The November Green Liaison Lunch was host to Delaware Nature Society representative Greg Gagliano. Serving as the Backyard Habitat coordinator, Mr. Gagliano encourages us all to “bring our backyards to life!” Of course, he’d also be happy if we extended these same principles to the University of Delaware. Through the use of a sustainable gardening checklist and a quick application, your yard or any outdoor space adjacent to your office can be certified as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation.

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Please see the speech below of the April 13 Green Liaison Lunch program. Please email jgugino@udel.edu if you would like the PowerPoint presentation.

Click here to view the video!

Buy Greener, Be Greener: The Theory and Practice of Green Purchasing – by Adam J. Smargon

Thank you. I am pleased and honored to be here this afternoon. By way of introduction, I am a doctoral candidate and research associate at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy here at UD.

Before I moved to Delaware, I was part of the campus community at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, and I was fortunate to be part of the UNH Speakers Bureau, which is an outreach service from volunteering members from the faculty and staff to every corner of the Granite State. This speech was one of three I used for that bureau.

I’d like to give you a bit of structure this afternoon: To follow the title of this presentation, I will begin with the theory of green purchasing, and then I will dive into the actual practice of it – what goods and services your household can buy – and what goods and services your company, organization or department can buy – to reduce your environmental impact. Please be advised that I welcome questions during the presentation, as well as at the conclusion. This is meant to be an introduction to the field; more intermediate and advanced green purchasing networks already exist, such as the Responsible Purchasing Network, conceived by the Center for a New American Dream (www.newdream.org) in Takoma Park, Maryland.

One more thing: I will refer to a number of websites and other resources during this presentation. All the words I’ll say and all the images you’ll see will be available off the website… so feel free to relax and learn without so much furious note-taking. Also, some information will be distributed.

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During World War II, colorful posters adorned building facades and lampposts across the country. They read: “Wanted for Victory: waste paper, old rags, scrap metals, old rubber.” These posters, commissioned by the federal government, urged citizens to ration paper and metal, to grow their own food, to join car-sharing clubs, and to make other sacrifices for the war effort. At a time of heightened global instability…

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…resource conservation was the order of the day. Oh, how the times have a-changed. After 9/11, one of the strongest messages sent by George W. Bush sent to the American public – early in his administration – was not to economize, but to consume. By buying houses, new cars, and other goods, consumers could do their part to boost the then-flagging American economy. The way to minimize the domestic impacts of rising global insecurity was not to conserve energy and other resources, but to use even more of them.

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The United States is riding a powerful wave. The United Nations reports that global consumption spending has increased six-fold since 1950, reaching $24 trillion in 1998. As the demand for goods and services grows, manufacturers are pumping out an ever more varied array of products. Each year, some 50,000 new consumer items are introduced in this country, compared with only a few thousand annually in 1970. Worldwide, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – the OECD – predicts that as many as half of the products that will be on the market in the next fifteen years don’t even exist today. To illustrate this point, let me give you examples of relatively new goods: hybrid vehicles, smart phones, and thumb drives/flash drives; rest assured these things didn’t exist in the mid-nineties!

Although this high production has brought improvements in health care, sanitation, and other areas, it has also come at great cost. Nearly every item we buy, from cars to bananas, has hidden impacts on the natural environment or on human welfare. For instance: obtaining enough gold for a single 14-carat wedding ring, weighing just one-tenth of an ounce, involves digging up as many as three tons of waste rock and ore, and can be harmful to ecosystems, as well as those communities near mining operations. Many of the products we rely on require huge inputs of water, wood, energy, metals, and other resources – which are not always renewable. And they often contain toxic chemicals that, when released into the environment, endanger the health of humans and the ecological systems we depend on. These impacts can occur at any stage of a product’s life: obtaining the raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, transport, use, and even after disposal.

Also, responsibility for this resource use is not shared equally. According to the United Nations, the wealthiest one-fifth of the world’s population now owns 87 percent of all cars and consumes 84 percent of all paper, 65 percent of all electricity, and 45 percent of all meat and fish. (This global consumer class includes not just the majority of people in industrial countries, but also a growing minority in the developing world.) In contrast, another one-fifth of humanity – over 1.3 billion people worldwide – continues to live on less than one dollar per day per person, unable to consume enough to meet basic requirements for food, shelter, and energy.

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So what can we do about this? There are a myriad of solutions, but specific to the purchasing world, we citizens can be intelligent about the raw materials needed to make things, we can re-work the manufacturing processes to use less energy, and we can vote with our dollars to state (as a society) what things we want and what things we don’t want. We have done this millions of times already; I don’t need to bring up the once-thriving buggy whip industry as one of many examples.

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The motivation for green purchasing comes from concerns about how environmental issues relate to the quality and future of people’s lives. (It is less about “saving the planet” than keeping various species in perpetuity, including the human species.) At the administrative level, green purchasing helps increase efficiency: reducing operational expenses, reducing demand for natural resources, and lessening environmental impact. This can lead to saving money and/or making money: profit.

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Many green purchasing practices can be implemented in organizations of any size and organizations of any kind; we can all stand to benefit from these ideas. However, sustainable consumption cannot be considered realistic without fully engaging the public authorities; we need our leaders to lead the way. Many initiatives have been undertaken in developed countries, most successfully in Japan and Denmark, where public green purchasing is workable and highly effective, while city municipalities in other countries – including the United States – have developed sophisticated public environmental purchasing policies. However, for the vast majority of countries and their major cities, the potential for green purchasing remains untapped. What would be the environmental impact if the majority of cities in developed countries replicated the success stories of those leading the way? Public procurement has, after all, been an important tool in achieving other public policy goals, such as defense. Why should it not be used as a tool to address environmental concerns?

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Much of green purchasing tries to complete the loop: we recycle things, for example, but we don’t buy recycled-content goods nearly as often as we recycle. And recycled content is but one of many attributes that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers when it comes to green purchasing. Environmental attributes are characteristics of a product or service. The EPA considers multiple environmental attributes such as product disassembly potential, reconditioned or remanufactured parts, bio-based materials, energy efficiency, water efficiency, and so on.

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Green purchasing aims to help achieve environmental policy goals while staying within budget constraints. Large-scale users of products with a perceived high environmental impact (such as paper) should be increasingly discriminating about purchases. Green purchasing has the ability to redefine “purchasing power” in the field of sustainable development. This powerful tool can affect the policies of vendors by reducing waste, rewarding durability, minimizing environmental hazards, and increasing the use and market for recycled materials. By monitoring waste streams, reducing waste, and reducing excess inputs of manufacturing, natural resources will be available for a longer period, and costs therefore will not increase due to shortages of much-needed raw materials. This also yields good publicity (of being “the responsible corporate neighbor”), which can lead to increased sales.

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Contracts are negotiated and awarded by the purchasing departments of governments, schools, corporations, and other large organizations. And it is because purchasing departments – by definition! – negotiate and award all contracts, they can become the center for screening the environmental impact of incoming commodities, and determining the possibilities for outgoing waste. An environmentally sensitive contract should place an obligation, through the competitive bidding process, for sustainability with the contractor. The best examples I can illustrate came from Rutgers University, and their former director of purchasing, Dr. Kevin Lyons. To oversimplify, sustainability was a requirement with all purchasing contracts at all three Rutgers campuses under his tenure, and Dr. Lyons saved the school at least a million dollars every year. (Rah Rah Rutgers!)

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The world’s institutions are significant consumers, spending enormous sums on goods and services to help them run efficiently and achieve their missions. These purchases range from durable goods like office equipment and fleet vehicles to important services like electric power, custodial cleaning, and catering. Because of both the scale of their buying and the visibility of their activities, institutions are important players in the movement to build more sustainable markets. Diverting even a small portion of institutional spending to more environmentally sound products and services can send a powerful message to the marketplace. It can also reduce the overall footprint of institutional consumption, bringing widespread environmental and economic benefits.

Just how powerful is institutional purchasing? Consider governments. In industrial countries, public purchasing accounts for as much as 25 percent of gross domestic product. Government procurement in the European Union alone totaled more than one trillion dollars in 2001, or roughly 14 percent of GDP. In North America, it reached two trillion dollars, or about 18 percent of regional GDP. This purchasing occurs at all levels of government: in 2002, the United States federal government spent roughly $350 billion on goods and services (excluding military spending), while the country’s state and local authorities spent more than $400 billion.

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Corporations, universities, religious bodies, and other large institutions also have significant purchasing power. Many businesses, for instance, not only buy a myriad of finished products, such as pens and computers, but also raw materials, packaging, and other goods as inputs into the manufacturing process. This purchasing often occurs along lengthy supply chains that span the globe: Adidas-Salomon, a leading German sporting goods manufacturer, now relies on over 800 factories worldwide, more than half of which are in Asia. By one estimate, aggregate spending by companies along their supply chains far outweighs the consumption of finished products by individuals. As production becomes ever more global, manufacturers can play an important role in influencing the environmental behavior of their suppliers in other countries, including in the developing world.

Meanwhile, universities – like the University of Delaware – spend money annually on everything from campus buildings to cafeteria food. The roughly 3,700 colleges and universities in the United States collectively bought some $275 billion in goods and services in 2006 — equivalent to nearly 3 percent of U.S. GDP, and more than the GDP of any country but the world’s 18 largest. Religious institutions have similar clout, managing vast numbers of schools and houses of worship around the world, as well as wielding significant influence over the behavior of their adherents.

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Purchasing departments have evaluated all possible suppliers on the four competitive dimensions of value: quality, dependability, flexibility, and cost. Now suppliers are being evaluated on another dimension: environmental responsibility, usually known as green purchasing. Integrating green purchasing decisions should be done on a commodity-by-commodity basis.

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I would like to share some of my large-scale green purchasing experiences with you. (I promise we will get to the smaller-scale, household recommendations; this will continue my discussion of the theory of green purchasing.) Most of my experience came during my pursuit of a Master of Science in Environmental Management and Policy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. (It’s near Albany, the state capital.) Admittedly, the name of the school is hard to say, and even harder to spell, so most alums call it RPI. A small side note: RPI is unique in that it’s the only top-tier tech school in the U.S. that plays Division I hockey. But every school’s gotta have something that makes it unique… Anyway, when I was getting that graduate degree, I was very lucky to land an experimental internship on campus as the school’s first Green Purchasing Coordinator.

I had no formal authority in that job; I was just a graduate student in a temporary practicum position. Also, purchasing departments usually use secured and proprietary data – which I didn’t have access to. All my activities, therefore, were effective only by using my own gentle powers of persuasion. Fortunately, that was helpful in convincing purchasing agents to act upon ideas that I could not – and only because they had authority, and all I had, essentially, was the gift of gab.

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I learned just after I got hired that only 3% of RPI bought recycled paper. (In other words, out of every 100 boxes of paper purchased on campus, only three were post-consumer recycled content.) Paper is the most visible green product in offices today. I assumed that any change in that number would be a marked improvement, and so I determined that the main goal for recycled paper was to increase knowledge about prices and availability on campus, and to increase recycled paper use on campus as much as possible. I did this by educating the campus community on prices, availability, and quality. We all remember the low quality and the high prices of recycled paper from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Only in the past twenty years or so has the quality of recycled goods matched that of their virgin counterparts, and the price has come down to a few percentage points more than virgin stock… or equal to virgin stock.

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The price came down primarily due to a presidential executive order from Bill Clinton’s first year in the White House. On 20 October 1993, he signed Executive Order 12873: Federal Acquisition, Recycling, and Waste Prevention. Among other things, this Order established that all divisions of the federal government must begin to buy and use recycled paper immediately. This sole act of government intervention helped to legitimize and boost the recycled paper industry; it forced paper companies into compliance if they wanted to (continue to) do business with the government. Other Executive Orders have followed to green the government. Although RPI did not have to follow these federal mandates (because it’s not a division of the federal government), it benefited from them because RPI saw the fruits of the government’s labor: there are now many more paper purchasing options in existence, RPI (and every other organization) now gets to buy better recycled paper at cheaper prices, and all organizations get to buy many different kinds of electrical and electronic items which are certified by the U.S. government as being energy-efficient. The key is getting recycled materials into manufacturers as feedstocks with quality and at a competitive price.

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I can suggest an ultimatum for getting recycled-content goods quickly. Using paper as an example, I recommend taking advantage of your organization’s purchasing power to say “I want all of our future paper purchases changed permanently from virgin stock to recycled stock, and I want it at the same price as virgin stock – or I’m changing vendors.”

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In theory, paper is the easiest green purchasing problem to solve, because the solution is out there: find suppliers, do price checks, compare quality, and contract the best company. However, in the actual practice at RPI, existing circumstances made things more difficult for me.

For many years RPI was a member of the Hudson Mohawk Association of Colleges and Universities. Most Albany-area colleges are (or were) members of the Association, including Skidmore College, Siena College, Union College, the College of Saint Rose, the Sage Colleges, Hudson Valley Community College, and several others. One of the main benefits of membership was the amalgamation of purchasing needs for member colleges for better negotiation of prices, and one of the contracts under this arrangement was for paper. At the time, the paper provider was a company called Xpedx. Luckily for me, Xpedx offered recycled-content white office paper to its customers. Unluckily for me, I did not have the ability in my job to change vendors and break contracts. The only real tools I had, like I said, were my own gentle powers of persuasion.

Another barrier was the on-campus delivery system. Some providers simply dump the boxes of paper on your building’s loading dock and leave it there for a college employee to get. Other providers deliver inside directly to every department office; they will actually go inside the building with a handtruck, loaded with boxes of reams of paper to the actual office. It would be a major effort to get another vendor to learn that process, so the organization would need a compelling reason to change vendors. And trying to sidestep the paper contract, and making your own decision to buy recycled paper from another source, is likely not the best solution; buying paper from more suppliers dilutes volume, increases traffic on campus, and weakens negotiation strength.

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Because of the established business relationship your organization may have with your current paper provider, and because the systems of paperwork, payment, and delivery are probably well-oiled machines, your organization may be rather reluctant to throw that monkey wrench into the machinery. I was not able to change paper providers (and follow the ultimatum), but I was lucky in that RPI’s paper provider did offer one brand of 30% post-consumer recycled paper. In this case, the brand name available was Great White.

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As far as basic economics is concerned, my two tasks involved supply and demand: I just discussed supply, and I wanted to increase the demand of greener goods and services. When I started at RPI, only eighteen departments were buying Great White. Therefore, I contacted every department on campus by telephone and e-mail – over 100 of them – to attempt to persuade them to buy and use recycled paper. I met with over 100 people in person, one at a time, in their individual departments; these folks have individual decentralized purchasing ability for their department. When I met with them in person, I gave them all their choices from the paper supplier, with updated prices and varieties: virgin and recycled, white and colored, letter size and legal size, three-hole punched, and so on. At the time, a box of Great White paper, 8½ by 11 inches, cost about fifty cents more than a box of virgin paper.

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Most were willing to try it, but some were concerned about the extra cost per box. To solve this, I told them the following: let’s assume the Department of Redundancy Department buys 40 boxes of paper every year. If they bought 40 boxes of recycled paper next time, it would be an increase of only twenty dollars per year to make the switch… and I said “I know you have the fiscal ability to reshuffle twenty dollars away from one line item of your department budget… towards paper.” That won most of them over. Of these 100-plus departments, at least 75 were at least willing to try recycled paper. I heard no complaints about the cost.

Others were not concerned with the extra cost per box, but they did have some misgivings about the quality of recycled paper. I told them: “I know what you’re talking about! You’re concerned because most of the recycled paper you’ve seen is gray and thin and flimsy, and it jams often in printers, fax machines and copiers. Well, times have changed, and the quality has improved tremendously. Eighteen departments on campus have made the change, and I intend to win more over. Moreover, a local city school district near Albany bought only Great White paper for their machines, and ran over two million combined copies, faxes, and print jobs with no problem to any machine.” That usually won the rest of them over.

But the RPI Department of Mathematics was my toughest challenge; they purchased 100 boxes of paper every six months, and it was administered by two elderly women who, at first glance, did not seem open to change. They challenged me on every element of quantity and quality, and so I gave them a marginal cost-benefit analysis: “The next time you buy 100 boxes of paper, please buy 99 boxes of what you’re used to, and only one box of Great White. If you hate it, I’ll never bother you again. If, however, you do like it, please let me know and I will show you how you can rearrange your budget to buy more.” They begrudgingly did so, and I got a phone call two months later: “Adam, this is the math department, and you were right… it’s a terrific product! We’re going to buy Great White from now on!” That was a real feather in my cap. Overall, I increased recycled paper use at RPI from 3% to 38% in four months, and that percentage rose further after I graduated and left RPI.

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One of the best green purchasers I knew was Fran McPoland; she was appointed by President Clinton in 1993 to be his Federal Environmental Executive during his administration, and after I graduated from RPI, I worked with her at the White House Task Force on Recycling in Washington. While there, I learned that the American government is not allowed to endorse a product or service. You’ll never see the President broadcast from the Oval Office to say “You should buy Chrysler and Zenith.” That is anti-competition, and is technically unethical. But what the government can do is certify products to a certain quality. This already happens in a number of industries: for example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture grades beef, eggs, and other foods for quality.

Energy Star is an American federal government program on energy efficiency; it helps businesses and individuals address the major environmental issue of energy waste. How does it work? Well, it says the following to all worldwide manufacturers who want to do business in America: “If you want to sell your product here in the U.S., you can do so… but if you can reduce the amount of energy your product uses by at least half, compared to other similar products in similar sizes and functions made by your competitors, then we will slap an Energy Star logo on your product.”

That statement is clearly a motivator for the product engineers at these manufacturing companies, because if they can figure out how to cut the energy use in half, then they’ll get that Energy Star logo on their product. That means customers will see it when they go shopping, and they will realize that they will save on their utility bill, month after month, if they buy and use that product (as opposed to a similar product, with similar sizes and features, without that Energy Star logo). This ultimately boils down to energy efficiency as one more criterion for American consumers to consider when they buy products.

I mentioned the four competitive dimensions of value earlier: quality, dependability, flexibility, and cost. For everyday consumers, this usually translates to the common criteria we think of when we buy things: durability, reliability, customer service, features, cost, and so on. Now energy efficiency is added to the mix because it is now considered a subset of the criterion of cost to the customer. More information can be found at their website, www.energystar.gov.

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There’s a long list of things that are Energy Star-compliant. I want to begin with the now-ubiquitous CFL: the compact fluorescent light bulb. These use 75% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, and they can last from six to ten times longer (1,000 hours vs. 6,000 to 10,000 hours), and they give off the same amount of light. How is that possible? Incandescents operate at 350º F, but CFLs operate at only 90º F… this also means they are safer. I want to say something now that needs to be said: these are no longer new. These are no longer weird. These are no longer a novelty. These are no longer prohibitively expensive either! These are a legitimate and simple way to reduce your environmental footprint… and your utility bill. Companies that you’ve heard of are manufacturing them!

Raise your hand if you own and use multiple CFLs at home. (pause)

Raise your hand if there are multiple CFLs in your department. (pause)

When I moved into my current home, I retrofitted the whole place with CFLs, and I gave all the incandescent bulbs back to my landlord. Did it cost me a lot? Well, from a traditional point of view, yes; we usually don’t expect to pay a whole lot for light bulbs! However, we do expect to pay a lot for our utility bill, and it is there where I save every month, month after month. The idea is what’s called a payback system; you pay more than you normally would up front, but you enjoy tremendous long-term savings over time; it pays for itself in a matter of months, based on the savings you have on your monthly utility bill. And you can expect that the prices of CFLs have come down over time, and you save even more if you buy in bulk. For example, a traditional incandescent bulb is about a dollar each, but you can buy a 12-pack of 13-watt CFLs, made by Sylvania, for $29.98 at Lowe’s. That’s less than $2.50 per bulb, and if you install all twelve in your home, you’ll probably begin to see the savings within a few months.

When CFLs finally do burn out, there are multiple places for you to recycle them. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not throw them away! There is mercury in the bulbs! You can drop off up to six bulbs per visit at IKEA, Ace Hardware, the Home Depot, and True Value Hardware. You can also order a Sylvania RecyclePak at sylvania.com. (http://www.sylvania.com/recycle/recyclepak)

Not all Energy Star-compliant goods require that you plug a cord into the wall. Some of them are quite large. Here’s a quick list of things you can buy that are Energy Star-compliant: dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers; stoves, ovens, washers and dryers; televisions, VCRs, DVD players, stereos, and speakers; computers, printers, scanners, and monitors; lights, heaters, air conditioners, and programmable thermostats; windows, doors, roofs, and skylights; transformers and insulators; and new homes, commercial buildings, and industrial buildings.

How do you buy these things? All you have to do is shop where you usually do, and look for this logo. And gratefully, other stores are making it easier for you.

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For example, a radio advertisement from a few years ago began with a married couple talking about how much lower their utility bill is this month, as compared to this time last year. All the energy-efficient things they purchased made a difference. The ad is for the EcoOptions brand at Home Depot, which makes it easy for you to identify products that have a lower impact on the environment and make better environmental choices. Every product with the Eco Options label, just as with the Energy Star logo, has less of an impact on the environment than competing products. (I would like to point out that this is not necessarily an endorsement of Home Depot over their competitors, such as Lowe’s or Ace Hardware; they sell Energy Star-compliant goods as well, and they may also have their own environmental labeling system.) The best thing to do is something very simple: ask! Because they want your business, the staff at stores are willing to help you find what’s best for you.

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There are five things you should always buy with a low environmental impact in mind: paint, paper, light bulbs, appliances, and produce. Paint should have low VOCs (volatile organic compounds); ideally, they should have no VOCs. Paper should have a high percentage of post-consumer recycled content. I’ve mentioned CFLs as a better alternative to incandescent bulbs. I’ve also mentioned appliances with the Energy Star label. Produce should be one or more of the following: organic, local, and in-season; remember that consuming organic produce is supposed to have no pesticide residue on it.

Further, there are multiple fair trade products you should look for at the grocery store: tea, chocolate, bananas, sugar, rice, olive oil, coffee, flowers, wine, vanilla, and spices. Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards. It focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries.

Thanks to Green America for this information. (http://www.greenamerica.org/)

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There are a number of things you can do to get better gas mileage from your car. The best thing to do is get rid of it! Walk, use public transit, and/or use a bicycle. However, I know that’s not practical in today’s society. Therefore, the next thing I can recommend is to purchase an electric car, such as the Chevy Volt, or a hybrid, such as the Toyota Prius. If those cars are beyond your budget, look for a car with excellent gas mileage; for instance, I drive a 2007 Ford Focus, and it gets 37 miles per gallon. In the meantime, there are multiple things you can do to get your car to go further.

First and foremost, keep your car in top shape and keep it tuned up. Change the spark plugs, air filters and other things when recommended; read your car’s owner manual for specifics. Get recommended levels of oil, antifreeze, washer fluid and other fluids at appropriate levels; keep your radiator flushed out. Check the alignment and brakes to cut down on friction that could slow you down. Check your tire pressure once a month. Inflate the tires to 10% below the maximum. For instance, if it says 44 on the side of the tire, inflate it to 40.

Be sure to check your filters and systems; cleaning the fuel system allows fuel to burn cleaner and easier. Changing it every 40,000 miles is usually recommended, but better performance will come by changing it every 20,000 miles. Use the right kind of gasoline – avoid fuel with alcohol in it. It takes twice as much alcohol as gasoline to run a car.

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I shouldn’t have to tell you not to speed, either. For most cars, maximum gasoline efficiency is from 55 to 60 miles per hour. Any faster will reduce efficiency; for instance, every 5 mph over sixty adds about twenty cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline.

More stuff in your car – including the trunk – will reduce your gas mileage. For every 100 pounds of weight in your car, your gas mileage goes down by about 2%. This affects small cars more than large cars, but any extra weight can change the mileage. I recommend going through the trunk and back seat of your car, and determining what is vital for staying, and what can be brought into your home for more appropriate storage.

In regards to idling at a traffic light, remember that you’re getting zero miles to the gallon: the car is using gasoline, but you’re going nowhere! Newer cars are fuel-injected – that means shutting it off and re-starting it doesn’t waste much gas because it’s pulled directly from the tank. Drivers with fuel-injected cars should shut their car off instead of idling. However, carbureted cars are different; sitting for a short time with the car on is okay, because more gas would be wasted by turning it off and back on.

And don’t ignore the “check engine” light – have a professional examine your car as soon as possible.

Aerodynamically speaking, drag is lowered when your windows are up (regardless if your A/C is on or not), and get any dents smoothed out and fixed.

And last, on a practical note, condense and combine all trips and errands into one – you’ll save both time and gasoline. Also, if possible, try to change your work hours to avoid rush hour; this avoid sudden stops and starts, which lowers fuel economy – and you’ll use less time getting to and from work. Flex time is a wonderful and relatively new work concept that allows people to either come in early and leave early, or come in late and leave late. This not only eases overall rush hour, but also the crowded buses and trains during rush hour too.

Thanks to Kayla Dunkman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and from fueleconomy.org for these tips on driving.

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It is now time to answer that decades-old question: paper or plastic? Well, there is a two-part answer. If you have to pick one, and there are no other choices, the answer without a doubt is plastic. (I like to say that if you’re forced at gunpoint to pick one of the two, say plastic.) Plastic bags have a lower environmental impact than paper bags – unless the bags are disposed of improperly. Plastic shopping bags are often made from polyethylene, which consists of long chains of ethylene monomers. Ethylene is derived from natural gas and petroleum.

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The EPA reports that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year, and less than 1% of bags are recycled. According to the Christian Science Monitor, it sadly costs more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one. I quote Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment: “There are harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4,000 to process and recycle a ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32.”

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Where do plastic bags go? A study from the National Academy of Sciences showed all oceangoing vessels dumped eight million pounds of plastic every year. The real reason that the world’s landfills weren’t overflowing with plastic was because most of it ended up in an ocean-fill. Bags get blown around to all corners of the earth: not just lands, but also seas, lakes and rivers. Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes. Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle, and as far south as the Falkland Islands. The National Marine Debris Monitoring Program says that plastic bags account for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline.

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Plastic bags photodegrade; over time, they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate soils and waterways. As a consequence, microscopic particles can enter the food chain. The effect on wildlife can be catastrophic. Birds become terminally entangled. Nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles have died due to plastic bags. They die after ingesting plastic bags, which they mistake for food.

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Remember I said there’s a two-part answer to the question of paper or plastic… in reality, the question of “Paper or plastic?” is a trick question. If you have a real choice, and all options are available, then the real answer to paper or plastic is neither. Use a cloth or canvas bag; they are extraordinarily durable, and they’re reusable! Imagine the average family using cloth bags and not plastic bags; they can save six bags a week. That’s 24 bags a month… 288 a year. That’s over 22,000 bags in an average lifetime. Now, if just one out of five people in our country did this, we would save 1.3 trillion bags over our lifetime. That’s trillion with a T. How many of you own and use multiple canvas and/or cloth bags?

As I said earlier, we can vote with our dollars to state (as a society) what things we want and what things we don’t want. Governments can intervene, and many have done so in regards to discouraging people from using plastic bags – by banning them. These bans help persuade members of society towards the purchase and use of reusable cloth and canvas bags. Multiple countries have some kind of ban in place; they are either restricted or completely banned in over one-fourth of our planet, and other places have taxed them to discourage additional use. Ireland took the lead in Europe; the plastic bag tax was introduced there in 2002, which resulted in a reduction of over 90% in the issuing of plastic shopping bags. Parts of Australia, South Africa, Thailand, Rwanda and Bangladesh have banned plastic bags.

In 2007, the city of San Francisco became the first American city to ban plastic bags; this was followed shortly thereafter by nearby Oakland. All large supermarkets in the state of California are now required by law to take back and recycle plastic shopping bags. The ban on free plastic bags in China, which started in 2008, resulted in two-thirds reduction; that country’s ban will save 37 million barrels of oil every year. Belgium and Hong Kong have legislation discouraging the use of plastic bags – and encouraging the recycling of plastic bags – by imposing a fixed or minimum levy for the supply of plastic bags, or obliging retailers to recycle. Parts of Israel, Canada, India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Taiwan, and Singapore are moving toward banning them. Westport CT banned them in 2008 in grocery stores. Edmond WA banned them at retail stores in 2009.

Plastic shopping bags are banned in at least 30 villages and towns in Alaska. Seattle has had a 20 cent “green fee” on plastic bags since 2009. Los Angeles County also put a ban on plastic bags in 2010, followed by Brownsville TX, and Bethel AK. Italy started a complete ban as of this year. In the U.S., the five-cent tax levied on plastic bags in Washington, DC in 2010 resulted in a decrease in consumption from 22.5 million to 3 million bags in the first month alone. In the first few months of this year, bans went into effect in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, banning all plastic bags at all retailers. Similar bans on the city level were imposed in India, Mexico and and the United Kingdom. Boston and Portland, Oregon are likely to ban plastic bags next. Perhaps the most poignant thing I can say on this is that reducing the manufacture and use of plastic bags will decrease our dependency on foreign oil.

I’d like to thank Ginny Broadhurst, the Executive Director of the Northwest Straits Initiative, who shared these pictures at the 2008 conference of the Northwest Association of Marine Educators.

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Environmental purchases of furniture, carpeting, and interior decorations translate to the sustainable manufacture of these goods. Chairs, desks, and other office equipment and furniture can be purchased from several sustainable furniture companies. Draperies and all needed cloth and clothing can be procured from manufacturers that produce organically grown cotton. (Some growers even dye the cotton naturally – using genetics to grow naturally colored cotton.) And many major carpeting manufacturers are beginning to realize the need to go sustainable.

For example, Collins & Aikman, a major American carpet manufacturer, manufactures recycled carpeting. The top (tread) of the carpet is 100% recycled, and the bottom (padding) section is 10% recycled. Instead of being nailed or stapled down when installed, it is simply glued in by way of the adhesive on the back. After 20 years of use, Collins & Aikman will take it back from the user and recycle the whole thing, and sell it again as recycled carpet.

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Climate Counts is a collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change. They are a nonprofit organization funded by Stonyfield Farm (based in New Hampshire) and launched in collaboration with Clean Air-Cool Planet (also based in New Hampshire) Pocket shopping guides are available from their website, ClimateCounts.org – search for the phrase “Download our pocket guide.” This guide ranks the goods and services of major companies with simple colors – red, yellow and green. Obviously, these recommendations mean to either avoid, watch, or patronize (respectively).

I share their conviction that the time for talk about climate change has passed, and that significant action from the corporate world, the political world, and the consumer world is now necessary. The goal is to motivate deeper awareness among we consumers – not only that the issue of climate change demands attention, but also that we have the power to support companies that take climate change seriously… and avoid those that don’t. When we consumers take action and raise their voices on issues that matter to them, businesses pay attention. A loud and clear consumer movement that demands more aggressive corporate action on climate change will not fall on deaf ears. In this heated political climate, you can always vote with your dollars.

A small side note: my doctoral dissertation, currently in progress, is about finding programs and policies to offset the carbon dioxide found in carbonated beverages.

During my time in New Hampshire, I had the good fortune to stop into Real Green Goods in downtown Concord – the state capital. They call themselves an earth-friendly department store with strict environmental criteria for selling their wares. They favor products made with post-consumed recyclable content, organic materials, hemp, bamboo, beeswax, and they support fair trade. Similar stores exist throughout the nation and the world.

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What else for your home? There are many household products that have less toxic alternatives. Have you ever read the back of a bottle of Formula 409, or Comet, or Lysol, or WD-40? Dare I even mention E-Z Off oven cleaner? It’s tough enough to attempt to pronounce some of the things in there, let alone try to handle it properly! Gratefully, there are a number of less-toxic alternatives for common household products. I am happy to distribute a guide on greener cleaning methods, which I got only this last weekend at the Green Expo at the Bob Carpenter Center. (Challys, would you please?) You may have heard of a number of examples, such as using borax instead of bleach, vinegar instead of Windex, club soda instead of a Shout wipe… and baking soda has dozens of uses! You can use it to open a clogged drain, remove stains, deodorize a refrigerator, fix a corroded car battery, polish silver, clean your bathtub, and cook you dinner. (Okay, I’m kidding about that last one.)

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Green Liaison Lunch Notes

March 9, 2011 Session

Topic – UD Energy Efficient Project Updates

Guest Presenter – Drew Knab, Business Analyst, Facilities and Planning Construction

Click here to view the video of the Lunch

NOTES:

Drew Knab spoke to the group attending the Green Liaison Lunch and provided an update on UD’s Climate Action Plan. Drew is a member of the advisory committee who developed the plan.

A study was conducted in 2008 to measure the carbon footprint of the University of Delaware. The Report on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory provided data which estimated 2007-2008 emissions were approximately 152,000 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent.

The purpose of the University’s Climate Action Plan was to identify a path and set a ten-year plan to reduce campus emissions by at least 5% by 2013, 10% by 2015, and 20% by 2020. The plan proposes methods and means to meet this commitment and strive for energy efficiency. One concern that forecasting showed is that consumption would rise by 14,000 metric tons, increasing the total to ~160,000 to 170,000 metric tons of carbon emissions.

Drew pointed out that these numbers are reversible, and we have created opportunities to reduce our footprint, such as by installing the wind turbine in Lewes, and installing solar panels on campus – the Field House being one of the largest solar projects. There are plans for expanding energy efficiency efforts towards lighting and heating & cooling to further reduce carbon emissions.

We are making progress – last year emissions dropped by 2,000 metric tons.

There is a longer-term focus as well. There are numerous projects that the University’s Facilities and Auxiliary Services unit (unit responsible for implementing Climate Action Plan) is in progress of implementing such as:

- Lighting in garages – keeping the level of lighting the same but reducing the kilowatt hours by half to increase efficiency.

- Adding variable speed drives to heating and cooling equipment – making improvements to ~20 buildings and reducing 1million kilowatt hours per year.

- Lighting Sensors – exploring the viability of retro-fitting some buildings, rooms, dorm lounges, etc. with sensor lighting to reduce usage in vacant rooms and buildings.

- Controlled Lighting – for new construction, i.e., ISE Lab, installing new Lutron system and having a pre-set time for a building to go dark at a certain hour.

- Web Based energy metering tools–to provide ways to measure energy usage by building.

- Athletic Complex – look into ways to offset and/or reduce the current carbon footprint.

Drew encouraged the group that there are numerous ways in which we can all make an impact:

- Help with the education – spread the word on how peers, colleagues and co-workers can make a difference

- Provide ideas on energy efficiency

- Encourage habit changes – awareness of light/electricity usage can have the greatest impact and can be one of the easiest things to change.

Feel free to contact Drew with any questions or concerns. His email address is A_Knab@facilities.udel.edu.

References:

A Sustainable University of Delaware®, Carbon Footprint: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory

A Sustainable University of Delaware®, Climate Action Plan

Sustainability website

Date: Nov 10^th 2010

Time: 12 p.m. -1p.m

Location: Trabant Student Center Rm 206

Topic: Transportation

Speaker: Bill Fitzpatrick, Director Supporting Services

Summary Notes of the Topic

Introduction

• The University of Delaware currently uses the old blue buses in its fleet for transportation.These buses are considered “not clean” in terms of energy efficiency and utilization.
• Two years ago UD decided to acquire newer buses as a way of expanding and improving their fleet.The question of purchasing newer buses with better and improved energy efficiency and utilization rates was brought up.

Sustainability and Operational Ideas for Transportation

• The idea of acquiring hybrid buses was approached because these buses are not only environmentally friendly in terms of 0% fuel emissions but are sustainable.
• Another idea of purchasing newer buses with a clean diesel engine was also presented as another alternative.
• The acquisition of hybrid buses proved that it could to be a costly investment because one bus was going to cost UD $650, 000 with an 18-24 month wait period.
• UD transportation was not eligible for federal funding so the possibility of this happening was rendered as not feasible.
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also changed some of the laws that relate to diesel engine emission standards .A clean engine has to have 60% less of particulate matter being emitted into the air.

UD Transportation Choice

• UD transportation looked into and compared the two alternatives of acquiring clean diesel engines versus hybrid buses taking into consideration the cost, sustainability ,operational and maintenance factors.
• UD decided not to acquire the hybrids at the time because they are relatively costly, unreliable and not easy to drive/ or navigate.
• In February and March this year UD purchased 7 new clean diesel engine buses. This not only upgraded the fleet but it expanded it as well.The newer buses have an additive that is put in the engine to clean it.
• UD also has a current fleet of about 360 vehicles including small cars and trucks

UD Green Transportation Focus for The Future

Electric Car Technology

• The UD Office of Economic Innovation &Partnerships (OEIP) launched the electric car, a research car model that is being studied as the vehicle for the 21^st century.
• The technology developed at UD that could change the energy world is now on the roll.UD signed the first license for its vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology with Auto Port Inc., a major vehicle processing and modification facility in New Castle,DE.That agreement launched the first large scale demonstration of the UD –developed V2G technology which enables electric car owners to plug in their vehicles when not in use and send electricity back to electrical utilities. The system is designed to generate cash for the driver, while strengthening the nation’s power supply and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

Fuel Cell Bus Technology

• Two fuel cell buses were introduced at UD by the Department of Mechanical Engineering through its Center for Fuel Cell Research (CFCR).These two buses are part of the 12 such buses that are currently running in the whole country.
• The first bus came in 2007.This buses have no green house gas emissions because the fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to directly produce electricity to run the bus. The exhaust consists only of water and water vapor.
• The department is currently going forward to explore the commercialization of this potential source of clean energy that uses no fossil fuels.
• The only setback of this fuel cell buses is that they can only run for between 8-10 hours a day. This alternative energy approach is good from a public relations point of view as the University moves towards a greener economy but from an operational and maintenance perspective it could prove to be costly.

UD Catch –A-Ride

• Jared a graduate student attached to the Transportation Department is the genesis behind this transportation concept.Catch-a-Ride is a student run bus service providing affordable and convenient transportation geared towards University students. This service is in its 3^rd year and it operates every weekend including holidays to New York and New Jersey.The buses are now projected to be running North and South on Fridays and Sundays so that students can go home on weekends or have their friends come down to Newark.The buses arrive and depart from Trabant Student Center and have stops in NY/NY at Secaucus Junction, Penn Station, Manhattan and NY Grand Central Terminal.
• The whole idea behind this was to encourage students not to bring their cars to UD thereby reducing the amount of cars on campus. In turn they started offering students an alternative reliable, affordable and sustainable mode of transportation.

Zipcar Program

• UD launched a new partnership with Zipcar Inc. to provide the campus with access to the world’s leading car sharing service.
• Jared a graduate student attached to UD transportation services explained that the Zipcar service is a cost effective, convenient means of transportation option that is available 24 hours a day,seven days a week to all students,faculty and staff members.Students must be 18 years and older to use this service.
• The vehicles start at $8 an hourupto $66 per day.The gas mileage rate is at180 miles per day and one does not pay for gas.Insurance,reserved parking spots and road side assistance are included in the hourly and daily Zipcar rates .Cars can be reserved in as short as an hour for up to four days.
• The annual membership fee for anyone affiliated with UD is only $35 and applicants receive $35 worth of free driving credit that applies after towards their first month of driving.
• This program is a car sharing service and not a rental service. It is a program that aims at reducing parking demands by offering cost effective and environmentally friendly options of owning a car. Its goal is to get around campus in an accessible and sustainable way.Zipcar supports UD efforts of reducing frustration,congestion and air pollution.
• Currently UD Zipcar has two Toyota Priuses and two Scions xBs located at Lot 34 Morris Library and lot 9-2 Thomas McKean Hall.
• Zipcar is offering also a functional iPhone reservation option that will honk /or beep the horn in order to locate a Zipcar and unlock the doors for users. This can come in handy particularly at night when vision is obscured.
• The Zipcar is particularly being marketed to international students and freshmen who do not own cars and need to run off campuserrands like internships, job interviews grocery shopping etc. International driving licenses are accepted.
• The Zipcar program is an environmentally friendly transportation alternative that takes 15-20 privately owned cars off the road. Today, 100,000 vehicles have been taken off the road in the United States. It also has a $500 in savings for the average car owner which includes insurance gas, parking fees etc.
• Once you reserve a Zipcar you are issued with a zipcard that resembles a business card.You use this card to scan the car which unlocks automatically. The car keys are already in the car ready for driving.
• Jared is trying to market this concept by taking posters and brochures around to residence halls, dining halls and other student areas.He emphasized that this program needs more marketing amongst the freshmen and international students.Zipcar’s future goal is to expand its fleet to cater for more students, faculty and staff. The Zipcar program has been advertised on UDaily, in student and public newspapers. They have held talks with student groups but are yet to reach their target.
• The Zip car program is a sustainable alternative transportation that reduces your carbon footprint.
• One can contact Jared at jwalfish@udel.edu for more information about the Zipcar program.

Other Green Options

• The UD Transportation also looked at acquiring golf carts. This initiative proved unfeasible since one has to register the carts as vehicles and due to their diminutive size they would need special parking spaces that are currently not available.

UD Transportation Trends and New Developments for The Future

• As UD parking fees have recently increased and as the parking looks like it will be congested in future, the UD buses are shuttling more students and staff.Approximately a million people were transported in a 9 month period.
• UD recently acquired a bus tracking software that uses GPS Technology and allows one to track when your next bus is coming to the bus stop.This software was purchased from a company in California and is used in big cities like San Francesco.This technology prevents buses from being congested at one place at the same time.
• The only problem with it is that the transportation staff are not willing to learn this new concept as opposed to the students that are very excited,interested and are adapting to this new technology fast.
• Bill Fitzpatrick welcomes all new ideas on how the UD staff can be motivated to learn and adapt to this new technological advancement.
• The UD transportation is also looking into sustainable transportation through bicycles and bikers.Currently there are not enough bicycle racks on campus.
• As UD transportation evolves UD will be looking at greener cost effective alternative ways of transportation that will be sustainable and environmentally friendly in the long term .This will eventually assist in reducing our carbon foot print and will be in accordance with the UD goals and strategy of the Path to Prominence.
• One can visit the www.udel.edu/udshuttle website for more information on UD transportation services.

Date: Oct 13^th 2010

Time: 12p.m. -1p.m

Location: Trabant Student Center Rm 209-211

Topic:Recycling and Waste Management

Speakers: Mike Loftus and Roger Bowman, Asst. Director and Manager Facility/Ground Services

Sustainability (Recycling) Website: http://www.udel.edu/sustainability/doing/doing_action_recycling.html

Summary Notes of the Topic

Current Status of UD Recycling and Waste Management Program

• Two years ago the Grounds Department at UD started to recycle some materials and they went from solid waste recycling to a fully fledged single stream recycling process.
• This increased its collection percentage from a 7% to the current 25% through the single stream process.This means that 25% of all materials collected is diverted from being dumped in the landfill.

UD Recycling History

• In 1972 UD was to a minimal effect only recycling office paper products.After a while this stopped and in 1991 under President Roselle the recycling process was initiated again.The idea of establishing an overall campus recycling program was conceived again.
• An idea of engaging a contractor to pick up waste materials in collaboration with the student community was also discussed.
• In January 2007 the State instituted the single stream recycling.
• A pilot program was started at the residence halls at Laird and George Read .On South Campus the Academic buildings of Townsend and Willow were selected under this pilot program.
• In 2009 the single stream went campus wide.

What’s Recyclable?

• The office of Communications and Marketing designed the UD recycling logo that is present on all the blue recycling containers.
• Office paper,newspapers,periodicals,plastics, milk containers are all recyclable .However, hard cover materials from books is not.One needs to remove the hard cover before throwing the book out.
• For a general list of what’s recyclable one can visit the DSWA website or the UD single stream website.
• Contaminated paper towel, trimmings,leaves,furniture,pallets,car parts are not recyclables.
• Wetcell batteries are recyclable but you have to take them to a vendor like Pep Boys who replace the lead cells in them.
• Empty ink cartridges are usually taken back to the companies that manufacture them for recycling purposes.
• Lids are not being recommended as recyclables

Support and Other Recycling Projects

• The Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office and Supporting Services have been working in collaboration with the Grounds Department by assisting in shredding papers and giving quantifiable numbers of volumes collected.
• Restaurant grease is now being recycled on campus.
• Electric light bulbs are now being recycled by the Academic and Residential Custodial Services.
• Used waste oil is being recycled.

Improvements in Past Fiscal Year

• Over 34 % of all waste is being diverted from the landfill by UD.
• There needs to be an improvement in residence because it all comes down to what’s convenient for me or not.
• Custodians have really assisted in sorting out recyclable materials by breaking down boxes and placing them in the blue recycling dumpster s outside specific locations.
• The IT personnel need to be advised against trashing Styrofoam after they get done with the computer boxes. Grounds cannot afford to put in labor to collect Styrofoam all the time. They only do this once in a year where it’s collected and stored and an outside contractor picks it up.
• The Agricultural Center recycles their own Styrofoam on a regular basis.
• The Chemistry Department also recycles some materials
• Parents have been very helpful in recycling by engaging in both move in recycling and move out recycling activities.

The Future

• Grounds department will continue to put more emphasis on recycling more materials.
• More emphasis should be stressed on what’s recyclable and what’s not in academic buildings
• Hope to achieve a 99% in both academic and residential facilities clean outs.
• UD Grounds Department hopes to utilize fully a Leave Collection Program that has been initiated the City of Newark for composting. They will be basically collecting trimmings and leaves and grinding them into compost. The resultant end product of mulch would then be used to green and give moisture to the lawns on campus.
• This will help in keeping leaves and trimmings out of the landfills and will assist in generating mulch at a lesser cost.
• The Grounds Department is also looking at utilizing the Peninsular Composting Company that is converting about 90% of all solid waste into saleable compost.
• The logistics of composting food throw outs from dining halls to collection containers is being discussed and is in the pipeline.
• About 26% of all trash collected at football games is recycled
• In 2009 32% of all trash from football games was recyclable and this year so far 41% has been recycled.
• The Grounds Department has noted a gradual increase in the level of awareness and participation about recycling in and around campus.
• An awareness campaign needs to encouraged in all facilities about the importance of recycling.

Public Information

• On campus there are 4 state operated drop off sites for recyclables. There is one at Rodney Dining Hall,one behind Pearson Hall, one at Cleveland Avenue and one at Laird Campus
• Last year an excess of 600 tons was collected from these drop off sites.
• Most of it emanated from the Gilbert Resident Hall demolition project.
• 90% of the solid materials at the UD acquired Chrysler Plant which has about 10-15 miles of copper might be recyclable after it is all cleaned up.