Mission Foods has partnered with Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) to help the company reduce its energy use and carbon emissions. The company partnered with SoCalGas through its Energy Efficiency Calculated Incentive Program to build a new “green” plant in Panorama City.

The tortilla products manufacturer transformed a 200,000-sq.-ft. General Motors plant into a LEED Gold certified tortilla manufacturing plant that is expected to prevent more than 1,300 metric tons of carbon emissions annually.

Receiving design assistance from SoCalGas, as well as $45,000 in financial incentives to install preheat combustion air for corn and flour tortilla ovens and preheat cooking oil for fryers, the Panorama plant saves approximately 250,000 therms of natural gas per year.

“Working with SoCalGas has helped us to lower our manufacturing and energy costs,” says Lucy Gonzalez, VP Sustainability, Mission Foods. “We are committed to creating sustainable operations — not just lowering costs, but also reducing our carbon footprint.”

Other sustainable efforts include rooftop solar panels for generating some of its own electricity, heat recovery systems, and systems that minimize water use.

Mission Foods also has joined the Cool Planet Project, an energy efficiency and climate change mitigation program administered by The Climate Registry (The Registry) and SoCalGas. The project helps Mission Foods understand the connection between energy usage and GHG emissions. SoCalGas provides business customers that install significant energy efficiency projects with assistance in measuring their carbon footprint and emissions reductions through The Registry.

Stop & Shop has completed the installation of solar panels on eight of its stores in Mass., Conn. and N.J., which will reduce the energy consumption at these stores by more than seven percent. This project is part of the company’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint by 20 percent by 2015, using 2008 as a baseline.

The solar panels at all eight stores will generate about 1,759,572 kWh, which will offset 1,264 metric tons of CO2 emissions. The solar project is among a series of green solutions Stop & Shop is rolling out across its 375 stores in the Northeast.

The photovoltaic (PV) solar power generating systems were developed by Alteris Renewables.

Stop & Shop is also looking at other ways to be green by installing energy-efficient lighting and refrigeration systems in stores and distribution centers. The company recently partnered with the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund to install a fuel cell at its new store in Torrington, Conn., which will provide more than 90 percent of the electricity needed to power the store.

Stop & Shop has been moving toward greener buildings since 2002.

Large U.S. companies continue to be involved in sustainability, and most companies see an alignment between sustainability and their overall business strategy, according to a new report and related podcast from Deloitte.

The Deloitte report, “Sustainability in Business Today: A Cross-Industry View,” and podcast, “Three Things Your Chief Sustainability Officer Won’t Tell You,” also find that many companies have a gap between their leaders’ sustainability aspirations and the way that sustainability is enabled within their organizations.

The survey indicates the importance of sustainability to the future of the respondents’ businesses and the challenges that sustainability leaders face in trying to align their organizations sustainability practices with their principles.

Among survey respondents, all but three said their sustainability priorities were at least partially aligned with their organizations’ business priorities, says Deloitte. However, a number of respondents noted that alignment was an ongoing process that occurred at different rates in different areas of the business.

BSR’s report, “The New Frontier in Sustainability: The Business Opportunity in Tackling Sustainable Consumption (PDF),” identifies opportunities for companies to deal with sustainable consumption through three key parts of the business value cycle — product design, consumer engagement and use, and end-of-use.

“For years, sustainable consumption has been framed as a limitation on business,” says Aron Cramer, BSR president and CEO, who recently led a workshop on the subject. “But in a world where our consumption patterns outpace the planet’s ability to regenerate resources by 30 percent, businesses that figure out how to deliver enhanced value by radically reducing material inputs and engaging consumers on product use will be well-positioned for success.”

As an example, cited by BSR, design choice for things like material weight and packaging have direct impacts on transportation costs and fuel use, while choices about energy efficiency directly impact energy consumption in a product’s use phase.

In some cases, a focus on sustainable consumption may result in a significant redesign of familiar products, and in other cases, there may be an opportunity to deliver the same value through services (such as car-sharing) rather than products (such as car sales), says BSR.

Findings from these two surveys fall in line with an earlier survey of CEOs released by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture that found 93 percent of respondents see sustainability as crucial to their future success.

GE is collaborating with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to bring the company’s internal Treasure Hunt program, aimed at reducing energy waste, to cities, universities, businesses, and other organizations. The program has helped GE reduce its own energy use by making improvements to all sources of energy waste including electricity, natural gas, water, wastewater, compressed air and steam.

So far, GE has conducted 200 internal treasure hunts, which has helped the company save more than $130 million annually. The company says it conducts regular treasure hunt sessions to identify energy-efficiency savings at a specific manufacturing site, which typically yields opportunities to reduce energy by 20 percent.

The ecomagination Treasure Hunt in collaboration with EDF will help identify energy savings opportunities for partners. As an example, through New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Hospital Challenge, consisting of New York City’s largest hospitals that have agreed to work together to lower their overall footprint, Continuum Health Partners’ (CHP) Roosevelt Hospital served as the first site for the ecomagination Treasure Hunt program.

The program identified opportunities for $2.1 million in energy savings with a payback of 2.6 years, leading to a reduction of 7,500 metric tons of emissions annually.

The GE and EDF collaboration is an effort to drive energy efficiency awareness and action throughout the nation. EDF is helping GE look at ways to share best practices from the Treasure Hunt process more widely across industries and sectors as well as select targeted sites for the initiative.

Over the next few months, EDF and GE will work to verify energy efficiency opportunities and identify industry best practices at select sites including facilities run by the cities of Atlanta and Orlando, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Merck.

The ecomagination Treasure Hunts at these sites will require staffing resources but there is no direct fee charged for the opportunity.

Del Monte Foods has formalized its environmental sustainability goals, which builds on the company’s sustainable agricultural practices and strategies at its manufacturing facilities to reduce the environmental impact at its cannery operations, and its supply chain to reduce its impact from the sourcing and distribution of goods.

Del Monte’s cross-functional leadership team led the effort to formalize the company’s commitment to environmental goals in three key areas — waste, greenhouse gas emissions and water. The company pledges to achieve or exceed these goals by 2016, using 2007 as the baseline.

In the area of waste reductions, Del Monte has worked to lower the amount of solid waste (per ton of finished product) going to landfill from its operations, and has committed to a 75 percent reduction. Since 2007, two of Del Monte’s locations — the Milk-Bone plant in Buffalo, New York, and the Del Monte Foods Distribution Center in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania — have become zero-landfill facilities.

Del Monte also commits to cut its packaging materials by 15 percent, and has implemented several packaging initiatives to support this effort.

The foods manufacturer also plans to cut GHG emissions per ton of finished product by 10 percent from the company’s manufacturing, warehousing and research & development facilities. So far, the company has reduced its GHG emissions per ton of finished product by approximately 2.5 percent, primarily thanks to a 1.9 megawatt solar panel system Del Monte installed at its Hanford and Kingsburg, Calif. processing plants in late 2008.

The company also pledges to reduce its total GHG emissions by 7 percent through improved efficiency in Del Monte’s transportation network. The company has reduced its transportation miles by approximately 29 million since 2007, which represents an approximate 6 percent reduction in GHG emissions.

Del Monte recently joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Leaders program to help further reduce its GHG emissions.

Del Monte has committed to a 20 percent reduction in fresh water use per ton of finished product. Since 2007, the company has reduced fresh water consumption by approximately 9 percent and is on track to meet its 2016 goal.

Europe is in the midst of cutting both budgets and low-carbon energy subsidies, while governments are looking for tougher emission reductions, reports The New York Times.

Spain, Germany, France, Italy and the Czech Republic have all announced subsidy cuts. As an example cited in the article, Spain, which has had years of generous subsidies for renewables, will cut €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) off the national budget by 2013, primarily by cutting susidies for the wind energy sector by 35 percent over the next 30 months.

In Germany and France, the cuts are aimed at future projects and the solar sector, where the subsidy had remained stable even though the costs of solar panels dropped by about one-third over the past year due to oversupply, reports The New York Times.

The UK may be next as it seeks to reduce a deficit of more than 160 billion pounds ($250 billion), according to the article. The UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change is calling for the government to maintain the £550 million ($859 million) a year it spends on clean energy.

All these cuts are coming when the European Union is committed to getting 20 percent of its energy consumption from renewable sources and cutting carbon emissions by 20 percent, both by 2020.

However, the climate, energy and environment ministers of France, UK and Germany have been calling for a unilateral move to cut emissions by 30 percent, which is also supported by executives from more than 20 leading European businesses with global operations, reports the New York Times.

Stephen Lilley, managing director of green investment bank Climate Change Capital, told ClimateWire the challenge is balancing the need to cut costs and to combat climate change.

He adds: “We would expect tariffs to come down as the market develops and costs come down, but there is a floor in the market. Investors want to know what returns they will get and to have certainly that government policies will not alter. If the returns become unattractive or there is policy uncertainty, they will look elsewhere.”

A study just released by Bloomberg New Energy Finance indicates that global subsidies for fossil fuels far outpaces the support for renewable energy sources, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

The report finds that governments gave $43 billion to $46 billion to support renewable energy last year through tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices (feed-in tariffs) and alternative energy credits. This is in comparison to $557 billion that was spent to subsidize fossil fuels in 2008, according to the International Energy Agency.

Michael Liebreich, chief executive of New Energy Finance, said in the article: “One of the reasons the clean energy sector is starved of funding is because mainstream investors worry that renewable energy only works with direct government support. This analysis shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around ten times the subsidy for renewables.”

The report finds that the most expensive clean energy subsidy last year was Germany’s feed-in tariff, which cost $9.6 billion, and across Europe, the tariffs amounted to $19.5 billion.

The U.S. spent $18.2 billion on clean energy subsidies last year, and China provided about $2 billion, but it also supports the renewable sector through low-interest loans, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

G20 leaders have been discussing the possibility of phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels to combat global warming since last year.

EPA Rejects Challenges to Finding That Climate Change Is Threat to Health

Bloomberg

Mexico Plant Doubles Capacity with Dramatic Reduction in Energy Consumption

Business Wire

California pear growers get good marks for sustainability

The Packer

U.S. Crackdown Forces Calif. To Yank Home Solar, Energy-Retrofit Loans

The New York Times

Energy upgrades heading to airport

The Durango Herald

Data processing needs efficiency consideration

H&V News

Canadian researchers hope to green the web, make Canada the world’s web server

Lethbridge Herald

Coulomb Technologies Unveils First ChargePoint America Electric Vehicle Charging Stations in San Jose, Calif.

Businesswire

Environment ministers from India, China, Brazil and South Africa do not expect an upcoming climate change meeting in Mexico to produce an agreement, Reuters reports.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has ruled that Southern California Edison (SCE) should not be allowed to claim renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated from the Mountain View I & II wind facilities toward its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) goals during the period covered by the 2006 RPS verification report, reports the Center for Resource Solutions (CRS).

CRS says the decision is a major step in upholding the integrity of markets for renewable energy by preventing a double counting of those RECs.

Edison assumed the energy-only purchase contracts from the California Department of Water Resources, which bought the power from Mountain View owners to meet emergency energy needs in response to the Western Power Crisis, explains CRS.

However, the contracts gave all renewable attributes to the facilities’ owner, which sold RECs to various voluntary market participants starting in 2004, says CRS.

SCE, a utility subject to the California RPS, had been applying its purchases of electricity from the 67-megawatt (MW) Mountain View facilities in San Gorgonio Pass, Calif., toward its RPS requirements since 2004.

CRS testified in the CEC proceeding that the RECs in question were the property of other purchasers. CRS documented over 1.2 million MWH of REC transactions from 2004 to 2007, involving two dozen wholesale marketers and utilities and more than 70,000 retail customers.

The California Public Utilities Commission will determine if a shortfall in Edison’s allowed renewable energy might require remedial action or penalties. The utility may be able to avoid financial penalties by banking over purchases from other years, or applying future purchases to meet the gap in the period in question, says CRS.

California’s investor-owned utilities and other retail power sellers are required to meet a 20 percent RPS mandate by the end of this year. However, the latest CPUC figures indicate Edison may not reach 20 percent until at least 2012.

The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has voted in favor of a measure that now requires electric utilities to reduce the amount of power they sell by 22 percent by 2020 as part of its drive to help businesses and homeowners conserve energy, reports The Arizona Republic.

Arizona’s measure mirrors a national push by utility companies to increase energy-efficiency efforts as one way to reduce the need for multi-million-dollar power plants and transmission line projects that are financed by customer rate hikes, according to the newspaper.

The effort also will help reduce air pollution and excessive water use resulting from power plants burning coal or natural gas to supply customers’ electricity.

Utilities have mixed feelings on the ruling. TEP, Arizona Public Service (APS) and some of the state’s electric cooperatives said they support energy efficiency but are concerned that the 22 percent use reduction would be difficult to meet, reports Arizona Daily Star.

The newspaper also reports that TEP has filed formal objections to the rules stating technical feasibility and cost reasons. TEP said the rules don’t provide a mechanism for utilities to recover lost revenues from the reduced consumption.

The Southwest Energy Efficiency Project said in the article the measure will save Arizona utility customers nearly $9 billion and Tucson ratepayers $1.4 billion in energy costs over the next decade.

The rules also require regulated utility companies to design programs that promote energy efficiency or reduce peak demand through mechanisms such as time-of-use electric rates, according to Arizona Daily Star.

As examples cited in the article, “demand-side management” programs include weatherization, home energy audits, promoting the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs, and replacing home appliances with more efficient models.

Existing demand-side management surcharges on monthly customer bills, which costs, for example, 83 cents monthly for the average TEP ratepayer, will pay for the new energy-efficiency programs. However, the surcharge may increase.

Starting next year, utilities must show increasing amounts of electricity saved until 2020, but they can take credit for efficiency projects funded since 2005, according to The Arizona Record.

Arizona’s regulated utilities also are mandated to get 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025.

IBM has announced it is collaborating with a Honeywell division to deliver “smart” technologies and solutions to help companies improve the efficiency of their buildings including commercial and retail spaces, and Carnegie Mellon University to create smarter infrastructures, aimed at more efficient and cost-effective building management.

As part of its partnership with Tridium, a division of Honeywell’s Automation and Control Solutions group, the companies plan to integrate IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Energy Management and IBM Maximo Asset Management enterprise software with Tridium’s Niagara and Sedona software.

Tridium’s solutions enable the integration and control of nearly any device or system in a facility including HVAC equipment, lighting, generators, gas pumps, ovens, and medical devices.

By integrating IBM’s advanced software, which delivers real-time information, asset intelligence and analysis from virtually any device and sensor in the network, building managers will be able to determine if their buildings’ systems are operating at maximum performance.

IBM also announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to create the IBM Smarter Infrastructure Lab at the university to develop technologies that help cities, governments and industries develop smarter infrastructures. The lab is expected to be operational in the fall of 2010.

The new lab is part of the Pennsylvania Smarter Infrastructure Incubator (PSII). The lab will develop technologies that are in line with IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative and its business analytics and optimization offerings as well as CMU’s work within its Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research.

Researchers will collect and analyze data about the physical condition and energy efficiency of buildings, water pipelines and other infrastructure, which will be used to help develop technologies and solutions that will make the maintenance and management of such infrastructure more efficient and cost effective.

Government agencies along with businesses from diverse industry sectors will be invited to partner with the lab, either providing data from their infrastructures or complementary technologies to support the research.

A report released last year by the IBM Institute for Business Value makes the case for cities to use new technologies and tools to help them better manage their resources, while helping them reduce cost, increase reliability and lower energy and water consumption.

The city of Brea, California, expects to reduce the city’s energy use by 40 percent with the start of an energy efficiency and solar project with Chevron Energy Solutions. The city estimates it will save more than $13 million in net energy savings over the life of the project, helping the city meet early compliance with the goals of the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as AB 32.

Chevron says Brea will become the largest municipal producer of solar energy in Orange County once the 1.8-megawatt (MW) of solar panels are installed at the Community Center, Civic and Cultural Center and Reservoir City Pump Yard.

Chevron Energy Solutions designed the solar systems and will build, install, and manage the systems for the city. Chevron also will implement a citywide street lighting upgrade and interior and exterior lighting retrofits and improvements to heating, ventilating, air conditioning and energy management controls. The project is expected to be completed in 2011.

The solar and energy efficiency improvements will generate savings to pay for the infrastructure costs.

By reducing its purchase of utility power, the city also expects to reduce carbon emissions by more than 86,000 metric tons. In addition, the solar power at the Reservoir City Pump Yard will help mitigate future pumping costs to the city.

In other solar news in California, the city of Corona unveiled its first solar-powered bus stop that powers a nearby intersection and feeds power back into the city grid, reports The Press-Enterprise. The six solar panels affixed to the bus stop generate 1,114 watts per hour, according to Solade Concepts, which headed the project.

Andrew Ferrick, owner of Solade Concepts, told the newspaper that Pomona, San Diego and Germany are looking into using the technology. He is currently studying the amount of energy the system produces and delivers to the grid.

The city says the project will likely cover the majority of the $100 it costs per month to run the intersection.

In New Jersey, which rivals California in solar projects, PSE&G has started to install solar panels on utility poles and street lights near businesses and residential neighborhoods in Hillsborough, as part of the company’s “Solar 4 All” program launched in July 2009, reports myCentralJersey.com.

The goal of the project is to install 200,000 pole-attached solar energy units in PSE&G’s service territory. PSE&G told the news site that solar panels are being installed in the state’s six largest cities and in about 300 rural and suburban communities.

In addition, the utility plans to provide “centralized solar,” solar gardens and roof-top installations on facilities the company owns, as well as third-party-owned sites, according to the article. Installations are expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

The electricity generated by the units will be connected directly into PSE&G’s electric distribution system. The utility will receive federal tax credits and solar renewable credits for this generation.

Thanks to the state’s solar renewable-energy certificate program solar installations are on the rise with commercial installations accounting for 57 percent of the program.

Zotos International, a hair-care manufacturer, has received final approval for a $7 million, 3.3-megawatt (MW) on-site wind power project for its manufacturing plant in Geneva, N.Y. The company expects to start construction in mid-August with the wind turbines fully operational by the end of the year.

Zotos is investing in wind power as part of a sustainability initiative aimed at powering its 670,000-square-foot plant with 100 percent renewable energy by the end of 2011. The company has invested $30 million at its Geneva plant over the past three and a half years.

Zotos’ project is the largest wind project of any manufacturing company in the U.S., according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The Zotos project is comprised of two 1,650- kW wind turbines that will generate approximately 7,500 mWh of renewable energy every year.

The manufacturer will provide the city with a donation equivalent to 5 percent of the wind power generated on site as part of the project.

Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will cover 30 percent of the project’s costs. Zotos expects a return on investment in less than five years.

According to the company’s Website, Zotos also is implementing sustainable packaging measures. The company’s beauty products are packaged in bottles that currently contain as much as 70 percent post-consumer recycled plastic. The company also uses only 100 percent recycled paperboard, and it prints information on the inside of the cartons to eliminate paper inserts.

Zotos claims it will be the first beauty company to voluntarily offset 100 percent of its CO2 emissions produced by its manufacturing and assembly facility. Zotos is owned by Shiseido Americas.

Two large utility wind projects were recently announced in Arizona and California.

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Different green rating systems solve or create different problems depending on who’s using them and what they hope to get out of them. A real estate developer or builder might want bragging rights to help sell their homes while a municipality simply needs a third party standard to fortify minimum code requirements.  Homeowners want something to help them navigate the increasingly complex task of home purchase.  Environmentalist and academics want all of the above and more.

Meanwhile, some rating systems have become truly big business. The two largest – LEED-h and NGBS – compete shamelessly while fetching fees from $900 – $2300 per house. But these indispensable fees pay for the testing and verification that prevent such standards from becoming rubber stamps. If the sticker shock worries you, there’s always Energy Star, which actually gives varying rebates for attaining modest to ambitious energy performance. And underpinning the entire assortment is the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). This is the bedrock of energy compliance and is both cheap (actually, free) and mandatory. But remember that energy standards are only a single aspect of the more comprehensive green standards.

Each day brings a new program focused on some aspect of building. From housewrap to air quality, the constellation of organizations is dizzying – Forest Steward Council, Greenguard, Floorscore, Greenlabel, C2C, Green Seal, BREEAM, Green Globes, Environments for Living – just to name a very varied sampling.

Finally, there are several local building codes that are more rigorous than even the national players – Austin, Boulder, and California’s new Green Building Standards Code are a few that come to mind.

So which programs work best for you? Beyond the mandated energy codes in your community (which are generally quite modest), here are a few suggestions.

Typical First-time Homeowners

At a minimum every new home should be designed to meet the federally funded Energy Star standards.  Though entry-level certification is trivial, the advanced levels typically produce homes that are 15% more energy efficient than the IRC (International Residential Code) and up to 30% more efficient than non-rated homes. In addition to tax credits and rebates earned through this program, the resulting design will use less energy for the life of the building.

Beyond just energy, the NAHB has published a painless set of Green Guidelines that will help the beginner get their bearings with regard to resource conservation, health and general sustainability. This is really not much more than a primer but it’s a very good introduction.

Far better and almost as accessible is the National Green Building Standard, also from the NAHB. Without getting too complicated or too expensive, you can design or purchase a home certified to be environmentally sound, healthy and even more energy efficient than some levels of Energy Star homes. Indeed, the rebates and tax credits from the Energy Star program can more than pay for the certification and testing fees associated with this program.

Green Homeowners and First-time Green Homebuilders

Because the Energy Star and NGBS programs are designed to attract and educate large numbers of homeowners, they initiate at a fairly low level. Nevertheless, they are both organized around graduated levels of certification which allow more enlightened homeowners to seek higher standards. But remember that even in its most robust form, Energy Star remains a metric for energy only while NGBS is a full spectrum green rating system.

For “traditional” homebuilders wishing to transition into green materials and methods, the NGBS is probably the easiest “first rating system.” Because it is more flexible and considerably less expensive, it is very popular.  Customers recognize it and there’s a  community of fellow builders familiar with the paperwork. Because it is based on an upwardly graduated point system, this may be the only rating program you every need.

This is also a great program for real estate developers who wish to create green neighborhoods. Many prefab manufacturers are embracing this rating system so their products will greatly advance a developer’s green agenda.

The Sustainable Change-Maker

For customers and professionals who are truly passionate about improving our built environment, the upper levels of either the LEED-h or the NGBS program will provide state-of-the-art rigor. Indeed, the customer and builder become a single team at this level, willing and determined to do whatever it takes to meet the highest standards of sustainable design. Besides meeting the highest standards for envelope, land use, resource conservation and health, meeting this high level usually involves innovation.

And for those only focused on energy conservation, there’s the Passiv Haus program. Not for lightweights, this German-born program produces “net-zero” designs that are so energy efficient they don’t even have heating or cooling systems.

To learn more, check out:

http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=147

http://www.nahbgreen.org/About/default.aspx

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home.index

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/ratings

http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PHIUSHome.html

John Connell serves as Design Director at Connor Homes, a company specializing in the design and manufacture of early American-style homes, in a process Connor Homes refers to as ‘mill-built architecture,’ allowing for the best of historical early American architecture, design aesthetic and details, coupled with the aforementioned benefits of factory built. 

John Connell is the Founder of the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, Vermont, author of Homing Instinct (McGraw Hill) and The Inspired House (Taunton) and Principal of 2morrow Studio.

The city of Kemerovo in Siberia is converting the city’s street lighting to LED technology, which is expected to save the city €20,000 or about $26,000 annually, while helping the city reduce CO2 emissions.

Kemerovo has installed 200 street luminaires made by LLC TD Focus, which are equipped with Osram’s Golden Dragon Oval Plus LEDs. Another 200 luminaires will be installed in the neighboring villages of Neftebazy and Leninsk-Kusnetsky.

Osram says these LEDs have been developed specifically for street lighting and meet special requirements to create an efficient lighting solution with minimal light pollution. Light output efficiency is on average between 65 to 95 lm/W.

The LED solution also is well suited for adverse weather conditions like freezing temperatures, rain, ice and snow, thanks to the operating life of LEDs and their radiant power increase in lower temperatures. Compared with conventional solutions using 150-W sodium high-pressure discharge lamps, the USS-90 Magistral street lamp, with a total power consumption of only 105-W, requires far less energy, says Osram.

Several cities in the U.S. including Los Angeles, Boston and New York also have been making the switch to LED technology for streetlights and other projects to cut down on their energy bills.

Ammunition Group founder Robert Brunner discusses his latest venture: user-friendly solar power for handheld devices. Brunner says the goal behind the company, called Regen, aims to encourage users to rethink their energy consumption.

Six New York State commercial facilities, combined, are expected to reduce their heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) energy consumption by more than 9.9 million kWH annually, by implementing Optimum Energy’s OptimumHVAC software solution. These buildings include 1271 Avenue of the Americas building, a GE Healthcare manufacturing facility, and Westfield Group’s Sunrise shopping center in Massapequa.

The OptimumHVAC software automatically calculates the most energy efficient sequencing of HVAC system equipment based on real-time building loads, reducing energy use by up to 60 percent. The solution also allows building operators to benchmark HVAC energy performance via a Web-based service to ensure energy reductions are sustained month after month.

Collectively, these six New York installations also are expected to achieve annually an operating cost savings of more than $2 million, water savings of more than 4 million gallons, and greenhouse gas emission savings of more than 16 million pounds.

Optimum Energy also is conducting site assessments of five Suffolk County municipal buildings, including a power plant that serves several buildings, an office tower, two court complexes, and the medical examiner’s building. The company estimates that together these five new projects will save more than 2 million kWh annually.

The average payback for these projects, which includes the cost of OptimumHVAC plus any hardware upgrades, less incentives, is just over two years.

Most projects are eligible to receive the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) or Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) incentives, totaling more than $2.6 million. NYSERDA recently bulked up its coffers with $100 million in funds for energy-efficient projects.

The company says the OptimumHVAC solution is well suited for New York commercial facilities equipped with centrifugal chilled water and/or variable air volume air handling HVAC systems due to the high percentage of partial-load operation. On average, buildings in New York only need to operate HVAC equipment between 90 and 100 percent of capacity less than three percent per year.

The remainder of the time it’s possible to operate HVAC system equipment (including chillers, pumps and fans) at variable (slower) speeds to save energy and maintain a comfortable environment, according to the company.

Optimum offers a whitepaper, “Setting New Standards for Ultra High Performance HVAC (PDF).

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Microsoft releases power counter for Green consumers

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Marketing specialists are in agreement: green marketing campaigns exist and their clients should have one.  The debate begins when the question turns to actually knowing what green marketing is and the best way to employ it. Although the rampant confusion is understandable due to the current amorphous nature of green marketing, the original concept was quite simple. Green marketing emerged as “marketing of products that are assumed to be environmentally safe,” a simple enough definition by anyone’s standards. Unfortunately, the very simplicity of the initial definition provided excessive leeway for companies seeking to take advantage of green marketing, and the marketers creating their campaigns.

Although green marketing has experienced a recent resurgence as environmental issues are becoming incorporated into the public psyche, green marketing has been around for several decades. Green marketing began in the 1980’s, with the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reports which provided an overview of companies’ environmental, social, and financial impacts. When consumers were able to monitor a company’s operational practices, they were better able to understand which companies were wasteful and which were implementing sustainable measures. With the establishment of CSRs and the publication of several books highlighting green marketing, the movement gained traction as well as evolved to become more profitable.

Over the relatively short history of green marketing, a movement that began as a way to incentivize the production of environmentally friendly products has degenerated into a mishmash of ideas, ethics, and confusion about what green products really are.

Take one product, attempt to make it environmentally friendly, and then tell everybody about it. That is current green marketing in a nutshell. With few standards, and very little labeling of any significance, the right to call a product environmentally friendly is practically limitless. Authenticity of labeling has further lost creditability as the pseudo-accepted authority, EnergyStar, has recently undergone an embarrassment in which some of the more egregious products deemed efficient were exposed – for example, the approval of a gas-powered alarm clock.

One of the few true determinants of a sustainable product is a demonstrably lower carbon footprint compared to competitors. Carbon dioxide, despite controversy, is widely considered to be one of the most common and detrimental greenhouse gases (GHGs) contributing to global warming. To truly reduce a product’s carbon footprint, the entire production process must be considered from manufacture to packaging to transport. For example, one of the masters of efficiency, IKEA, uses Optiledge for shipping. Optiledge utilizes recyclable plastic pallets rather than the traditional wood pallets. The reduction in weight requires less fuel for transportation, and the recyclable nature of the pallets allows them to be reused several times, therefore removing the need for continual manufacturing (a big carbon producer).

Although consumers often believe the claims companies make about products being environmentally friendly, the true test is the amount of carbon each product creates.

Companies have more than one reason to produce “environmentally friendly” products. Sustainability usually encourages efficiency. Creating a sustainable process for manufacture and distribution often results in lower overall costs in the long run. Once companies get over the sticker shock of the capital investments required to renovate and reduce environmental damage, they often realize that net revenues will increase. Profits remain a primary concern in a capitalist economy, as they should, and cost effectiveness is an additional, persuasive, reason to become environmentally friendly.

Although there is spirited debate about the reasoning behind social accountability, the fact remains that corporations are stepping up to become socially accountable. Part of accountability involves the effect a company’s actions will have on the environment of their consumers. The movement towards social corporate responsibility encompasses accountability for the environmental impacts of their products, a movement that results in both a reduced impact and recognition for sustainable efforts. Although today’s consumers are balancing complex lifestyle choices, environmental awareness is a growing factor in product selection.

Just as the definition of environmentally friendly is surrounded in confusion, so is the effectiveness of “green marketing.” While more traditional marketing campaigns can point to metrics to illustrate the effectiveness of an individual campaign, determining if consumers are making choices primarily dependent upon environmental concerns is nearly impossible. Surveys indicate that 78% of consumers consciously attempt to buy products that are environmentally friendly, but the problem remains pinpointing how to utilize a sustainable preference.

With consumers making their own decisions about what “environmentally friendly” means, producers are scrambling to capture the market and convey the sustainability of their products. Although modern consumers are making an active effort to buy more responsibly, many still have little knowledge about what phrases like “all-natural”, “non-toxic”, and “100% post-consumer recycled” truly mean. Further confusing the issue are the varying degrees of consumer interest in “green” products. According to Mintel, currently 12% of consumers are classified as those that attempt to buy a green product every time they make a purchase, while 68% of consumers will only occasionally pursue a green option. Marketers must include this discrepancy along with a consumer’s preference for price, quality, and luxury.

Many marketers take advantage of this confusion to exaggerate their claims or make their products appear to possess attributes that have no relevance on the determination of sustainability. There is a market for green products, a market that will yield considerable profit, but the crux of green marketing is understanding how to exploit demand in the green market.

Some companies have been able to create products with an emphasis on green initiatives that appeal to consumers. Perhaps one of the best examples is the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL).  With a cost of 2-3 times that of their incandescent counterparts, CFL sales struggled when they were first introduced. Not until marketing campaigns underscored the sustainability of CFLs while promoting the energy savings (about $26/yr per bulb replaced) did sales outpace those of incandescent bulbs.

Another excellent example is Brita’s marketing campaign focused on the environmentally aware. By promising that the use of their product reduces plastic bottle waste and is less damaging to already depleted watersheds, Brita has increased sales of their water filters. In this case, green marketing was not supplemented by an appeal to sustainability but was used as a standalone policy.

When you think of a green consumer you might envision someone who cruises in a Prius while listening to NPR on the radio, but today’s green consumer may just as well be the soccer mom down the street. Green consumers aren’t conforming to the traditional idea of environmentalists.  They are spread across age, geographic, racial, and income groups.

Additionally, different groups consider different aspects of green products priorities, and these draws range from altruistic environmental protection to a purely financial concern due to the efficiency of most green products. Grasping an understanding of the “green” market, and doing it quickly, can be one of the best investments a company can make. However, churning out products that are supposedly green will no longer be an effective strategy as green consumers grow in both knowledge and number.

Green marketing campaigns can be successful, but assuming that reaping the benefits won’t require any more thought than a hastily created green campaign could be an unsustainable mistake. Products must actually have a reduced carbon footprint to be environmentally friendly, and marketing firms need to tout the sustainable aspects their target market consider the most important.

Emily McClendon is an environmental marketing specialist currently working at NeboWeb. She has a B.S. in Applied Biology from Georgia Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing her M.C.R.P. in Environmental Planning, also at Georgia Institute of Technology.  She believes that communication and shared knowledge are the most important facets of conveying environmentally friendly practices. After participating in biological research, inter disciplinary planning, and interactive marketing, she is convinced a comprehensive approach is the only solution for creating a sustainable economy.