Mario Batali : About Mario : Charities: Earthlab

The EarthLab Foundation, is a leading climate crisis community that provides a practical guide to green living through community interaction, exclusive climate crisis news, advice from experts and key analysis, in addition to offering the most widely used carbon index and lifestyle calculator in the world. The EarthLab Foundation is 501(c)(3) organization providing functional outreach and reverse research and educational efforts in part through EarthLab.com.
The EarthLab Foundation and Mario Batali, have teamed up to provide the latest in environmentally friendly food options, insights, and tips in a new online segment at EarthLab.com entitled Food & Mario Batali, The section is devoted to helping EarthLab's more than one million members learn how to make better food related choices for the environment, as well as understand more about cooking and Italian cuisine.

Batali is continuing his green journey by joining the EarthLab community and creating his personal Earth Conservation Plan (ECP), which he can save and track over time to help lessen his impact on the earth. His ECP score is 269 and he outputs 9.1 tons of carbon per year, compared to the national averages of 349 ECP and 15 carbon tons.

Batali pledges to reduce his impact by 10 percent by the end of 2008 and he encourages others to calculate their score with EarthLab and start to make changes through many small steps such as:
- Seek out locally grown produce and products - Reduces the amount of petroleum consumed to transport your meals by as much as 95 percent
- Buy fresh produce over canned or frozen - Canning and freezing food uses about three billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year, enough to power every light bulb in the state of New York for three years
- Choose organic food - Encourages organic agriculture, if one percent of U.S. farmlands converted to organic it would remove 26 million pounds of pesticides per year from our food and the environment
"EarthLab shares my passion and motivation for the environment and I am looking forward to working closely with the EarthLab Foundation and community to share my experiences and expertise, while also reducing my own impact," said Batali. "I have been implementing earth-friendly changes in my restaurants, such as not using bottled water, but there is still a long way to go. Eating is something that we all do every day and there are small choices about what we eat, how we shop for food and cook that can help the environment."

Earthlab.com and its ECP Carbon & Lifestyle Calculator is now the most widely used carbon calculator in the world thanks in part to feature placements by Live Earth, SOS, Leonardo Dicaprio's documentary The 11th Hour, and the 2007 Prime Time Emmy awards this past September. EarthLab also recently announced a key Web partnership with the Alliance for Climate Protection led by its Chairman, Al Gore.

Endorsed by the Alliance for Climate Protection, Chaired by former Vice President Al Gore, EarthLab's personalized Earth Conservation Plan (ECP) Carbon and Lifestyle Calculator is a unique three-minute test that generates a score, which members can save, then track improvements over time. The creation of this private strategy focused on environmentally friendly options gives EarthLab's members an opportunity to educate and activate themselves while embedding a green approach in their lives. To find out what your impact is, Click Here!