Last year the President had his "addicted to oil" epiphany during the state of the union address, which while more hype than substance, began his Administration's push towards fuel efficiency.

On Wednesday President Bush issued an executive order directing federal agencies to become sustainable, a shocking turn around from prior behaviors.

It is the policy of the United States that Federal agencies conduct their environmental, transportation, and energy-related activities under the law in support of their respective missions in an environmentally, economically and fiscally sound, integrated, continuously improving, efficient, and sustainable manner.

Each federal agency will hire its own environmental officer to implement all of the policies included in his order. Each agency department head is ordered to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3 percent through 2015.

The President did not request expanded use of renewable energy, but instead ordered that half of the current commitments are filled by "new" renewable sources, and that agencies establish their own power generation facilities on-site where feasible.

This makes sense financially (less price fluctuations from electric power), and as a matter of national security as agencies that produce their own electricity won't be shut down if the grid it attacked.

The executive order also requires a 2 percent reduction in water consumption, the use 30 percent recycled paper and the purchase of products from companies that use sustainable practices.

The order also requests the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles when they are cost comparable, and requests that all new construction and major renovations meet federal guidelines for sustainable building practices.

This President is supposed to lead by example, and this executive order will highlight the financial and environmental benefits of sustainable business practices. If companies in the private sector want to sell to the largest energy-consuming agency in the country, they will have to provide sustainable goods and services. This order will have a ripple effect across the nation, and may likely be the most sustainable action of the year.

A good price may not really be a good deal. With whom you spend your money (and how they treat their neighborhood) can say a lot about your sustainability.

For instance, from what company do you buy your paper, electricity or gasoline, and how sustainable are they? Do they pollute? Use renewable energy? What is the recycling policy?

If you look up "commodity" in Webster's you should see a picture of a gallon of gasoline. Like toothpaste, the price differences are minor, and the quality is nearly impossible for consumers to tell apart.

The Sierra Club has rated the major oil companies for their environmental policies in an online guide. If you guessed ExxonMobil (hello Valdez!) as the "bottom of the barrel" you are correct. The Sierra Club rates BP and Sunoco most highly, so they are worthy of your business. Since gas stations are generally clustered, switching to the most sustainable company could not be easier, and any difference in cost probably washes out over the year as prices vary so much.

Yes, it is somewhat of an encumbrance on consumers to ask them to learn the environmental policy of every company, but if you start with the obvious choices like gasoline, appliances, or cars, the subject of sustainability will start coming up more often.

Within the past year the world's largest car companies have done a complete u-turn on the concept of a plug-in hybrid, now embracing the idea and with good reason. Switching from gasoline to electric power for the majority of short driving trips could be the most significant step we could take towards sustainability in the coming decade.

After years of denying their value, GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Honda are all developing ovehicles that can run on battery power for 20 to 50 miles before switching to an internal combustion engine. Utilities and municipalities are salivating over plug-in hybrids as a way to clean the air and increase the utilization of the existing power plants during off-peak hours.

The DOE is also on board, and today they announced $6 million in research grants to improve battery technology and $8 to improve plug-in hybrid system management and electric motor technology. Power plants using coal or natural gas are much more energy efficient than a vehicle's internal combustion engine, and renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro) is even cleaner. Electric power is about 25 percent of the cost of gasoline per mile depending on where you live.

While they offer considerable promise, plug-in hybrids also face many challenges, and I'm working on getting the answers. Here's a rundown of the issues, and let me know what I've missed:

What will be the environmental impact of power plants that will run at closer to full capacity during off peak hours?

Where will charging stations be located for people who don't have garages to plug in their cars?

How do you prevent people from plugging in their cars during a peak energy crunch, such as will definitely occur in California and other states?

Who gets credit for the reduced emissions in any greenhouse gas cap system – the auto companies or the utilities?

Will the payback for plug-in hybrids be faster than today's hybrids – if at all?

So chime in now as Matter will bring you the answers to all of these questions and more soon.

It may not seem like much, but the energy drain from all those little chargers -- for your cell phone, your iPod and all the other digitalia in your life – can add up. In fact, by some estimates, if 10 percent of the world's cell phone users unplugged their chargers when not in use, it'd save enough energy to power 60,000 European homes for a year.

Thing is, those innocuous little boxes, those power cord tumors, are dumb as … well … bricks. And because of that, they have no idea if they should be sucking juice out of the wall or not. So when you pull your iPod from its dock and head to the gym, the charger keeps on pulling down power. All day long.

Even when they are plugged into a device and doing their job, wall chargers aren't models of efficiency. Stick your hand on one when it's working, and you'll see: they can get nice and toasty to the touch. In fact, 95% of the energy consumed by a charger when it's plugged into a phone – in other words, when it's actually WORKING – is wasted energy!

When you unplug your phone, or your iPod, or your digital camera, or whatever, the power bricks typically drop into a "stand by" mode, drawing only about one watt or so. But think about that for a second: If an average American household has two cell phones, an iPod and a digital camera, all those power bricks sipping wattage in standby mode begin to add up.

Let's just look at cell phones, of which there are an estimated 190 million in the United States. A quick back of the envelope calculation says that the combined stand-by usage of all those cell phone chargers, each drawing a measly watt, could add up to 190 megawatts per day. That's enough to power approximately 100,000 homes.

Add in all the other devices that rely on rechargeable batteries, all those disconnected bricks still stuck in the walls of the world, and you might end up burning through enough power each day to run a small city. Ouch.

Insurance company Esurance is saving consumers money and a few hundred trees by drastically reducing the amount of paper used. The company says it saved 239 trees in 2005 by doing its record keeping digital and communicating with customers through email instead of snail mail.

As Esurance points out, it's not just the trees that are being saved, it is also the energy used in producing the paper, even if it is recycled. Recycling paper requires vehicles for collection, and machines to process the paper, and energy to create the ink, so of course printing nothing is a much more sustainable practice, so

Esurance is also giving customers a financial incentive to signing up online by offering a $75 bounty for filling out the forms online. Esurance also bought hybrids for its claims representatives so that they will reduce the amount of fuel burned when checking out those unfortunate incidents.

While we will never get close to the paperless office, it is good to see Esurance realizing the financial and environmental benefits to cutting out needless paper communications. Hopefully more companies will follow suit.