Comments on: You Have a Green Building; Now What? http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/ Making green business the new business as usual Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:07:39 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Midsummer Climate Corps update — EDF Innovation Exchange Blog http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/comment-page-1/#comment-196 Midsummer Climate Corps update — EDF Innovation Exchange Blog Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:55:30 +0000 http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/#comment-196 [...] about everything from the absence of low-hanging fruit, demystifying energy bills, keeping a green building green, what they learned in energy efficiency training and [...] [...] about everything from the absence of low-hanging fruit, demystifying energy bills, keeping a green building green, what they learned in energy efficiency training and [...]

]]> By: Climate Corps Fellow http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/comment-page-1/#comment-39 Climate Corps Fellow Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:36:33 +0000 http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/#comment-39 Kirk, Thanks for responding to my blog post on the Innovation Exchange. There are definitely some great things going on here at the Accenture office in San Francisco. As I mentioned in the post, the office space is LEED EB certified so the low hanging fruit is rare. That said, people here really have their thinking caps on. Listed below are just some of the potential improvements they came up with: - Even though the building management company already composts the paper towels from the restroom, employees suggested eliminating paper towels altogether by installing hand dryers. - Sticking with the restroom theme, there were multiple suggestions to switch to low flow commodes and waterless urinals as well as motion sensor faucets in order to save thousands of gallons of water per year. - The office has eliminated Styrofoam cups and moved to biodegradable paper cups and ceramic mugs. Employees would like to take this further and see all the paper cups replaced by reusable ceramic mugs. - In the break room, one of the nice perks we have is a Flavia™ Machine which makes many different types of coffee and tea instantly. However it creates waste in the form of small foil packets that must be thrown away after use. The office is in the process of partnering with Terracycle™- an innovative company that uses what would traditionally be thought of as waste, as inputs for products such as bags and pencil cases- to turn the used packets into other products. - To reduce electricity usage in the office the following suggestions were made: reduce time on motion sensors so that lights would go out sooner; consolidate office space to reduce common area lighting requirements; and changing the temperature/humidity settings slightly so that the office is still comfortable yet consuming less electricity. All of the suggestions were extremely helpful because each person looks at energy consumption in a different way resulting in a multitude of great suggestions. Thanks again. Greg Kirk,

Thanks for responding to my blog post on the Innovation Exchange. There are definitely some great things going on here at the Accenture office in San Francisco. As I mentioned in the post, the office space is LEED EB certified so the low hanging fruit is rare. That said, people here really have their thinking caps on. Listed below are just some of the potential improvements they came up with:

- Even though the building management company already composts the paper towels from the restroom, employees suggested eliminating paper towels altogether by installing hand dryers.
- Sticking with the restroom theme, there were multiple suggestions to switch to low flow commodes and waterless urinals as well as motion sensor faucets in order to save thousands of gallons of water per year.
- The office has eliminated Styrofoam cups and moved to biodegradable paper cups and ceramic mugs. Employees would like to take this further and see all the paper cups replaced by reusable ceramic mugs.
- In the break room, one of the nice perks we have is a Flavia™ Machine which makes many different types of coffee and tea instantly. However it creates waste in the form of small foil packets that must be thrown away after use. The office is in the process of partnering with Terracycle™- an innovative company that uses what would traditionally be thought of as waste, as inputs for products such as bags and pencil cases- to turn the used packets into other products.
- To reduce electricity usage in the office the following suggestions were made: reduce time on motion sensors so that lights would go out sooner; consolidate office space to reduce common area lighting requirements; and changing the temperature/humidity settings slightly so that the office is still comfortable yet consuming less electricity.

All of the suggestions were extremely helpful because each person looks at energy consumption in a different way resulting in a multitude of great suggestions.

Thanks again.

Greg

]]> By: kirk http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/comment-page-1/#comment-38 kirk Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:13:21 +0000 http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/06/17/you-have-a-green-building-now-what/#comment-38 Greg, great post! Can you share with us some of the interesting ideas which were generated by Accenture employees during their World Environment Day brainstorm event? I'm sure that there were some great ideas discussed. Kirk Hourdajian Project Manager, EDF Corporate Partnerships Greg, great post!

Can you share with us some of the interesting ideas which were generated by Accenture employees during their World Environment Day brainstorm event? I'm sure that there were some great ideas discussed.

Kirk Hourdajian
Project Manager, EDF Corporate Partnerships

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