Posted by Evan Smith on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 @ 01:41 PM
Excerpted from an article written by MMG Prinicpal C. Evan Smith.
Hurt in our pocketbooks, we've recently had an impassioned awakening of desire to drive real efficiency and productivity. We need our businesses to be more competitive and our governments less expensive.
Here's one specific area for consideration. United States commercial real estate (all buildings except residential housing and goods-producing industries like manufacturing, agriculture and construction) consumes energy at a substantial and growing rate. It will grow at two-thirds the rate of gross domestic product through 2025, according to the Annual Energy Outlook 2005 published by the U.S. Energy Information Agency. In 2003, the commercial building sector, which is made up of 4.9 million commercial buildings covering more than 71.6 billion square feet of floor space, consumed 17,548 trillion BTUs of energy. Estimating a conservative nominal energy cost of $10 per MMBTU, the energy bill for commercial buildings in the U.S. exceeds $175 billion annually.
To read the full article click on the link to the story in
Greener Buildings, A GreenBiz.com publication.
Posted by Evan Smith on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 @ 02:42 PM
[... But Where To Start?]
As the years pass, and the evidence accumulates on the effects of our current fossil-fuel based economy, we're also seeing other signs--signs that we, as organizations, as governmental bodies, as a society, as people, are not doing enough to identify and drive real change, at the pace that science suggests is needed. We're not moving quickly enough to prepare our citizens; to update our building infrastructure where we live, work, recreate and produce; and to alter our transportation networks and the vehicles we use-to design, introduce and implement meaningful structural, technological, economic and behavioral change. Ultimately, we're not generating meaningful economic improvement, fuel conservation, and environmental results quickly enough.
"Wind, Solar, Hydrogen, ..."
The popular media's news stories about the economy, about energy, and about stimulus money have focused heavily on alternative energy technologies-wind, solar, others-and more installations and implementations are underway than ever before. These energy technologies are certainly promising-AND we will find the path to implementation (and value capture) slow, the results small initially, and major economic and emissions benefits substantially decades out in the future. This is important work, and these are important results-and they will be insufficient in the next few years to address the challenges we face.
"Focus on End Consumers..."
Individual attitudes-and the willingness to change personal behaviors-is shifting; again, too slowly, but distinctly in a promising direction. The US population seems to be making its peace with the sunset of "dirt-cheap fuel", a historic birthright. US stimulus money focused on improving energy efficiency of homes is helping. Individual level exhortations and actions like "changing lightbulbs" to those more energy efficient will help us. Greater public campaigns including those in our schools and workplaces (see NPR's story, 12/16), with sharper focus on "reduce, reuse, recycle" helps to reinforce these individual behavioral changes. However, studies forecast that incremental improvements in individual behaviors like this, while helpful, will not move the needle dramatically enough, or yield enough benefit, in the time frames we need them. (British Institute of Mechanical Engineers - 2009 model of greenhouse gases)
How to Drive Change:
Start Big Enough to Matter, AND Small Enough to Move the Needle...
Governmental bodies (at the state, county, and municipal levels) recognize the challenges, and the opportunities. Members of our team (TeamCarbon) have implemented projects that improve facilities operating costs, drive energy efficiency, lower greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint, and implement more efficient and productive transportation vehicles and systems. Many are interested in these projects. But even augmented by Federal stimulus dollars, many governments and large organizations are challenged to prioritize new capital spending due to the downturn in tax or other revenues.
TeamCarbon with its clients has found ways to change the world: To design, construct, and change major systems, in ways that reduce energy consumption, improve fuel and organizational productivity, and yield dramatic societal value. Join us in Washington Jan 20-22, 2010 at the National Council for Science & the Environment's "New Green Economy" meeting-where we'll share approaches, insights and implementation stories in key areas. We'll be describing implementable, technically feasible, and economically justified projects.
Click here to learn more about the conference, here to register, and here to learn more about TeamCarbon's symposium (Moving to Future States: From Today to Green and Beyond), held on Friday 22 January, 2010.
Follow the larger conversation on
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Twitter, and
LinkedIn. We look forward to meeting you there.
Posted by Patrick O'Shei on Tue, Oct 20, 2009 @ 05:24 PM
About The New Green Economy Conference
Date: January 20-22, 2010
Location: Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center - Washington, DC
The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) welcomes you to the 10th National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment: The New Green Economy. Marking a decade of conference history, the signature event will be held January 20-22, 2010 in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in the heart of Washington, DC.
NCSE's national conference engages leading thinkers and doers from a diversity of disciplines, sectors, and perspectives in a structured conversation about the meaning of the green economy and how investment in green education, research and jobs can help solve both the economic and environmental crises.
Welcoming over 1000 attendees, The New Green Economy will bring together leaders in sustainable business, environmental policymakers, civil society, university faculty, students from across the nation, and educated citizens.
NCSE uses a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach that engages involved scientists and decisionmakers from a wide range of organizations. Our conferences are highly interactive, including renowned speakers, topical symposia to explore issues in more depth, and breakout sessions to develop (and publish) recommendations on how to advance science and connect it with policy and decision-making.
http://ncseonline.org/conference/greeneconomy/
Posted by Patrick O'Shei on Tue, Oct 20, 2009 @ 04:36 PM
TeamCarbon Symposium - to be presented at the NCSE Annual Conference on the New Green Economy, January 2010
From Today to Green and Beyond
Those implementing "Green Solutions" today must recognize and build upon existing conditions, systems and their supporting infrastructure as well as work with the underlying financial resources available and returns demanded from those investments.
Successful Green solutions, and drivers of the New Green Economy will come from the intersection of significant energy consumption and points of leverage for high return on investment opportunity.
The existing commercial/public building and transportation infrastructure and systems represent the vast majority of energy consumption. The points of leverage come from both redesign of systems and betterment of the existing infrastructure.
The most significant lever is in the redesign of systems and supporting infrastructure but that also has the most upfront investment cost and since the existing infrastructure was built over decades...
The point of leverage that better balances leveraging small or incremental investments is "betterment" where specific green technologies are inserted into existing systems and infrastructure. These technologies range from intelligent sensing and control systems to more efficient motors and equipment to reuse or reclamation of current wasted resources and hybrid technologies which work with the current systems/infrastructure and will also work with new systems and infrastructures.
We look forward to joining other participants/ presenters Jan 20-22, in Washington, DC. At the conference, we will present real-world, economically justified, green/ sustainable solutions in large-facilities design/ construction (http://bit.ly/TC_MMGatNCSE2010), multi-campus facilities portfolio management (http://bit.ly/TC_TTatNCSE2010), and trucking/ distribution/ transportation (http://bit.ly/TC_RMIatNSCE2010).
Click the links to peek at our presentations and cases; send us an email (info@teamcarbon.com) if you'd like to receive a copy of the follow up blog postings and journal articles from the conference. Click http://bit.ly/NewGreenEconomy for more information about the symposium, the National Council for Science and the Environment - and the slate of speakers.
We look forward to meeting you there!