I'm stuck indoors here in Shanghai with the flu (getting better, thank you...) and one of my concerned staff members went out shopping for food and cooked me a delicious meal "to help you get rid of your extra fire." I was really touched by his concern and it dawned on me that helping one another is really the way things get done green-wise, and the only way we will solve our "you bet your species" proposition of unmanageable climate change.
 
As the Zen master once admonished his student: Everything you need is right in front of you. Let's call it the Grasshopper Principle.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting everyone get all dewy-eyed and kumbaya all the time (just occasionally). Rather we should foster a "coopetition" where people work together to beat a target, which is exactly what the Green Schools Alliance's Green Cup Challenge does with K-12 schools. Tom Friedman just wrote about this "network" model being used extensively by leading companies in China.

PepsiCo's now zero-waste Walkers plant in Leicester, England, is a great example. In just over a year, the site eliminated or diverted over 30 tonnes of waste per month. How, you might ask? Quite simply, plant management engaged the staff to work toward this very challenging goal and gave them responsibility, appointing "waste marshals" from within their ranks. As PepsiCo notes, "The enthusiasm of front-line employees has been a key driving force for reducing absolute landfill waste."

When I was a grad student at UC Berkeley's Energy & Resources Group, I learned about the "Art Rosenfeld effect," where Art would go around after hours and shut off lights -- obviously this was before the age of occupancy sensors. The amount of energy he saved each year paid for his salary and more! I did the same thing in the New York office of NRDC and you could really tell from the energy bills when I was in the office and when I was traveling in Russia and no, it didn't cover my salary, thank God.

Here's a radical idea for your workplace: Appoint someone to regularly hunt for energy waste and with the monthly savings treat everyone to pizza and beer -- or wheatgrass and mochi on the West Coast. This way there's something in it for everyone and it's not about Big Brother watching you.

Do the same thing for your building's operations staff and be creative. Maybe