Jailhouse Blues...or Green?

Grand Rapids has the most LEED certified buildings per capita than anywhere else in the U.S., true. When we think of those buildings we think hotels, restaurants, offices but what about the jail?

In early May of 2010 construction began to install a geothermal heating and cooling system in the Kent County Correctional Facility Fuller complex. The facility is the second county building to use this alternative energy source the first being the 63rd District Courthouse.

So how does geothermal heating and cooling work? It is all about transferring heat, even cold air contains heat! "The whole process is simply transferring heat from one place to another," said Don Steeby, an associate professor of heating and refrigeration at Grand Rapids Community College. "It is the most sustainable alternative energy available. The heat is always there, regardless if the sun isn't out and the wind isn't blowing."

This new construction is said to provide a less than 10-year payback!

Other locations in Grand Rapids are being looked at (including the zoo) but lack the proper funding to execute.

To read more information on the geothermal facility visit: Mlive

Thank you to Mlive and Consumer Energy for the information!

Little things that make a difference

A lovely co-worker of mine spotted this on Mlive.com yesterday and since I know that everyone is trying to save a little change these days I thought I would pass it on.

If there is one thing I have learned while working on reducing the Chamber's Carbon Footprint is that little things do make a difference. For example, The GRACC Paper Challenge 3 sheets a day may not sound like much but times it by 30 people in the office (that 3 sheet turns into 90 a day and then 450 pieces in a week).

If you have any other tips/suggestions please feel free to share!

Enjoy these quick tips and have a GREAT weekend!
For the full article click here

• Unplug — Be sure to unplug any devices you and your workers are not using. This tip can save you money in the long run. In fact, battery chargers for our everyday business tools, such as smart phones, laptops and PDAs, still consume energy when plugged in.


• Shut down — Once you’ve agreed to unplug, it’s also time to shut down. According to the Energy Awareness Campaign, there are about 104 million office computers in the country, and approximately 31 million are left on at night, not in use. This results in the release of approximately 15 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, totaling a staggering $1.7 billion spent on energy that has been wasted.

(Don't get as excited as I did when I read the first bullet point)

• Sleep — When you and your employees have stepped away from the computer, be sure to have the sleep feature turned on. This will result in your PC using less energy. The good news is that, with newer operating systems, sleep can be turned on by default, allowing your PC to go to sleep automatically.

• Stop using screen savers — Use an alternative feature like display blanking, which is a solid black screen, instead. This not only saves on overall energy costs for the company, but it also can extend the life of the monitor, avoiding additional repair costs down the road.

• Power up — Take advantage of the existing power-management tools in your PC’s control panel to select energy-reducing settings, such as sleep and battery options. If you and nine of your employees implement these settings, the energy savings is the equivalent to taking one car off the road.

The Chamber...a well made piece of furniture

Recently, I have been tasked with creating a comprehensive and measurable sustainability plan for the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. At first, the task seemed rather daunting and intimidating because the concept of sustainability is so complex…how can it fit into one single plan? I realized it needed to be broken down. Sustainability (as we often forget) is really a three legged stool…right?


Right.

My problem is that when I think of sustainability my brain automatically thinks GREEN. But that is not the whole picture. Sustainability is three parts; Economic, Social, and Environmental.

Too many times the two other legs of the stool are overlooked (the economic and social).

Before I embark on writing the Chambers sustainability plan I thought I would give you a sneak peak outline of where I think the Chamber’s goals will fit into these three categories.

Economic

The Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce is committed to being the leading business membership organization in West Michigan by providing outstanding membership, advocacy, diversity and community programming that promotes inclusion, prosperity and growth.

The Chamber works to attract and retain members by providing top notch customer service and fostering the growth of our local and regional businesses. We hope to grow our Chamber by providing benefits to our members such as business networking opportunities, facilitating events that will foster business growth, vendor discounts and marketing our Chamber opportunities to actively engage the community.

Social Responsibility

Through collaboration, volunteering, professional development the chamber will become great stewards of the community. The Chamber encourages staff members to attend events from other local organizations, engage in Chamber networking events, and actively contribute to their professional development. The Chamber will maximize the power of cultural competency to drive

superior business results and competitive advantage. We believe in utilizing the awareness, knowledge and understanding of all people as an asset for our region. It implies an ability to work within and among diverse citizens, embracing talents, experiences, and perspectives from various cultures.

Environment

The Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce has dedicated its resources to implement the Partnership for a Sustainable Community (PSC). The Partnership includes but is not limited to the Carbon Footprint Calculator, sustainability resource blog, sustainability member resource guide, and PSC meetings. Along with the Partnership, the Chamber has made efforts to implement sustainable practices into our day-to-day operations. The Chamber completed the Carbon Footprint and is now working to reduce their Carbon footprint by reducing paper usage, switching to 30% recycled content, using compact florescent lighting, etc. The Chamber is continuing to find ways to reduce reuse and recycle.

In conclusion, this is not all of efforts but it’s a start. How is your company implanting all three areas of sustainability? SHARE

And remember sustainability is a three legged stool…imagine how hard it would be to balance with just one? You’d fall over!

Grand Rapids Chamber Paper Challenge!

This month I climbed the Mount Everest of sustainability (okay maybe not that dramatic) but I did finish the Carbon Footprint Calculator for the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce.

Once the calculator was completed I started looking for ways that the Chamber could reduce their Carbon Footprint which I quickly discovered wasn't as easy as I thought. The Chamber rents a space in The Waters Building and in order to get an idea of how much the Chamber uses in utilities I had to take The Waters Building utility usage as a whole and deduct the percentage that the chamber uses.

I wanted my first effort at reducing the footprint to something tangible that I could track. My first idea was paper. As of right now the Chamber uses 270,000 sheets of 100% Virgin Paper (no recycled content in our paper) per year. A switch from our current paper to one with a 30% recycled content would reduce our CO2 emissions from 1.4 metric tons/year to .5 metric tons/year.

There is more to the story...

The switch to paper with a recycled content would increase our paper cost by $270/year. In order to offset the cost of the switch we came up with a challenge for our staff here at the Grand Rapids Chamber.

The 3 Sheet Challenge!

The chamber currently uses 270,000 sheets of virgin paper per year. That is 24 sheets per person per day.

1 Tree = roughly 8,333.3 sheets of paper aka the Chamber uses about 32 trees per year for paper!

If everyone in the chamber reduced their paper usage by 3 sheets a day it would save the chamber 33,480 sheets per year! That is a 12.4% reduction in our current paper usage and a 2% overall price savings (if we switch to 30% recycled content).

If the chamber switches to a 30% recycled content paper it would save 9.6 trees a year!

We are going to be kicking off this initiative at our next staff meeting so suggestions on how to reduce usage are appreciated.

Here are a few that I have found:
1. Have your copiers default setting be double sided
2. Have a "draft tray" so all of your drafts print on scrap paper
3. Instead of meeting handouts have them shown on a screen or sent to everyone electronically
4. Actually use the editing tools on word <--that one was for me
5. Double think about what you are printing


Now what?

Friday, July 9 I stopped at Paper Central on 36th st to talk about recycled paper. I spoke with John who assured me that printing on recycled content paper is no different than using virgin paper. He also said many companies are apprehensive to use recycled paper because of the increase cost.

Here is my challenge to you, take it upon yourself and your company to make the switch but offset the cost by reducing the amount you use. As I wrote in my previous post, recycling is great but you also need to reduce and reuse.

How have you used the Carbon Footprint Calculator to reduce your Carbon emissions? Do you need access to the calculator? Email me at Albersa@grandrapids.org!

(here are some photos I snapped while at Paper Central)

 John said when looking for paper with a recycled content look at the label. This is HITECH30 which means it is 30% recycled content paper.

<-- I just thought this poster was funny

Green Soul Searching

It's been 3 months... I know, I apologize. In my absence though I have been gathering material about the green happenings around Grand Rapids.

I have also been thinking alot about sustainability and Grand Rapids. Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Shelley Irwin about Grand Rapids sustainability efforts on her WGVU morning radio show. We spoke about the recent "Most Sustainable Community Award" and what it meant for Grand Rapids.

I knew this question was going to come and I gave it alot of thought and here is what I came up with.

Great but what's next?

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that Grand Rapids won for the mid size category. My question is where do we go from here?

What more can Grand Rapids do to become sustainable? When I ask this I'm not only speaking to companies, I'm speaking to the individuals too. Are we doing enough? Is there more we can do?

While reading about Recycling a few days ago I read the phrase I'm sure we have all read a million gazillion times "Reduce Reuse Recycle".

Sure we all more than likely recycling but what about the other two R's? Are we reusing (re-filling that water bottle, using that plastic bag more than once, using the backside of that paper)? Are we even reducing (carpooling, rethink printing, using a reusable tote instead of paper or plastic)?

I think it is convenient for us to recycle and be done with it but I lay out the challenge (to both you and myself) to follow up on the other R's.

That's all the soul-searching questions I have for you today. :)