2010 was an amazing year for the 2 Mile Challenge thanks to you. You had plenty of feedback – and we listened. Now we’re excited to welcome you back to kick off the 2011 2 Mile Challenge program.

At Clif Bar & Company, we love to ride bikes and are committed to protecting the outdoor places where people play. This month marks the fifth anniversary of the 2 Mile Challenge, our way of encouraging people to swap cars for bikes for trips two miles or less - reducing carbon dioxide emissions to help fight climate change.

We’ve set an overarching goal for the effort this year: to reduce 100,000 car trips! It’s a lofty goal, but we know you guys are ready to blow past it!

Starting today, the point competition is active once again. Upon login (your user profile is right where you left it!), you’ll have the option to pick a new team. It’s up to you to choose how you compete: will you try a new team? Or stay the course with the same as last year? Your choice!

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Jonathan Waterman - long time friend of Clif Bar & Company, author, photographer, environmental activist and adventurer – spent five months paddling the Colorado River. He discovered much more than the white water of yesteryear. Keep reading to learn more and how you can affect positive change.

I recently spent five months paddling from source to sea on the Colorado River. I found a river running dry and in a great state of neglect, fragmented by dams, over allocated, and polluted as if it were some municipal waste stream instead of our legendary white water river. 

Since my journey, I have been looking for actions through which we can affect positive change and restore the “Nile of America.” From February 18 - April 3, the Department of Interior is inviting comments on Secretary of the Interior Salazar’s proposal (see Dept of Interior press release here) to close all new uranium mining surrounding the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River corridor in Arizona; please see “Alternative B.”

Several streams in the area already contain radionuclides and without intervention the Colorado River could be contaminated. Also see the Grand Canyon Trust website for further information.

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As you surely know, Clif Bar & Company is dedicated to reducing our ecological footprint, in everything we do, from the field to the final product.

So we created a sustainability newsletter back in 2001 as a way of sharing our research, experiences and progress in this program with the larger Clif community.  Here you’ll find a little bit of everything, from organic farming to wind farms, biodiesel to bicycle commuting.  Join us in celebrating nearly a decade of environmental work with our latest issue.

So with this launch of the 2010 issue of Moving Toward Sustainability, we are celebrating nearly a decade of environmental work at Clif Bar & Company.

In honor of this ten-year milestone, included in this edition is a personal story from Clif Bar’s Founder and CEO Gary Erickson, a story from Nepal that deeply influenced his thoughts on business and his journey in life.

In the fall of 1982, after traveling for nearly a year around the world, I ended up in Nepal hoping to climb a few modest 20,000 peaks with a friend. In preparation for the climb, I trekked around acclimatizing to the Himalayan Mountains and culture and found myself trailing a climbing expedition headed for one of the highest peaks in the world, Dhaulagiri.

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Back in October, we introduced you to Clif Bar & Company’s brand new headquarters. After close to 15 years in Berkeley, we’ve moved into a new energy-efficient headquarters in Emeryville, California.

Sure, we’re incredibly biased, but the new building is truly amazing. A 115,000 square-foot features the latest in solar technology, a new on-site childcare center, repurposed materials—from shipping-container wood to blue jeans—and a 40-foot bouldering wall are just some of the features that support Clif Bar‘s sustainability mission and unique company culture.

We promised to give you a closer look inside the new Clif Bar office space, and here it is—the first of a five-part video series through the new Clif HQ with your tour guide, Clif Bar President and COO Kevin Cleary.

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The holiday season‘s upon us. And with Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanza and other year-end holiday celebrations comes presents. And with presents comes wrapping paper. Mounds and mounds of wrapping paper, along with boxes, holiday cards, letters and the like.

All that paper can be an eco disaster.

According to the EPA, we Americans generate 1 million tons of household waste during the holidays. That’s a massive 25 percent spike in waste from the standard 4 million tons of household trash each year. Just tossing the Christmas cards alone could fill an entire football stadium.

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