Weekly snapshot of green, sustainability, and efficiency items (Week of Apr. 1, 2012)
Items for the week of Apr. 1, 2012
Federal Sustainability Items
· Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) reports that airports offer unrealized potential for alternative energy production – The report by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) posits that with careful planning, locating alternative energy projects at airports could help mitigate many of the challenges currently facing policy makers, developers, and conservationists.
· Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that manufacturing energy use falls 10% over four years – Energy consumption in the US manufacturing sector fell from 21,098 trillion Btu (tBtu) in 2006 to 19,062 tBtu in 2010, a decline of almost 10%, based on preliminary estimates released from the 2010 Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey (MECS), a quadrennial report from the EIA.
· Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) greenhouse gas (GHG) map highlights sources of emissions – The EPA tool allows users to identify the nation’s major stationary sources of carbon dioxide and other climate-changing gases, including power plants, refineries, chemical factories and paper mills.
· Army partners with industry for up to $7 billion in renewable energy projects – The Army will partner with industry for up to $7 billion in renewable-energy sources – wind, solar, biomass and geothermal – and has released a draft request for proposal that could allow multiple projects to begin nationwide.
· Report offers framework to guide EPA on incorporating sustainability into its decision making – A new report from the National Research Council presents a framework for incorporating sustainability into the EPA’s principles and decision making. The framework, which was requested by EPA, is intended to help the agency better assess the social, environmental, and economic impacts of various options as it makes decisions.
· Shoe manufacturer teams with multiple government agencies to identify transformational waste systems – Nike is teaming with NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Department of State to identify 10 “game changing” innovations that transform waste systems in both developed and developing countries.
Buildings
· Sustainable buildings will drastically cut costs, says Middle East expert – Middle East construction companies can slash up to 30% off operational costs by adopting sustainable building principles, and save up to 20% on initial investment in construction projects through proper design, according to an industry expert.
· Research firm offers blueprint for green office buildings – Verdantix, a UK-based research firm, released its report, “The Future of the Green Office”. This report suggests that real estate developers and building management companies must make sustainable building design a priority.
· Billions could be saved in energy costs through 2020 through a national building energy rating system, states report – A national building energy rating and disclosure policy would cut energy costs by over $18 billion through 2020, and create more than 59,000 net new jobs in that time, a study from the Institute for Market Transformation finds.
· LEED for Homes teams up with national home improvement retailer to offer database of green building products – The US Green Building Council (USGBC) and Home Depot have announced an initiative that features a database with over 2,500 products that contribute to LEED points and prerequisites for the LEED for Homes program.
· American Institute of Architects (AIA) supports release of International Green Construction Code (IgCC) – The AIA announced its support for the IgCC, a new model code expected to help conserve energy in both commercial buildings and residential structures while providing direction for safe and sustainable building design and construction.
· Orlando college foregoes LEED certification for Green Globe certification – Valencia College has backed off on seeking LEED Silver certification for its newest building and will instead aim for Green Globe certification, citing cost and ease of certification.
Renewable Energy / Clean Energy
Utilities
· Three utilities that are not worried about EPA emissions plan – The EPA recently released new guidelines to cap greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. Three utilities referenced in this article indicate they are well-positioned to deal with the EPA changes.
· “Green Button” initiative will offer energy use data to 15 million utility customers – The White House announced that nine major utilities and electricity suppliers will commit to providing more than 15 million households access to data about their own energy use with a simple click of an online “Green Button.” By providing consumers with secure, easy-to-understand information about how they are using energy in their households, Green Button can help them reduce waste and shrink bills.
Solar
· Consistent electricity in Pakistan is second-largest concern among Pakistani voters, and solar is helping – In a country where electricity cuts can extend up to 16 hours each day, solar street lights are being installed along with solar hot water heaters.
· Over 70% of Californians with solar do not own their systems – According to a recent report by a solar installer, 73.4% of Californians who go solar are now using 3rd-party-owned solar (aka “solar leasing”).
Water
Wind
· European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) invests in first wind farm in Mongolia – EBRD is investing in the first privately-owned wind farm in Mongolia, the Salkhit wind farm. EBRD is providing a loan of $42.4 million to Clean Energy LLC, the company created to build the wind farm, and will take a 25% equity stake.
· Denmark commits to 50% wind power – Danish lawmakers aim to see Denmark cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and decrease energy consumption by more than 12% compared to 2006.
· Spanish wind turbine manufacturer intends to invest €150 million in Scottish offshore wind farm – Gamesa revealed major plans to invest up to €150 million in developing a new offshore wind hub at Edinburgh’s Port of Leith. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop two manufacturing facilities, which could eventually create around 800 new jobs.
Webinars and Washington, DC Events
· Event: April 1-3, 2012: National Symposium on Market Transformation, Washington, DC – This event, hosted by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), will have sessions on energy efficiency financing, energy technologies for efficiency programs, and discussions on Zero Net Energy (ZNE) expectations as well as unintended consequences.
· Webinar: April 3, 2012: World Bank Institute’s webinar on Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) – The recent Durban Climate Conference made important progress toward clarifying the international operational framework for NAMAs, particularly on a prototype registry and core guidance for reporting. This webinar will address the key outcomes of Durban related to NAMAs as well as challenges that NAMAs face.
· Webinar: April 3, 2012: Webinar on DOE’s tool to calculate savings and costs of switching to light emitting diode (LED) street lighting – This webinar will explain the Retrofit Financial Analysis Tool developed by DOE’s Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium. In addition, presenters will provide a guided walk-through of how this Excel-based tool can be used to evaluate the savings and costs associated with converting to LED street and roadway lighting.
· Event: April 3-4, 2012: Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference, Washington, DC – Organizers indicate that this is North America’s largest gathering of advanced biofuels CEOs and senior leadership.
· Webinar: April 4, 2012: Communicating Climate Change and Health – This webinar, hosted by The World Health Organization (WHO), will discuss how the public health community can best communicate the message of climate change and health.
· Event: April 4-5, 2012: Washington Clean Energy Roundtable, Washington, DC – The theme of this fifth annual event will be “Clean Energy, Mobility, and Natural Gas: Energy Security and Economic Development in a Time of Transition”.
· Webinar: April 5, 2012: Selecting and evaluating clean energy technologies for federal facilities – This webinar, hosted by DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), will demonstrate how to use the FEMP Technology Deployment Matrix to identify and select clean energy technologies that have high potential of immediate deployment into agency energy-use reduction programs; assess potential benefits; execute market-based deployment strategies; and develop performance metrics to validate effectiveness and justify project funding.
· Webinar: April 5, 2012: Practical energy reduction through employee action – This webinar will focus on how to engage employees in energy efficiency as well as the importance of communicating a strong message across an organization.
· Webinar: April 5, 2012: Competing Priorities: Can Defense and Civilian Agencies Afford Energy Efficiency? – This webinar, hosted by Government Business Council (GBC), will highlight results of GBC’s survey indicating that of seven Dept. of Defense (DoD) priorities, diversifying energy supply ranked last.
· Webinar: April 10, 2012: Improving energy efficiency for existing buildings – This webinar will present the fundamental and enhanced strategies for improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings and enhancing asset value. With a focus on the commercial building sector, participants will learn about the assessment of energy efficiency opportunities, identification of appropriate technologies and strategies, common roadblocks and strategies for success in upgrading existing building stock.
· Webinar: April 10, 2012: Engaging supply chains in energy management – This webinar will focus on organizational efforts to engage supply chains in energy efficiency and implement energy management systems. The presentation will also provide guidance on how to make a corporate business case for supply chain energy management.
· Event: April 10-11, 2012: Effects of Provisions in the Internal Revenue Code on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Washington, DC – This event will be hosted by the National Academy of Sciences.
· Webinar: April 11, 2012: The DOE SunShot Vision Study: What does the world look like with $1/W solar installations, and how do we get there? – This webinar discusses the recently released DOE SunShot Vision Study that presents a transformative vision of solar technologies in the United States.
· Event: April 12, 2012: George Washington University Solar Institute Symposium 2012 – As in previous years, the free symposium will feature high-level speakers with globally recognized expertise in solar policy, technology, and industry.
· Event: April 12, 2012: Energy Modeling and LEED – This event will discuss effective energy analysis; setting requirements in order to maximize the benefit of energy consulting services; and anticipated LEED 2012 energy modeling requirements.
· Event: April 16-17, 2012: Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, College Park, MD – This conference, hosted by the University of Maryland, will include directors and staff from sustainability, facilities, health & safety, campus planning and business offices, as well as business partners and other education stakeholders.
· Webinar: April 18, 2012: Wind powering America: Technology update – This webinar, hosted by DOE, will provide information about the technology improvements that are changing the wind landscape.
· Event: April 20-21, 2012: Skills Workshop in Public Interest Environmental Law, Washington, DC – This workshop, hosted by the Environmental Law Institute, is specifically dedicated to skills training for junior environmental attorneys and policy professionals who work for public interest organizations.
· Event: April 22-24, 2012: 2012 Efficient Buildings Conference, Arlington, VA – The conference will give specific, actionable information including details on new financing tools. In addition, there will be project case studies and actual data on real-world savings and payback periods for various improvements.
· Event: April 27-29, 2012: 2012 International Urban Sustainability Action Summit, Washington, DC – This event – hosted by the University of the District of Columbia’s (UDC) College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences – will feature a collection of diverse speakers, presenters and workshop leaders who will provide a broad understanding of urban sustainability issues.
· Event: April 30-May 1, 2012: The Health Impact Assessment of New Energy Sources: Shale Gas Extraction, Washington, DC – This workshop, hosted by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, will focus on shale gas extraction as a case study to explore the health impacts of emerging energy technologies and the use of health impact assessments to assess and identify ways to mitigate potential health impacts.
· Webinar: May 2, 2012: Renewable energy and Americans: A matter of opinion – This webinar, hosted by the VoteSolar Initiative, discusses how Americans feel about renewable energy and whether they want to see more, or less, of it.
· Webinar: May 3, 2012: Achieving energy security in federal facilities – This webinar, hosted by DOE’s FEMP, will focus on integrating energy security measures into upgrades, retrofits, and new construction projects. Focus areas include islanding; smart grids, micro-grids, and advanced controls; reliability-centered maintenance; emergency planning and fail-safe scenarios; and leading practices and project examples.
· Webinar: May 16, 2012: Wind powering America: Careers in wind energy – This webinar, hosted by DOE, will provide an overview of the wind energy careers from an industry perspective.
· Event: May 14-16, 2012: 5th Annual Utility of the Future Leadership Forum – This event, hosted by DNV KEMA, will feature discussions on the challenges and innovations that utilities are putting forward to build for the future.
· Event: May 19-23, 2012: Climate Ride NYC-DC 2012 – This charitable bike ride covers 300 miles between New York City and Washington, DC.
· Event: May 21-22, 2012: 2012 Energy Conference, Washington, DC – This event, hosted by Deloitte, is dedicated to providing the energy industry marketplace with insights on emerging topics, such as the global energy landscape, emerging technologies, and the role of clean energy.
· Webinar: May 30, 2012: Today’s energy supply, yesterday’s grid – This webinar, hosted by DOE, will include a discussion on how utilities’ generation portfolios are changing, often faster than the grid infrastructure that supports them, and the challenges utilities currently face in integrating new generation and demand (load) response technologies into a grid that was designed to operate a different way.
· Webinar: June 7, 2012: Streamlining Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) for small sites – This webinar, hosted by DOE’s FEMP, will help smaller facilities to contract with energy service companies (ESCOs) on energy-saving projects.
· Webinar: July 12, 2012: Implementing deep retrofits – DOE’s FEMP will host this webinar with the goal of yielding higher performance results than are achieved with standard, individual, and routine energy conservation measures.
Misc.
· Easter eggs’ 100% recyclable packaging saves 726 tons of plastic waste in UK and Ireland – Nestle UK & Ireland has converted to 100% recyclable packaging on its Easter egg confectioneries by replacing rigid plastic with cardboard. The move is expected to save an estimated 726 tons of plastic waste going to landfills per year, based on a comparison of the weight of plastic used in 2008 to manufacture Nestle’s Easter egg boxes, the company said.
· Procter & Gamble (P&G) wants 70% of its consumers to wash in cold water – In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, P&G’s CEO indicated that by 2020, it would like to attain 25% of its energy from renewable resources as well as have 70% of its customers’ wash loads done in cold water (vs. 40% today).
· Spring into energy savings – This blog includes a few energy saving moves at home.
· Consultancy outlines process for choosing environmental metrics – According to the Deloitte report, “Disclosure of Long-Term Business Value: What Matters?”, companies are finding it a major challenge to determine what environmental, social and governance (ESG) information to disclose.
· Group of US airlines drop lawsuit against European carbon tax – United Continental and American Airlines, among others, have dropped a private lawsuit challenging a European Union law charging airlines for carbon emissions on flights to and from Europe.
· Southwest Airlines saves hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel through “weight-loss” program – Using recycled, lightweight materials never before used in airplanes, among other initiatives, the company saved 570,000 gallons of fuel in 2010.
· Less than half of UK firms plan for climate change adaptation, study finds – More than 80% of UK businesses say climate change is a substantial risk to them, but only 46% say they have climate adaptation plans in their business strategies, according to research commissioned by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
· Electric Chevy Volt’s European cousin experiences more orders than expected – General Motors’ European Opel division has sold more than 7,000 of its Opel Ampera electric vehicle, making the 2012 sales goal of 2012 within reach.
· Home improvement retailer’s purchase of green power jumps 34% - Home improvement retailer Lowe’s purchased 34% more green power in 2011 than in 2010, according to the company’s 2011 corporate sustainability report. In 2011, the retailer bought 148 million kWh of renewable power, enough to power 3% of its operations, up from 111 million kWh in 2010.
· UK start-up offers free energy management software – EnergyDeck, founded last year by Google’s former European head of green operations, looks to drive adoption of energy and environmental management software following the launch of a free software suite designed to help small- and medium-sized firms and public-sector organizations track key environmental metrics.
· China’s youth reveal intense loyalty to low-carbon goods, according to survey - The survey of 2,800 young people across six countries carried out by TNS found 83% of 18-25 year-olds in China would be more loyal to a brand if they could see it was reducing its carbon footprint. In contrast, just 57% of US respondents and 55% of young people in the UK made the same claim.
