The ride home is probably what I enjoy the most because it’s a total release from the stresses of the day, and it gives me something to look forward to.  It seems like no matter how frenetic my workday was, I feel re-energized by the time I get home.  Plus, you’re able to breeze by all those cars stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic!

To look up Bike to Work events by zip code, check out: Bike Month Special Events

If you’re not sure of the best route to choose, use Google Maps and click on bike icon to get bike routes. Just click on the bike icon for your directions.

And don’t forget, safety first!  Here’s a quick guide to the rules of the road: 5 Steps to Riding Better

My name is Joe Harris, and I am the skipper of the sailing vessel GryphonSolo2 (“GS2”), which will be competing in the upcoming Atlantic Cup yacht race.  I have been competing in offshore single and double-handed events for about 15 years in a series of boats, but was lucky enough to build a new Akilaria RC2 Class 40 in 2011 that is truly state-of-the-art and wicked fast!

We are now looking ahead to the Atlantic Cup, which will set sail on May 11^th  out of Charleston, SC.  We are very excited to be working this year with Green Mountain Energy Company, the nation’s longest serving competitive renewable energy retailer, and the sponsor of the GS2.  But our boat isn’t the only one benefiting from Green Mountain’s sponsorship this year: they’re the official energy sponsor and carbon offset provider for the entire 2013 Cup.  The Green Mountain logo will fly proudly on GS2’s sails and we are looking forward to producing a good result for our new sponsor.

GS2 is a 2011 Marc Lombard-designed Akilari RC2, and after two seasons of racing, I think we finally have her up to speed.  I think it’s fair to say that any of the seven boats have a shot at winning, as the subtle differences in raw boatspeed are outweighed by routing choices and each sailor’s ability to coax maximum performance out of their boat over long distances.  The skippers are an experienced group, so my hunch is that the racing will be extremely close and the win will go to the crew that makes the fewest mistakes.

Stay tuned for more thoughts as the race approaches, and daily blogs from offshore.

Cheers,

Joe

For more updates on the Atlantic Cup visit http://atlanticcup.org. And you can find an in-depth look at Joe’s expectations for the race,at http://www.gryphonsolo2.com/.

Best of luck to all racers!

If you haven’t booked a reservation yet, here are a few resources to help you find nearby “farm-to-table” restaurants that feature locally sourced ingredients in their menus. While you’re treating Mom  to a taste of the freshest and most delicious foods growing in your part of the country right now, you can honor Mother Earth by enjoying a lower-carbon footprint meal. Your mom deserves the best!

1. American Farm to Table has restaurant listings for each state: http://www.americanfarmtotable.com/
2. Eat Well Guide allows you to find listings near you and offers Featured Guides for selected cities like Dallas, Chicago and New York: http://www.eatwellguide.org
3. You can also simply search “farm to table” for your city on Yelp (http://www.yelp.com/)

Finally, if you’re in the Houston area we hope you’ll check out Ruggles Green, Houston’s first Certified Green Restaurant^TM and a Green Mountain Energy business customer.

p.s. Don’t forget to make a reservation, since everyone else will be out Sunday too!

Our carbon offsets donation zeroed out an estimated 14,500 pounds of CO₂ – that’s like 2,600 households turning off their lights for a day! But that’s not all we did to clean up the race…

While you were busy loading up on carbs and catching some Z’s before race day, we power washed the city with our #cleanfootprint, erasing years of dirt from the sidewalks and asking you to consider the impact of your environmental footprint.

Our clean footprints were scattered along the Marathon route for all to see, but ironically the City of Pittsburgh was so in line with being clean, a crew of street cleaners washed the marathon route early in the morning, accidentally washing away our reverse graffiti hours before the race began!

But even though they only lasted a few hours, the footprints did make an impact, and you can see the footprints on our Flickr page.  You can bet that our footprints will pop up again somewhere soon, so stay tuned!

South Texas

• We warmed up the month with $60,000 in donations to Armand Bayou Nature Center and Valley Nature Center, two fabulous non-profits committed to preserving natural resources and educating the public on renewable and restorative environmental practices.

North Texas

• Brookhaven College got a boost of renewable energy with a $60,000 donation to fund a series of solar arrays to be installed on their campus later this year. Brookhaven offers a wide variety of courses and unique programs to some 12,000 students who will learn about the solar arrays and sustainable energy sources with expanded environmental curricula. Faculty across various disciplines at the college will also adopt teaching lessons on solar energy.

Pennsylvania

• The Sun Club headed North East to make sure the plants over at Greensgrow Farms could grow even greener with a $20,000 donation for a solar energy source, making the farm our first Philadelphia recipient to receive a major solar donation.

New York

• We also got Greyston Bakery to start baking brownies with a helping of sunshine as we flipped the switch on their new solar array!

Central Texas

• To round out the month, the animals at the Texas Humane Heroes, a non-profit No Kill animal adoption center, decreased their carbon paw print last week with the installation of the shelter’s new solar panels! The panels were funded by a $50,000 donation made this past January, and were installed on a pavilion in their brand new Memorial Garden, a place for pet owners to sit and remember pets they have loved and lost.  The array was dedicated in a special ceremony during a volunteer event at the shelter. Photos from the event are on our Flickr page.

Greensgrow Farms accepts a donation check for $20,000 from Green Mountain

Green Mountain employees dedicate solar panels on the roof of Greyston Bakery

Earth Month may have come to an end, but the Sun Club never rests! We’ve got plenty more donations and dedications in the works for the coming months, and through the rest of the year. Of course, none of these donations would be possible without the monthly contributions of our dedicated Sun Club members. If you haven’t joined the Sun Club yet, please go to www.gmsunclub.com and learn how you, too, can help us spread sunshine to great non-profits across the country!

To share the progress we’ve made together, we document our environmental achievements through GreenMountainEnergySustainability.com. There’s much to be proud of!

• Our customer impact is bigger than ever. We’ve entered four new markets in the past year and expanded our community of dedicated customers.  As a result, our impact is growing!  Over the past 15 years, our customers collectively have avoided 24.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide (CO₂) by choosing cleaner electricity and carbon offset products. That’s like 12.7 million households turning off all their lights for a year!  What’s even more amazing, is that in 2012 our customers racked up more than 5 billion lbs of CO2 avoided!   See the difference our customers are making in By the Numbers.

• We’re setting new standards for ourselves.  Our Austin headquarters recently earned recognition as a certified local green business through the City of Austin’s Green Business Leaders program. We’re working on upgrading our Austin office from LEED® Silver to LEED Platinum. We’ve also incorporated more efficiency efforts to reduce our overall greenhouse gas emissions across our operations. Learn more about Our Standards, including sustainability certifications and policies.

• Sun Club Members set a shining example. Our customers who participate in the Green Mountain Energy^TM Sun Club^TM will help us donate our 50^th solar installation this year, proving that solar energy is gaining momentum in helping local communities!  Since 2002, Sun Club members contributing $5 monthly to the program have helped fund more than $2.2 million in solar array donations, totaling 535 kilowatts of solar power.  See the bright future they’re helping create through the Sun Club.

• Employees go green, too! We’ve offered programs to help employees lighten their environmental footprint for many years. Now, we’ve pulled them together under a comprehensive employee program that we’re pretty proud of – from local food delivery to discounts on solar to green commuting incentives. Check out our new and enhanced Employee Programs.

We think these are some amazing accomplishments.  Thanks for helping make this our most exciting Earth Day yet!

That’s why we’ve partnered with Nest to offer our customers the Nest Learning Thermostat^TM, a smart thermostat designed to help you save energy.    The Nest Learning Thermostat learns your schedule, automatically saves energy when you’re away and can be controlled from your smartphone or laptop.  Our favorite part is the Nest Leaf^TM – it pops up when you’re saving energy, and helps guide you towards smart temperature choices.

Meet the Nest thermostat:

Sign up today for Pollution Free Efficient with Nest, made from 100% wind energy. It’s a home energy makeover, wrapped up into one plan:

• You’ll receive the $249 Nest Learning Thermostat at no charge.
• Then we’ll help you reduce your energy use even more by throwing in a $50 discount to our Energy Saver online store for energy-efficient home products.
• We’ll even green up the delivery of your Nest by purchasing carbon offsets to reduce the carbon impact associated with shipping.

To enroll, visit greenmountain.com/nest or Contact Us directly.

Happy savings!

*Enrollment in Pollution Free Efficient with Nest is limited and provides one Nest Learning Thermostat per household. Thermostat quantities are limited. You must have a residential Texas, New York, Illinois or Pennsylvania service address to enroll in this plan.  Thermostat not compatible with all HVAC systems. We recommend that you check the compatibility of your system online at nest.com/works before enrolling in this plan. If thermostat is not compatible, you may cancel this plan with no penalty as long as you notify Green Mountain within 90 days and return the Nest Thermostat in good condition.  A limited warranty is only provided by Nest, and except for that limited warranty, Green Mountain and Nest make no warranties. Green Mountain is not affiliated with Nest or the products and services it markets. View details of the Nest limited warranty at nest.com/legal/warranty/.

Now through May 1^st (May Day!) you can tweet a picture of your Greyston Bakery brownies using the hashtag #solarsweets and be entered to win a FREE BOX of brownies in our Solar Sweets Giveaway!

Greyston brownies can be found at all Whole Foods Markets. Not only will your sweet tooth be satisfied, but you’ll also be doing a sweet deed for those in need: 2% of sales go toward the Whole Planet Foundation to fund poverty alleviation worldwide.

The five lucky winners of free brownie boxes will be announced on May Day!

Guidelines:

• Submissions collected via Twitter only
• Not eligible without hashtag #solarsweets
• Winner will be chosen at random, not based on creativity
• The sweepstakes will run April 18 – May 1, no entries will be accepted outside of this time period
• If chosen as a winner, Greyston will send you a direct message to obtain contact information in order to coordination brownie delivery

Satisfy your sweet tooth and tweet away!

The Sun Club has been busy in our other markets, as well. You saw us donate solar funds to some Nature Centers in Texas earlier this month, and we recently presented donation checks to Brookhaven College in Farmer’s Branch, TX, and Greensgrow Farms in Philadelphia, PA.

Stay tuned for even MORE Sun Club updates as we begin to wrap up Earth Month!

How the program works:

1. Texas non-profit organizations contact Jennifer.Thrasher@greenmountain.com.
2. Green Mountain creates a customized web page for your non-profit.
3. Direct your Texas supporters to this web page to sign-up for Green Mountain Energy® electricity service.  Don’t worry – Green Mountain will help by providing customized promotional tools!
4. Every approved enrollment earns your organization $25. For new customers who also sign up for the Green Mountain Energy^TM Sun Club^TM, you receive another $5.
5. Your supporters are also rewarded with a $100 gift card.   It’s a win-win!

If you’re tired of selling candy, coupon books and other items with little lasting value, contact us today and together we can make a difference.

Highlights of the new office, which you can see in our Flickr album, include:

• Repurposed wood from shipping crates installed on many of our wall spaces
• Use of occupancy sensing-lights and lots of natural lighting
• Low-flow faucet aerators to avoid wasting water
• Composting and recycling options, including for  cell phones, ink cartridges, batteries, and plastic bags  not provided through the building’s recycling collection
• Sub-metered electricity use and an energy management system to help us more closely monitor and manage our energy use through in-office displays and competitions

Becoming a member of the Austin Green Business Leaders means becoming a member of Austin’s green business network, and Green Mountain is excited to join the ranks of those helping to create a more livable and sustainable city. To learn more about what it takes to be a Green Business Leader, check out the program’s website.

We’re also proud to announce we are the Premier Sponsor of the Hill Country Conservancy’s Fourth Annual Give 5% to Mother Earth campaign this Earth Day! Local Austin businesses have committed to donate five percent of their gross sales on April 22^nd to a handful of non-profits that dedicate their time and energy to making Central Texas a better place. A press conference featuring local leaders and non-profit beneficiaries will be held at our Earth-friendly office space on Earth Day. Stay tuned for pictures from that event.