You might not have known what it meant to be "greened" prior to February 25th. But if you saw Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore's comedic routine at this year’s Academy Awards, you probably got the idea. The NRDC worked with producer Laura Ziskin to help make some environmentally intelligent changes to the ceremony, which included:

* A comprehensive recycling system: Attendees and staff were able to recycle everything from batteries to left-over canapés. The bulk of the waste, however, turned out to be bad scripts passed to Martin Scorsese during the Oscar pre-party.

*A new kind of goodie bag:
Rather than the usual swag, gift bags contained carbon-offset certificates from TerraPass that totaled 100,000 pounds of greenhouse gas reductions, which is enough to balance out ‘a year in the life’ of a presenter (i.e. 20,000 miles of driving, 40,000 miles on commercial airlines, 20 hours in a private jet, and living in a large house in Los Angeles)."

* Recycled paper products: Using recycled products keeps more natural resources virgin or untouched. (Hollywood has NEVER been more concerned with virginity.) A sustainable feast: Nearly 100% of Wolfgang Puck's Governor's Ball menu was organic and sustainable. Even the chocolate Oscar was organic! (While many guests partook of the chocolate Oscar, most just ended up eating their hearts out.)

* Offsetting carbon emissions: (i.e. making up for your inadvertent global warming emissions by reducing another person’s.) For example, you could offset the fossil fuels burnt while watching the 3, oops, 4-hour Oscar telecast, by paying for solar to run your neighbor's American Idol-viewing marathon next week.

* Hybrid car service for presenters and staff: Hybrid cars produce 90% less pollutants than their non-hybrid counterparts. A car is being developed for next year's ceremony that will be powered solely by the nominee's egos and a pint of vegetable oil.

* Floral Regifting: The floral décor was donated to local retirement homes. (74 -year-old Ida Washington of Oakland, California located a $60,000 diamond earring in a bouquet of African violets. Thank god. Annette Benning was FREAKING OUT! It was a loaner.)