Green Guru Network

This week is Walk to School Week for the Hastings on Hudson school district.  This innovative international program helps families to focus on the importance of walking to school.  Children are rewarded each day that they arrive at school by walking or biking.  Schools are abuzz with conversation about the walks and there is some serious competition to collect and display the prizes.  

In 1969 most kids who lived within a mile of school walked now only a handful do.  Parents site danger as the number one reason for not letting their kids walk.  Yet one of the most prevalent dangers to kids on their way to school is traffic and drop off hazards caused by parents trying to drive their offspring.  Increased inactivity and obesity among children is a rapidly growing health hazard.    One way to beat these real dangers to kid’s health is to invest the time in teaching children how to walk to school safely. 

Check out Safe Routes to School:

http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/

They have great ideas like the “Walking Bus”; parents take turns walking with kids to school, creating a livelier alternative to carpooling. 

Umbrellas and rain boots are making a come back as quintessential school gear for young children who commute on foot to school.  New friendships are being formed, restless students get to walk off some energy before being asked to concentrate on math, grammar and remembering the names of all the capitals of all the states!  All walkers get a look at the natural world before spending the day indoors Parents get a chance to walk and connect with their kids early in the day while everyone is still fresh.  For those who can’t spare the time to walk both ways leaving the car behind in just one direction, either coming or going, saves half the gas and carbon emissions!

If your school offers Walk to School Week give it a try, it’s the stuff great memories are made of.  If your school doesn’t yet offer Walk to School Week contact me at lea@greengurunetwork.com  and I’ll help you find folks to help you get one started!

I recently helped NJHEPS and its partner Kean University win a three-year $180k pollution prevention grant from EPA Region 2 (which will be starting 1 January '10) to provide multiple workshops to help educate the nearly 400 colleges and universities within Region 2 (NY, NJ, PR, and the VI) on how to reduce their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, thus allowing the schools to protect the environment while saving operating costs. Also in early January, I will be co-keynote speaker at the 9th annual International Business & Economy Conference (IBEC 2010) in Prague, the Czech Republic, partnering with a long-time business associate, Deutsche Telekom's Vice President and Representative of the Board of Management for Sustainability and Climate Change, Mr. Ignacio Campino. I will be speaking on "Corporate Sustainability Performance Goes Mainstream: Investment Metrics and Business Risks/Opportunities", while my friend Ignacio speaks on "Integrating Sustainability into Deutsche Telekom's Global Business Operations and Culture". IBEC 2010 is organized by a group of leading business schools from around the world, and I previously was a keynote at IBEC 2009 in Udaipur India speaking on "Water, the Next Big Sustainability Issue after Climate Change", and spoke at IBEC 2008 in San Francisco on "Metrics for Measuring Sustainability Performance- Latest Developments in the Financial and Higher Education Sectors".