Your Guide to a Healthier Planet

Volume III, Fall 2009

Reminder: AIA SD CEU Credits

Brought to you by Melanie Como Harris, AIA, LEED AP

For those of you looking for more ways to earn the 4 required sustainable design credits, all of the continuing education articles found in the back of Architectural Record and Greensource can be found at: http://ce.construction.com/librarycat1.php?cat=H

Once you read the article and pass the quiz, you earn credit. Best of all, there is no fee to take the quizzes online.

Eco-Events about Town

Brought to you by Melissa Annett, LEED AP

What:   RCHA Holiday Open House

When:   December 12, 2009, 11 AM to 3 PM

Where:                 The Rachel Carson Homestead, birthplace of Rachel Carson

Think sustainably this holiday season and save some money by making your own gifts.  Homemade and handmade gift ideas that avoid the use of harmful chemicals will be featured at the open house.   In addition there will be “At home spa treatments” that use natural/organic recipes, children’s gift making, carolers, and warm drinks & treats.  Get involved and learn more about Rachel Carson Homestead events by checking out this year’s holiday open house.

http://www.rachelcarsonhomestead.org/GetInvolved/Events/tabid/62/Default.aspx

Recommended Readings

Brought to you by Mick Hornbeck

Sustainable Architecture: White Papers- Essays on Design and Building for a Sustainable Future is collection of essays on sustainable architecture, describing how architecture and design aesthetic connects with environmental sustainability. The publication dates all the way back to 2001, which, by today’s standard, sounds rather old-fashioned. Conventional though these ideas may now seem, the essays serve as a reminder that the, now commonplace, themes in sustainable architecture were pioneered only a short time ago.

This collection of essays reminds us that when creative processes are joined with social, cultural, and environmental systems, architecture and design-thinking strategies can create the aesthetic and practical requirements of our day.

The Sustainable Architecture: White Papers is available on www.amazon.com for about $3.00 (used).  I think that all of us in the Sustainability Cohort have our reservations about online shopping and the potential carbon footprint of a single book, so please be mindful of where your order will be shipping from. The closer can buy, the better.

Office Contest: DIY Tree Ornaments

Brought to you by the Social Cohort

Decorate the holiday tree with hand-made ornaments made from recycled materials collected from your home. The best ornament will be added to the office’s annual holiday decorations.

Greening the Office: An Analysis of the Existing Conditions

Brought to you by Mary Salamon-Moro & Mark Brandfass, LEED AP

The following items are meant as a beginning to an interoffice conversation about how IKM performs its day-to-day activities with a view to becoming better at sustainable practices. We welcome your comments and suggestions.

HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION:

• 10 - Number of personal paper recycling bins at desks.
• 15 – Number of power strips in use at workstations. Lights, PCs, and personal electronics are plugged into these strips. Whether people are actually switching the plugs on/off is unknown.
• 7 – Number of communal paper recycling bins. Most of these bins are empty at any given time.
• 1 – Number of plastic bottle receptacles
• 2 – Number of employees that regularly bike to work.
• 15 – Number of employees that take public transportation to work.
• 1 – Number of employees that regularly carpool.
• Recently painted walls received low-VOC paint.
• New Steelcase Think office chairs have 37% recycled content  and are both Cradle2Cradle & Greenguard certified.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• Lights & equipment in copier/plotter rooms are routinely left on after hours.
• Lights throughout the office left on after hours.
• HVAC system not properly balanced. Lack of insulation between our floor and the arcade below leaves some areas uncomfortably cold.
• Auto-faucets in bathroom trigger too easily and waste water.
• Toilet in men’s room stuck in flush cycle wasting water.
• The company’s computer policy requires computers be left on 24/7.
• Open office carpeting is old and isn’t steamed cleaned frequently enough. Dirt collected in carpet affects indoor air quality.

Greening your Home

Brought to you by Annie Smith, LEED AP & Mindy Kalac, LEED AP

Did you know that being green at home is not as hard as it sounds?  Here are some simple tips for greening your home just in time for heating season.

• Turn down your thermostat – For each degree below 68°F you turn down your thermostat in cold weather you save 3% - 5% in heating energy.  Keep it at 66°F and you could save up to 10% off your heating bill!  Isn’t that worth wearing a sweater?
• Unplug chargers, hairdryers, printers, scanners, toasters, etc. when not in use.  This could save up to 8% of your electric bill every year – and if everyone did it $11 billion dollars and   108 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the US alone!  For information on how much your electronics are using see http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/EnergyCalculator.aspx
• Invest in Energy Star appliances. Thinking of ditching that old refrigerator?  Energy Star appliances amount to a 10-15% savings every year.
• Wash your clothes in cold water. 90% of the energy used by your washer is for heating water.  By washing all of your clothes in cold water you can save $60 or more a year and also prevent 864 pounds of heat-trapping gases from going into the atmosphere each year – wouldn’t that feel good?  Just a side note – cold water will keep your
  clothes just as bright and clean as hot water does.  If you are worried it won’t try investing in a high efficiency washer and dryer.  Not only will they use less electricity and water but they clean your clothes better without the rapid spinning a traditional washer and dryer do making them last longer!
• Install a low-flow shower head. One of the easiest ways to lower your water heating bills is to reduce the amount of hot water that you use in the shower. You can also save anywhere from 25 to 60 percent on your water bills. A good low-flow shower head will only cost you $10 to $20 – a cost that you’ll quickly make up in savings. What you save in water and heating can also help prevent up to 1,796 pounds of global warming pollution each year.
• Look for more ways to “green your life” in future newsletters!

Green Products of the Year

Brought to you by Melanie Como Harris, AIA, LEED AP

The following is a list of the Top 10 Green Products according to BuildingGreen.com. Want more information? You can find the full article at http://www.buildinggreen.com/press/topten2009/top-10-list-2009.cfm

1. Pozzotive Plus CMUs and Concrete Brick from Kingston Block (Brick Masonry and Concrete Masonry Units)
2. Thermafiber Mineral Wool Insulation Products (Sprayed Insulation)
3. Invelope Integrated Wall Insulation and Rain Screen System (Insulated Metal Wall Panels)
4. Baltix Recycled- and Biobased-Content Office Furniture (FSC-Certified Wood Furniture)
5. Project FROG Modular Green Classroom (Fabricated Engineered Structures)
6. Rheem HP-50 Heat-Pump Water Heater (Heat Pump Water Heaters)
7. Convia Energy-Management Infrastructure (Instrumentation and Control for Electrical Systems)
8. Pentadyne GTX Flywheel Energy Storage (Rotary Uninterruptible Power Units)
9. Silva Cell Subsurface Tree Protection and Stormwater System (Stormwater Treatment)
10. Mobile Solar Power Generator (Solar Energy Electrical Power Generation Equipment)

Update: Cash for Clunkers

Brought to you by Matt Burke, LEED AP

Starting off saying the Cash for Clunkers program was a success certainly is debatable. Was it successful at jump-starting the economy? It’s doubtful.  Was it successful for stabilizing the auto industry? Hardly.  Of the 780,000 cars sold under the program, 125,000 would have been sold anyway. The most popular swap was trading in an old Ford  F-150 for a new F-150, although the Ford F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for years if not decades. The program was certainly successful to the consumer with an average $4,000 cash rebate.

The real success story is the environment. The average miles per gallon increase of the cars traded in is 9.2 mpg or a 58% improvement. This amounts to an average fuel savings of 277 gallons per driver. A gallon of gasoline is assumed to produce 8.8 kilograms (or 19.4 pounds) of CO2. Therefore the math works out as such:

780,000    # of cars sold under the Cash for Clunkers program

x                       277    Gallons per driver

x 19.4    Pounds of CO₂ per gallon

= 4,191,564,000    less pounds of carbon dioxide being expelled into the atmosphere every year

(along with a host of other chemicals)

I think that will make everyone breathe a little easier.

Vehicle emissions and averages were obtained from  http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.htm

New Green Product

Brought to you by Deb Martonik

A new element is born – Novelis Fusion™ – new aluminium™ alloy combinations are 100% recyclable. The tubes are used for underfloor hot water heating.

Novelis Fusion™ is based on a conventional Direct Chill (DC) mould modified in order to allow multiple metal streams to be casted into one single aluminum sheet ingot. An ingot produced with this technology consists of several distinct layers, joined together by a perfect metallurgical bond and can be rolled and finished with existing assets typically available in the aluminum industry.

Website Worth Investigating

Brought to you by Max Waldron, LEED AP

Energy Building Investment Decision Support (e-BIDS)

http://cbpd.arc.cmu.edu/ebids/

This website is a useful tool for early evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of individual energy-saving building tools and techniques.

What is particularly useful is the breakdown of information into separate categories and strategies for energy efficient design.  For example, if you are considering efficient HVAC strategies for your building, you can go to the HVAC section, then read about under-floor air distribution, mixed-mode conditioning, and commissioning, with cost-benefit summary data, case studies, and links to more information for each.

Though the site’s navigation leaves much to be desired, there is plenty of information to be had with a little digging.

Defining Greenwashing

Brought to you by Joel Bernard, AIA, LEED AP and Melanie Como Harris, AIA, LEED AP

http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/

As was evidenced by the 1800+ exhibitors on the floor of Greenbuild this year, every product manufacturer is looking to jump on the green bandwagon. As designers we need to be able to tell the difference between green marketing and truly green products. There’s a helpful website to help that is both fun and informative. The website, run by an independent environmental marketing company, presents the 7 most common sins of greenwashing and provides tools like a wallet-sized card to reference when shopping and a quiz that tests your knowledge about greenwashing. On the more serious side, the site also features a study that summarizes current green marketing trends. While the information is geared more towards consumer products, the “sins” are certainly being committed by manufacturers in the construction industry. This site could be used as a starting point for fighting the battle against greenwashing.