Designed to use over 40% less energy than a conventional natatorium, Philadelphia’s 25,000 ft², $11 million Kappen Aquatic Center at the Overbrook School for the Blind is the first LEED Platinum swimming pool center in the U.S. Much of the energy savings is achieved through off-peak energy use, a well-insulated building envelope, and a mechanical dehumidification system that uses hot gas heat recovery. The dehumidifier will provide around 100,000 gallons of sanitized condensate to the pool annually, and free pool water heating. The building automation system uses software and a demand-control system to maintain optimum energy efficiency. The project employs water-saving fixtures and landscape design, as well as local, recycled and low-VOC materials. Sensitive to the 200 visually impaired and handicapped students, the team designed both electric lighting and daylighting to reduce contrast and glare; tactile floor elements were incorporated for safety. Since the Overbrook pool was certified in August 2009, another aquatics center at East Portland Community Center in Oregon has also been LEED Platinum certified. For more information visit www.obs.org.

 

The Capital Markets Partnership (CMP) is convening a November 12 organizational meeting to continue its work on a National Consensus Sustainable Manufacturing Underwriting Standard, or “Green Value Score.” The meeting will take place at Allianz Global Investors in New York City.

The Draft Standard's Green Value Score identifies increased share value and profitability from sustainable manufacturing for financial incentives including discounted insurance premiums, increased interest rates for business banking, cheaper cost of capital, and higher credit ratings. The goal of the standard is to allow manufacturers and retailers to receive incentives in the capital markets for sustainable product metrics covering their global supply chain and all product stages based on life-cycle assessment. Supporting this work is research documenting that green buildings and certified sustainable products are more profitable, less risky, and preferred by investors.

At the November meeting, the group will set up a national consensus committee, cover the consensus voting process, and review the draft standard, among other agenda items.

The Capital Markets Partnership (CMP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of investment banks, investors, governments, countries and NGOs created by Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS), a nonprofit led by Mike Italiano, a founder of the U.S. Green Building Council. More information is available here.

On September 22, 2010, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson, along with the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Nancy Sutley, reconvened the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice for the first time in more than a decade. The group, which includes five cabinet members, was created to encourage and coordinate environmental justice efforts at the federal level.

Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, requires all federal agencies to make environmental justice a part of their mission. The working group, created by the order, will advise agencies on how to identify situations in which environmental and human health impacts of federal actions are disproportionately affecting minority and impoverished populations; the group will also advise agencies on how to address these inequities. Low-income communities are often located in areas hardest-hit by environmental challenges such as brownfields, air pollution, and water pollution.

The working group will meet monthly meetings, as well as regional “listening sessions” to better understand the issues facing disadvantaged groups. In addition, federal agencies will develop or update their environmental justice strategies by September 2011.

More information is available at EPA's website.

– Allyson Wendt

 

As of October 2010, Rhode Island is the first state in the U.S. to recognize the International Green Construction Code (IGCC) as an option for the design and construction of all major public facilities. In 2009 the state passed the Green Buildings Act, which requires all new public projects to be built to LEED Certified standards—with some exceptions. Rhode Island now recognizes IGCC as equivalent to LEED for the purpose of the requirement.

IGCC applies to commercial buildings—new, existing, traditional and high-performance—and offers ASHRAE Standard 189.1 as an alternative code from which jurisdictions can draw. Rhode Island's application of the IGCC for public buildings is not the same as using IGCC as the basis for its building code. Recently Richard, Washington, became the first city in the world to adopt IGCC as non-mandatory commercial building code. For more information, visit www.iccsafe.org.

– Emily Catacchio

 

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A new report published by the World Green Building Council (WGBC) asserts that the building sector presents the biggest opportunity to reduce carbon emissions, construction waste, and energy use worldwide while creating jobs, improving local economies, and producing affordable housing. The report, “Tackling Global Climate Change: Meeting Local Priorities,” illustrates how countries within four major world regions are using green building to fulfill local needs like disaster recovery, affordable housing, job creation, and improving the economy—all while reducing carbon output. According to WGBC, globally building construction uses 32% of the world’s resources and 40% of the world’s energy—generating up to 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. WGBC is developing a “Common Carbon Metric Protocol” to address the vast disparities in global GHG assessment and reporting; this standardization protocol will be useful for countries when developing GHG thresholds. The report can be found at www.worldgbc.org.

– Emily Catacchio

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External power adaptors—the little black plug-in cubes used for everything from cell phones to laptop computers—will no longer be eligible for Energy Star labels as of December 31, 2010, in part due to the success of the program. In the United States there are around 2.7 billion external power adapters—nine per person, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates. The Energy Star program started offering certifications for energy-efficient external power adaptors in 2005. Energy Star also specified qualified adapters for use with other Energy Star products. By 2008 around 50% of the external power adapters sold in the U.S. were Energy Star qualified. The Energy Star performance standard was adopted as a federal standard in 2008, prompting Energy Star to stiffen requirements. Estimates in 2009 showed that more than 50% of the market share of external power adapters already met the new Energy Star standard. Among the factors in the decision to remove them from Energy Star were the market penetration of efficient models, and the move to integrate power adaptor requirements into requirements for relevant equipment and appliances. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, changes to the power adaptors spurred by Energy Star are reducing demand by five billion kilowatt hours (kWh) and one million metric tons of carbon per year. More information is available at www.energystar.gov.

– Emily Catacchio

Yahoo!’s new 50,0000-server data center near Buffalo, New York—playfully called the “chicken coop” for the design’s resemblance to a farm—has a remarkably high efficiency target.

The company expects its new center to have a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.08—outperforming rival Google’s average of 1.16, and much better than the industry average of 1.90–2.50 (that number varies depending on how you ask). A score of 1 means that all energy is being used to run servers instead of chillers or other equipment; a score of 2 indicates only half the energy used by the building is being used by servers. Servers produce a lot of heat, creating particularly high cooling loads in data centers. (For more, see "Data Centers Now Eligible for Energy Star Rating,” EBN, June 2010).

The buildings use natural ventilation, rather than chillers, for cooling during most of the year. According to Yahoo!, the unique design means the building will use 40% less energy and 95% less water than conventional data centers.

 

A life-cycle inventory released by Franklin Associates, a consulting firm based in Prairie Village, Kansas, shows that recycling HDPE and PET plastics saves enough energy to power 750,000 U.S. homes. Both plastics are used widely in food packaging; HDPE is used for piping, water storage, and other uses in buildings, while PET is used for mats, fabrics, and other interior products.

The life-cycle study, funded by a consortium of groups including the American Chemistry Council, finally puts real data behind sustainability claims made for recycled plastic resins. Recycling PET uses 84% less carbon than producing new material, and results in 71% less greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. The report is available here.

A study from Pike Research found that global sales of hybrid electric vehicles to commercial and government fleets will grow 17.5% annually through 2015, passing 740,000 sales per year.

Fleet managers can improve fuel economy by 5%–40% by replacing vehicles with hybrids, according to the report, and lower emissions by 10%–50%. The fuel savings pay for the higher initial cost for the hybrid vehicles in most locations, but the study notes that low fuel prices in some areas may reduce those savings. In places with low fuel prices, tax incentives and grants may make the switch to hybrids worthwhile.

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Retail giant Wal-Mart plans to boost the number of Wal-Mart stores with solar photovoltaic (PV) installations from 31 (in California and Hawaii) to 50 or more in the coming months. Wal-Mart will use two types of thin-film PV—MaiSolé’s copper indium gallium selenide and First Solar’s cadmium telluride thin-film.

Thin-film is the cheapest type of PV installation per watt, but also less efficient, making them a cost-effective choice for durable installations covering a large area. Wal-Mart’s installations will supply 20%–30% of each location’s energy use, totaling an estimated production of 22.5 million kilowatt hours per year. Wal-Mart will also use more conventional PV technologies where thin-film may not be appropriate. To facilitate this process Wal-Mart hired SolarCity—which will design, install, own, and operate the solar systems. SolarCity is one of the largest solar installation companies in the country offering full service solar installation and management packages. By the close of 2010 Wal-Mart plans to incorporate solar PV systems in stores across eight countries.

– Emily Catacchio