Page 119 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

98 CHAPTER 3

plant trees in an environmentally beneficial manner and often can quantify how much
CO is being sequestered to help a company reduce its carbon footprint.
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Other projects outside of the confines of the Melaver, Inc. office have resulted in
actual emissions reductions. For example, in 2006 we purchased and distributed over
one thousand compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in the Savannah community.
Through a partnership with our lighting distributor, we were able to secure Philips
CFLs for around three dollars apiece. These 27-watt bulbs replaced traditional incan-
descent 100-watt light bulbs, almost a 75 percent energy savings. Melaver, Inc. staff
manned a table at the City of Savannah’s 2006 Earth Day festivities and distributed
the light bulbs, one per household, to anyone who wanted one. When these thousand
CFLs were installed in houses around the community, it resulted in an annual reduc-
tion of over one hundred tons of eCO , almost half of Melaver, Inc.’s total footprint.
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This was a low-cost investment ($3,000) with far-reaching impact. The recipients ben-
efited from lower energy bills, and we offset our own emissions by claiming credit for
the reduction. Similarly, in 2007, we partnered with Goodwill Industries of Savannah,
whose main office was in an older building with extremely inefficient lighting.
Melaver, Inc. made an investment of around $7,000 and replaced eight hundred lights
and two hundred ballasts with new, energy efficient lights, resulting in an ongoing
annual reduction of twenty tons of eCO and energy cost savings for Goodwill for
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years to come.
Many similar opportunities exist in communities all across the country. They may just
take a little digging to find. For firms that would rather work through a third party, organ-
izations such as Climate Trust can be of assistance. According to its website (www.cli-
matetrust.org), Climate Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing
solutions to stabilize our rapidly changing climate. Climate Trust invests in specific proj-
ects that reduce GHG emissions, such as providing electricity at truck stops so truckers
can plug in to operate their rigs rather than run on diesel to power the battery; optimiz-
ing traffic signals in cities to reduce traffic idling at stoplights; upgrading large facilities
such as the Blue Heron Paper Plant in Oregon City, Oregon, which produces paper uti-
lizing over 50 percent recovered fiber; and funding a program that retrofits inefficient
boilers in schools.

Purchasing Green Energy
An alternative to offsetting emissions through third-party efficiency projects is the
purchase of green energy directly through a utility company. The purchase of green
electricity through a utility, if available, is a rather straightforward procedure. Many
utilities offer (at a premium) the option to purchase green power (power generated from
wind, solar, biomass, or small scale hydro) to customers. Depending on the amount
purchased, this could effectively reduce the GHGs from a company’s electricity con-
sumption to zero. Often customers can elect to purchase blocks of green electricity,
such as 100 kilowatt hours per block, or simply a percentage of use (e.g., 25, 50, or
100 percent). While this does not mean that electrons from a wind farm are directly
entering your building, it does cause the utility to purchase more green power at a des-
ignated premium, helping more renewable energy to come online.