UW Programs Helps Businesses Assess Energy Savings-SEATTLE

Energy experts from the University of Washington want to help local businesses cut their utility bills.

The Industrial Assessment Center at UW is offering free energy assessments for small and medium local businesses. The center is now in its third year of providing assessments, and in the past two years has made recommendations that could save local companies on average nearly $64,000 a year.

The center is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and is one of 26 similar groups at universities around the country who provide free energy assessments to companies. In 2005, $5 million in funding returned more than $25 million in energy savings through these 26 universities, according to the DOE.

Hotel Recycles Bathroom Fixtures During Remodel- PORTLAND

The Heathman Hotel, Portland, reused almost all of the parts during a recent remodel of the facility.

“It was important to The Heathman that this be a zero landfill remodel,” says Cindy Mahaffey, architectural and design representative for Pental in Portland. Pental teamed with Portland architectural and interior design firm Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects in selecting the Kerlite tile, which required no destruction of the existing flooring and wall coverings in order to be installed.

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Pental’s Kerlite porcelain tile is being used in the remodel of all 155 of the hotel’s guest bathrooms. The thinness allows the tile to be laid over current flooring or surfaces without the need for destruction of the existing substrate. The remodel of the first ten guest rooms took only seven days to complete.

All 155 rooms of The Heathman Hotel are scheduled to be completely upgraded by January 2009. The hotel will remain open throughout the duration of the project The tiles are obtained from natural and raw materials, such as light clays and pure feldspars and firing is carried out in electric kilns without any release of polluting fumes. Kerlite is composed of 40 percent recycled material.

State Chooses Electric Vehicles for 2010 Delivery- SALEM

Oregon state officials will use Nissan’s electric vehicles in 2010, the year Nissan’s electric vehicle will be ready for the commercial market. Nissan also committed to work with the state, in partnership with Portland General Electric, toward the development of an electric vehicle charging network to promote the use of zero-emission vehicles.

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski made the announcement after meeting with Nissan executives overseas as part of the state’s business mission to Japan and China.

PGE is a partner in the agreement because the company is developing a model charging stations infrastructure through its plug-in vehicle initiative. PGE has already installed six EV charging stations in the Portland-metro area and Salem with plans for six more to total 12. Encouraging the use of electric vehicles is part of Governor Kulongoski’s climate change and transportation agendas for the 2009 legislative session. The Governor has proposed shifting the state’s tax credit from hybrids to plug-in hybrids and all electric vehicles.

The tax credit proposal and the Governor’s work with the private sector to build a network of alternative fuel stations by October 2010 make Oregon attractive to car companies such as Nissan.

City to Evaluate New Sustainable Technologies- PORTLAND

The Portland City Council recently passed an ordinance allowing the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) to create an Alternative Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) to help evaluate innovative sustainable technologies in the context of existing building code requirements.

"The creation of the Committee is vital to the bureau’s efforts to move emerging green technologies into more development projects in Portland," says Debbie Cleek, a Green Building Specialist for the bureau. BDS has seen growing interest on the part of developers to use innovative building products or construction practices to increase a project’s sustainability, or to comply with green building certification programs, such as LEED.

At times these technologies are so new that they do not have standard testing data available to show how they perform. In addition, nationally recognized testing data is often expensive and time consuming to obtain. To address these issues, BDS has created a new review process where an applicant can gather relevant information about a technology and present it to a panel of experts with backgrounds in the sustainable building industry.

The panel will review the information and make a determination as to whether or not the data is sufficient to support its use in building projects. In addition, the technology must offer a more sustainable option than the product or system it would likely replace. The Committee will make a recommendation to BDS that will be considered as part of a standard building code appeal using the ‘Alternative Methods’ section of the state Building Code.

Mayors Join Seattle, Sign Climate Agreement-SEATTLE

More than 900 mayors have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, a significant milestone in the national campaign of cities to reduce global warming.

“Our determination to reduce carbon emissions will open new opportunities for clean energy and green jobs,” said Seattle Mayor Nickels, who launched the effort three years ago.

The milestone of 900 mayors signing the agreement comes as President-elect Barack Obama issued a major policy statement on global warming.

In addition to the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, Mayor Nickels spearheaded an effort to create a larger federal climate policy framework in June 2007. This past year, Nickels championed a resolution establishing city priorities in a federal cap-and-trade system that embraced 80 percent reductions of global warming pollution from 1990 levels by 2050 as the appropriate and necessary national goal, and urged the federal government to act quickly to enact capand trade legislation.

Green Job Development Could Save Rural Areas-EUGENE

How public land management agencies can use green job development to stimulate the economy now and create the foundation for a long-term sustainable economy was a topic of discussion on Capitol Hill in December. Cassandra Moseley, director of the Ecosystem Workforce Program in the Institute for a Sustainable Environment at the University of Oregon, testified before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the U.S. Senate at a hearing regarding investments in clean energy and natural resources projects and programs to create green jobs and to stimulate the economy.

"With our country in one of the most severe recessions in decades, we need a large infusion of government spending to stimulate the economy and dampen the effects of its rapid contraction on families, businesses and communities. It is critical that Congress act now to prevent a prolonged recession by focusing on spending that can employ workers and businesses quickly," says Moseley. Moseley’s testimony focused on the restoration and stewardship of our nation’s forests, grasslands and rivers; sustainable wood-based energy development; and the greening of federal facilities. According to Moseley, funding these activities offers significant opportunities to stimulate the economy in the short term by providing jobs, particularly in isolated, rural public lands communities that are likely to be hit particularly hard by this deep recession.

She called for "ready-to-go" capital improvements projects including: road decommissioning and maintenance that will reduce the risk of catastrophic road failures during storms and reduce stream sedimentation; replacing decaying bridges with modern timber bridges; and other related activities. Facilities improvements could include weatherizing buildings and replacing aging heating and cooling systems with more efficient wood heat boilers, solar panel insulation and energy-efficient equipment and lighting.

Green Building Services Achieves Landmark 100 LEED-Certified Buildings-PORTLAND

When Ashforth Pacific’s Liberty Centre earned LEED certification, it became the 100th LEED-certified project in Green Building Services Inc.’s (GBS) portfolio. This accomplishment represents a striking six percent of all projects to ever receive LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Ashforth Pacific had already incorporated many sustainable strategies into the building and operations and used their engagement with GBS to quantify and enhance its on-going efforts within the LEED framework.

The Portland-based firm recently opened offices in Houston, Orlando, Fla., and Sacramento, Calif. The firm has six USGBC training faculty on staff and has facilitated the certification of an array of project types under LEED including new construction, existing buildings, commercial interiors, healthcare, schools, core and shell, and neighborhood development.