Although landlords are ultimately responsible for a building’s energy efficiency, there are a number of steps which environmentally-friendly renters, some of whom pay their own utility bills, can take to reduce energy costs and consumption. So I am going to share with you some of the easy and convenient steps that we share with our ShoreBank customers and encourage building owners to pass along to their tenants.
*P.S. Many of the tips also apply to anyone owning or inhabiting a home, apartment, or condo.
1. Turn off unused lights and computers and replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs).
2. Caulk and weather-strip windows and outside doors. For older windows, place a sheet of plastic over them and use two-way tape to affix it. The greatest source of heat loss in a home comes from the windows.
3. Remember to use the storm windows which help insulate the home and keep heat inside it.
4. Keep your drapes open in the winter to let sunlight naturally warm the room and home. And in the summer, keep them closed to prevent the place from getting too warm.
5. For each degree lower or higher you set the thermostat, you will save potentially two to 10 percent on heating or cooling costs. In the winter, keep the temperature set at 68 degrees during the day and 55 in the evening. Wearing a sweater or layered clothing will make the temperature more tolerable, especially on days when the bill arrives in the mail.
6. Clean the coils on the back of the refrigerators which contribute to about 15 percent of the total monthly electrical bill. This can help persuade your landlord to finally get around to replacing the old one with an ENERGY STAR model.
7. Get an electric blanket. Besides the joy and comfort that comes from getting into a bed at night with warm sheets, it is less expensive than heating your bedroom.
8. Move your furniture away from the exterior walls to create space between you and the cold walls. This will make space for the air to move around, making the air warmer.
9. Keep your radiator and heating vents clean from dust. Dust and dirt prevents heat from flowing into the rooms where you need it. It’s “no fun” to clean, but being cold and paying more for it can be even more painful.
10. Select ENERGY STAR appliances and products, and check efficiency ratings prior to purchasing.
Whether you own or rent, energy efficiency is everyone’s concern. Please share this information with friends, family and / or your landlord. It might even help some renters get a faster response to a lingering maintenance issue when the building owner understands how it will reduce their monthly costs while adding comfort and value to the property.
In fact many of the improvements are eligible for tax deductions and may help lower income taxes. With the April tax deadline fast approaching, I will explore the tax benefits of buying a home and incorporating energy saving improvements in your 2009 tax return in my next blog entry.
Most banks offer their customers the option of banking online in addition to writing paper checks and conducting transactions at brick-and-mortar branches. However, at ShoreBank we see online banking as more than a way to provide convenient banking options (though it certainly does that). We also see it as an integral component of our commitment to the environment and our position as a triple bottom line institution.
The environmental impact of paperless, electronic banking should not be underestimated. We’re talking about more than the occasional four-by-two inch ATM receipt. For example, Greendig.net estimates that if every household in the U.S. switches to electronic banking, it would save 16.5 million trees each year. That’s paper for envelopes, paper for stamps, paper for checks…all being saved.
Many customers also seem specifically attracted to the green aspects of paperless banking. In 2008, Newsweek reported that 57% of U.S. consumers expressed an interest in green banking when polled about it.
ShoreBank has always seen its environmental commitment as integrally connected to its community development mission. For example, supporting businesses like Indie Energy—a company that designs and builds environmentally-friendly, renewable energy systems throughout the Chicago region— creates jobs for people in the community while making their homes more energy efficient and affordable. By encouraging energy-efficiency whether by financing a green business or providing homeowners with free energy-audits—ShoreBank is helping homeowners lower their utility bills and tackle global warning by working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Want to learn more? One easy-to-use tool for gaining a better understanding of the link between environmental and economic community development can be found on our new website, https://www.sbk.com/. It’s a fully-functional bank website with state-of-the-art technologies to make it easier to manage your money. It also has stories that will engage you in ShoreBank’s mission. Now you can manage your finances and build wealth while seeing, through customer stories, how we are building stronger, healthier communities and reinvigorating the lives of our customers.
So I am encouraging you to browse https://www.sbk.com to help “put a face” onto the opportunities and people we work with —both through online and good old fashioned brick-and-mortar banking. I think you’ll enjoy learning more and hope from these stories you will either begin or continue supporting ShoreBank in its mission.
Despite current economic conditions, low interest rates, upbeat economic reports, and government incentives are making this one of the best housing markets in decades. Whether you’re a first-time homeowner looking to take advantage of the available $8,000 tax credit before it expires at the end of Nov. 2009, or looking to downsize or to upgrade, now is a terrific time to buy a home.
One lesson many people have learned all too well lately is the importance of knowing how to buy a home responsibly to ensure successful, sustainable home ownership. To help you buy a new home and make the best use of your money, I am sharing with you some home buying information and advice.
Begin by having a plan.
Don’t act immediately. Think about what you want – the type of home and the neighborhood – and what you can manage at this point in your life. How will a mortgage figure into your retirement plans or payment for the children’s education? Think about how your cash flow may change in the future. Talk to a mortgage lending specialist very early in the process who is familiar with the community and who can help assess your needs, calculate costs and determine what you can afford.
Then choose a manageable “standard vanilla,” fixed-rate loan and payment schedule that fits your goals. And perhaps, most importantly, ask a lot of questions and be sure you fully understand the terms of your loan.
Be conservative. Equity is the difference between the appraised value of the home and the debt or current loan balance on the home. It is important to have realistic expectations of what the appraised dollar amount is when you are pricing your home for sale. You may qualify for a large loan and find you can’t easily handle the payments because the actual sale price of your home was much less than its appraised value. As I like to say, “Hope for the best, but don’t count on the best,” and borrow only what you need and can afford to repay.
Make a difference.
Maybe the house you have your eye has been vacant and needs some work—the paint is peeling, the floors and cabinets are dull or cracked, or the kitchen needs new appliances. Renovations on any scale are an opportunity to get exactly what you want and increase your home’s value, which in turn strengthens the neighborhood.
But be sure to look at more than just the “carpet and the fixtures” because there are other parts of the home whose repairs can be very expensive. It’s important to ask yourself: Can I afford repairs that may be needed in the first year—the next year? Therefore, I remind you, don’t be afraid to ask questions about the condition of the home while shopping for a home. To avoid “costly surprises,” here are some questions to ask:
Does the home have insulation in the walls, crawl space and attic? Losing heat and letting in the cold is inefficient;
How old is the roof? Asphalt and wood lasts about 20 years, and clay is the most expensive to replace and repair;
Has the heating, cooling, and hot water equipment been updated? Usually the older it is, the less efficient it is; look for the ENERGY STAR label for efficiency;
And what type of material was used for the exterior siding? Was it properly maintained? Can I afford to maintain it because each material, albeit, wood, vinyl and brick, require different maintenance needs, such as cleaning, painting or mortar re-pointing?
There are a wide-array of loans in the marketplace designed to help rehab and purchase a new home. Look for loans, like the ShoreBank Home Energy Conservation Loan, that offer a free energy audits.
The energy saving improvements can reduce your monthly utility bill by 25 to 45 percent while increasing the home’s appraised resale value, sometimes in the neighborhood of 15 percent. In addition, they reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that harm the environment. In fact, our nation’s homes contribute one-third of all green house gas emissions, or roughly the same amount emitted by autos and commercial buildings.
My next blog will share with you some suggested low-cost, eco-friendly home improvements that will add value and comfort to any home. In the meantime, if you have any questions about responsibly buying a home and obtaining a quality, affordable mortgage, please send me an email.
It is official – summer is here! Memorial Day may have felt early this year since we still have a week of May left, but the vacation season is now underway. Whether you are traveling for food, folks, or fun, there is likely a lower carbon way of getting there.
You might guess that the answer is simple. But the Union of Concerned Scientists created a guide to the lowest carbon ways to travel. They looked at three different factors: how far you were going, what the vehicle was, and, the kicker for me, and how many people were traveling with you? It turns out that their research had some surprises.
One big surprise was how important it was to incorporate the size of your travel group when you plan your travels. Overall the lowest carbon emission choice is to travel by motor coach – but the second best choice just might be to fly economy. If your party has two people and you are traveling 1,000 miles then flying economy beats out driving – the flight creates 835 pounds of CO2 while driving would create 1,125 pounds of CO2. It even beats out taking the train which comes in at 860 pounds of CO2.
But the Union is serious when they stated ‘economy.’ A vacation splurge can offset an entire year of environmental conservation actions. One wild example was the carbon impact of a family of four taking a vacation. In the Union’s example, the family used frequent flyer miles to fly first class, for free, with their kids from Chicago to Disney World. First class – sounds great! But not for the environment. It turns out a first class seat takes up twice the space of an economy seat causing twice as many emissions. This single flight created 1.5x more carbon emissions than all of the family’s daily commuting for the year. And they commuted about 35 miles a day in non-hybrid cars! What an eye opener.
The Union even created a table to help you plot the most eco-friendly way to enjoy your summer vacation.
So if you are traveling beyond a walk-able distance this summer give the report a look – it has lots of tips on how to get where you are going.
April has felt like tornado season as Earth Day, Spring, and nine guests have come and gone through my apartment. Since my apartment is already dirty, that makes it the perfect time to make my Earth Day green change and “green clean” instead of “spring clean”. As I tasked myself to research the best ways that I could green clean, every tip surprisingly made me think, “wow, that is so cheap and doable!” To round out a month of green blogging, I wanted to provide you with my five favorite tips on how you too can green clean.
1. Clean your entire home with only six basic ingredients
Almost every website I visited used the following ingredients to clean everything from toilets to carpets to ovens:
• distilled vinegar
• baking soda or borax
• castile or eco-friendly soap
• oxygen bleach powder or hydrogen peroxide
• water
• antiseptic essential oils, such as cinnamon, clove, lavender, and lemon
Thedailygreen.com, whose mission is to show how going green is relevant to everyone, can give you the ingredient combination for your cleaning needs. My favorite combination chases ½ cup of baking soda down a drain with ½ cup of vinegar, covers tightly, and then flushes one gallon of boiling water down the drain to unclog a post-guest drain. And it costs approximately the same as any traditional cleaning product.
Best of all, according to Seventh Generation, if every U.S. household used a homemade green cleaner instead of one 32-oz. bottle of petroleum-based all purpose cleaners, we would use 6800 fewer barrels of oil . I’d say that is one small step for vinegar and one large step for “household kind.”
2. Recycle your paper and old clothes into cleaning devices
Why not look to that hoard of newspapers and clothes you don’t wear anymore to help mop up the grime? Cotton t-shirts are easy to rip into the perfect size reusable cleaning rag. Additionally, most researchers agree that the large pile of newspapers amassing in the corner is ideal for cleaning windows and glass objects before being recycled.
3. Recycle unwanted electronics – they contain precious metals
As I mentioned in my previous post on mobile phones, in a 1.2 billion global mobile phone market, 60% of all purchases replace existing cell phones – while only 1% of them are recycled.
A cell phone contains 14% copper by weight and also contains gold, silver, and about one cent’s worth of platinum. I would not throw away a bracelet if it contained those elements, so why discard a drawer full of mobile phones?
E-cycle these items, just don’t dispose of them!
4. Plant one houseplant per 100 square feet of living area The EPA estimates that indoor air is 2 to 10 times more polluted than outdoor air due to the synthetic materials in much of our household appliances, accessories, and cleaning products. A NASA study of 15 common houseplants found that they could help remove toxins from the air. Although the EPA did not find any evidence that houseplants could remove significant quantities of indoor pollutants, outside of allergies, what is the harm in trying? Plants that might remove home toxins are spider plants, gerbera daisies, chrysanthemums, peace lilies and bamboo.
And let’s face it: green just looks good in a home!
5. Fresh air and weatherproofing is an energy saving combination
According to The Global Warming Survival Handbook, the average US home creates twice the CO2 of a car in one year. That is 22,000 lbs. Taking advantage of warm weather to increase my household’s energy efficiency could also decrease my energy bill by 20-30%. And it all starts with spring cleaning!
Weather proofing windows with “low-e” coasting, blocks heat and UV rays and can lower energy consumption by 20-30%. Additionally, the natural light that longer days provide, enable me to finally change traditional light bulbs to fluorescent ones, reducing lighting energy consumption by 80%.
Wow! My Earth Day resolution poses a lot to tackle! But as a Chinese proverb states “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It’s time to start walking!
It’s certainly an interesting time to be a banker, let alone, one focused on alternative energy and energy efficiency. Even the oft-quoted, “best of times, worst of times” quip doesn’t begin to adequately describe the world at hand. Since there is so much bad news about, I will stick to the “best of times” theme for the moment.
One reason for the “best of times” sentiment relates to provisions in the stimulus package. In particular, the change in the investment tax credit (ITC) from a tax credit to out-right grant opens new opportunities for our triple-bottom line orientation. The ITC is available for the owners of solar, wind, and geothermal systems.
The primary benefit of this change is to eliminate the need for a tax credit investor – which, most often, was a very large bank. Now, instead of selling the tax credit to one of these banks, the owner simply obtains a grant from the US Treasury. While these large banking institutions are often fantastic partners, their involvement presented a challenge for many deals, especially for the small, community-based deals ShoreBank is typically involved with.
For one, the large banks weren’t interested in smaller deals because the transaction costs (and hassle) far outweighed the limited upside for these institutions. With billions of tax liability to offset (hard to believe the good old days were just a few quarters ago), smaller deals were simply too onerous to complete given staffing and time constraints. And since even small deals required hundred of thousands of dollars of tax liability, few alternative investors existed. Consequently, it became very difficult to monetize the ITC credits for deals between $250,000 and $5,000,000 in size.
Secondly, the large banks were very risk averse and had numerous limitations on the deal structure – most of these were not unreasonable, given the risks to them, but cumbersome enough that deals were very hard to put together. Probably the most onerous related to restrictions on other loans needed for the transaction and on requirements of the owner/manager. Again, neither worry was necessarily unwarranted, but both definitely made life complicated.
Now that the large banks aren’t needed, we see lots of potential for smaller firms to become the owners of these systems, especially qualified installers who have been active in the energy industry for some time. If the installers are going to provide 5-year warranties anyway, why not collect a portion of ITC grants as additional compensation – this piece of the pie could be worth several hundred thousand dollars.
We believe the change in the ITC structure from tax credit to grant should unlock lots of entrepreneurial potential and open the door for green job opportunities that simply weren’t possible before the passage of the stimulus bill. It’s one reason to be excited to be a banker nowadays.
Guest Contributor: Ryan Schommer, Project Manager, ShoreBank Building Services
We hear a lot about the environmental impact of cars in the aftermath of record gas prices and global warming. What we do not hear about are the actual parking lots. As a member of the Building Services department, I am responsible for building and redesigning our physical locations to make them more sustainable and energy efficient. We want our designs to serve as models for future upgrades to any physical component of our 35 year history. So, when the bank decided to construct a new parking lot, I was excited to explore options to make it more sustainable.
We wanted our parking lots to provide an environmental impact for those for whom public transportation to our locations is not a viable option despite its accessibility. And fewer parking lots features impact our safety, security, and environment more than out lights - and after careful analysis, LED (light emitting diodes) outdoor lights were clear financial and environmental winners. That is why ShoreBank decided to initiate a pilot program to install outdoor LED lights in the parking lots at one of our branch campuses. In doing so, we became one of the first companies in Chicago to install exterior LED lighting.
LED outdoor lights use 65% less energy and last 7 years longer than either HID or florescent fixtures. For ShoreBank, this energy efficiency will result in an annual reduction of 73000 kilowatt hours, $6000 in energy expenses, and 134000 lbs of carbon emissions or the equivalent of 13 cars (leaving extra space in those lots for you to park). They have a useful life of 12 years, so that also means less waste for landfills.*
Of course, we still want our neighborhoods to be lit enough to deter crime but not so much that our neighbors complain! The icing on the cake is that LED is Dark Sky compliant. That means it provides a truer light designed with control shields to prevent lighting upward or shining into neighbors’ homes. So they keep the light where we want it-aiding in the restoration of the night sky while still helping security cameras and overall area visibility.
Thanks to this project, we now have a sustainable model for 3 more lots to be converted to exterior LED lighting in 2009! This will reduce operating expenses and our carbon footprint. This visible example of ShoreBank’s efforts only illuminates the surface of what we can do, and will do, in being truly sustainable. And while we may have only a few parking lots remaining to receive new lighting, together they can provide a big impact and payback, one LED light at a time. And we are proud to have paved Chicago’s way.
Did you know that 7% of all mobile phone contain enough personal data to facilitate identity theft (according to a British Telecom study)? This statistic will most likely increase as more people conduct banking and purchasing activities on mobile devices. Additionally, with new device models, features, and services plans launching all the time, mobile phones have a short lifespan. That is why, when it is time to purchase a new cell phone, you should recycle your device. Not only is it environmentally important; doing it the right way will prevent identity theft.
In a 1.2 billion global mobile phone market, 60% of all purchases replace existing cell phones – only 1% of which are recycled. However, 99% of recycled cell phones contain personal data, including, potentially, bank account information (according to a recent Regeneris study). For Americans, whose average 18 month cell phone lifespan equates to 130 million replaced cell phones and 65,000 tons of waste, this research means that we have a big opportunity to reduce waste – but we need to protect identities in the process.
For those who (hopefully) opt to recycle their mobile phones, it is important to take more than just one step to ensure that your personal information is completely wiped from those devices. Wiping a cell is not like wiping your hard drive. For commercial reasons, mobile phones do not have the open architecture that PCs do.
That means that even if the DIY among us delete everything in their phones, this only deletes references to where the data is located and not the actual information (which is stored elsewhere). I do not know about you, but even though I love recycling, I would rather not risk recycling my identity. That is why I recommend performing any, if not all, of the following tactics, before you recycle your phone:
• Do not store any personal information on your mobile phone which you would not want a stranger to see.
• See your cell phone manual or wireless provider’s website for specific information on permanent information deletion
• Remove your SIM and memory cards prior to donating your cell phone
• Verify that the mobile phone recycling organization erases data
• Use the data erasing software programs
Green Festival™, a joint project of Global Exchange and Co-Op America, kicks off a three day festival today in San Francisco. ShoreBank will be there, and is very excited to sponsor tonight’s After Green Festival Party at Mars Bar. If you’re in San Francisco, we invite you to join other green leaders at the event to network and discuss how we can encourage environmental sustainability to change the world. But of course, exciting green innovation and dialogue should not be limited to one location. For example, the story of our clients Tim and Charles Heppner reminds us all that you don’t have to be in San Francisco to implement a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach to ‘greening’ the world.
Brothers Tim and Charles Heppner are rebuilding a 100 year-old wood frame single family residence on the South Side of Chicago, and are implementing energy efficiency improvements that will make it the greenest home in the city! Many DIY projects focus on interior finishes or fixtures while missing the energy basics, but here they are addressed head-on. In addition to the usual insulating strategies, triple-glazed windows with deep overhangs will be used for passive solar heating. The home will have no incandescent lights (perhaps a first in modern Chicago renovation). A shallow hydronic earth-loop will preheat or precool air entering the energy recovery ventilator – this simplified take on a ground-source heat pump (minus the heat pump) may also be a first in Chicago. Rough-ins for future solar electric or hot water panels will make it easy for the brothers to add these features over time.
Tim and Charles began work on this project by deconstructing the internal structure of the original house, reclaiming hundreds of linear feet of old growth forest wood framing, hardwood flooring, sub-flooring and joists. They also recycled all the metal, concrete, glass blocks and windows with the assistance of a local scrapper. All their new materials are required to meet at least one of the following criteria: sustainable, durable, recycled/recovered content, produced locally, low or no VOC, formaldehyde free, plantation grown, rapidly renewable, or FSC certified. They intend to utilize the reclaimed materials for framing up window openings, reinstalling hardwood flooring and building custom kitchen cabinets.
The home takes advantage of the ample property surrounding it by including a large rain garden and bioswale in addition to a vegetated garage roof. Crushed limestone will be used in place of concrete for all sidewalks, addressing both stormwater management and urban heat island. A new reflective metal roof will be installed – a rarity in the shingle-loving Midwest.
We are really proud to be a part of Tim and Charles’ project. Watch and listen to their story and let it inspire you to change the world.
Hello! I welcomed you to the ShoreBank blog a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to check back in. I do a lot of work with consumer savings products and sustainable personal finance is an idea that comes up regularly. I wanted to take some time and dive into this topic today.
It has been amazing to watch the explosion of “sustainable” options in our daily lives. Organic food is a great example. Organic food once was a niche product … hard to find, sold in out of the way locations and not aimed at the general population. That’s no longer the case. These days, organics are widely available, and a much wider range of people are buying them. (I can even get organic versions of foods I never knew existed!) Not everything I buy is organic but I like to have choices and I like to know what the choices mean.
“Sustainable” options are also available in the broad category of personal finance. The choices often start with how people spend their money – before they even pick a savings vehicle. Certainly where you live, how you commute and what you eat are all part of the bigger financial picture. With any luck, however, after these choices there is some money to be saved.
Your money can work for you both financially and in support of sustainable initiatives. This brings us to the issue of asset classes – how much of your savings should be in cash or stocks or bonds or other assets. There has long been a Socially Responsible Investing industry, particularly with regard to stocks. They can include (or exclude) companies based on specific screening criteria like industry or employee practices.
Some portion of your money, however, will likely be in a form of cash. These products, like checking accounts, savings accounts and CDs, are found at banks and related financial institutions…but sustainable banking products do not seem to get much media coverage.
There are many ways to think about sustainability within the banking industry. The biggest one is to look at what the bank does with your deposit. Banks use deposits to fund their loan portfolios. So if your bank is making loans to companies that are local then your money is funding the local economy. If they are making loans to shoe manufacturers then you are supporting that industry.
Other areas to look at are the bank’s internal practices and the options they give you as the customer. For example, do they offer paperless accounts? Do they have a clear policy regarding internal energy use? Do they support “green” building practices?
ShoreBank is a community development and environmental bank – we track our loan portfolio against these two primary areas of focus. And we are working to make our operations more sustainable. (In fact we just opened a new office and incorporated many green features – I will share more on that in a future posting.)
We are working hard to provide you with options in sustainable personal finance – we look forward to continuing to innovate and to sharing our experiences along the way.
And if you are interested in banking with us the quickest way is to open our online High-Yield Savings Account at (it has a 3.50% APY* with a $1 minimum).
*The Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is effective as of June 4, 2008, and is subject to change without notice. APY is valid only with a ShoreBank online high-yield savings account. Fees could reduce earnings on the account. A minimum balance of $1.00 is required to open the account and obtain the stated APY.
Although landlords are ultimately responsible for a building’s energy efficiency, there are a number of steps which environmentally-friendly renters, some of whom pay their own utility bills, can take to reduce energy costs and consumption. So I am going to share with you some of the easy and convenient steps that we share with our ShoreBank customers and encourage building owners to pass along to their tenants.
5. For each degree lower or higher you set the thermostat, you will save potentially two to 10 percent on heating or cooling costs. In the winter, keep the temperature set at 68 degrees during the day and 55 in the evening. Wearing a sweater or layered clothing will make the temperature more tolerable, especially on days when the bill arrives in the mail.
Want to learn more? One easy-to-use tool for gaining a better understanding of the link between environmental and economic community development can be found on our new website, 
So if you are traveling beyond a walk-able distance this summer give the report a look – it has lots of tips on how to get where you are going.
April has felt like tornado season as Earth Day, Spring, and nine guests have come and gone through my apartment. Since my apartment is already dirty, that makes it the perfect time to make my Earth Day green change and “green clean” instead of “spring clean”. As I tasked myself to research the best ways that I could green clean, every tip surprisingly made me think, “wow, that is so cheap and doable!” To round out a month of green blogging, I wanted to provide you with my five favorite tips on how you too can green clean.
The EPA estimates that indoor air is 2 to 10 times more polluted than outdoor air due to the synthetic materials in much of our household appliances, accessories, and cleaning products. A NASA study of 15 common houseplants found that they could help remove toxins from the air. Although the EPA did not find any evidence that houseplants could remove significant quantities of indoor pollutants, outside of allergies, what is the harm in trying? Plants that might remove home toxins are spider plants, gerbera daisies, chrysanthemums, peace lilies and bamboo.
One reason for the “best of times” sentiment relates to provisions in the stimulus package. In particular, the change in the investment tax credit (ITC) from a tax credit to out-right grant opens new opportunities for our triple-bottom line orientation. The ITC is available for the owners of solar, wind, and geothermal systems.
We hear a lot about the environmental impact of cars in the aftermath of record gas prices and global warming. What we do not hear about are the actual parking lots. As a member of the Building Services department, I am responsible for building and redesigning our physical locations to make them more sustainable and energy efficient. We want our designs to serve as models for future upgrades to any physical component of our 35 year history. So, when the bank decided to construct a new parking lot, I was excited to explore options to make it more sustainable.
For those who (hopefully) opt to recycle their mobile phones, it is important to take more than just one step to ensure that your personal information is completely wiped from those devices. Wiping a cell is not like wiping your hard drive. For commercial reasons, mobile phones do not have the open architecture that PCs do.
