Jennifer Schwab
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As Chief Sustainability Officer, Jennifer is responsible for all environmental information, education, and initiatives at Sierra Club Green Home.com. She developed the SCGH “GreenCheck” validation program for green suppliers.

After graduating from the University of Arkansas with an accounting degree, Jennifer worked in the Chicago office of Ernst and Young. She then found her life’s calling in the green world, and moved west to study environmental design and sustainability at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. She then earned a Masters in Urban Planning and Sustainable Design at the University of California — Irvine. Jennifer is a LEED Accredited Practitioner and served on the USGBC Education Committee in Orange County.

Jennifer consults on energy efficiency and sustainability for various corporate clients. She is a sustainability consultant to Eye-R Systems, a technology company originated at MIT which uses high-throughput infrared imaging, geo-spatial data integration and highly scalable predictive analytics to identify energy leaks in commercial and residential structures. She is a member of the Board of Advisors for Source 44, a carbon footprint assessment company based in San Diego. Jennifer also serves on the Board of Advisors for BlogWorld Expo, America’s largest social media conference and tradeshow.

Jennifer is a frequent speaker at a wide variety of environmental conferences and forums. She served as co-host at Opportunity Green, among seven other major podiums in 2011 alone. She is a widely quoted media analyst that has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Dwell, CNBC, Fortune, Forbes, Consumer Reports, among others. She has also appeared on NBC-U, CBS, and Fox News. Jennifer has appeared numerous times as a green expert on abc’s Good Morning America.

Away from work, Jennifer follows art and design avidly and is also a trained Cessna pilot. She serves on the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Photography acquisitions committee in Los Angeles. In her spare time you can find Jennifer in the bikram yoga studio or running trails around her house. You can find her innermost green thoughts as a weekly contributor to the Huffington Post, Healthy Home Institute, Intent.com, as well as on the home page of Sierra Club Green Home.

Blog Entries by Jennifer Schwab

Modern Family, Rockefeller Style

0 Comments | Posted April 5, 2012 | 4:48 PM

The ocean is a great equalizer, inspiring love not linked to geography, race, nationality or socio-economic status. A noteworthy ocean worshipper who has the talent, contacts, resources and desire to not only love our oceans but try to save them is Susan Cohn Rockefeller.

My first memory...

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Sundance Film Festival Highlights Best-In-Class Green Docs

1 Comments | Posted March 13, 2012 | 12:31 PM

PARK CITY, UTAH -- The glaciers are melting, temperatures are rising, nuclear disaster is just around the corner, the sky is falling. Most of us have read and studied environmental topics enough to understand that many of these oft-repeated epithets are true. So, why would I want to sit through...

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Going Back In Time At A Remote Eco-Resort (PHOTOS)

0 Comments | Posted February 3, 2012 | 6:00 AM

When I bid on an "Eco Resort Experience" last March at the Christie's Green Auction, I thought we were probably headed to a typically exotic deluxe vacation spot on the other side of the world. It turns out that I was in store for one of the most...

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Give It Away Now

0 Comments | Posted November 22, 2011 | 2:16 PM

LOS ANGELES - "Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now..."

Think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit song, which preaches love not materialism. While co-hosting last week's successful Opportunity Green conference held at Los Angeles Center Studios downtown, I couldn't help but think of this song...

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Netflix Subscribers See Red, But Video Streaming Is All Green

0 Comments | Posted September 21, 2011 | 6:28 PM

When Netflix CEO Reed Hastings raised prices dramatically to discourage use of mail-in DVD service in favor of internet streaming, all holy hell broke loose with both customers and investors. The company has lost nearly half its market value since July and nearly one million customers...

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The Great Downsizing Debate Continues

0 Comments | Posted July 19, 2011 | 4:53 PM

So I guess I've started the great downsizing debate.

Which is a great thing, really, because it focuses attention on this important sustainability issue. To downsize, or not to downsize, that seems to not be the question. The point of contention is how much to downsize...

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Car Collecting: The Ultimate Reuse, Restore and Recycle

0 Comments | Posted July 14, 2011 | 11:10 AM

ORANGE COUNTY, CA -- I spent Saturday morning at one of the world's best car museums, viewing a mind-blowing collection of classic automobiles from the 1930s -- arguably the modern era's high point of car design as art. These cars are owned by General William Lyon, an octogenarian renaissance man...

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Downsizing -- A Thousand Square Feet Per Person, A New American Standard

0 Comments | Posted June 9, 2011 | 4:07 PM

Let's face it, the Great Recession has not been a plus for the green movement overall. Most ordinary Americans are still sympathetic to the cause, but their willingness to spend even a penny extra for environmentally friendly products has been dampened by four dollar gas, five dollar cereal and loss...

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New York Times, Take This!

0 Comments | Posted May 23, 2011 | 12:52 PM

A recent New York Times article, in classic "all the news that's fit to print" fashion, declared that the bevy of green consumer products introduced over the past five years is going the way of the buffalo and Circuit City, i.e. headed for extinction. It should be noted...

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Cautiously Optimistic at Laguna Niguel

0 Comments | Posted April 8, 2011 | 6:36 PM

LAGUNA BEACH, CA - "FORTUNE Brainstorm Green" is probably the number one environmental business conference in the world. A host of top CEOs, heads of NGOs, and a variety of consultants, private equity investors, venture capitalists and journalists descend upon the spectacular Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel each April -- this was...

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Nonprofits Get Creative to Keep the Donations Coming

0 Comments | Posted March 25, 2011 | 1:30 PM

Over the past few years, most charities have been challenged, to say the least, on fundraising efforts. Many previously flush donors have been forced to cut back on their generosity. Asking the remaining contributors to dig deeper is not the answer in most cases. What's a nonprofit to do?

One...

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The Year of Living Dangerously in Power Generation

0 Comments | Posted March 14, 2011 | 6:24 PM

Over the past 12 months, we've had caved-in coal mines, underwater oil spills and now compromised nuclear facilities. What does it take for us to accept that renewable energy is the way to go, both from a safety and ultimately a cost effectiveness viewpoint? We are quick to forget the...

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We Can Send a Man to the Moon, But Can't Invent a Green Credit Card!?

0 Comments | Posted March 3, 2011 | 9:53 AM

You just received your new credit card, and have to destroy the old one. Good luck, the darned things are seemingly indestructible. Better have industrial-sized scissors. Too bad these are not recyclable; I just learned this after having dropped them in the recycling bin for years.

If you think...

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Sundance Explores The Last Mountain

0 Comments | Posted February 4, 2011 | 2:30 PM

PARK CITY, UTAH -- Sundance to the film industry is like the NCAA championship in collegiate basketball: the best of the best in what is designed to be a purist format. It's about the film makers and directors and actors, the writing and the plots, not unlike the two best...

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I'll Have the Can, Hold the Cups

0 Comments | Posted January 27, 2011 | 8:54 PM

Somewhere over the Grand Canyon at 30,000 feet -- I was sipping from a plastic cup of cool water. The flight attendant swept by in short order with a plastic bag to collect the "trash." Not an hour later, along comes the metal cart (keep your knees and elbows in...

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The Detroit Auto Show: Sure Looks Green to Me

0 Comments | Posted January 18, 2011 | 3:35 PM

I'll bet many of you have heard rumblings from friends and relatives or colleagues at work about the premature death of the green movement, and how the economic recovery must first occur before we even address climate change. This rhetoric is a groundswell among otherwise rational people, not just climate...

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The Cutting Edge In Green Home Power Is Here

0 Comments | Posted December 13, 2010 | 5:09 PM

I have been anxiously awaiting an alternative to conventional electric power and the economic benefits that follow. Of course solar comes to mind, and while I love solar power, it can be expensive and because of the space requirements for panel installation, it is not for everybody.

My prayers were...

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E-Readers Versus Old Fashioned Books -- Which Is Greener?

0 Comments | Posted December 9, 2010 | 5:20 PM

A relatively new phenomenon is the E-Reader, be it Kindle, iPad, or a number of other new competitors coming into the marketplace. When you think about it, these devices would seem to be more environmentally friendly than your typical paper and cardboard book, even a paperback. Should we be buying...

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Is Yingli the Next Solar Superpower?

0 Comments | Posted November 29, 2010 | 8:15 AM

I remember watching the World Cup Soccer matches this summer, but I didn't last long because the constant humming of those plastic horns in the background drove me batty. Then, lo and behold, what do I see among the signage promoting the event sponsors -- mostly major consumer marketers who...

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TEDx: Plastic Is the New Smoking

0 Comments | Posted November 16, 2010 | 4:11 PM

Think of the Gulf oil spill only a couple thousand miles longer. A loosely formed mass of plastic paraphernalia stretches from the beaches of Santa Monica, all the way across the Pacific Ocean, the other end of this unwieldy but deadly man made monster reaching the eastern Chinese coast. Thus...

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