GO GREEN

This article was written by Jack Lundee.

Mother Nature is one of, if not the, most destructive force on the planet and this was never more apparent then on January 12th, 2010 when the small island nation of Haiti was leveled by destructive and crippling earthquake. It is of grave importance that we do our best to take care of the Earth that is home to us all or we may find ourselves with such great natural tragedies as the people of Haiti. This is why the Clinton Global Initiative has taken the necessary steps to ensure a better, safer, and cleaner Earth for all of us with one of their many green initiatives of reducing fleet emissions in San Francisco. Machine behind the initiative, Doug Band, has lead the CGI to the forefront of international aid and philanthropy since its inception in 2005.  Their sights are set on preventing global warming from becoming a complete natural disaster, and this starts in the San Francisco bay area.

The CGI realizes that CO2 emissions that are being discharged into the San Fran atmosphere could be considerably cut down by changing the current route method for San Fran vehicle fleets. Luckily, the CGI has came up with a solution that both makes public service and fuel consumption more efficient in the area. Route optimization can not only help organize work assignments into real street time rather than a grid system, but also can be enhanced to minimize CO2 emissions by suggesting an optimized stop sequence for the fleets rather than leaving it up to the driver alone. This, the CGI feels, will not only help cut emissions in the San Francisco area but will ensure that a place that is very familiar with natural disasters helps prevent an even graver one from occurring.  To learn more about the practice areas of the CGI, including all green efforts, click here

February 8th, 2010

Water your lawn every other week during winter months and monitor site integrity.  Only water lawn when necessary.

Check out my updated go green facts page here – http://www.gogreencommercially.com/go-green-facts/

The following go-green water-saving tips are taken from various sources including myself.  A couple great references are the US EPA and WaterPilgrim

• Fix leaks immediately!
• Only run dish washer when full
• Take showers not baths
• Buy a 0.5 gallon per minute (gpm) aerators ($5) to retrofit your faucets
• Buy 1.0 gpm shower heads
• Buy Energy Star Washer/Dryer and Dish Washer
• Take short showers and only when needed

Most of the following tips were taken from various sources including myself.  The US EPA website is a good reference as well as this website.  Go Green!

Reduce your Carbon Footprint – don’t drive as much.

• Do not drive as much.  Only drive when necessary.  Turn your car off when waiting.
• Wait to run errands all at one time
• Ask your employer if you can work from home once or twice/week
• Carpool
• Begin purchasing Energy Efficient household items such as:  Light Bulbs, Washer/Dryer, Refrigerator, etc.
• Recycle
• Don’t purchase water bottles, use cups and reuse
• Don’t purchase as much to reduce your waste production

First and foremost, happy New Year!  Now let’s make a change, starting now in January 2010.

Currently the parts per million of CO2 is at record highs at 390 ppm.  The threshold (360ppm) was surpassed and if changes aren’t made soon it won’t be very good for any of us.

People always want what’s best for their loved ones. One of the best gifts to give is preserving the environment we live in for our loved ones.

i’m in love with the girl of my dreams.  I try my hardest to do what’s right, including preserving vital resources that are necessary for existence.  doing small tasks like recycling, using less water, not turning on lights, etc. all make a difference.  How? It takes a conscious effort and lifestyle changes that we all can do.

Help the people that won’t be born for another 100 years by doing your part now.  You can and will make a difference and every little bit helps.  For more information click here – http://www.GoGreenCommercially.com/2010-challenge/

Please let me know what you are doing in making this a better world for you and everyone else

This article was written by Chris Thorman.

For years, both commercial and residential property managers have adhered to a fixed set of job responsibilities – collecting rent, coordinating maintenance requests, renewing leases and attracting new residents.

One more job responsibility – managing and forecasting a building’s carbon footprint – should be added, according to Ross Sharman, director of Australia-based Knowledge Global and Oracle Magazine’s 2009 Green IT Architect of the Year.

Sharman and Knowledge Global, a sustainability consultancy, have created a comprehensive, automated environmental monitoring system for buildings called EMMA (Environmental Management Solution). The EMMA system is a solution for property owners and managers who want to measure, track and forecast exactly how much energy a building is using/losing, while simultaneously educating their tenants about their carbon output.

The EMMA system gathers environmental data from a variety of electronic monitors inside and outside of a building. This data is aggregated by a variety of software applications and displayed in a digital user interface. The information provides an ongoing snapshot of the “health” of the building.

Metrics the EMMA system measures and how they are tracked include:

• Gas, water, electricity use, waste and weather information through the monitoring of meters
• Human traffic through security systems and thermal imaging technology similar to what shopping centers use
• Occupant demographics through tenant profiling and human resources
• Building space through floor plans and tenant agreements
• Well-being of occupants through online surveys

There are a handful of services out there that monitor building energy use but none of them modify behavior like the EMMA system does.

The EMMA monitor in the lobby of buildings displays energy use by floor, room and even by tenant. This makes it easy to organize competitions that motivate tenants to reduce the amount of energy they are using.

EMMA’s wireless “eggs” are another visual incentive for reducing tenants’ carbon footprint.  These egg-shaped devices sit throughout a building – in common areas and on each floor, for example – and glow red or green as energy use fluctuates against the optimal forecast. This constant reminder about energy use encourages tenants to use less, or at least, makes them aware of energy use in areas they may have not even thought about before.

You can read more about EMMA here.

Chris Thorman contributed this post. He blogs at Software Advice.“

2010 World Challenge:  Save Water and Energy   d/b/a – Project Preserve

We need to preserve our planet for future generations.

How do you save water and energy?

How to save water:

• Invest in low-flow items or aerators (water-reducing devices – they are cheap) for:  faucets, shower-heads, toilets
• Turn shower off when scrubbing your body with soap.  If you do this every time you take a shower and you take an average of 1.25 showers/day you will save an estimated 1,003.74 gallons/year (2.2gpm flow rate * 1.25*365)! If 10% of America (30.8 million) committed to this challenge we would save thirty billion eight hundred ninety-two million four thousand
• Do not flush the toilet after you pee; wait 1 or 3 other times; this will save an estimated 803 – 2409 gallons/year.  If 10% of America committed to this challenge we would save twenty-four billion seven hundred thirty-two million four hundred thousand to seventy-four billion one hundred ninety-seven million two hundred thousand gallons of water/year.
• Combined water challenges would save $50-150/year for a combined total of one billion five hundred forty million to four billion six hundred twenty million dollars

How to save Energy

• Turn everything off, including A/C, and unplug appliances.  This could save 10% of your electric bill/year or 6.34205796 billion U.S. dollars if 10% of Americans took the 2010 Challenge d/b/a Project Preserve

I am so excited for my first GreenBuild experience in Phoenix this week (11/10/2009 – 11/13/2009)!

• There is going to be an estimated 30,000 people in attendance
• Al Gore is the opening speaker
• Thousands of vendor booths on:  renewable energy, environmentally friendly products and so much more

LEED 2009 for Existing Buildings is the latest version the USGBC and GBCI have developed for existing buildings and is called Green Buildings Operations and Maintenance (GBOM).  The content within the reference guide is slightly different than the previous version – Existing Buildings Operation and Maintenance (EBOM), however, the credit points have changed significantly while the pre-requisites have stayed the same.

The credit points now have the following scale:  Certified – 40 – 49, Silver – 50 – 59, Gold – 60 – 79, Platinum – 80 – 110.  Although there are more points to be had, to achieve certification requires achieving more points than the EBOM version (32).

There is also a new version of LEED Online.  I used it today for the first time registering a project in Coral Gables.  Although different, it seems to be more user friendly once used to the formatting.  The submittal templates are also modified from the previous version making it more cumbersome.

In conclusion I believe the USGBC and GBCI need to stick with the same version of LEEDOnline and the Submittal Templates in order for people to be efficient and effective.  Changing these every year or two makes it much more difficult for LEED AP’s to master.