Austin Texas Real Estate Blog

Austin Brings Home the Environmental Gold

December 17th, 2007 6:25 PM

I love living in a place where people, both in the private sector and the government, strive to do what’s right. It’s refreshing to see Austin continue to set the bar across the nation for protecting our environment.

In other related news, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has proposed guidelines to implement legislation passed this year requiring electronics producers to provide recycling programs for consumers in Texas. Environmental advocates, local government leaders and electronics recyclers have argued that the proposed rules do not do enough to ensure the programs will be convenient for residents and provide responsible recycling.

Yesterday the three TCEQ Commissioners voted to invite broad comments so that they can consider alternatives that would strengthen the proposed guidelines, which are weak.

Visit www.TexasEnvironment.org for the latest details on the campaign to make electronics producers recycle.

Austin in top 10 list of greenest cities

…excerpt from the Austin Business Journal

Austin ranked ninth in a national survey of the top 10 green cities in the country.

According to data compiled by the EarthLab Foundation, a Kirkland, Wash.-based nonprofit, Chicago tops the list followed by New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Remaining top 10 green cities are Minneapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin and Portland.

The data used for the survey is based on a sampling of more than 1 million U.S. residents who used EarthLab’s Carbon & Lifestyle Calculator, which scores users’ personal impact on the environment, factoring in energy consumption, transportation, work, recycling and other lifestyle habits.

U.S. green-tech hot spots go coast to coast

Investments in green-tech start-ups are going through the roof. Which regions in the U.S. are in the lead?

excerpt from News.com

Texas

Texas netted 149 million in clean-tech venture dollars in the first nine months of this year, with more than half of that going to Austin-based HelioVolt, a company that is building solar electric cells using CIGS (copper-indium-germanium-selenide), an alternative material to silicon.

The Austin area is the hotbed of activity for Texas clean-tech start-ups, where there is a University of Texas-linked Clean Tech Incubator to foster development of new companies.

Austin benefits from the advocacy of Mayor Will Winn who is pushing for mass transit, a green-building program in conjunction with municipally owned Austin Energy, and plug-in hybrid stations. “You tell people (they) get to drive around on West Texas wind, not Middle East oil, and it resonates with a broader spectrum of people,” Winn says.

Texas has the fastest-growing wind industry in the U.S., according to the American Wind Energy Association. And its strong ties to the gas and oil industries make it a natural place to test material technologies to improve refineries and exploration.