David did an awfully good job of keeping you guys posted while we met and greeted visitors to our booth at the Chicago Greenfest. While we all took time out to see speakers and meet with other green business people, a major part of our time over the weekend involved asking people to use the carbon calculator we had available to figure up the CO2 emissions they created by traveling to the event.

Why would people do that? So we could offset those emissions, of course.

Turns out that offering free offsets (specifically wind energy credits provided by Renewable Choice Energy, a company Shea helped found) worked pretty well as a draw: we had hundreds of people visit, and their emissions tallied up to almost 74,000 pounds. As we told people visiting the booth, their travel was the biggest source of CO2 emissions for the event — GreenFest itself offset the electricity used at Chicago's McCormick Center, and that came in at over 17,000 pounds. Needless to say, we were happy to help neutralize some of the carbon footprint of Greenfest…

We also got some great photos. Super-intern Liam handled most of the photo duties for us, and we'll get some of those posted. In the meantime, here's one that appeared on Treehugger yesterday: the cute woman on the left is Leonora Oppenheim, one of my compadres at Treehugger. The guy who looks like a well-fed English professor with thinning hair… OK, that's me… We're standing in the festival's Fair Trade Pavilion, right in front of the Kallari Association's booth. The Fair Trade chocolate they were promoting was incredible — David got a whole bag of it…

Needless to say, we had a great time — we hope those of you who attended will share your stories.

Saturn General Manager Jill Lajdziak after unveiling the Astra (Photo Credit: GM)

I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon talking to GM executives. We've got audio files that we'll be sharing with you as soon as we get some glitches smoothed out, but I wanted to give you a quick overview.

GM scheduled a group interview/conversation with the bloggers at the show and our colleague Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of Global Product Development. If you follow GM's FastLane blog, you know that he's pretty outspoken — that was clear in our discussion, too. It was a fascinating meeting — Lutz addressed not only environmental concerns (even what he thought would happen to vehicles like the Hummer with GM's stated commitment to "reinventing the automobile"), but also the history of design at GM (and how it's come back into prominence), and even the perils of blogging with a PR team watching what you say!

I also met with Saturn's Director of Brand & Product Development Lisa Hutchinson. With the unveiling of the Astra, the Saturn folks were clearly in demand — I was originally supposed to meet with Saturn GM Jill Lajdziak, but the radio folks kept her for themselves. Lisa was clearly in demand, also, so we kept it short and sweet. Essentially,

• Saturn believes that small cars like the Astra will continue to grow in demand.
• The VUE Hybrid will be going through several manifestations, from the current hybrid, to GM's dual-mode hybrid, to a plug-in. No dates, however, for the last stage.
• Saturn believes that green is a good bet, and sees it as a major part of their "evolution."

The last interview I did, with GM's VP of Research & Development and Corporate Strategy Larry Burns, was a blogger's dream (even when it's a green blogger meeting with a high-level executive of a major auto company). I was impressed not only with Larry's passion for his company and its products, but also his command of that company's environmental impact, and its efforts to address them. When I brought up the Rainforest Action Network and JumpStartFord's assertion that GM is focused on green concept vehicles and dirty production vehicles, he answered very thoroughly and very candidly. It's a wonderful discussion, and I can't wait to bring it to you.

I've got to admit I came away from these meetings pretty impressed with GM's ideas about "greening" the automobile. Of course, we'll have to keep a close eye on them, as well as other car manufacturers — everyone's talking green now, but the proof will be in the actions they take. We should probably keep the Wal-Mart standard in mind — judge them by their actions. But we also shouldn't take the relatively easy step of writing GM off because it killed the EV1 and builds the Hummer. If they really get it, the potential for positive impact is tremendous — and we've got to encourage that. I hope you'll listen to the interviews once I get them up here… lots and lots of food for thought.

Crossposted at sustainablog 

Chevy VoltJust spent some time with my blogging compadres at a "walk-through"viewing of the Chevy Volt concept vehicle. As you can see, it's a beautiful car! That was part of the plan, we learned — "green vehicles" aren't always particularly sexy, so Chevy wanted to bring some of the emotional attachment of the Corvette and Camaro to a greener vehicle.

The Volt's been covered widely around the green blogosphere because it's a plug-in hybrid. That is, it has greater battery capacity than traditional hybrids, and can run in an electric-only mode for up to 40 miles. Since that covers the range most people drive in a day, there's potential for tremendous fuel savings (and lower emissions). Though, as some will certainly point out, the source of the electricity that goes into it (and this is the case with an plug-in electric vehicle or hybrid) can still undermine the "clean/green" potential…

Several members of the design team talked about the car with us. I tracked down lead interior designer Wade Bryant after his talk to find out a little more about the materials that go into the interior (they definitely go for an "eco" look and feel inside). Bryant admitted that the materials in the concept vehicle weren't necessarily chosen for their light environmental impact and/or re-use/recyclability potential, but that's "on the shelf" for the production model. He included materials such as bioplastics, and greener fabrics as part of the mix under consideration. He also claimed that most car interiors currently are very recyclable — I'd love to hear if any of you can speak to that…

There's no doubt that the Volt is a very sweet concept — at this point, it's just a concept, though. I'll be talking to GM VP of Reseach & Development and Strategic Planning Larry Burns this afternoon, and will be focused on productions plans for this vehicle… Stay tuned.

Cross-posted at Sustainablog.