Glossary of Common Sustainability Terms (The K’s)

GreenBusinessOwner.com’s green glossary is an ever-growing list of constantly updated key sustainable business terms for sustainability professionals (so don’t mind the date and time stamp above).

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A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P-Q | R | S | T | U-V-W-X-Y-Z

Ken Salazar – Secretary of the Interior under President Barack Obama. Salazar is in charge of the Department of the Interior, which oversees public land in the United States. Under sustainability-minded Presidents like Obama, the Interior department can generally be expected to be a good steward of public land. Under Presidents who receive large campaign contributions from the oil industry, the Interior Department can generally be expected to do heinous things like opening up public lands for auction to suburban sprawl developers or for oil and gas exploration.

kilowatt  – a measure of electricity equivalent to 1,000 watts.

kilowatt hours – a measure of electricity used over time. Your electricity bill may show you how many kilowatt hours you used during the previous month, and calculate your rate accordingly.

Kindle – made by Amazon, the Kindle is a handheld device that allows people to buy and read books without actually having to have the book. The tremendous savings of energy and paper coming from not having to print and distribute books can be viewed as a huge win for the environment, though many authors and readers lament the loss of the paper book’s look and feel.

Hydroelectricity – energy that is produced by turbines being turned with water that is passing through a them. Most commonly, hydroelectricity is produced by large dams that back rivers up and create artificial reservoirs, so that a municipality can use the water when electricity is needed. Hydroelectricity is not without its environmental challenges, however, as large lakes can destroy a lot of habitat and actually act as a large producer of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Hydrofluorocarbons – HFC’s are used in mainly in the semiconductor industry as a solvent or cleaner. They are potent greenhouse gases when released, with estimates by climate scientists that they may be thousands of times more capable of trapping heat than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.

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