Page 116 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

GREEN FROM THE INSIDE OUT 95

TABLE 3.3 MELAVER, INC. 2006 GROSS EMISSIONS FROM OPERATIONS

eCO SO NOx CO PM10 VOC
2 2
SOURCE (TONS) (LBS) (LBS) (LBS) (LBS) (LBS)
Electricity 91.1 1,178.1 431.1
Employee 71.1 36.0 810.0 7,739.7 16.2 828.0
Commutes
Business 29.3 15.2 341.1 3,259.4 6.8 348.7
Travel—Ground
Business 53.4 235.0 5,874.0 8,811.0 0 4,272.0
Travel—Air
Totals 244.9 1,464.3 7,456.2 19,810.1 23.0 5,448.7

As with any metric, looking at trends over a multi-year period gives a clearer picture
of the data, providing a sense of total emissions as well as emissions per staff mem-
ber—a good indicator of how a company’s growth affects emissions. At first blush, the
company was actually responsible for more emissions in 2006 than it was in 2004.
However, the company has grown in the past three years—more employees mean more
commutes, more electricity, more travel. But by analyzing emissions per employee, the
company saw an almost 15 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, even while
expanding our real estate holdings regionally during this period caused an increase in
business travel, as shown in Table 3.4.

TABLE 3.4 MELAVER, INC. ECO EMISSIONS (IN TONS), 2004–2006
2
% GAIN SINCE
SOURCE 2004 2005 2006 2005
Electricity 95.0 87.0 91.1 4.7%
Employee 73.0 71.0 71.1 0.1%
Commutes
Business Travel — 26.0 28.3 29.3 3.5%
Ground
Business Travel — 35.3 38.6 53.4 38.3%
Air
Totals 229.3 224.9 244.9 8.9%
Tons per 11.5 10.2 8.7
employee
% reduction per −12.17% −14.46%
employee