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Climate Corps 2010: Understanding the Value of Building ‘Tune-Ups’

July 30, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

In a successful business, there is a constant dichotomy between business growth and emissions reduction. As an EDF Climate Corps fellow, I have come to realize that my host company, REI, struggles with this every day. With each new store opening comes an energy usage of about 400,000 kWh per year. The company’s carbon goal for 2011 is to maintain its 2010 emissions levels, despite new store openings and growth projections of 8-10 percent.

How do you decrease energy use while growing as a company?

To assist in achieving these energy goals, my charge for the summer, as an EDF Climate Corps fellow, is to identify as many potential energy efficiency projects for REI as possible. I will analyze the projects and recommend those with the most financial and environmental potential. Some of the projects on the list include:

* Control sensors on the conveyor belts in the distribution center
* Lighting projects
* A compressor audit and repairs
* Decreased temperature levels in the data center

But perhaps one of the best potentials for a quick win is retrocommissioning.

Every car needs a periodic tune-up to ensure it is operating properly. Similarly, retrocommissioning is a tune-up for a building. According to a report by Evan Mills at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “commissioning is arguably the single-most cost-effective strategy for reducing energy, costs and greenhouse gas emissions in buildings today.” Even though commissioning is not as exciting as solar installations or electric car charging stations, typical commissioning projects can achieve 16 percent in energy savings with payback periods of less than two years.

The objective of the retrocommissioning process is to find the sweet spot where all the building’s systems are working in harmony. It ensures that a building is performing as effectively as it was designed to, despite the natural wear and tear that happens over years of use.

According to the California Commissioning Guide for Existing Buildings, there are four common retrocommissioning findings, listed as follows:

1. Variable speed drives no longer modulate appropriately
2. Controls are circumvented or set up improperly
3. Equipment runs more than necessary or runs inefficiently because of improper sequences of operating
4. Controls were never tuned or require retuning to provide appropriate response time or to avoid “hunting”

Despite these typical findings, each building is unique in its potential for savings, so it is impossible to pinpoint what will be suggested for an individual location. Different buildings prove to have different opportunities for energy savings.

Luckily, the numbers look promising. Great savings and short payback periods are the obvious wins. Other potential benefits include:

* Risk mitigation surrounding future liability
* Decreased repair and replacement cost
* Increased comfort for building occupants
* Better indoor air quality
* Decreased cost of labor due to increased employee productivity

Next Page: So what’s the hold up?
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So what’s the hold up?

The retrocommissioning process is as simple as procuring an audit and then implementing the suggestions from a check list, but its name doesn’t intuitively relay its purpose. Because of this, and the nature of a custom audit which will uncover problems specific to an individual building, it is far too confusing for many companies.

Additionally, if a business is looking for energy efficiency projects through a local utility, they might overlook the retrocommissioning incentives as these rebates are sometimes presented separately from other rebate programs. For example, you wouldn’t adjust the HVAC settings through the commissioning process and also receive a rebate for a new HVAC purchase through a different program through the same utility.

Finally, facilities managers have many other competing commitments, and a relatively intangible project like retrocommissioning may fall to the wayside because of this.

All in all, retrocommissioning is a holistic approach to energy efficiency that has been proven successful. So the next time your car’s ‘check engine’ light comes on, think about when you last commissioned your building! If there was a major change in use of space or if it has been over five years since you checked your building, it might be time for a tune-up. Check with your local utility to see what kind of rebates they offer. Retrocommissioning could be a highly effective, low cost way to achieve your energy goals.

Sarah Will is a 2010 EDF Climate Corps fellow at REI and a member of Net Impact. She is an MBA candidate at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. More coverage of the Climate Corps program is available at GreenBiz.com/edfclimatecorps. This content is cross-posted on the Environmental Defense Fund Innovation Exchange Blog.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: berkeley national laboratory, Califo, Control Sensors, Conveyor Belts, Electric Car, Emissions Levels, Energy Efficiency Projects, Energy Goals, energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, growth projections, Host Company, lawrence berkeley national laboratory, Lighting Projects, Payback Periods, Quick Win, Reducing Energy, Solar Installations, Temperature Levels, Tune Ups

UPS Digs Deep into Footprint, Sets High Goals for Fuel Efficiency

July 28, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

United Parcel Service decreased energy and water use as well as its greenhouse gas emissions last year in the U.S., prompting the company to set a new goal of 20 percent improvement in automotive fuel efficiency by 2020.

The environmental efforts are detailed in UPS’s latest sustainability report, which was published Monday.

The higher standard for fuel efficiency is set against a baseline year of 2000 and if achieved would double the company’s performance in the area thus far. From 2000 through 2009, automotive fuel efficiency increased 10 percent, UPS reported, noting that its drivers covered 77.3 million miles more in 2009 than they did in 2000 but consumed 3.2 million gallons less fuel.

The new target for automotive fuel efficiency dovetails an air fleet efficiency goal announced last year: After several years of steadily increasing efficiency in air operations, UPS said it would reduce the carbon emissions by its air fleet by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 2005.

The company’s move to raise the bar for efficiency in its ground and air operations were among the highlights of a sustainability report that noted improvement in the majority of the company’s environmental key performance indicators.

UPS started compiling sustainability reports in 2003 and this year’s report, which covers operations in 2009, is the first to publish information on the company’s global greenhouse gas emissions (including CO2, CH4, N2O and HFC) for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. (see chart, right). Previously, the company reported only on CO2 emissions.

The information also reflects more extensive data collection by UPS, which process mapped all transport-related activities that generate carbon across the company globally in reporting CO2 Scope 3 emissions this year. As noted in the chart below left, direct emissions fell almost 9 percent from 2008 to 2009 while indirect emissions almost tripled.

“As you see, we continue to evolve and we’re working very hard at mapping out our impact,” said Steven Leffin, UPS’s corporate sustainability manager.

Leffin pointed to those efforts, UPS’s heightened transparency in reporting and its new goals for fuel and air fleet efficiency as some of the key accomplishments by the company in the past year.

Although revenue slipped from $51.5 billion in 2008 to $45.3 billion in 2009 as the recession continued, UPS remained the world’s largest package delivery company and handled 3.8 billion packages in 2009. The U.S. domestic package operation, the company’s largest business segment, accounted for 62 percent of the revenue and showed improvement in energy efficiency as well as emissions when compared to parcels handled. When measured against revenue, however, energy consumption and emissions rose in 2009.

Energy consumption was 3.5 percent lower per 1,000 packages and rose 3.6 percent per dollar of revenue. CO2e emissions declined 3.1 percent per 1,000 packages and increased 3.8 percent per dollar of revenue, the company reported.

Next Page: UPS’s environmental progress by the numbers.

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The sustainability report examined the company’s work to reduce energy consumption, emissions, water use and fuel consumption on the ground and in air.

UPS, which prides itself on deeply detailed measuring and monitoring to boost environmental performance, presented data in terms of absolute change and as an efficiency rate based on what it takes to deliver a package or produce revenue.

Specifically, UPS decreased:

Energy Use

Absolute direct and indirect energy consumption for U.S. package operations and for U.S. supply chain and freight fell. U.S. package operations consumed 96.80 million gigajoules in 2009, about 7 percent less than the 104.1 million gigajoules in 2008. U.S. supply chain and freight consumed 16.55 million gigajoules of energy in 2009, 19.4 percent less than the 20.53 million gigajoules in consumed in 2008 (see chart at right).

Energy efficiency, expressed as energy consumption per 1,000 parcels in U.S. package operations, came to 29.33 million gigajoules in 2009, compared with 30.40 million gigajoules per 1,000 packages in 2008. Meanwhile, energy consumption per $1,000 of revenue was 3.44 gigajoules for 2009 an increase from the 3.32 gigajoules for $1,000 of revenue in 2008.

Emissions for U.S. Package Operations

Absolute direct and indirect CO2e emissions for U.S. package operations also dropped. CO2e emissions came to 7.27 million metric tonnes in 2009, compared with 7.75 million metric tonnes in 2008 (see chart below right).

Carbon efficiency, expressed as CO2e emissions per 1,000 parcels in U.S. package operations, were 2.18 metric tonnes per 1,000 packages in 2009, compared with 2.25 metric tonnes per 1,000 packages for the previous year. Viewing emissions compared to revenue, CO2e emissions came to 25.55 metric tonnes per $100,000 of revenue in 2009, an uptick from the 24.61 metric tonnes CO2e for the same amount of revenue in 2008.

Water Use

Water consumption decreased in absolute terms and in water efficiency rates based on number of packages handled and revenue. The company’s absolute water consumption in 2009 came to 4.52 million cubic meters for U.S. package operations, supply chain and freight, compared with 5.04 million cubic meters in 2008. In 2009, 1.18 cubic meters of water were consumed per 1,000 packages in U.S. package operations, compared with 1.28 cubic meters of waters per 1,000 packages in 2008. In a look at water use compared to revenue, UPS consumed 0.138 cubic meters per $1,000 of revenue in 2009 compared with 0.139 cubic meters per $1,000 in 2008.

Fuel Consumption and Air Fleet Emissions

Gallons of fuel consumed on the ground to deliver a single package decreased. In 2009, it took an average 0.121 gallons of fuel to deliver single package in the U.S. using UPS’ ground network, which includes its fleet of more than 95,000 vehicles and rail services. That’s a nearly 5 percent improvement over the figure for 2008. The company’s green fleet steadily grew in 2009 to 1,883 alternative fuel vehicles.

Carbon emissions of global airline operations based on the amount on CO2 emitted when transporting a ton of capacity one nautical mile, termed an available ton mile or ATM, also dropped. The measure of carbon efficiency was 1.40 pounds of CO2 per available ton mile in 2009, compared to 1.42 pounds of CO2/ATM in 2008. The goal to increase carbon efficiency by 20 percent between 2005 and 2020, builds on previous gains in the area. If achieved, UPS will increase carbon efficiency by 42 percent compared to 1990.

Gallons of jet fuel consumed per 100 available ton miles. UPS used 6.63 gallons of jet fuel per 100ATM in 2009, a drop from the 6.73 gals/100ATM logged in 2008. The company originally set a target of 6.9 gals/100ATM for 2011 target, but surpassed the goal in 2008. It has a new target of 6.57 gals/100ATM for 2012.

Next Page: “Decarbonization synergy” — the UPS way.

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The firm’s goals for reducing carbon emissions in its airline operations, which would be the ninth largest in the U.S. if it were an airline company, are among the most aggressive in UPS’s ambitious environmental program.

UPS’s efforts include joining 10 other members of the Air Transportation Association of America to support development of aviation biofuel development by signing a memorandum of understanding with two potential aviation biofuel developers in 2009.

Airline operations account for 53 percent of the company’s global carbon footprint, so focusing on that area is an imperative, Leffin said. Overall, the company’s improvements in environmental performance demonstrate the value of UPS’s integrated transportation network of package cars, trucks, rail and shipping services and aircraft, he said.

The company not only optimizes the way each functions (down to specific drivers and their routes), the firm also employs sophisticated systems to optimize carbon and energy efficiency across a single delivery and delivery operations as a whole.

The process, which UPS calls “decarbonization synergy,” ensures that packages get to their destinations with least environmental impact without compromising delivery schedules and customer service, Leffin said.

The company also is providing services for customers to help lighten the environmental tread of their packages. The company introduce a carbon offset program last October and expanded it to 36 countries this summer. It also introduced its Eco Responsible Packaging Program this spring.

The sustainability report is available www.responsibility.ups.com/Sustainability. This year’s report was assured by Deloitte & Touche LLP and checked by the Global Reporting Initiative — two other firsts for the company.

All images and charts courtesy of UPS.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: air fleet, air operations, Automotive Fuel Efficiency, baseline, carbon emissions, co2 emissions, Environmental Efforts, Fleet Efficiency, Global Greenhouse, goals, greenhouse gas emissions, Hfc, Key Performance Indicators, Million Miles, n2o, scope, Sustainability Report, target, United Parcel Service, ups

Massive Green Roof Helps Postal Service Deliver Big Energy Savings

July 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Green roofs, green buildings and an energy management system has put the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) on the fast track to its 2015 energy reduction goal.

The USPS said Thursday it is more than two thirds of the way to reducing energy use by 30 percent by 2015.

An impressive component of the agency’s multi-pronged energy strategy is its green roof topping its Morgan mail processing facility in Midtown Manhattan. Covering nearly 2.5 acres, the year-old green roof is the largest of its kind in New York City.

The roof is meeting or outperforming the agency’s early estimates. For example, it is on track to reduce polluted storm water runoff 75 percent in the summer and 40 percent in the winder. It is enjoying a 40 percent per month reduction in energy use, with average monthly energy expenses about 15 percent lower that previous levels, also due to the replacement of 1,600 windows and other energy-saving measures.

“A year ago, the Postal Service projected the green roof would help the Morgan facility save $30,000 in annual energy expenses,” Tom Samra, vice president of facilities, said in a statement. “We’re pleased to have surpassed that goal, saving more than $1 million since the implementation of the green roof and other energy-saving measures at Morgan.”

On top of savings it is delivering, the green roof will also pay dividends over the long run since it will last 50 years, twice as long as its predecessor.

USPS also credits its newly implemented Enterprise Energy Management System (EEMS) with helping it manage and measure energy data, saving some $400 million since 2007. Combined with other green building practices, such as its LEED certifications, the USPS has cut energy intensity 21 percent since 2003.

The USPS has long worked to trim its greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to reduce its overall carbon footprint by 20 percent by 2020. Aside from its buildings, the agency has focused on its giant fleet with an eye toward replacing inefficient models with those that use less fuel or alternative fuels.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Annual Energy, carbon footprint, Eems, Energy Data, Energy Expenses, Energy Intensity, Energy Management System, Energy Reduction, Energy Strategy, Enterprise Energy Management, green roofs, greenhouse gas emissions, Mail Processing, Midtown Manhattan, Reducing Energy, Reduction Goal, Samra, Storm Water Runoff, U S Postal Service, Usps

Existing Emissions Laws Could Cut U.S. Footprint Without Climate Bill

July 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

A day after the Senate pulled the plug on a comprehensive climate bill, a new report shows the U.S. could reduce greenhouse gas emissions 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 by aggressively using existing state and federal policies.

A 14 percent reduction, however, falls short of President Barack Obama’s Copenhagen commitment, as well the emissions reduction targets put forth in the most recent climate legislation that was put forth and failed over the last year. It also pales in comparison to the cuts most scientists say is needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

“The study highlights both the need to pass climate legislation and the importance of preserving existing authorities,” Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, which wrote the report, said in a statement. “The study’s findings make it very clear that current efforts by Congress to curb U.S. EPA authority will undermine U.S. competitiveness in a clean energy world economy, block control of dangerous pollutants, and put the U.S. at odds with its allies.”

As Lash alluded to, the 14 percent reduction calculated by WRI is far from assured, given recent attacks on the EPA and state laws. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), for example, tried and failed to rein in the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, while a push from Big Oil-funded organizations in California put the fate of the state’s aggressive climate change law on the November ballot. At the same time, some have backed off participation in regional emissions trading programs, such as Arizona, which distanced itself from the Western Climate Initiative because of the economic downturn.

The 14 percent reduction would require pushing existing laws and regulations to the fullest extent possible under a set of circumstances the World Resources Institute calls the “go-getter” scenario. The Obama administration and states would have to maintain “steadfast resolve” in order to achieve this upper range of emissions reductions.

The WRI study also evaluated the potential results from three other scenarios: a “lackluster” scenario with efforts in the lower range of what is technically possible; “middle-of-the-road,” based on the medium range of what is technically feasible, with moderate regulatory ambition; and a “business-as-usual” scenario.

It found that “lackluster” state and federal efforts would only push emissions to 6 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, while a “middle-of-the-road” approach would trim emissions 9 percent by 2020.

Keeping concentrations of carbon dioxide emissions below 450 parts per million, considered to be the upper range needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change (but considered by some to still be too high) would require emissions reductions of 36 percent to 48 percent by 2020.

The most effective tools in the U.S. regulatory arsenal are the Clean Air Act’s mobile source and New Source Performance Standard provisions, its Title VI authority to reduce hydrofluorocarbons, and the Department of Transportation’s vehicle fuel efficiency authority.

Additional state level action would be needed to close the gap, as well as some regulatory policies not included the report, such as transportation planning and forest lands management. Existing tools will also need to be beefed up to meet long-term emissions reduction goals.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Barack Obama, Climate Initiative, Dangerous Pollutants, economic downturn, effects of climate change, emissions trading, energy world, Epa Authority, Federal Policies, Go Getter, greenhouse gas emissions, lisa murkowski, Lisa Murkowski R, President Of The World, reduction targets, Sen Lisa Murkowski, u s epa, Western Climate, World Economy, World Resources Institute

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States Using Existing Federal Authorities and State Action

July 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

This report shows how the U.S. could reduce greenhouse gas emissions 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 by aggressively using existing state and federal policies.

A 14 percent reduction falls short of President Barack Obama’s Copenhagen commitment, as well the emissions reduction targets put forth in the most recent climate legislation that was put forth and failed over the last year. It also pales in comparison to the cuts most scientists say is needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: ambition, Barack Obama, clean energy, competitiveness, Dangerous Pollutants, effects of climate change, energy world, Epa Authority, Federal authorities, Federal Policies, Go Getter, greenhouse gas emissions, laws and regulations, medium range, President Of The World, Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, reduction targets, u s epa, World Economy, World Resources Institute

Want to Cut Your Building’s Energy Costs? Get Out Your Camera

July 23, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Many of today’s buildings suffer from what we’ll call the “leak-guzzle-hide” phenomenon:

They leak billions of dollars through poor moisture, temperature and air pressure control — akin to driving around with a massive leak in your gas tank.

They guzzle energy to satiate inefficient and often over-sized lighting, heating and cooling equipment, even when building occupancy is low. This is like commuting solo every day to work in an RV purchased for that once-a-year camping trip.

And they hide energy performance information due to poor metering and byzantine building management systems. Think about this as driving with your car’s dashboard blackened out.

In fact, in its 2010 Annual Energy Outlook, the U.S. Department of Energy forecasts that buildings will soon become the fastest-growing source of demand for increasingly expensive electricity. In many countries, buildings are already the leading global cause (pdf) of greenhouse gas emissions.

While building owners struggle to tackle this trend, they also face the added challenges of high vacancy rates and tenants demanding better building performance (pdf), healthier indoor air and reduced utility bills.

The increasing number of regulatory energy mandates means that many existing commercial buildings — which typically have life spans of 50 to 70 years — will be legally required to reveal energy data and meet new laws that forbid continued “leaking,” “guzzling” and “hiding.”

Without significant renovation, today’s commercial buildings may be unable to compete for tenants, financing or insurance. And if bringing them up-to-code is cost-prohibitive, some may even be left to crumble. In other words, today’s asset may become tomorrow’s albatross.

In fact, when we consider the fact that existing buildings far outnumber new construction (for example, the U.S. commercial building stock is 70 billion square feet as compared to annual new construction of 2 billion square feet) and is retrofitted quite rarely (for example, fewer than one third of U.S. commercial buildings have undergone heating, cooling, lighting, windows or insulation upgrades), we might be looking at a whole flock of albatross!

Unfortunately there aren’t enough building engineers — or in our analogy, car mechanics — on the planet to deal with the sheer amount of redesign and renovation that’s required. And at this scale, traditional techniques such as energy audits prove prohibitively expensive.

For example, ICF International estimated that if every commercial building owner in the U.S. did an energy audit of their buildings, it would take 1,000 auditors more than 13 years, working 365 days per year, to deliver recommendations on upgrades for 5 million buildings. So where should a savvy building portfolio owner put his next dollar?

When Autodesk faced the same question, we did what tourists do: We got out our camera.

Next Page: How rapid energy modeling works.
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In only a few days — with zero travel budget, a few pieces of our own software, a novice user named Aniruddha Deodhar was able to convert digital photos of our office buildings to a building energy model that analyzed building energy consumption (within a few percentage points of our utility bills), as well as the building’s carbon neutral potential.

“I was surprised at how little data was required to get a good snapshot of the six buildings’ energy profile,” said Deodhar.

We call this process “rapid energy modeling” and it involves these basic steps:

1. Capturing the existing building conditions. In this step, you collect basic information about your building: the street address, five to six photos of its exterior, reference measurements like height and window area, the square footage of interest (for partial tenants) and anomalies not visible from the outside, like a large atrium or basement. An elementary school student could do this part.

2. Modeling a simplified 3D representation of the building. To assess the internal volumes of your building, you use software to draw a rough model of your building based on the digital photographs and the other data captured during step 1. A middle-school student could do this part.

3. Analyzing the energy consumption of that model. Using software that draws from highly-detailed weather, electric utility and building equipment databases, you simulate your building’s energy and carbon profile. The software will also report the buildings’ onsite solar, wind and natural ventilation potential. A tech savvy college student could do this part.

So while it’s hardly a panacea, we believe rapid energy modeling can be of enormous benefit to building owners and their providers, helping them evaluate numerous design alternatives with less time and cost. Rapid energy modeling provides a:

• Screen for identifying high potential buildings for further investigation and investment, helping to target facilities that would benefit from on-site building audits and renewables assessments, activities that can be very time and resource-intensive.

• Stepping stone between a cheap-but-basic building benchmark and a pricey energy audit by providing a quick, sophisticated way of modeling and comparing energy consumption between buildings, and pointing to opportunities for improvement.

• Shortcut to estimating actual energy consumption, when utility data is unavailable or of low quality.

• Sketch of your ROI for proposed retrofits using local energy prices.

• Scaling technique for assessing an entire portfolio quickly, allowing for bundled investments.

So to patch the leak, slow the guzzling and reveal the true energy performance of your buildings, it may seem counterintuitive, but we recommend you get out your camera.

Emma Stewart is the senior program lead for sustainability and Rick Rundell is the senior director of AEC Simulation Products at Autodesk.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Air Pressure Control, Annual Energy, Building Management Systems, commercial buildings, department of energy, energy costs, Energy Data, Energy Forecasts, energy outlook, Energy Performance, Global Cause, greenhouse gas emissions, life spans, mandates, new construction, new laws, square feet, u s department, Utility Bills, Vacancy Rates

Democrats Walk Away from Climate Bill

July 23, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Senate Democrats on Thursday gave up trying to pass a climate bill before their August recess that would have capped greenhouse gas emissions, citing a lack of time and Republican support.

Instead Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will pursue a drastically pared down bill that will focus mostly on raising the liability cap for oil spills, along with measures promoting energy efficiency, natural gas for transportation, and land conservation. A cap-and-trade program and renewable energy standard will not be included in the bill, expected to be introduced next week.

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill that would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. In the Senate, two cap-and-trade bills stalled, leading John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) to explore a narrower but similarly-fated bill that would have capped emissions from the utility sector.

Thursday’s development puts the future of climate change legislation in further doubt, with Democrats bracing for midterm election losses that will erode their majorities in the House and Senate.

Although Reid blamed Republicans for failing to support a climate change bill, he never had the full support of all Democrats. Several Democrats from coal-producing regions had long voiced concern over how such a bill would impact their home states.

Reid and Kerry made assurances Thursday that the Senate would continue working on comprehensive climate change legislation.

“As Senator Reid said, this legislation that he has proposed does not replace climate legislation,” Kerry said in a press conference. “It does not replace comprehensive energy legislation. Now President Obama called me before this meeting and said point blank that he is committed to working in these next days at a more intensive pace together with Carol Browner and other members of the administration to help bring together the ability to find 60 votes for that comprehensive legislation.”

There is a chance that Senators may add more provisions to the slimmer bill, but such measures would likely be minor.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Carol Browner, Change Legislation, climate change, Election Losses, energy legislation, greenhouse gas emissions, Home States, John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, Land Conservation, promoting energy efficiency, Republican Support, Senate Democrats, senate majority leader, Senate Majority Leader Harry, senate majority leader harry reid, senator reid, Trade Bills, Utility Sector, voiced concern

Obama Orders Greener Commutes for Federal Workers

July 23, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to promote greener employee commuting habits, reduced business travel and other measures to scale back indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 13 percent by 2020.

The indirect emissions reduction target goes beyond what the President previously committed for direct sources: a 28 percent reduction by 2020, based on 2008 levels. Combined, the reduction in emissions would be equivalent to the 101 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The U.S. government spent $24.5 billion on fuel and energy in 2008.

“Every year, the Federal Government consumes more energy than any other single organization or company in the United States,” President Obama said in a statement Wednesday. “That energy goes towards lighting and heating government buildings, fueling vehicles and powering federal projects across the country and around the world. The government has a responsibility to use that energy wisely, to reduce consumption, improve efficiency, use renewable energy, like wind and solar, and cut costs.”

Expanding bicycle commuting and using more renewable energy sources are some of the initiatives the government is adding to each agency’s annual sustainability plan. The Washington Post reported the government will also lower indirect emissions by expanding recycling programs and locating future offices near mass transit systems.

Under a House bill passed last week, agencies would appoint telework managers to develop policies that promote teleworking, which, in addition to avoided emissions, could save the government millions of dollars in lost productivity during extreme weather.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Barack Obama, bicycle, business travel, carbon dioxide, consumption, Direct Sources, extreme weather, federal government, Federal Projects, government buildings, Government Millions, greenhouse gas emissions, mass transit systems, Million Metric Tons, recycling, Reduction Target, renewable energy sources, Sustainability Plan, Teleworking, Washington Post

Can Brazil Save the Amazon?

July 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

On Sunday I woke up in a hotel in Manaus, Brazil, had breakfast overlooking the Negro River, then went for a run along the river’s beaches. It was an enjoyable way to begin my first visit to Brazil, a six-day, government-backed, jam-packed tour with a focus on the environmental issues facing the Amazon.

Environmentalists have labored for decades to protect the impossibly vast rainforests of the Amazon, which make up more than half of the world’s tropical forests. But until recently they had little to show for their efforts. (Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch doesn’t count.) Since the 1970s, about 230,000 square miles of the Amazon have been lost to development, mostly cattle ranches, soy plantations and illegal logging.

Only lately has the rate of deforestation began to slow, thanks to more progressive government policies and corporate campaigns by NGOS, notably Greenpeace. Just last week, there was encouraging news from a British think tank called Chatham House, which published a major report on illegal logging around the world. Fiona Harvey wrote in the Financial Times:

Illegal logging has fallen by 22 percent worldwide in the past decade according to a report published on Thursday …

The assessment found that that in certain key countries the decline was even more dramatic, showing a fall of between 50 and 75 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, 75 percent in Indonesia and by about half in Cameroon.

The New York Times said:

In Brazil in particular, an overhaul of logging laws and a new zeal in enforcement have led to a significant drop not only in illegal logging but also in overall deforestation rates in the Amazon, according to satellite data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

Why should you care?

The big reason is that deforestation is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for as much as 20 percent of global emissions, scientists say. Preventing deforestation of the Amazon is incredibly complicated: It requires good government policy, effective local law enforcement, satellite monitoring and global cooperation because soy, beef and logs are shipped from Brazil to the U.S., Japan and Europe. Rich countries, NGOs and even some corporations have been trying for years to find way to create market mechanisms or outright grants that would get money to places like the Amazon, so that trees are worth more standing than cut down.

Even oil and coal companies like this idea because preserving trees is low-cost way to generate carbon offsets and one of the very cheapest ways to fight climate change — much less expensive, say, than building solar or wind power.

!–pagebreak– Tropical forests are also storehouses of biodiversity that are the source of medicines, food and chemicals used worldwide.

Manaus has been the gateway to the Amazon since the 19th century. You can get here by plane or boat but no roads connect the city, which is home to about two million people, to the rest of Brazil. (In that regard, it’s a little like Juneau, Alaska, but hotter.) A half dozen or so reporters are taking this trip; this afternoon we took a brief tour of Manaus, which has its charms but has seen better days.

Much better days, it turns out: The city boomed in the 1890s after Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber and the John Dunlop figured out how to make it into inflatable tires, creating enormous demand for the sap from Brazilian rubber trees. A relic of that period is the Teatro Amazonas, an opulent opera house, made with Italian marble and glass and Scottish cast iron imported from Europe. A very kind guard let us in (the place was closed) and we heard musicians practicing for a concert.

Our tour also took us to an unfinished bridge that will soon span the Negro River, connecting Manaus to towns to the south. Right now the only way to cross the river is by ferry. Roads remain a contentious issue in the Amazon region, we were told. Lots of local people want them, to get better access to markets, education and health care, but more roads means more development, opportunity for logging and deforestation. (We’re interviewing Brazil’s environment minister later this week, and I’ll ask her about this.) Here’s a look at the bridge, with the ferries at left:

On Monday, July 19, we took a 90-minute flight into the Amazon to see an an oil and gas plant operated by Petrobas, one of the sponsors of this trip; we’re told they’ve taken steps to preserve habitat. On Tuesday, we’ll fly to Santarem, a city on the Amazon River, for meetings with the Brazilian Institute of Biodiversity and then to see a sustainable development project in the Tapajos National Forest. My week will conclude with visits to Brasilia and Sao Paulo. By Saturday, I will have taken 11 flights in eight days. I hate to think about my carbon footprint this week.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Brazilian Amazon, Cattle Ranches, Chatham House, Corporate Campaigns, Deforestation Rates, encouraging news, Financial Times, global emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, half of the world, Illegal Logging, Manaus Brazil, Negro River, New York Times, progressive government, Rainforest Crunch, Satellite Data, space research, think-tank, tropical forests

8 Firms Chosen to Spearhead Global Building Efficiency Project

July 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Eight large companies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will participate in a pilot program launched this week by the U.S. and nearly two dozen other countries that promotes energy efficiency in commercial buildings.

3M, Cleveland Clinic, Dow Chemical, Grubb & Ellis, Marriott International, Nissan, Target Corporation and Walmart will take part in the the Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership to speed efficiency improvements in commercial buildings and industrial facilities.

It is part of the Global Energy Efficiency Challenge, a series of new green power and efficiency initiatives for buildings, smart grids and vehicles that could save enough energy to avoid the construction of 500 power plants over the next two decades. The Global Energy Efficiency Challenge was unveiled this week at the first Clean Energy Ministerial hosted by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The collaboration is intended to speed the world’s transition to greener power sources.

“The Clean Energy Ministerial has brought together leaders from around the world to take unprecedented actions to deploy clean energy technologies — from energy efficiency to renewable energy to smart grids to carbon capture. These steps will promote economic growth, create jobs and cut greenhouse gas emissions,” Secretary Chu said in a statement. “What we’ve seen here is that working together, we can accomplish more, faster, than working alone.”

The Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership will have three planks: development of a certification process to ensure continuous energy efficiency improvements; promoting the adoption of energy efficient best practices and technologies across sectors, such as hotels; and accelerating the use of energy-savings technologies across sectors, such as cool roofs and combined heat and power technologies.

JFE Steep Corporation and Tokyo Electric Power Company will also participate in the sectoral task groups.

The private sector will also play a large role in the Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment Initiative. The program will focus on the deployment of ultra-efficient appliances and the implementation of new standards that force the most inefficient appliances out of the market. The program will focus first on televisions and lighting.

Additional initiatives include: the Bioenergy Working Group (PDF) to advance deployment of renewable energy from biological sources, such as plants; the Carbon Capture and Storage Action Group (PDF) to overcome the technology’s barriers; Clean Energy Solutions Centers, to support clean energy in developing countries; Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Womens’ Initiative (PDF), nudge young women toward clean energy careers; the Electric Vehicles Initiative, to provide a forum for global electric vehicle efforts development and deployment; International Smart Grid Action Network, to speed deployment of smart electricity grids; the Multilateral Solar and Wind Working Group; the Solar and LED Energy Access Program to bring clean energy to poverty-stricken regions; and the Sustainable Development of Hydropower Initiative to promote hydropower in developing countries.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Clean Energy Technologies, combined heat and power, commercial buildings, Continuous Energy, Dow Chemical, Efficiency Project, Energy Efficiency Improvements, Energy Performance, Energy Secretary, greenhouse gas emissions, Grubb Ellis, Marriott International, massachusetts institute of technology, Performance Partnership, pilot program, power plants, Superior Energy, Target Corporation, Tokyo Electric Power Company, U S Energy

Great Recession Doesn’t Slow the Greening of GE

July 21, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Ecomagination continues to pay big dividends for General Electric, according to its just-released sustainability report.

After investing $1.5 billion in ecomagination products since 2005 — and growing the portfolio from 17 products to 90 — GE has earned $18 billion in revenue on ecomagination products. The success of ecomagination has led the company to greatly increase its investment in the coming years, putting an additional $8.5 billion in R&D investments in ecomagination by 2015.

With its sixth annual report, entitled “Renewing Responsibilities,” GE set a goal of growing ecomagination revenues twice as fast as the company itself grows.

Of course, in the wake of the Great Recession, the company isn’t necessarily growing that fast — revenues in 2009 declined by 14 percent — but ecomagination revenues were up 6 percent in 2009.

Despite the economic hit GE has taken, the companies overarching environmental initiatives are having an even larger impact on its footprint: Its overall intensities in water use, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are down more than 30 percent each, with emissions intensity down 39 percent and overall emissions down 22 percent.

GE continues to set ambitious environmental goals on its intensities — the amount of resources used per million dollars of revenue — including a goal of 50 percent reductions in energy intensity from its 2004 baseline, a 25 percent reduction in emissions over a 2004 baseline, and a 30 percent reduction in water intensity over a 2006 baseline.

The full report is available online and in downloadable format from GE.com/Citizenship.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: annual report, baseline, citizenship, Dividends, Energy Intensity, energy use, Environmental Goals, Environmental Initiatives, footprint, Ge Ecomagination, general electric, greenhouse gas emissions, Intensities, investments, million dollars, recession, Sustainability Report, Use Energy, Water Intensity, water use

UK must invest in nuclear to meet carbon target: KPMG

July 19, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Britain must reform electricity markets if it is to secure the private investment needed to meet its carbon emissions targets, according to a study by KPMG.

The report, which will be published on Monday, said the British government’s approach to investment in low-carbon generation was inconsistent and clearer planning was needed to show how emissions targets will be met.

“Nuclear energy has to play a central role in an affordable, secure low-carbon generation mix if the UK is to meet the government’s ambitious emissions targets,” said Richard Noble, European Power and Utilities partner at KPMG.

“Nuclear represents the least cost low-carbon electricity generation; however, our research indicates that radical changes to the current electricity market will be required to secure the large scale private sector investment required for nuclear new build to proceed.”

Britain has committed to a 34 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

Energy Minister Charles Hendry said this week the coalition government would reconsider Britain’s nuclear power plans but said a target for the first new nuclear power station to begin generating electricity by 2018 remained on course.

The KPMG report, commissioned by German utility RWE, said investment on the scale needed for new nuclear generation is unlikely to be achieved under the current framework and greater investment would be encouraged by a more consistent market design to reward low-carbon energy.

A carbon price floor, as planned by the government, may provide some benefits to investors in new nuclear generation but on its own will not be effective in achieving the level of investment required, it said.

KPMG, who consulted seven potential nuclear project sponsors including Centrica, EDF and EON, said potential investors would generally prefer a price mechanism which exposed them to some degree of market risk.

The report suggested paying a premium tariff over and above electricity market revenues or setting a requirement for suppliers to source a certain amount of their energy from low carbon producers.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Janet Lawrence)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: carbon emissions, Carbon Price, Carbon Target, Centrica, Consistent Market, current electricity, electricity generation, electricity market, Electricity Markets, energy minister, Generating Electricity, Generation Mix, greenhouse gas emissions, Kpmg Report, Market Risk, Nuclear Generation, Nuclear Power Station, Nuclear Project, price mechanism, Private Sector Investment

UK must invest in nuclear to meet carbon target-KPMG

July 19, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) – Britain must reform electricity markets if it is to secure the private investment needed to meet its carbon emissions targets, according to a study by KPMG.

Britain has committed to a 34 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

The KPMG report, commissioned by German utility RWE (RWEG.DE), said investment on the scale needed for new nuclear generation is unlikely to be achieved under the current framework and greater investment would be encouraged by a more consistent market design to reward low-carbon energy.

KPMG, who consulted seven potential nuclear project sponsors including Centrica (CNA.L), EDF (EDF.PA) and EON (EONGn.DE), said potential investors would generally prefer a price mechanism which exposed them to some degree of market risk.

The report suggested paying a premium tariff over and above electricity market revenues or setting a requirement for suppliers to source a certain amount of their energy from low carbon producers. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Janet Lawrence)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: carbon emissions, Carbon Price, Carbon Target, Centrica, Consistent Market, Course Id, current electricity, electricity generation, electricity market, Electricity Markets, energy minister, Generating Electricity, Generation Mix, greenhouse gas emissions, Kpmg Report, Nuclear Generation, Nuclear Power Station, Nuclear Project, price mechanism, Private Sector Investment

Germany Considers Environmental Tax on Air Travel

July 16, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

In a bid to encourage more environmentally friendly travel and bolster its coffers, Germany will reportedly begin charging airline passengers up to 26 euros ($33) for flights taking off in the country.

The travel industry is howling in protest at a report today from the Associated Press, which obtained a draft bill that calls for a 13 euro surcharge for flights up to 1,553 miles, and 26 euros for longer flights.

The tax, called an “incentive for environmentally friendly behavior,” could generate 1 billion euros annually beginning in 2011.

“The air traffic tax means exporting German jobs and weakening Germany as a place to do business,” Deutsche Lufthansa AG Spokesman Peter Schneckenleitner told the AP.

It isn’t the first time European governments have sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by targeting travel behavior. Travel-related emissions were cited as one reason why the U.K. government scrapped plans to build a third runway at busy Heathrow airport. There will also be no additional runways built at alternatives Stansted and Gatwick airports.

“Air transport and airport infrastructure are vital for the UK’s international connectivity and prosperity,” Simon Godfrey-Arnold, an aviation expert with the lobby group Institute of Civil Engineers, told Reuters. “As a trading island nation and popular tourist destination we depend on our ability to connect with the rest of the world.”

The U.K. has a goal of reducing its carbon footprint 34 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The European Union’s collective 2020 goal calls for members to reduce total emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels, with the possibility of raising this to 30 percent if other countries adopt more stringent targets.

The Wall Street Journal reported a concerted push by the U.K., France and Germany to increase the 2020 target to 30 percent in order to spark more low carbon investment.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: airline passengers, airport infrastructure, Aviation Expert, deutsche lufthansa ag, draft bill, Environmental Tax, European Governments, Friendly Travel, Gatwick Airports, greenhouse gas emissions, Heathrow airport, institute of civil engineers, International Connectivity, island nation, lobby group, Lufthansa, Simon Godfrey, target, Travel Behavior, wall street journal

Charting a Course for Cleaner Cargo in the Transport Sector

July 16, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: This article was authored by BSR, a global business network and consultancy focused on sustainability.]

During the past 20 years, global commerce has come to depend on an intricate web of supply chains that have revolutionized the way even the most basic products are sourced, assembled, and distributed.

The transportation and logistics sector linking these networks has become critical in supporting greater speed to market, more efficient and cheaper production, higher profits, and sustainable growth.

In spite of this function and its decade-long focus on creating more responsible supply chains, transportation and logistics remain a mostly overlooked area for potential risks and certain opportunities related to climate change.

Understanding greenhouse gas emissions across this complex system — which includes vehicle and vessel owners, logistics providers and freight forwarders, and warehousing and distribution points — will require a greater level of collaboration to support two key things:

• Common language: Most supply chains today are measured by key performance indicators (KPIs), and although current KPIs can be used to measure supply chain efficiency, they do not adequately address sustainability. Partnerships across these networks need to develop common standards, tools, and methods across entire value chains.

• Increased transparency: For reduced carbon emissions in the freight sector as a whole, shippers can shift to more carbon-efficient modes of transportation, optimize routes, and rethink supply chains only if they can quickly and accurately compare options. In order to do this, both carriers (companies that transport products) and shippers (companies that produce the products) need to increase visibility into the transportation supply chain.

This article uses BSR’s Clean Cargo Working Group as a case study to examine how one part of the sector — ocean freight — has begun working on common metrics and increased transparency. It also discusses the opportunities that remain for transportation and logistics industry as a whole to collaborate to reduce emissions.

Clean Cargo Working Group: Starting with Ocean Freight

Ocean transport carries more than 90 percent of the world’s traded goods and contributes between 3 percent and 4 percent of global emissions — or more than those generated by Germany.

Although ships trail behind road and air freight when it comes to emissions, the fact that a large shipping line can transport more than 3 percent of the globe’s gross national product at any given time places the industry in the spotlight. And driven by efforts from retailers and major companies to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the supply chain, carbon emissions represent the most material impacts from container shipping today.

To promote sustainable growth, organizations such as BSR’s Clean Cargo Working Group (CCWG), a supply chain collaboration between carriers (in this case, ocean freight companies) and shippers, are working to collectively address issues such as emissions. The CCWG has done this by developing tools and standards that allow carriers to benchmark performance, and allow shippers to access accurate data on which to base decisions about which carriers to use on a given route.

In 2007, CCWG created a standardized data-collection process that has resulted in the launch of current, industry-leading emissions factors, based on actual data, for ocean freight on all global trade lanes. Already, these efforts have allowed shippers to begin comparing carrier performance and have allowed carriers to identify higher- and lower-performing routes. The group is also finalizing a process to verify the annually collected data, and is seeking to align with other leading supply chain efforts to encourage consistent assessment and quantification of environmental impacts.

!–pagebreak– While these developments signal progress, they represent only one part of the transportation and logistics sector. In practice, shipments move across multiple modes of transport: truck to rail to ship to truck. In order consider all challenges and opportunities, increased levels of transparency and collaboration are needed among all modes of transport.

What’s Next: The Power of Networks

Standards developed to quantify GHG emissions across the supply chain, including the variety of product-related footprinting protocols, are only beginning to experiment with methods that measure transportation impacts.

The sector should begin sharing its tools and processes through an “open source” approach that will allow parallel efforts to be complementary, rather than overlapping.

To take advantage of networks, several things are needed:

• More shipper involvement: Efforts such as CCWG have made progress in bringing a significant portion of the sector together, with more than 60 percent of the container capacity being actively engaged. But it “takes two to emit,” meaning that in order to have a meaningful impact on the sector, more shippers are needed to play more active roles, including retailers, manufacturers, and all those whose goods need to be shipped. To support carriers’ investments in cleaner technologies and processes, shippers must clearly and strongly indicate their commitment to use greener carriers.

• Increased alignment among groups focused on logistics and transportation emissions: A growing number of organizations are currently working on overlapping efforts. CCWG, EPA’s SmartWay Transportation Partnership, EcoTransIT, NTM, and other transportation-focused groups have all made strides in developing tools and methods for different parts of the sector. Additionally, the field of calculator tools for GHG accounting is growing.

What’s missing is active alignment among these tools so that the best methodologies are used consistently and various efforts combine to create a more complete global emissions picture for the sector. Companies seeking to implement these tools can benefit by understanding what is behind them and influencing their development. If companies signal the need for more accurate data across the transportation supply chain, collaboration among organizations will help the industry combine, or make available, the best of each approach.

The payoff for pursuing collaboration is also positive in other regards: Collaboration can enable longer-term solutions such as product innovation among competitors, as evidenced by Maersk Line and NKK’s joint development of emission-reduction technologies and initiatives including waste-heat recovery, emission-abatement technologies, emission-cleaning systems, ballast-water treatment, and alternative fuels. Collaboration can also lead to new service opportunities and increased power to shape public policies that reduce barriers and enable incentives for sustainability.

By taking advantage of opportunities within networks, shifting to lower-emitting modes of transportation, and slowing down supply chains for greater fuel efficiency, collaborative groups have developed the most promising near-term solutions for portions of the supply chain.

The next opportunity — to significantly reduce emissions across the entire sector — will require a step-change in the amount of coordination between networked partners: a greater number of shippers engaged with all modes of transportation.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: carbon emissions, climate change, complex system, Distribution Points, Global Business Network, Global Commerce, greenhouse gas emissions, Intricate Web, Key Performance Indicators, Kpis, modes of transportation, Ocean Freight, Sector Editor, Supply Chain Efficiency, Supply Chains, Transport Products, transport sector, Value Chains, Vessel Owners, Warehousing And Distribution

U.S. Government Asks 600K Suppliers for Greenhouse Gas Data

July 15, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

The U.S. government is going to ask its suppliers to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not going to require it. It won’t happen right away. But this is a big deal.

It’s a big deal because the government is by far the nation’s largest single buyer of goods and services: It occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services. The General Services Administration, which is more or less the government’s purchasing department, buys more than 12 million products and services, an astonishing number when you stop and think about it. And almost 600,000 companies are registered to do business with the government. Yes, 600,000!

In any event, although they won’t be required to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, and although it’s not clear when or how or even if the government will give preference to companies or products with a lower carbon footprint, you can be sure that many, if not most, of those 600,000 companies will soon think seriously about counting carbon. Once they do, they’ll begin to look at opportunities to curb their energy use–by operating more efficiently, opting for greener offices, promoting telecommuting, whatever.

To learn more about how this might work, I spoke by phone with Steve Leeds (left), who is the Senior Counselor to the Administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration as well as the GSA’s senior sustainability officer. He is

leading GSA’s efforts under Executive Orders 13423 and 13514 to fulfill GSA’s responsibilities and opportunities under those EOs as well as assisting GSA’s Federal agency customers with solutions to help them integrate sustainability throughout their agencies and achieve their sustainability goals.

His job of greening GSA’s supply chain is complicated by the fact that

The procurement of goods and services by the U.S. Government is a unique activity that is governed by a web of specialized rules, regulations, statutes, and policies outside of the realm of commercial contract law. These rules arise out of the nature of the Government as a contracting party and the distinctive forms and procedures used in the procurement process. The rules governing this process are contained in statutes, regulations, and decisions, many of which are designed to protect the public‘s interest and assure fair treatment of companies that enter contracts with the Government. Most of these rules apply to all agencies, but some are specific to a certain agency.

Unhappily, this is the language that your government speaks. Fortunately, Steve, who is 64 years old and a real estate lawyer from Atlanta, speaks English, so I was get some sense from him of what is really going on.

Last October, President Obama signed an executive order on sustainability that set ambitious goals for the government’s operations. It requires agencies to meet energy, water and waste reduction targets, among them:

o 30% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
o 26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
o 50% recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
o 95% of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements

But, of course, the devil is always in the details, and so the White House asked GSA to look into what is feasible and practical under Section 13 of the order, which is about “Vendor and Contractor Emissions,” i.e., the government’s supply chain.

“This is a real opportunity for the federal government to look at everything we do through the lens of sustainability,” Leeds says. The government will re-examine workplace design, video conferencing and telecommuting, among other things.
!–pagebreak–

What the government buys — cars, computers, office furniture and supplies, lighting, construction materials and the rest — obviously matters a lot, too. “One of the primary ways for the government’s greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced is for us to acquire goods and services….whose emissions are lower than in the past,” Leeds says.

GSA has now reported back to the White House and, Leeds tells me, has made a couple of key decisions.

“Reporting will be voluntary, not mandatory,” he said. It will be phased in over the next few years. (No surprise there.) Like Wal-Mart, Underwriters Laboratories and others, the government will need to develop reporting standards and deal with questions about verification. (See The Business of Rating Business.)

If all goes according to plan, companies or products with lower carbon footprints will be be favored as suppliers over those who pollute more, although Leeds hedged a bit when I asked him if this is the ultimate goal of the effort.

“We are on a journey at this point,” he replied. “I can’t say definitely. But it’s safe to say that if it can be done, and if we can meet the other requirements that we have laid out — bringing around small businesses, making sure the guidelines are understood — yes, this is a goal.”

Those of you who do business with Uncle Sam can learn a lot more from a 72-page GSA report (warning: much of it is almost unreadable) that was issued in April called “Executive Order 13514 Section 13: Recommendations for Vendor and Contractor Emissions.” This week, the White House Council of Environmental Quality, which is coordinating the effort, gave that report its endorsement, if I understand the process correctly.

Process is the key word here. There’s an enormous amount of it and properly so. The government has a lot of power, Leeds said, and must be careful to exercise it prudently. Small businesses, for instance, should be not be disadvantaged by the new rules, he said.

One way to get a sense of why this matters is to look at a couple of things the government has already has done. According to Caren Auchman, a GSA spokeswoman, the agency was given $5.5 billion in stimulus funds last year to green buildings. One result:

By Labor Day, under the Recovery Act, GSA will be building 31 solar energy projects across the nation that will generate a total of 12 megawatts of renewable solar power capacity – enough to power 1,600 homes, and equivalent to removing 2,500 cars from the road.

On a federal building in Lawrence, Ind., for example, GSA is not only installing solar panels, but adding a small array of four alternative photovoltaic systems, so they can be compared to one another, with help from the Department of Energy and the Sandia National Laboratories. GSA’s demand for panels, Caren told me, made it possible for Kyocera to open a new photovoltaic manufacturing plant in San Diego, Calif., and for Sharp Solar to double its workforce in Memphis.

Besides that, GSA spent $300 million in recovery act money on 17,246 fuel-efficient vehicles, including 8,739 hybrid vehicles and 40 advanced-technology buses, five of which are powered by compressed natural gas and five of which are hybrid-electric buses, the agency said.

So there’s no doubt that the government’s spending can have impact. The question is, how long will it take to get things going? Not months, certainly, but hopefully not too many years.

“Things take time,” Leeds admitted, “but everybody is absolutely committed….This is going to get done.”

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Astonishing Number, carbon footprint, civilians, counselor, energy use, EOS, executive orders, Federal Agency Customers, General Services Administration, Greenhouse Gas Data, greenhouse gas emissions, gsa, Leeds, Million Products, preference, procurement, Purchasing Department, Single Buyer, Supply Chain, sustainability goals

Aligning the CDP and GRI Guidelines

July 14, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

To standardize the two most widely used mechanisms for corporate emissions reporting, the organizations publish a linkage document comparing indicators and questions.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued guidance earlier this year on disclosure of climate change risks and opportunities at publicly traded companies, the news was met with widespread approval by sustainable investors who had been calling for corporate reporting on climate change for many years.

At the time of the SEC announcement, Lisa Woll, CEO of the Social Investment Forum (SIF), said, “This is perhaps the biggest development so far in the long-term campaign to promote wider sustainability reporting. Today, we renew our call for mandatory corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) or sustainability reporting.”

The most widely used mechanisms for corporate reporting of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and climate change are the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), although the GRI Guidelines address broader elements of sustainability reporting of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors. At least 2,500 organizations globally use CDP’s questionnaire to report climate change data, while over 1,300 organizations from 64 countries published a GRI-based sustainability report in 2009.

Because climate change reporting is becoming increasingly important, and because considerable overlap exists between GRI’s indicators and CDP’s questions relating to energy consumption and GHG emissions, the two organizations have agreed to collaborate in an effort to standardize the practice. To that end, the two organizations have published a linkage document to coordinate a more efficient reporting mechanism.

The 17-page document consists of a table that “compares the relevant indicators and questions and reveals the similarities as well as the disparities,” according to GRI. According to the linkage document, “This table includes the relevant GRI G3 Profile Disclosures and Performance Indicators (plus Indicator Protocol Compilation section) and relevant CDP questions from the 2010 questionnaire where overlap between the two was found.”

“This will enable reporters to use or adapt the same data in both reporting processes,” the document continued.

GRI is in the process of updating its Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, and plans to incorporate the findings of the linkage document in order to align its new guidelines with those of CDP. In addition, the organizations will collaborate to achieve greater alignment on industry-specific sector questionnaires.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: carbon disclosure project, CDP, Climate Change Data, climate change risks, corporate governance, disparities, energy consumption, Esg, Ghg Emissions, Global Reporting Initiative, greenhouse gas emissions, Gri Guidelines, linkage, page document, Relevant Indicators, securities and exchange, securities and exchange commission, Social Investment Forum, Sustainability Report, Woll

GE and 4 VC Partners Offer $200M to Fund Best Smart Grid Ideas

July 14, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

General Electric and four venture capital partners are offering $200 million to back the best ideas for technology that will speed transformation of the electricity grid into a digital energy network that is smarter, cleaner and more efficient.

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt and the venture capital firms Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and RockPort Capital announced the “GE ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid” today at gathering of about 200 industry thought leaders, customers and members of the media.

GE, which is putting up half the capital for the challenge fund, also took the opportunity to introduce two new smart-grid compatible products — a sleek charging station for electric vehicles and a device to help homeowners manage energy use.

“We believe the digital energy space is going to move fast and big — we think this is really the key to the future,” Immelt said before detailing the challenge fund, which he described as a “call to action and a call for innovation.”

Immelt pointed to his company’s long history as well as the success of its 5-year-old ecomagination line of 90-plus products — ranging from household appliances to jet engines, locomotives and turbines — that deliver high performance and energy efficiency while enabling their users to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. “We want to be known as a company that innovates, but we can’t invent everything,” he said.

With the ecomagination Challenge, the largest innovation fund of its kind, GE and its VC partners in the effort seek to “jumpstart new ideas and deploy them on a scale that will modernize the electrical grid around the world,” Immelt said.

The challenge works this way:

Companies and individuals have until September 30 to submit proposals for new, original technology that can be applied to creating, connecting or using power. The entry categories are titled:

* Create – Renewable Energy
* Connect – Grid Efficiency
* Use – Eco Homes/Eco Buildings

Participants must be at least 18 years old to enter the challenge. The best proposals will be selected for investment and development of a commercial relationship with GE, and cash awards of $100,000 each will go to the five most innovative and entrepreneurial proposals.

GE and the VC firms will review the entries for investment potential. A committee of industry experts, including Wired magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson who helped develop the challenge, will also provide input on candidates for possible commercial relationships and select winners of the cash prizes.

While GE has the ultimate say on the outcome, the firm and its challenge fund partners are taking a cue from popular reality TV talent shows and inviting the public to vote on the proposals by logging onto the challenge site at www.ecomagination.com/challenge and clicking on their favorites. The entry with the most user-submitted votes will receive a cash award of $50,000, subject to GE’s review.

In late October, GE plans to announce the candidates chosen or commercial relationships with the firm, and in November the company plans to announce any deals that become official.

“I think we’ll be shocked about the number of ideas we’ll get and where they come from,” Ray Lane, managing partner of KPCB, in a media roundtable following the presentation.

Next Page: Hints for challengers and GE’s new smart-grid products.
!–pagebreak–

Earlier in the day, Lane and his challenge fund colleagues were asked what the investment partners are looking for. “Think about the value chain, from the devices that use energy all the way up to generating energy,” he said.

For many entrepreneurs, Lane said, the problem isn’t a dearth of ideas, but understanding how to bring good ideas to scale in the marketplace — which is where the challenge fund can help. “Scale is the key to affordability and deployment,” said Steve Fludder, GE’s vice president for ecomagination.

Mark Little, GE’s senior vice president and director GE Global Research, also offered a suggestion to challenge participants. “I wouldn’t be too constrained by what you think GE wants,” he said.

GE also introduced two new products today supporting its bid to be an innovation leader in the arena of digital energy:

The GE WattStation — The smart-grid compatible charging station designed by Yves Behar, founder of fuseproject, will be pilot tested at Purdue University and the University of California, San Diego, and is expected to be commercially available in 2011. With a commercial price ranging from $3,000 to $7,000, the GE WattStation delivers a faster full charge for electric vehicles, cutting charging time to as little as four to eight hours, compared to 12 to 18 hours. GE plans to introduce a residential version of the device, priced at $1,000 to $1,500, later this year.

The Nucleus — The home energy management device is designed to help homeowners collect and store information about their household energy use in order to control consumption. Working in conjunction with smart meters and smart appliances in the home, the Nucleus enables users to get a read on overall house energy use and drill down on the energy use of various appliances via PC, laptop or smart phone. The device is expected to hit the consumer market in early 2011 at retail prices ranging from $149 to $199.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Challenge Fund, Charging Station, Compatible Products, electrical grid, Electricity Grid, Energy Network, Entry Categories, Foundation Capital, Ge Ecomagination, greenhouse gas emissions, Household Appliances, innovation fund, Jeff Immelt, jet engines, Kleiner Perkins Caufield, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Technology Ventures, venture capital firms, Venture Capital Partners, Ventures Foundation

SCENARIOS-Fate of Japan climate bill uncertain after election

July 13, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

TOKYO, July 12 (Reuters) – Japan’s climate bill, which backs the creation of an emissions trading scheme, faces an uncertain fate after the ruling Democratic Party and its ally lost their majority in a weekend election for parliament’s upper house.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) stays in power because it controls the more powerful lower house, but will need to seek new partners to control the upper chamber and pass bills smoothly.

The ruling bloc at present does not have a two-thirds majority in the lower house that is needed to override decisions made in the upper house.

Japan is the world’s fifth-biggest greenhouse gas emitter and has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

The target is among the most ambitious of all rich nations but has also sparked nationwide debate over how to attain it without hurting the world’s No.2 economy. [ID:nTOE63I04R]

The climate bill, shelved last month after parliament ran out of time to finish debate, would make the target legally binding and set a one-year deadline for the government to design a compulsory emissions trading system. Other measures to help Japan meet the target are also part of the bill. [ID:nTOE65L09F]

Below are some scenarios for the climate bill, which the government plans to resubmit to the next session of parliament.

BILL PASSES IN CURRENT FORM

Prospects: Possible

The government plans to resubmit the climate bill in its current form in the next session of parliament, for which a start date has not been decided.

The DPJ could, in the meantime, woo one or more smaller parties into the ruling coalition to cobble together an upper house majority, clearing the way for smooth passage of the bill.

Even without joining the coalition, some opposition parties who favour tougher climate policy to boost the clean-energy sector could agree to help the DPJ pass the bill, although they could drive hard bargains and stall debate.

The climate bill calls for the government to draft separate legislation to design a mandatory emissions trading system within a year, so any delay could stall those plans.

Currently, Japan only has a voluntary carbon market at the national level based on companies’ pledged goals, which are mostly caps on emissions per unit of production and leave room for rises in emissions when output grows.

When trading under the new scheme will actually start has been unclear, with analysts divided between 2012 and 2013.

BILL PASSES, BUT WATERED DOWN

Prospects: Possible

The DPJ could be forced to water down the bill in exchange for help from the opposition to implement strategically more important policies such as fiscal reform and overhauling the social security system.

Climate policy has not been a big focus for voters, so the DPJ might want to spend its energy making progress on other issues to build up public support ahead of a general election that must be held before late 2013.

The weekend’s weak election outcome could also force the DPJ to listen more to demands from industry and labour groups which are against tougher climate policies because of the possible impact on jobs.

The bill has already been watered down from earlier drafts compiled by the Environment Ministry. The latest bill calls for the emissions trading system to set volume caps in principle but also “consider carbon intensity”, which leaves room for the scheme to allow companies to emit more when output grows.

BILL STALLS

Prospects: Possible

If the DPJ fails to pass the bill in the upper house, the bill will stay stuck in parliament.

The government will likely stick to its tough 2020 emission reduction target but it would lose political momentum for a mandatory emissions trading scheme, which analysts say is key for Japan to achieve deep cuts in domestic emissions.

Failure to pass the bill could also weaken Japan’s bargaining power at a U.N. climate meeting in Mexico from Nov. 29-Dec. 10 that aims to try to seal a tougher global agreement on fighting climate change. (Editing by David Fogarty)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: bloc, clean energy, Climate Policy, democratic party, Dpj, Emissions Trading Scheme, Energy Sector, favour, greenhouse gas emissions, Japan Climate, Japan S Climate, Japan Tokyo, Naoto Kan, New Partners, opposition parties, Parliament Bill, reuters, Smooth Passage, target, upper house

FEATURE-Rising sea drives Panama islanders to mainland

July 13, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

CARTI SUGDUB, Panama, June 12 (Reuters) – Rising seas from global warming, coming after years of coral reef destruction, are forcing thousands of indigenous Panamanians to leave their ancestral homes on low-lying Caribbean islands.

Seasonal winds, storms and high tides combine to submerge the tiny islands, crowded with huts of yellow cane and faded palm fronds, leaving them ankle-deep in emerald water for days on end.

Pablo Preciado, leader of the island of Carti Sugdub, remembers that in his childhood floods were rare, brief and barely wetted his toes. “Now it’s something else. It’s serious,” he said.

The increase of a few inches in flood depth is consistent with a global sea level rise over Preciado’s 64 years of life and has been made worse by coral mining by the islanders that reduced a buffer against the waves.

Carti Sugdub is one of a handful of islands in an archipelago off Panama’s northeastern coast, where the government says climate change threatens the livelihood of nearly half of the 32,000 semi-autonomous Kuna people.

The 2,000 inhabitants of Carti Sugdub plan to move to coastal areas within the Kuna’s autonomous territory on the Panama mainland. They are eyeing foothills a half-hour walk from the swampy beach areas.

“The water level is rising. The move is imminent,” said Preciado, who has been leading a group of villagers clearing tropical forest for the new settlement.

World leaders have failed so far to reach a global accord to curb the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change. A U.N. climate change conference later this year in Mexico aims to make progress toward a binding agreement.

If the islanders abandon their homes as planned, the exodus will be one of the first blamed on rising sea levels and global warming.

Scientists warn that sea level rise in the next century could threaten millions with a similar fate and some communities as far apart as Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji have already been forced to relocate

“This is no longer about a scientist saying that climate change and the change in sea level will flood (a people) and affect them,” said Hector Guzman, a marine biologist and coral specialist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. “This is happening now in the real world.”

CLIMATE CHANGE REFUGEES

The fiercely independent Kuna, famed for rebellions against Spanish conquistadors, French pirates and Panamanian overlords, have accelerated their fate by mining coral, which they use to expand islands and build artificial islets and breakwaters.

Guzman, based at a Pacific island research center on the edge of Panama City, has warned of the risks of coral mining for a decade but says speaking out against a legally permitted traditional activity is “taboo.”

“(The Kuna) have increased their vulnerability to storms, wave action, and above all, the action of the rise in sea level,” he told Reuters.

When Kuna speak in their native language the Spanish words for “climate change” are often among the few foreign words used. While some elders warn that sea level rise will get worse, many locals believe God will keep them safe.

“I don’t know where they get that from — that the land is going to sink and we’d better leave before it happens … Those who want to go, can go. I’m staying here,” said Evangelina, 60, who would not give her last name because she hasn’t told local leadership she’s opposed to moving.

Sea levels rose about 17 cm (about 7 inches) over the last century and experts say the rate is accelerating. In 2007, the United Nations predicted a rise of 18 to 59 cms (7-23 inches) by 2100 but that did not include the accelerated melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that seas could rise 2 meters (6.5 feet) by the end of the century, threatening millions of people in cities from Tokyo and Shanghai to New Orleans.

“It’s something you’re going to be seeing more and more,” said Albert Binger, the scientific adviser to the 42-member Alliance of Small Island States, referring to potential victims as “climate change refugees.”

Binger said the Kuna’s coral extraction is a portent for what climate change has in store for other low-lying islands protected by reefs. The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide makes oceans more acidic, killing coral struggling to survive in warmer seas.

SLOW MOVE

While Kuna leaders say their move from cool breezy islands to stuffy forests is imminent, progress has been slow so far and the government does not have a support plan in place.

Carti Sugdub’s islanders have used machetes to carve out a patch of tropical forest but lack machinery to clear the land.

Leaders at nearby Carti Mulatupu are working on an environmental impact study for their move. They reckon setting up a mainland community for 600 people could cost $5 million.

The Panamanian government, which supports the islanders financially by paying for health clinics, schools and poverty programs, has done little to support the relocation plans but officials back the idea.

“Sometimes the community is flooded up to the knees,” said Helen Perez, the schoolmaster at Carti Mulatupu, as his 120 students ran around a sandy school yard by an eroded concrete pier. “The community has taken the decision to move to land.”

Chani Morris, an 82-year-old fisherman, is ready to abandon the islet of Coibita he helped build out of coral 33 years ago. He said he doesn’t sleep well since a flood engulfed the island, destroyed huts and carried away dugout canoes.

“The sea is very bothersome, sometimes it scares me at night,” said Morris, as he fashioned fish traps out of chicken wire. “I’m just waiting for the others to decide when we can move and I’m going to go with them.” (Editing by Catherine Bremer)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Autonomous Territory, Beach Areas, Binding Agreement, Caribbean Islands, Carti, Climate Change Conference, Coral Reef Destruction, Emerald Water, Global Accord, global sea level, greenhouse gas emissions, High Tides, northeastern coast, palm fronds, Panamanians, Papua New Guinea, rising sea levels, sea level rise, Seasonal Winds, Tiny Islands

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