the small pieces that helps us continue to reduce our carbon footprint and serves as a reminder that any action, no matter how big or how small, does make a difference.

Kate Gerwe
Senior Marketing Director, Corporate Partnerships and Yahoo! Green Team Leader

Photo from Jeremy Johnstone.

A Proggy recognizes “animal-friendly achievement in 21st century culture and commerce…contributing to a more humane life for our entire society.” Whether they realize it or not, the thousands of Yahoos fed by Bon Appetit Management Company in our headquarters cafeteria (known as “URLs”) and beyond are provided with made-from-scratch food choices that minimize our impact on the environment. We are availed with dozens of vegetarian and vegan options, organics galore, ingredients from local farms, antibiotic-free meats, sustainable seafood, and biodegradable to-go containers. The kitchen staff even saves the vegetable oil from our fryers to create biodiesel fuel.

While an award for a corporate cafeteria might not seem worthy of great fanfare, it illustrates a big theme we Yahoos care about — finding innovative ways to help the planet. Many of the earth-friendly details are a result of input from Yahoo!’s Green Team, a volunteer army of employees who keep their eyes open for small changes that can make a big difference.

Here’s a quick video tour of URLs with Chef Bob Hart. He didn’t cook for the Grateful Dead, but he serves a mean gardein.

Kate Gerwe
Yahoo! Green Team
Senior Director, Marketing, Corporate Partnerships