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Tweet to Trim SXSWi's Carbon Footprint
Austin-based Green Mountain Energy Company has issued a challenge to SXSW attendees, speakers, fans and even those who were not able to attend, but wish they were there - spread the word and offset the conference's carbon footprint.
The goal is to offset 80 tons (176,000 lbs) of CO2 during SXSWi. That is equivalent to:
- Powering Bruce Springsteen's epic 50s Fender Esquire for 219,000 hours
- Brewing 3.6 million cups of coffee
- (In Twitter terms) one-third the weight of a real-life Fail Whale
- Charging 1.4 million iPads for 8 hours
- Turning 156,450 cars in Austin into bikes
Anyone can help green the festivities by tweeting the hashtags #green and #SXSW together in the same message.
For every tweet, Green Mountain will provide free carbon offsets. One tweet = 587 lbs. of CO2.
For a live view of the carbon offsets in action, and to help spread the word, visit GreenMountainCleanerTimes.com/greentweet.
Green Mountain Energy still needs help to reach its goal, so while you are tweeting your enthusiasm for a speaker, band or session, just use two little hashtags and help lighten the conference's impact.
Andrea Newell has more than ten years of experience designing, developing and writing ERP e-learning materials for large corporations in several industries. She was a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and a contract consultant for companies like IBM, BP, Marathon Oil, Pfizer, and Steelcase, among others. She is a writer and former editor at TriplePundit and a social media blog fellow at The Story of Stuff Project. She has contributed to In Good Company (Vault's CSR blog), Evolved Employer, The Glass Hammer, EcoLocalizer and CSRwire. She is a volunteer at the West Michigan Environmental Action Council and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can reach her at andrea.g.newell@gmail.com and @anewell3p on Twitter.
