April 2011

Japan Disaster Proves Wind Power's Sustainability
     In the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Japan's food supply is being poisoned by nuclear radiation.  That's after oil refineries and natural gas storage tanks exploded and burned.  But wind power- whose reliability is constantly questioned by advocates of our energy status quo- survived the disaster without a scratch.

     While Japan's water-dependent nuclear power plants suck and wheeze and spew radioactive steam, "there has been no wind facility damage reported by any (Japan Wind Energy Association) members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami, says association head Yoshinori Ueda.
     Even the country's totally bad-ass Kamisu offshore wind farm, with its giant 2 MW turbines with blades as big as the wings on a jumbo jet, and only 186 miles from the epicenter of the largest quake ever recorded in Japan, survived without a hiccup, thanks to its "battle proof design."  As a result, the nation's electric companies have asked all of its wind farms to increase power production to maximum, in order to make up for the shortfalls brought about by the failure of certain other aging, non-resilient 20th century technologies.
     Wind's clutch performance is especially notable in light of how much Japanese power companies have resisted it.  Here in the United States, when we're making our energy choices, we ignore things like how well they'll survive a disaster, or how vulnerable they'll leave us to global price shocks, or how many cases of asthma they'll cause.  Instead we pick our energy sources almost solely on how cheaply they can produce a unit of electricity.  We get low prices in the short term, but like Japan's shaky nuclear construction, what long-term bills may come due?  
Miles Grant for The Green Miles  3/22/11



Talk Big on Sustainability? You May Have Higher Emissions
     Companies that use key words related to sustainability in their annual reports tend to have higher greenhouse gas emissions than those who don't use such words, according to new research.  The paper by University of Notre Dame management professor Sarv Devaraj and 2010 Notre Dame MBA graduate Suvrat Dhanorkar, recently won the prize for "Best Environmental Issues Paper," out of 1,100 entries submitted to the International Conference of the Decision of Sciences Institute.

     The paper also found that high use of the keywords correlated with poor performance in Newsweek's rankings of companies' environmental performance.  "One of the reasons for the negative finding could be that companies are including mentions of sustainability in their annual reports because the topic increasingly is important to investors, even though operational measures haven't yielded actual performance results as yet," Devaraj said.  But he said that over the longer term, the companies that "talk" sustainability now could turn out to be the ones that significantly improve their environmental performance.  The study is now being expanded to cover multiple years, to test that hypothesis.  
Environmental Management and Energy News 3/15/11




Green Roofs Up 29% in 2010, Survey Says
     The square footage of green roofs in the U.S. grew by 28.5 percent in 2010, according to an industry survey.  The 2011 Annual Industry Survey by Green Roofs for Health Cities (GRHC) found that the sector grew faster in 2010 than in 2009, when the rate of increase was 16 percent.  Last year, Chicago was the city with the biggest square footage of green roofs for the seventh year in a row, with more than 500,000 square feet installed.  It was closely followed by Washington, D.C., GRHC said.
     "Government investment in green roofs for their stormwater, air quality, green space and city cooling benefits largely fuels the growth of our industry," said GRHC founder and president, Steven Peck.  "Cities such as Chicago, Washington, New York, Portland, Seattle and Philadelphia continue to lead the way with incentives and regulations that recognize the many benefits from green roofs, including much needed green jobs in their communities.  "We are also seeing tremendous leadership within the federal government and its agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and General Services Administration."

     Green roofs are roofs planted with vegetation to absorb rainwater and help regulate temperatures.  In Chicago, more than 600 green roofs have been or are being built, the city Department of Environment said.  GRHC chair Jeffrey Bruce explained, "As the green roof and wall industry develops further, we will see costs come down and benefits to building owners rise, through the application of integrated design practices that turn wasted roof and wall spaces into value added urban farms, habitat, recreational spaces, horticultural therapy centers, energy conservation, green energy production, and stormwater management infrastructure."
Environmental Leader 4/1/11


Boston Area 12th in Energy Efficiency
     The Boston area has been ranked No. 12 among the nation's metropolitan areas for buildings with the Energy Star label, which is earned when certain efficiency standards are met.  In 2010, the area had 145 buildings that earned the designation, which the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates saved about $48.7 million in energy costs.  Across the rest of New England, another 132 buildings earned the label.  Energy Star is a program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save energy. It is run jointly by the EPA and the Department of Energy.   

Associated Press 3/20/11

Lifecycle Analysis: Moving from Black-box to Transparency
     Lifecycle analysis, or LCA, is all the rage.  Academics and consultants tout the amazing insights that an LCA can provide companies.  Labeling organizations solicit companies to run LCAs to produce carbon or other environmental footprint numbers.  And it's true- mostly- that LCAs can provide incredible and sometimes truly revolutionary insights into a company's impacts that highlight waste and illogical supply chain steps.
     There are two very real problems about LCA that everyone needs to know about (but which, in my opinion, shouldn't actually prevent anyone from running an LCA).  The more you know, the more you know- right?  So it makes sense to know as much as you can about your product's lifecycle.  However, you also need to know about LCA and the best way to make it work for you.

     Problem #1: Who's running your LCA and how are they doing it? The title of this piece references a magical, mysterious "black-box," because many LCAs today are shrouded in secrecy.  And the secrecy is being defended as "intellectual property" or "proprietary data" or "just too complicated" and "we're the experts."  And while some of that may be true, how can LCA become common practice if the only way to do it is to hand over your private information to a magician, pay him (or her) a vast sum of money, and sit back and wait for him to reappear with spreadsheets and spreadsheets of data in teeny tiny fonts that only he understands?  And when you pay him another vast sum of money, he'll give you his interpretations and recommendations about what he sees in all those numbers and you'll have to take his word concerning the data.  And then, hopefully, you go away with a feeling of satisfaction that now you have run an LCA and have some insight too.  (Of course, you've also got all those spreadsheets that you don't really know what to do with but that you suspect could possibly have additional insights somewhere in them but unfortunately, you've run out of your budget and can't afford to pay another vast sum of money to get another reading!)

     Problem #2- The data itself.  Building on Problem #1 is the common assumption that the data used in an LCA is precise and must be down to a bunch of decimal places and must be absolutely defendable in every instance.  For the vast majority of LCAs, that may be the line you hear; but that's not actually what's going on behind the scenes.  Imagine a wheat field on a hill.  If you're measuring the water footprint of wheat, should you measure the water use at the top of the hill or at the bottom of the hill?  What about in the shade of that tree? Or, what about in the last dry year?  Or during the 100 year flood year? What about calculating productivity (tons per hectare)? Which is the key variable? This depends on the soil type, texture and moisture level.  The reality is that productivity varies from plot-to-plot.  Despite the scientific community's efforts to relate LCA results and productivity, unfortunately there is no real correlation.
     There are so many problems and angles that it would actually be scientifically more reasonable to take an average of water consumption of this type of wheat, in this type of climate, in perhaps the past 10, 20 or 30 years.  Even though it may seem a little scary and difficult to defend, the average water consumption would actually provide more accuracy than the actual measurement of water usage in that field today.  And if we expand that example to carbon, do you really need to know the exact carbon emissions of a truck in Argentina versus the same type of truck used in Spain? Wouldn't it be more cost and time effective to use average measurements from readily available data?

     The key to a defendable useful LCA is transparency.  Transparency of methodology, transparency of data sources, and transparency of assumptions.  Without transparency, the results mean very little.  Recently, I went through a bunch of retailer's websites and pulled their published carbon footprints -from Japan, to France, to the UK and beyond.  There's actually quite a lot out there and definitely a lot of investment behind these numbers, but there is absolutely no transparency about how these numbers were calculated and what they actually mean.  Unfortunately, despite the hype and PR, the numbers end up being fairly useless and undermine real measurement models that can inspire real, sustainable change in a world that really needs it.
     So, do yourself a favor.  Recognize that LCA is going to become a common business practice in the not too distant future.  And demand transparency and full disclosure from your magicians and their assistants. 
Sara Pax, Bluehorse Associates, EL 4/12/11

Student Teams Compete for P3 Awards
     The 7th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo will feature EPA's P3- People, Prosperity, and the Planet- Program, which is a unique college competition for designing solutions for a sustainable future. The program offers students hands-on experience that brings their classroom learning to life.  P3 student teams will present technologies they have developed to address alternative energy, purification and distribution of drinking water, reduction of pesticide run-off, green buildings, and more.  The student teams can win up to $90,000 to develop their ideas and apply them to the real world.
     The Expo also provides a forum for government, nonprofits, and the business community to demonstrate their diverse approaches to sustainability.  All  are welcome at the Expo, which will take place on Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17 on the National Mall between 4th and 7th Streets- NW in Washington, D.C.