The mind tends to wonder when you’re running on a treadmill, and it’s not unusual for the issue of climate change, and ways to lower a carbon footprint, to pop into the head during these strange times. Of course, according to ‘Kick the Habit – Toward a Low Carbon Economy’, a report produced by the UN this year to coincide with their World Environment Day on the Fifth of June this year, we should actually be running around the park rather than on the treadmill; for the sake of the environment.

For those who want to stick to the modest environment of the gym rather than the public theatre of the city park, but who also want to trim their carbon footprint along with their belly, a new gym in Portland, USA, might just set a trend that suits ethically and athletically.

The gym, which opens this Monday, does not let all that energy exerted from sprinting and lifting and pushing and pulling go to waste, like it normally is, but actually redirects that energy back into the building’s appliances.

The gym’s founder, Adam Boesel, is also offering his services as a consultant for ‘universities, real estate developers and gyms’ who want to follow in his footsteps.

The gym, which takes, according to its website ‘a significant portion of its own electricity’ through sustainable energy created within its own four walls, also offers all the amenities that one would expect from a modern gym – from the vital equipment to the sweeteners- the treadmills and weights to the flat screen TVs and wireless internet.

The Green Microgym is not the first building in the world to utilise the human energy that is expended during its designed purpose to power the building and reduce its carbon footprint.

Club Suyra on Pentonville Road, London, bills itself as the first environmentally friendly nightclub. Here, revellers dance whilst warmed by the glow of solar powered plasma TVs and then cool down to beers that have also been chilled by solar power. All the appliances, the club proudly boast, are run on sustainable energy – and the music system is powered by a wind turbine.  Just as the microgym lowers its carbon footprint by turning appliances that do not normally supply renewable energy into energy making machines, so too does Club Suyra use a hi-tech dance floor that turns the twirls and twists of the dancers into energy that is used to power the club.

Through a system of crystals and ceramics this club in the heart of London produces enough sustainable energy to provide some to the surrounding residential area. There has never been a better reason to get a groove on, I suppose.

But wait, it’s not just pretty young things in trendy London, nor taut-bodied gym freaks in Portland that are trying to reduce their organization’s green house gas emissions through green building practices.

Dell computers, the world’s second largest manufacturer of PC’s , have their head-quarters in Round Rock, Texas, and that building, which is no box-room at 2.1 million square feet, is entirely powered by renewable energy; 40 percent from a gas-to-energy style landfill plant  and the other 60 percent through wind turbines.

With the cost of fuel going up and the price of small scale renewable energy producers, such as wind turbines and solar panels, going down, today might be the ideal time to pick up a pen and sketch out some ideas for turning your place of work, rest or play a little more environmentally friendly.

Posted under Climate, Corporate