EDF Climate Corps

3 Vital Takeaways for Business from the New 3% Solution Report

kware — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:22:10 +0000

By Tom Murray

Hat's off to the World Wildlife Fund and CDP for an important new study, released this week, about the potential to drive significant financial benefits, higher return on investment, and increased capital expenditure by pursuing a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 3% annually across the U.S. corporate sector.

The new report shines a spotlight on the value of challenging the private sector to address climate change and boost the bottom line, rather than seeing them as opposing goals.

In my new role as Vice President, Corporate Partnerships, our division that works with leading companies, I encounter countless examples of the power of strategic environmental management to create business value. That’s why the findings of the 3% solution study resonate with me. Here are three key takeaways:

1. Companies that set aggressive carbon reduction targets trigger a cascade of positive results, including large emissions reductions, high financial returns, innovation, and a greater level of engagement. EDF has seen this with many of our corporate partners.

• Walmart set a very public emission reduction commitment of 20 million metric tons by 2015, a goal that has cascaded through the entire supply chain and throughout the organization.

• EDF helped FedEx achieve an ambitious fleet efficiency improvement goal of 20% by 2020 by launching a fleet of street-ready hybrid trucks. This move catalyzed an industry revolution of new hybrid vehicles now used by some of the biggest brands in the country.

• AT&T set a public Energy Policy signed by the CEO and supported throughout the organization; one key result was $86 million in annualized savings from 8,700 projects implemented in 2010 and 2011.

In all three cases, our corporate partners achieved significant emission reductions, but also saw returns in the form of bottom-line savings, organizational buy-in and engagement, and new technological innovations..

2. Energy management is a strategic, profitable endeavor. The study reports that 4 out of 5 companies surveyed saw "higher returns on investments aimed specifically at reducing carbon emissions than on their overall portfolios." This finding supports a fundamental rethink of energy management from a way to shave operating costs at the margins to a strategic priority, on an equal footing with any other investment decision the company makes.

• EDF sees this repeatedly through our work with EDF Climate Corps. Companies willing to make a small summer investment in our trained graduate students have seen, on average, $1 million in energy savings.

• One of our EDF Climate Corps alumni went on to work at adidas, setting up the company's “greenENERGY fund.” This investment fund is forecast to deliver a 36% return on investment after 7 months; this is in addition to reducing carbon use by 1,401 metric tons.

3. Companies need to take a systemic approach to cutting carbon emissions. We couldn't agree more. The report's Carbon Productivity Portfolio shares much with EDF's multi-part approach.

In the coming months, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into how we are challenging our corporate partners to adopt a systematic approach to energy and environmental management.

In the meantime, we welcome your views on the 3% Solution as well!

White House Leadership Summit on Women, Climate and Energy

kjones — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:42:01 +0000

By: Katie Walsh

After an incredible week of EDF Climate Corps Training last month, I had the opportunity to speak at the White House for an inaugural one-day summit on Women, Climate and Energy organized by the U.S. Department of Energy and the White House Office of Public Engagement.

I joined a distinguished group of 100 women from business, research, government and the nonprofit sector to discuss our work in climate and energy. I provided the closing address highlighting the need to bridge silos by opening up our climate change ‘narratives’ to better engage diverse audiences as well as use tactics that push the envelope on climate change action.

Debating Solutions – Not Science

Newly appointed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz opened the summit with a statement that I couldn’t agree with more: “I’m not here to debate the undebatable; climate change is real and urgent and science demands a prudent response. Now the question is: what are the solutions? This is the legitimate debate; let’s debate the solutions, as opposed to the drivers.” On top of the list of solutions he noted the Obama Administration working on is energy efficiency – in buildings, appliances, vehicles and the industrial sector. Efficiency gains provide win-win solutions. An example is the more than $2 trillion dollars to be saved from appliance standards revisions along with the associated carbon emission reductions. Another example is the $1.2 billion in energy efficiency savings EDF Climate Corps fellows have identified in that last 5 years.

Dr. Kathy Sullivan, Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted the implications of the U.S. experiencing the second-highest amount of extreme weather on record in 2012. We were reminded of the recent readings taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii which found that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had passed 400 parts per million. Though this number has significant meaning as a number that represents a genuine threat to civilization, it barely created a ripple in mass media when it was announced in mid-May 2013.

Taking Action

Heather Zichal, the White House’s top aide on energy and climate issues spoke about the successes of Obama’s first term – the improvement of vehicle fuel economy standards and changes in the mercury and toxic pollution standards for power plants. When asked by an audience member on what steps we could all take – Ms. Zichal responded that most immediately we need to ensure that Gina McCarthy, Obama’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, makes it through the nomination process. The Environmental Defense Action Fund recognizes the potential of her future leadership – having already run ads on McCarthy’s behalf in nine media markets for the last several weeks.

With the challenges laid out before us – extreme weather, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and inaction by Congress, attention turned to solutions that we are taking in our states, cities and communities. Cecilia Estolano spoke about the need to mobilize low-income and communities of color – without them, she said we cannot expect broad-based support for climate change legislation or solutions. She spoke about the importance of empowering communities by conducting and providing them with vulnerability assessments. Communities need to be aware of their vulnerability “as a tool to be able to map out how to become more resilient.” Reverend Sally Bingham of the Regeneration Project (and an EDF board member) also discussed the role that religious organizations and institutions can take for preservation and mobilizing their congregations to action.

Results and Next Steps

Afternoon breakouts were focused on education, workplace and community with more than 20 women gathered in each session to discuss steps that they have implemented and challenges that might be overcome through collaboration. In the report back from the sessions, suggestions were made to form working groups, to create policy recommendations from ‘the 100 women of the White House Summit on Climate and Energy’ and to advocate such steps as opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. Lead organizer of the summit, Heidi Vangenderen, said that the White House intended to convene the summit again next year.

Overall, my sense is that the summit achieved the goals that the organizers set out for it – to put the right people in the room to find areas of intersection in our work in climate and energy. I was pleased by the representation of leaders in environmental justice but found there to be an acute lack of private sector leadership. Engaging in dialogue with the oil and gas sector in particular would have been valuable as they are key players in making any headway in climate change action. While it was uplifting to hear the diversity of solutions initiated at the state and city level to show the way forward on climate, we must not forget the need to engage in broad-based actions to raise the visibility and urgency of the climate crises. Climate change disrupts any notion of business as usual, and we need tactics that are equally disruptive – to shift power and take action to dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

About Katie Walsh

Katie recently graduated with dual master’s degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Tufts Urban Environmental Planning and Policy School. She will spend summer 2013 as an EDF Climate Corps fellow with the City of Philadelphia.

About EDF Climate Corps

EDF Climate Corps (edfclimatecorps.org) taps the talents of tomorrow’s leaders to save energy, money and the environment by placing specially-trained EDF fellows in companies, cities and universities as dedicated energy problem solvers. Working with hundreds of leading organizations, EDF Climate Corps has found an average of $1 million in energy savings for each participant. For more information, visit edfclimatecorps.org. Read our blog at edfclimatecorps.org/blog. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/edfbiz and on Facebook at facebook.com/EDFClimateCorps.

Best Practices in Energy Efficiency: Recap of Verge Boston Panel

kjones — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:18:04 +0000

By: Scott Wentzell

Earlier this month, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and MIT co-hosted a workshop at GreenBiz’s VERGE Boston on best practices in organizational energy efficiency. Jason Jay, Director of the MIT Sloan Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society, moderated the discussion. Representatives from Genzyme and Nixon Peabody joined EDF’s Victoria Mills as panelists.

Jay challenged audience members to think of their own organizations and pinpoint where they currently sit on the road to energy efficiency. He asked them to view their own organizational challenges through the lens of the Virtuous Cycle of Organizational Energy Efficiency model developed by EDF and MIT.

This Virtuous Cycle model was born out of EDF’s work with hundreds of leading organizations striving to reduce energy use and cut costs through EDF Climate Corps. It is a model of change we've found to apply to energy efficiency success across even radically different organizations with five powerful, interdependent components (pictured below).

Learn more about the Virtuous Cycle model on our Web site.

The Virtuous Cycle at Genzyme

Jeff Holmes, principal engineer at Genzyme, detailed his journey to set site-specific greenhouse gas reduction targets for the company. He said once the targets were set, he gave site managers a great deal of freedom to meet targets and created strong incentives by building energy reduction goals directly into budgets. When viewed through the lens of the Virtuous Cycle, it is clear that in this case executive buy-in precipitated new financial incentives and employee initiatives to drive energy efficiency. These factors all combined to propel Genzyme around the Virtuous Cycle to further energy efficiency efforts.

The Virtuous Cycle at Nixon Peabody

Carolyn Kaplan is the chief sustainability officer at Nixon Peabody, a law firm with 17 offices nationwide and over 1,400 employees. She shared her strategy of focusing on low- and no-cost projects upfront to demonstrate success and build the interest and support needed to ultimately make the financial case for larger projects. This example shows how sharing stories of preliminary successes can pave the way for the executive buy in that will help propel an organization around the Virtuous Cycle.

Insights from Participants

The session largely consisted of energy efficiency practitioners from a variety of different organizations, so Jay asked participants to divide up according to components of the Virtuous Cycle, thinking about which component of the model represented the largest barrier for their specific organizations. I joined the Resource Investment group. Here are my takeaways:

Common Barrier: Organizations set strict pay-back period limits on capital projects that make it very hard to implement serious energy efficiency projects.
Common Barrier: Energy efficiency projects often compete for capital against other projects that are more aligned with the organization’s mission.
Creative Solutions: There are many alternative financing pathways for energy efficiency such as Energy Service Agreements, equipment leasing, rebates and incentives. We also discussed revolving sustainability funds which reap the cost savings of initial projects to use as seed capital for future projects. In addition, the group agreed that energy efficiency is much easier to implement during new construction and retrofitting, so it is important to make sure energy efficiency opportunities are identified at the onset of any construction or renovation project.

Do you have a best practice you’d like to share or a barrier you’d like to overcome related to the Virtuous Cycle? Let us know in the comments below.

About EDF Climate Corps

EDF Climate Corps Turns Over A New Leaf

mmichaan — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:45:56 +0000

Today, Environmental Defense Fund launched a new class of EDF Climate Corps fellows to catalyze energy savings in organizations around the country. This year’s class is bigger than ever – with 116 students placed in 106 different organizations. New participants such as Apple, Colgate-Palmolive, General Motors, and the cities of Austin and Philadelphia are joining repeat hosts including AT&T, Facebook, QTS, Verizon, Chicago Public Schools and the New York City Housing Authority.

EDF Climate Corps has grown by leaps and bounds since it started with just seven fellows in 2008. But even more remarkable than the growth in numbers is how EDF Climate Corps has blossomed in other ways – delivering an impact well beyond what we imagined when we started the program. Fellows are working on a wider variety of projects than ever before, networks are sprouting among our hosts and alumni, and smart energy management practices are taking root in our host organizations.

This summer, for example, in addition to traditional efficiency projects like lighting retrofits and HVAC upgrades, EDF Climate Corps fellows will work on energy management strategies, information systems, financing mechanisms and employee engagement campaigns. These new projects, modeled on the Virtuous Cycle of Organizational Energy Efficiency that EDF developed with MIT, go beyond the low-hanging fruit to deliver systemic and lasting reductions in costs and emissions.

EDF Climate Corps is also finding new ways to bring value to participants through our network – which now numbers over 600 current and past fellows and host organizations nationally. This year, in addition to our online engagement and annual in-person gathering, we are activating local EDF Climate Corps networks in cities where we can leverage existing momentum and resources – such as the Boston Green Ribbon Commission and Retrofit Chicago – to build connections and foster peer learning about energy efficiency and smart energy management.

What’s perhaps most rewarding is to see how EDF Climate Corps is changing the way organizations make decisions about energy. Some are hiring energy managers where the position never existed before; others are creating new systems to collect and analyze energy data; still others are introducing new financing mechanisms for energy-saving projects. For example, adidas Group recently announced a new investment fund for efficiency upgrades that delivered a 36% ROI in its first six months.

So as we kick off our sixth year of EDF Climate Corps, we are celebrating the many ways that the program has renewed itself – staying true to its mission to cut costs and emissions, while finding fresh ways to create value for our host organizations and the environment. Stay tuned to the EDF Climate Corps blog all summer to learn more about the exciting new things our fellows are up to!

2013 EDF Climate Corps Fellows across the USA

About EDF Climate Corps
EDF Climate Corps (edfclimatecorps.org) taps the talents of tomorrow’s leaders to save energy, money and the environment. Working with hundreds of leading organizations, EDF Climate Corps has found an average of $1 million in energy savings for each participant. For more information, visit edfclimatecorps.org. Read our blog at edfclimatecorps.org/blog. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/edfbiz and on Facebook at facebook.com/EDFClimateCorps.

10 Energy Efficiency Tips for Your Organization

kjones — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:04:10 +0000

Last summer, EDF embedded nearly 100 EDF Climate Corps fellows in companies, cities and universities across the nation. EDF Climate Corps recruits and trains students from the nation’s top graduate programs to accelerate adoption of smart energy management practices in commercial America. Here’s what our EDF fellows learned about saving energy and curbing emissions in 2012.

Set a goal: Goal-setting is a priority for fellows at many organizations. An EDF Climate Corps fellow working on Duke Energy’s Smart Energy Now program specifically identified energy efficiency opportunities to meet the Envision Charlotte goal of reducing Uptown Charlotte’s commercial office building use 20 percent. At Volvo Mack Trucks, an EDF Climate Corps fellow wrote a detailed strategy for how the company could achieve and maintain the ISO 50001 standard. Also, at Booz Allen Hamilton, a fellow recommended that the organization motivate employees by sharing the higher level goals behind internal initiatives.
Make your data useful: Having too little or too much data is one thing, but whether you make use of it is another. EDF Climate Corps hosts such as NYCHA, RBS Citizens Financial Group and AT&T are using innovative software, central databases and real time energy dashboards to organize, analyze and evaluate the data they have so that it can be used to inform decision making.
Put initiatives into perspective: The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is developing a strategy to show residents how much energy they are using compared to their neighbors. Instead of just listing metrics, such as the hundreds of kilowatt hours that could be saved, many organizations are really trying to put energy efficiency initiatives into perspective.
Utilize new technology to overcome unique challenges: In an operating room run by Ascension Health, or a hospital run by HCA Healthcare, HVAC and energy requirements are incredibly specific – more so than in your average office building. Also, at the Smithsonian Institution, lighting is more than just functional – it is an art form. Our EDF Climate Corps fellows have run into many barriers unique to certain businesses and environments; however, they have not found them impossible to overcome. The range of sustainable products and solutions is quickly expanding, so keep your eyes open for new technologies that might have added benefits beyond energy efficiency.
Power down at night: While it may seem obvious, many EDF Climate Corps fellows have identified energy efficiency savings by determining what can be powered down at night. At Bloomberg BNA, one fellow figured out that only 25 percent of its computers need to stay on overnight, which would save 338,000 kWh of electricity per year. At Texas A&M University, Kingsville, the recommended occupancy sensors and daylight sensors could save $250,000 over project lifetimes.
Research funding possibilities: A common barrier to energy efficiency initiatives is the upfront capital cost they require. However, our EDF Climate Corps fellows have unearthed several innovative funding mechanisms for these projects. A fellow working with the City of New Orleans recommended it fund an LED streetlight project through Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds. At the County of Monmouth, New Jersey, a fellow discovered how energy service companies (ESCOs) could allow local governments to get the benefits of installed efficiency measures without significant upfront capital. Staples was interested in expanding its usage of renewable energy, so its fellow researched solar power purchase agreements (SPPAs) and helped determine whether these agreements should be pursued.
Know your audience: What engages people in sustainability varies. Get to know your stakeholders, and tailor your communications to resonate with groups. National Geographic has had great success tailoring its story to multiple audiences in order to really “make the sustainability story stick.”
Engage staff: As a part of their summer fellowships, EDF Climate Corps fellows are increasingly working on employee engagement initiatives. A Fellow at CA Technologies realized that no matter how great his new tools and guidelines were, they would be ineffective unless adopted by staff. At News Corporation, an EDF Climate Corps fellow discovered that staff in facilities and operations have essential knowledge about how systems work and what projects are actually feasible. At Verizon, a fellow even quantified the benefits of its employee engagement program.
Get fresh ideas from employees: In many organizations, employees have ideas on how to save energy and improve sustainability, but they do not have a way to propose them. For an EDF Climate Corps fellow at Philadelphia Housing Authority, one morning that began as a warehouse tour ended with Lou Fortuna, PHA’s Warehouse Supervisor, sharing ideas about how to make the warehouse more energy efficient. Enabling employees to share their insights is crucial. At Volvo, employees of all levels can suggest projects through their “kaizens” initiative.
Expand use of best practices across your portfolio: In 2012, several EDF Climate Corps fellows identified huge energy savings by determining which best practices could be spread across company portfolios. At Cummins, expanding the practice of commissioning new facilities and retrocommissioning existing facilities could save $5 million in energy annually. At Verizon, expanding a pilot employee engagement program could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity savings annually. At Coinstar, an EDF Climate Corps fellow worked with stakeholders to identify numerous best practices that were not yet scaled across the company. Finally, at the Port of Oakland, an EDF Climate Corps fellow established a way for staff from different divisions to share and discuss sustainability best practices.

Do you have a valuable energy efficiency improvement tip? Please share it with us in the comments below.

The Faces of EDF Climate Corps: Part 16

kjones — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:57:39 +0000

“Knocking down a brick wall by yourself with your bare fists is next to impossible. But organize a team equipped with sledgehammers and a plan, and it gets a whole lot easier,” said Gwen Ruta in a Fast Company Op-Ed explaining the concept behind EDF Climate Corps.

This blog post is the 16^th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations.

Name: Annie Downs

Host Organization: Smithsonian Institution

School: Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University

Opportunity: The Smithsonian hired Downs to evaluate energy efficiency improvements related to museum lighting.

Barrier: Lighting a museum is an art form of its own. It means thinking not only about illuminating a space, but also about the qualities of light most of us do not consider – color, beam spread, consistency and lifespan. Furthermore, changing a light bulb in a museum full of delicate artifacts isn't easy. In the National Air and Space Museum, for example, electricians must work around historic airplanes and rockets whenever a bulb burns out.

Also, conservators are not just thinking about what you will see today, they’re thinking about what your great-grandchildren will see in 100 years. Every time art is exposed to light, it fades, so conservators must make the tough choice of how long to let a piece of art sit in a gallery before they need to remove it from the light.

Solutions Identified: Incandescent lights are no longer the only option, and the Smithsonian is leading a revolution in museum lighting. The leaps and bounds made by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in recent years mean that designers have a new, more efficient tool to work with. As a result, it has already switched some of its galleries entirely to LED, and it has even bigger plans for the future. What it’s finding is that everyone comes out a winner.

Traditional incandescent lights have life spans that range from about 2,000 to 4,000 hours. Museum lights stay on almost all day, so light bulbs burn out quickly and need to be changed often. In comparison, LEDs last for up to 50,000 hours, so facilities staff only have to change them every twelve years.

Also, recent studies have shown that LED lights do not emit the damaging UV rays produced by other types of bulbs. That means that museum staff can worry less about light damage and more about putting together the perfect show.

Lastly, with over ten thousand lamps in a single museum, energy efficiency in lighting is a big deal for the Smithsonian. Galleries already retrofit with LED lights have shown energy savings of up to 75 percent.

Potential Savings: In total, the lighting retrofit projects Downs recommended to the Smithsonian could reduce its energy use by more than one million kilowatt hours annually, saving the institution more than $620,000 over five years.

Quote: “LED lighting shows real promise for museum maintenance and conservation efforts, while cutting costs and pollution.”

Name: Daniel Gonzalez-Kreisberg

Host Organization: Belk

School: Ross School of Business and School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan

Opportunity: Gonzalez-Kreisberg was hired by Belk, a department store with over 300 locations across the southeastern United States, to work on lighting upgrades, heating and cooling system improvements and vending miser controls for beverage vending machines.

Barrier: A dynamic, growing company like Belk does not throw capital at just any project with a promising financial return. Instead, it focuses on the best opportunities. Belk departments and teams compete with one another to prove that their proposals will benefit the company's growth the most. Efficiency upgrades, particularly lighting, heating and cooling system upgrades, could significantly reduce facility operating costs. However, these projects are outside of Belk's core business strategy – as a retail company, the company's top priority is to sell more merchandise. Projects that improve sales are generally prioritized over those that reduce expenses.

Solutions Identified: In 2007, the Retail Industry Leadership Association established the Retail Sustainability Initiative and Belk soon signed on. This was not a commitment that Belk management took lightly, and the retailer soon supplemented an already successful recycling program by increasing efficiency in product packaging and private brand supply chains, designing its newest store to meet U.S. Green Building Council LEED standards and even adding solar panels to two stores and the Belk corporate offices. This commitment provided the opportunity for Matt Green, Belk’s Director of Facilities, Energy, and Support Services, to work with EDF Climate Corps fellows to identify and implement energy efficiency projects.

Quote: “At the locations I visited in its 300-store portfolio, I found forward-thinking property managers who understand the value of energy efficiency in their facilities. They are using the retail industry’s growing focus on sustainability to catalyze the energy efficiency investments they have long pushed for.”

About EDF Climate Corps

EDF Climate Corps (edfclimatecorps.org) taps the talents of tomorrow’s leaders to save energy, money and the environment by placing specially-trained EDF fellows in companies, cities and universities as dedicated energy problem solvers. Working with hundreds of leading organizations, EDF Climate Corps has found an average of $1 million in energy savings for each participant. For more information, visit edfclimatecorps.org. Read our blog at edfclimatecorps.org/blog. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/edfbiz and on Facebook at facebook.com/EDFClimateCorps.

About Environmental Defense Fund

Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org), a leading national nonprofit organization, creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships. For more information, visit edfbusiness.org. Read our blog at blogs.edf.org/business. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/EDFbiz.

The Faces of EDF Climate Corps: Part 15

kjones — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:22:55 +0000

This blog post is the 15^th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations.

Name: Patrick Murphy

Host Organization: Commonwealth Financial Network

School: University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business

Opportunity: Murphy’s challenge was to look beyond the big-ticket energy efficiency projects and focus on multiple small gains in operations at Commonwealth Financial Network. Energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins called this the “silver buckshot” approach: there may not be a silver bullet to single-handedly solve a company’s environmental challenges, but a collection of small improvements can achieve a big impact.

Barrier: The greatest challenge of Murphy’s work was tracking each initiative – each piece of “buckshot.” Some days, this meant attending four meetings about four separate initiatives.

Solutions Identified: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – individual efficiency projects add up to significant annual savings in dollars and greenhouse gas emissions, and each non-financial achievement strengthens Commonwealth's future as an environmental citizen and workplace for engaged, committed leaders.

Among the many projects Murphy looked at, his recommendations included

Delamping and installing Vending Miser power management devices on vending machines
Recalibrating occupancy sensors and modifying night-time lighting use to eliminate potential waste
Minimizing disposable coffee cups and replacing paper towels with electric hand dryers
Launching Commonwealth’s sustainability committee as a bi coastal initiative, welcoming new members in the Massachusetts and California offices
Defining long-term metrics to measure the sustainability committee’s success in the future

Potential Savings: Patrick Murphy's vending machine and computer power management recommendations to Commonwealth Financial Network could cut its energy consumption by 60 percent, saving $57,000 and 50 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Quote: “No silver bullet, as Amory Lovins would point out, but plenty of buckshot. A few thousand dollars here and there quickly adds up.”

Name: Whitney Ketchum

Host Organization: San Diego State University – Imperial Valley Campus (SDSU – IV)

School: Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment

Opportunity: San Diego State University – Imperial Valley Campus hired Ketchum to assist them with their goal of becoming carbon neutral.

Barrier: San Diego State University's Imperial Valley Campus gets over 300 sunny days every year, making it one of the hottest campuses in the country. Its HVAC system upgrade was long overdue, but had been held up by budget cuts in California and the California State University System. Also, the Imperial Valley campus is small, and so it lacked the resources to put together a funding proposal to replace the failing chiller.

Solutions Identified: Ketchum focused on making the case to replace the 32-year-old chiller system which cools 90 percent of the building space on campus. In addition to saving the school money and carbon dioxide emissions, replacing the chiller would increase the comfort level of the students, faculty and staff. After all, on a campus where summer temperatures can reach 118 degrees Fahrenheit, the HVAC system is an important piece of equipment.

Potential Savings: Ketchum determined that replacing the chiller system could reduce campus electricity usage by 30 percent, paying off the initial investment in four years. Such a short payback period was compelling enough that SDSU main campus decided to move forward with replacing the system at SDSU-IV.

Quote: “When I told a friend who lives nearby that I would be moving there, he told me not to come, because ‘this is the hottest place on Earth.’ As I made the drive through the desert, I watched the car thermometer creep past 100 degrees, in May, and I began to understand what he meant.”

Name: Diana Sanchez

Host Organization: Carnival Corporation

School: Duke University Fuqua School of Business

Opportunity: On account of recent increases in fuel price, Carnival asked Sanchez to focus on uncovering energy efficiency opportunities on their cruise ships.

Solutions Identified: Sanchez identified energy efficiency opportunities in three areas: lighting, HVAC systems and galley (kitchen) equipment. When she arrived, Carnival had already implemented several projects in these areas, but there was still room for improvement.

Lighting: Sanchez found that most areas on the ship leave the lights on all day, even though they are occupied only about a third of that time, so she recommended upgrading to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and installing occupancy and daylight sensors.
HVAC: Because the systems were installed many years ago, some operators were not using HVAC equipment features that could enable it to run more efficiently. Sanchez recommended that by providing periodic, targeted training to equipment operators, the HVAC systems could be run more efficiently, ultimately reducing onboard fuel consumption.
Galley: In the galley, few employees knew how much energy and money could be saved by just by turning off appliances when not in use. Just like the HVAC system operators, Sanchez identified that these employees could make big contributions to energy efficiency if they were provided with proper training.

Potential Savings: Together, the energy efficiency opportunities Sanchez identified onboard Carnival's ships could save the company $52,000 or more, as well as 400,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Quote: “My big takeaway from my Carnival cruise- besides a great tan- is that training and engaging employees is just as important to energy efficiency as what is invested in efficient technology and equipment.”

About EDF Climate Corps

About Environmental Defense Fund

The Faces of EDF Climate Corps: Part 14

kjones — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:07:12 +0000

This blog post is the 14^th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations.

Name: Nikhil Rai

Host Organization: Volvo Mack Trucks

School: Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School

Opportunity: To align its record of environmental sustainability with Volvo Group as a whole, Volvo Mack Trucks wanted to achieve and maintain the ISO 50001 energy management standard, as well as ANSI’s new Superior Energy Performance- Mature Pathway certification.

Barrier: Before Rai could write a detailed strategy to achieve these two certifications, he needed to deepen his understanding of Mack Trucks' production process and find ways to collaborate with personnel from the facilities maintenance and environmental, health and safety departments.

Solutions Identified: Rai found that small portion of the equipment and manufacturing processes at the plant consumed most of the energy taken in by the entire facility – the paint booth and drying ovens, the centrifuges, large pumps, boilers, air compressors and dynamometers. He prioritized these processes in his efficiency recommendations, setting back, for example, the fan speeds and switching off pumps whenever the assembly line stopped.

Potential Savings: The energy efficiency opportunities Rai identified could annually reduce energy usage by 886,036 kilowatt hours, save $ 54,225.43 in costs and avoid 678.19 metric tons of CO2 emissions. All of this could be achieved through a minimal payback of <2 years, a low upfront investment of $19,117, at a net present value of $ 175,631.76 over a five year period.

Quote: “For a large manufacturer such as Volvo Mack Trucks, which annually consumes 37.77 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, effective energy management is crucial.”

Name: Sam Shannon

Host Organization: Ocean County

School: University of Wisconsin – Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs

Opportunity: On Shannon’s first day at Ocean County, he was handed a three-inch-thick binder labeled “Energy Master Plan.” It was a report commissioned by the county in mid-2008.

Barrier: Unfortunately, the report was completed shortly before the economy crashed.

Solutions Identified: Rather than leave the plan on the shelf, as you might expect a local government to do in a financial crisis, Ocean County began pursuing it aggressively. Board membership as well as Ocean's senior management remained steady after the Energy Master Plan was adopted, so the county was able to plan efficiency upgrades years in advance. This stability enabled Shannon to take on the big projects and think long term because he knew that the county was willing to go above and beyond the quick fixes.

Quote: “The default answer to energy efficiency here, I quickly learned, is “yes,” which is an enthusiasm that comes directly from the governing Board of Chosen Freeholders.”

Name: Kate Bogart

Host Organization: Booz Allen Hamilton

School: Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

Opportunity: As a firm that produces primarily intellectual capital and leases its physical infrastructure, Booz Allen Hamilton decided to place a heavy emphasis on employee engagement to improve energy and sustainability practices.

Barrier: Through her research on employee engagement, Bogart learned that while it is important that employees know how to properly recycle, remember to shut off lights at the end of the day and reduce commuting emissions, employees need to be able to connect those behaviors to specific organizational goals to make the behaviors stick.

Solutions Identified: After learning that employees are motivated by knowing the higher-level goals behind initiatives, the Sustainability Program Management Office, which is responsible for implementing sustainability initiatives at Booz Allen Hamilton, added a lofty goal to its communication: “Help Booz Allen become a plastic water bottle-free company.”
Bogart recognized that because this goal is collective, it makes it easy to use social science concepts such as norming, social diffusion and public commitment in building programs and messaging around sustainability. Also, employees are able to help one-another in overcoming challenges particular to the office where they work.
Bogart also noted that it takes bold managers to set firm-wide sustainability goals that employees can engage with and rally around. Each flagship sustainability goal managers set sends the message to employees that sustainability is important, and the management team must support each one through their own actions and how they communicate expectations to other firm leaders.
If Booz Allen is able to accomplish its goal of becoming a plastic water bottle-free company, it will be a newsworthy story, one that sets it apart from its competitors and elevates them as a market leader.

Quote: “Bottled water takes so much energy to make and transport that a single bottle uses the equivalent of 1/3 of its volume in oil over its lifecycle.”

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The Faces of EDF Climate Corps: Part 13

kjones — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:42:07 +0000

This blog post is the 13^th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations.

Name: Rebecca Enfiedjian

Host Organization: Garysburg, Northampton County

School: North Carolina Central University School of Business

Opportunity: Northampton County Commissioners want not only to reduce their utility bills, but also to make county buildings more energy efficient.

Project results: According to Enfiedjian’s research:

By updating existing fluorescent lights and replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs Northampton could save $8,000
Replacing the incandescent exit signs with LEDs would generate nearly $7,000 in savings every year, have a 94% rate of return and generate nearly $25,000 in savings over the lifetime of the projects, as well as 41metric tons of annual carbon emissions reductions
By investing just $1,500 in vending misers – a machine that turns off vending machines when they are not in use – Northampton could save $900 every year, as well as 7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Quote: “Northampton County, a county of only 22,000 people, has decided to become a template of rural energy efficiency.”

Name: Shu Saito

Host Organization: CA Technologies

School: Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

Opportunity: Saito focused on the HVAC system at CA Technologies’ headquarters in Islandia, New York, which consumes 51 percent of energy in the building.

Barrier: The Islandia building is more than 20 years old and has been redesigned several times, but the HVAC system has not been optimized to keep up with the changes.
Solutions Identified: To identify ground-level efficiency opportunities, Saito knew that he needed to know the details of that system:

What was the operating schedule of equipment such as chillers, heaters and AHUs, for example?
What was that equipment’s capacity?
What were the temperature set points for chilled water, condenser water and supply and return air?

To answer these questions – and weed out more efficiency opportunities – he worked closely with building engineers and facility staff. They know Islandia's HVAC system best, and often glean valuable energy efficiency ideas from their daily experience.

Potential Savings: By working with these staff, Saito was able to identify 8 energy efficiency opportunities in the HVAC system that could save CA Technologies 6.5 percent of its Islandia energy consumption every year. That's $170 thousand CA doesn't have to spend on energy, annually.

Quote: “When companies set out to improve their energy efficiency, they often overlook fundamental problems. For example, I found that the air handling unit was running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Why? Because it was pumping cooled air to a 2nd-floor security monitoring room that no one knew was running.”

Name: Nicholas Clevenger

Host Organization: Envision Charlotte

School: North Carolina State University Poole College of Management

Opportunity: Envision Charlotte is a first-of-its-kind nonprofit with bold mission: reducing Uptown Charlotte’s commercial office building energy use 20 percent by 2016. Clevenger focused on Duke Energy’s Smart Energy Now (SEN), which is responsible for 5 percent of the 20 percent reduction.

Barrier: Clevenger’s task was to assist Smart Energy Now in changing the energy –use behavior of Uptown tenants by engaging property managers and office workers from Uptown companies, public organizations and other nonprofits.

Solutions Identified: SEN engages and trains office workers in simple energy conservation measures such as shutting down computers, turning off lights and unplugging task lamps. Clevenger created two more ways for SEN to engage tenants. First, he designed incentivizes that encourage overnight cleaning crews to conserve energy while they work. There are many strategies, because every office has different needs. Second, he designed a program to recognize facility and property managers participating in Envision Charlotte and Smart Energy Now, who are crucial to accomplishing Envision Charlotte’s goal, though they're often overlooked.

Quote: “Through my fellowship, I have witnessed firsthand how corporations, non-profits, and public entities are working together to make a difference in their community.”

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AT&T Touts the Power of Fresh Perspectives through NGO Collaboration

kjones — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:09:11 +0000

At EDF Climate Corps, we aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting aggressive energy efficiency in commercial buildings across the nation. For this reason, we are constantly working to share energy efficiency best practices with the 200+ organizations in our Network, and we are always encouraging our host organizations to share their learnings too. We’re happy to see AT&T has done just that.

AT&T, recently named first on CR Magazine’s list of best corporate citizens, has hired EDF Climate Corps fellows to identify energy-saving opportunities each summer since 2010. Also, AT&T recently engaged with EDF on an aggressive water conservation project. We wanted to share the videos AT&T published this week on Mother Nature Network about all this work. The second video discusses the benefits AT&T sees in collaborating with outside groups like EDF.

AT&T Director of Energy, John Schinter, says that collaborating with outside groups like EDF Climate Corps gives AT&T “an ability to bring on fresh thinkers, and to look at things differently.” We couldn’t agree more! It’s this type of fresh perspective that has allowed our EDF Climate Corps fellows to identify such successful energy projects at AT&T and hundreds of other leading organizations.

Stay tuned to the EDF Climate Corps Blog all summer to read more success stories from this year’s crop of fellows. And in the interim, we welcome you to get involved in our conversation.

What is your organization doing to share best practices and case studies about energy and sustainability?

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