Climate Change & Environmental Services (CCES) announces their involvement in the successful conversion of the boilers at East River Housing (ERH), a 2,600-unit apartment complex located in lower Manhattan from burning heavy No. 6 fuel oil to burning cleaner and significantly less expensive natural gas. CCES served as the chief environmental engineer and the construction manager for the project.
ERH completed the conversion of its first boiler to natural gas in late February 2012. During its first full-month of operation, ERH determined that two-thirds or 215,000 fewer gallons No. 6 oil was burned in March of this year as compared to March 2011. While a milder winter accounted for roughly 20 percent of this reduction, the switch to natural gas resulted in an estimated savings of about $400,000 in energy expenses in just one month. New York City is currently requiring buildings to discontinue the use of heavy No. 6 fuel oil. Natural gas is lighter, cleaner, and currently significantly less expensive than heating oils. Many property owners have experienced significant cost savings of 20 percent or more. As part of New York City’s Clean Heat campaign, the City is making it easier for building owners to make the switch.
CCES is proud of its role in helping ERH reduce its energy expenses while at the same time significantly reducing their carbon footprint and emissions of toxic air pollutants in New York City.
About Climate Change & Environmental Services
Established in 2009, Climate Change & Environmental Services, LLC (CCES) is an environmental consulting firm that specializes in servicing the environmental needs of companies, municipalities, and industrial facilities. CCES provides an array of climate-related services including air quality engineering, environmental and sustainability consulting, energy management and green building conversions among others. CCES is dedicated to providing exceptional service that will maximize efficiency and both financial and environmental benefits for our clients. CCES principal Marc Karell has over 25 years of experience in these areas and has successfully consulted with major firms including IBM, ExxonMobil, Alberto-Culver, Abbott Laboratories, the United Nations and Koppers. For more information, visit www.ccesworld or call 914-584-6720.

January 4, 2012

It’s the beginning of a new year. Just as people develop personal new year’s resolutions for self-improvement which, we hope, we’ll stick to, people should develop company or professional new year’s resolutions, too. What can you do to improve your effectiveness for your company, which will, as a result, make yourself more valuable to your company (when hard decisions have to be made) and benefit your company to, at least in part, put off those potential hard times? Maybe more important, what can you do for your firm that has measureable value, so you can point to the effort and say “I saved the (company/department/facility) $X last year and here’s the proof.”? Working for big firms, that was always a stumbling block for me. I felt I had achievements beyond my goals to benefit my company, but had trouble putting it into undeniable dollars and cents metrics. What can you do to help yourself professionally this year? I maintain one area that meets these criteria is to work to improve the company’s energy efficiency, whether it’s your own or your department’s or entire company’s energy profile. You can demonstrate real gains and translate them into financial savings and other benefits.

An energy efficiency assessment of operations has many advantages – from a business point of view – for any company, big or small. Of course, one such advantage is cost savings. An energy efficiency assessment and implementation of “low hanging fruit” is just about guaranteed to save your company money. One way to achieve this is to work with your Purchasing Department to institute a policy that all new equipment purchased has the Energy Star label, if applicable. This joint EPA/DOE program ensures that you will be saving electricity or fuel use compared to the typical equipment of that type. A lighting study also has a strong return on investment.

But do note that while improving the efficiency of your operations vis-à-vis electricity usage is positive, another item to examine is conservation. Are there areas/times where operations using electricity can be eliminated altogether? While it is a pain to request people shut off lights or computers in areas they are leaving, look into requesting movement sensors that will turn off lights automatically if there has been no movement for a certain amount of time. Reducing usage by 20%, 50%, or more is great, but reducing usage by 100%, even for a short amount of time, is even more powerful.

Besides direct monetary savings, helping to institute an energy efficiency program for your company has other benefits, such as meeting greenhouse gas emission reduction, goals, raising employee morale, and improving the productivity of your company. After all, how does a company best beat the competition, by being more efficient?

CCES has the technical experts to assist you in assessing your energy usage and in recommending strategies to be more efficient and reduce usage. Our experts can also translate those strategies into implementation and into determining real financial savings and gains.

November 2011

According to the USEPA, energy use in commercial and industrial buildings costs U.S. companies about $200 billion per year. And for many businesses, energy costs (with unit prices rising every year) are among their largest expenses. Therefore, the direct financial benefits of reducing energy use should drive all companies – even non-“smoke stack” facilities – to establish a program. So what is holding up many U.S. organizations from devoting themselves to reduce energy? For many, it is the lack of standards. What constitutes a proper, effective effort to reduce energy use? How can my company achieve reductions and yet not overspend upfront? What are my competitors doing?

Earlier this year, the ISO organization published final energy management certification standards: ISO 50001 (http://www.iso.org/iso/energy_management_system_standard). This follows other ISO standards (ISO 9001, 140001), and applies to energy management.

ISO 50001 takes a holistic approach to energy management and not mearly to “check off” the boxes or on one-time achievements. ISO 50001 requires the facility to establish an energy baseline and from this develop realistic energy goals and strategies (i.e., improve energy efficiency and conservation). Once energy strategies are implemented, ISO 50001 requires monitoring and recordkeeping to ensure that selected technologies and strategies continue to work toward intended energy goals and that management oversight of energy is part of the corporate or facility “culture”.

ISO 50001 focuses on long-term improvement in energy management, not just meeting some short-term goals and stopping there. One of the criticisms of the LEED green building program is that it is perceived to focus on meeting a goal (LEED certification at some level), implementing strategies to meet the goal, and potentially stopping there and not necessarily ensuring that the strategies work optimally long term. ISO’s continuous improvement emphasis ensures the best return on investment for the facility, as well as long-term reduction in energy usage, expenses, and greenhouse gas emissions.

One unique feature of ISO 50001 is the requirement for 3rd party review of energy management systems. This is intended to raise the pressure on those that pursue ISO 50001 certification to do it properly and to do so to prosper in the long terms.

Energy savings, as discussed in earlier Environmental News for YouTM, is the most successful strategy for those looking to be more sustainable and achieve economic gains in the quickest timeframe given its measureable metrics (reduced kwh electricity or gallons of oil or cf of natural gas) and the fact that unit energy prices (cost per kwh electricity or per gallon of oil) are at record levels and in the long-term will likely continue to grow as there are only finite sources of fossil fuels.

Those companies looking to garner financial gains in 2012 should look into energy savings. Planned, site-specific energy audits followed by implementation of reasonable findings are virtually guaranteed to pay for themselves and more. According to the US Dept of Energy, 40-50% reductions in energy use (and concurrent reduction in energy expenses) within 5 years of beginning the process were shown to be typical and fairly consistent across type (office building, retail, etc.) and U.S. region (arid vs. wet, cold vs. warm). Remember the power of energy savings from a business point of view. Saving energy expenditures is money “in the bank”, directly raising profits. The alternative way to make a profit, increasing sales or revenues, takes a large investment (sales staff, ads, etc.), is not guaranteed, and can change from year to year. Energy savings continue with no additional changes and grow (as unit costs grow) in the future.

Now that there are new respected energy standards from ISO (as so many companies have met ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and other ISO standards), any hesitation based on not being sure how to implement an energy program should disappear.

What is the future for ISO 50001? As a voluntary standard, will it have much impact? It is possible that major companies that already collect information or set standards for their supply chain, such as Walmart and IBM, will request their suppliers to address and potentially certify under ISO 50001 in order to continue to do business. When Walmart began requesting greenhouse gas life cycle information, suppliers rigorously began to determine their carbon footprint. A similar request from Walmart on the energy side will likely cause a similar reaction. Besides pleasing customers and investors, significant cost savings should merit a systematic upgrade in the energy usage area. ISO 50001 now provides a valid roadmap and standard to validate pursuit by all types of companies and gives security that an internationally-accepted standard is being met.

Get more useful information in our blog:

www.CCESworld.com/blog
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This Environmental News for You is meant to provide background on the new ISO energy standards. CCES experts can assist you in implementing these standards and showing how you can improve efficiency and financially benefit from this and other sustainability programs.

July 26, 2011

Despite the rancor in Congress about federal government spending, a new low-cost, money-saving initiative began this year to incentivize energy conservation. President Obama and the Dept of Energy (DOE) launched the “Better Buildings Initiative”, which hopes to channel private sector investment through incentives to upgrade offices, stores, schools and other municipal buildings, universities, hospitals, and commercial buildings. The goal of the initiative is to make commercial buildings 20% more energy efficient over the next decade, reducing the demand for electricity and new plants. The initiative is also expected to reduce energy bills for businesses by about $40 billion annually. To get more details, see: www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/betterbuildings.

A summary of the initiative’s five components:

1) Tax incentives – The Initiative showcases existing tax incentives for building owners who perform energy efficiency upgrades, such as a tax deduction of up to $1.80/sf for buildings that reduce heating and cooling energy usage by at least 50%. There is a 30% investment tax credit (ITC) for solar energy and qualified fuel cell and small wind energy property. A 10% ITC is available for combined heat and power systems (CHP) and geothermal heat pumps.

2) Ease financing for energy retrofits – The Initiative directs the Small Business Administration and DOE to increase low-cost lending to small businesses for energy retrofits. The total amount of available loans is currently being negotiated.

3) “Race to Green” competitive grant program – This program will provide grants to states and/or local governments to research and upgrade their codes and programs to encourage energy upgrades and private sector investment.

4) Building construction technology training and tools – This program will create pilot programs to standardize training for workers to implement the next generation of energy auditing and building operations. The program will also enable normally expensive teaching tools to be more affordable.

5) “Better Building Challenge” – This effort will encourage the private sector to upgrade their facilities and make investments to decrease energy use and create jobs. Partners will commit to a series of appropriate goals and will in turn receive public recognition, technical assistance, and best-practices sharing to meet them.

Just how well this program will be funded will be based on the current debt ceiling – federal spending debates going in Congress. But the program will move forward.

Climate Change & Environmental Services, LLC (CCES) can help your building manager assess where it stands now in terms of energy conservation, the feasibility and benefits of different potential energy conservation strategies and technologies, and review available financial incentives offered by the federal government to make such strategies economically viable and maximize the benefits for your building.

August 8, 2010

There is growing interest in the USGBC’s LEED program. Though criticized, this is an accepted, concrete (no pun intended) program that defines “green” building. Some companies who are cool to climate change (another pun, there!) or sustainability programs have embraced LEED for several reasons. First, it requires outside body certification. One accumulates points until a desired level is reached. If improvements implemented meet USGBC approval, then the building is LEED-certified, no ifs, ands, buts, or accusations of greenwashing. LEED is also called “high performing” building standards for good reason. LEED-certified buildings have lower costs, healthier indoor air, and other advantages with real financial benefits over non-LEED buildings.

So why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, initial investment costs turn firms off, although my recent blog shows that the gap between standard and “green” alternatives is narrowing, plus growing government incentive programs. The other problem is the perception that it is easier to design “green” features into a new building than to make “green” an existing building. While usually true, the reality is that in this economy there will be an excess of available existing buildings, and it makes greater economic sense to re-use them.

Opportunities to improve performance exist. Most pre-existing buildings are less than ideal because they were designed before LEED existed and developers often did not look to include the latest knowledge concerning lighting, energy efficiency, air quality, etc. LEED has a specific standard for Existing Buildings (“EBOM”). Converting an existing building to meet LEED-EBOM standards involves not only its physical structure and operating systems, but also on-going, day-to-day operating procedures and recordkeeping.

So how do you start? Do a “gaps” analysis of your existing building. It’s possible that your building already meets LEED-EBOM standards with no or few changes. If so, you can quickly certify and reap LEED benefits soon. A good gaps analysis will tell you how many LEED-EBOM points you probably already have, how far away you are from achieving a LEED level (Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum), and the most cost-effective steps (those with best ROI) to take to gain the points needed to reach the desired LEED level. A good gaps analysis would present you with extra options to allow you to choose which options you would like to pursue or disregard and still meet the LEED standard.

A “gaps” analysis is a good cost-effective method to determine where your existing building currently stands in terms of LEED and high performance, and gives you an effective road map of options to choose from to improve building performance to your desired level.

Marc Karell, President of Climate Change & Environmental Services, knows all about gaps analyses. He managed the gaps analysis of a “little” project, the greening of the design of the refurbishment of United Nations Headquarters in New York City. He led the team that suggested about 20 options to improve performance; the UN included nearly all of them.