Greener Impact

As the summer is slowly fading away to make room for fall, there is still no sign of rain clouds in Southern California. As you might have guessed, we are currently in a drought. The Oxford-English dictionary defines a drought as a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall and a shortage of water resulting from this. By this simple definition, we can see that a drought is definitely a serious situation. As of 2007, Los Angeles has been purchasing nearly 70 percent of its water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which is much more than in the previous years.
As a result of the lack of rain, the Mayor of Los Angeles has reinstated the Drought Busters program that was originally in existence in the early 90’s. According to the City of Los Angeles’ website, http://mayor.lacity.org/villaraigosaplan/EnergyandEnvironment/GreenestAndCleanestBigCity/LACITY_004843.htm, this past year, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) sent these Drought Busters workers to patrol the city to issue warnings and educate customers about how to avoid wasting water and the need for water conservation. The Busters also handed out fines for repeat offenders, which can range from between $50 to $200.

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Although this initiative has not been around for too long, the Architecture 2030 Challenge is becoming more and more prevalent in professional practice. But it shouldn’t be a topic that only professionals in the building industry know about, especially since the initiative potentially affects everyone.

A non-profit organization called Architecture 2030 launched the initiative in 2002 under architect Edward Mazria. The initiative not only raises awareness of global warming, but it also challenges the building industry to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. According to the initiative, all new buildings and renovations should seek to reduce their fossil fuel consumption by 50% by the year 2010. By 2030, new buildings should be “carbon neutral,” meaning that they use no fossil fuel energy to operate.

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This past Monday, I had the opportunity to attend the Future is Green Conference on clean air technologies and innovations held in Long Beach. Sitting in on a green consumer products panel got me thinking about how many products we use in our homes that could prove harmful. An oft-reported statistic I overheard at the conference was that consumer products, such as cleaning supplies, are currently the number two source of volatile organic compounds otherwise known as VOCs. VOCs include various chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects, as stated by the EPA. These VOCs also tend to be found at higher levels indoors versus outdoors. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), many people spend as much as 90 percent of their time indoors, where the pollution levels may be two to five times higher, and occasionally more than 100 times higher, than outdoor levels. Scary you say?

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Healthy Air Walk

Featuring the Alternative Auto Show

What:            The Healthy Air Walks are fundraising walks held in communities across the state that bring people together whose sole purpose is to raise funds for programs that reduce air pollution and prevent lung disease.

When:             Sunday, November 9, 2008. Registration begins 8 a.m. Kick-off 9 a.m.

Where:             Burbank City Hall, 275 E. Olive Avenue, Burbank, CA 91502, and continues throughout beautiful Downtown Burbank!

Why:             Californians breathe some of the unhealthiest air in the nation and the American Lung Association of California’s Healthy Air Walks give you the power to change that by raising funds for programs that reduce air pollution.

Healthy air is important to everyone! We all need it to breathe, live and thrive!

Register at www.healthyairwalk.org

Take the challenge, and join us as a walker or even better, recruit a team!

For Sponsorship and Corporate Team recruitment information, please contact:

Tommy Monje, tmonje@alac.org, (213)384-5864 (x261)

Higher education no longer refers to books, studying, and potential career choices. It has also come to include a sense of environmental responsibility that many American schools now embrace. Institutions are not just talking about their sustainable plans, but they are also taking action to continue this emerging green movement.

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, launched in October 2006, is an initiative that encourages all campuses to essentially go green. Established by a group of education leaders, the ACUPCC already includes 550 colleges and universities from the 4,300 total of schools in the U.S.

In order to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions produced by American institutions, the ACUPCC encourages new school-related constructions to pursue LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The Commitment also seeks to implement specific purchasing policies that will require new facilities to buy energy-efficient appliances.

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I have recently had the pleasure of doing business with the nations first “Certified Green” printers. We are excited to share the news of our involvement with them, since they are now aligned the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP). The SGP is the first and only national certification for printers that have implemented environmentally sustainable business practices. Nearly 40 companies offered their facility to the SGP for evaluation, but only 11 were selected for its beta test. Pictura Graphics has become the 1st Certified Sustainable Green Printer under the SGP program.

At Pictura, sustainability is an integral part of their business. They strive to achieve continuous improvements in all areas of environmental stewardship. They want to lead by exemplifying environmental responsibility through innovative product technologies, resources and sustainable business practices that will maximize client results.

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The thought of “building codes” tends to make many young architecture students like me a bit, well, uncomfortable because of their seemingly overwhelming limitations. From large-scale issues like a building’s fire resistance to more specific issues like the allowable types of holes in a concrete wall, codes set the safety standards for buildings and building structures.

Such picky constrictions are just some of the many considerations that architects, engineers, and even design students must encounter. But codes are just part of the job, right? After all, no matter how complex and constraining they seem to young designers, codes do aim to protect the public’s health and safety.

Recently, codes have begun to protect more than just the public’s health. As talk about “going green” becomes more prevalent, California’s state government is the first state authority to catch on—and architects are definitely on board for the green ride. Established by the California Building Standards Commission, the California Green Building Code sets requirements that will be voluntary at first in order to allow designers, builders, and local governments to adapt to the new rules. Such rules focus on buildings’ energy, material, and resource efficiency. In 2010, the Code’s provisions will become mandatory, just in time for the new generation of designers.

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As a resident of Los Angeles and an avid runner, I have frequently wondered about the effects I could be having on my lungs while running outside in the region with the dirtiest air in the country. As it stands, air pollution impacts lung health, especially in an exercise setting. We breathe in an upwards of 15,000 liters of air (about 6-10 liters per minute) a day, as stated by the American Lung Association. That air can contain oxygen (good!) as well as ozone smog, carbon monoxide, and fine particulates (bad). A large body of scientific evidence links exposure to traffic exhaust, particles, and diesel emissions with serious respiratory health problems, asthma, cancer, and premature death. . While exercising, you bypass breathing through your nose for a huge gratifying gulp of air through your mouth. In doing so, you are getting a larger dose of air and air pollution and, therefore, you are bypassing the protection through filtration that your nose offers. According to the American Lung Association, exercise increases air intake by as much as 10 times the resting intake levels.

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SB 974 is on its way to the Governor’s desk but major industry and business interests in California continue to fight hard against this important legislation, including the retail and shipping industry and a long list of companies that do business at the ports - so it’s important to make your voice heard now!
Diesel pollution has been declared a toxic air contaminant by the state and has been linked to asthma attacks, increased hospitalizations, heart attacks and strokes. And worse yet, according to the California Air Resources Board, pollution from our ports cause 3,800 premature deaths every year with a disproportionate number of those impacted being low-income communities of color.
The Port Investment Bill will establish a fee on each container processed through the ports, with dollars raised going to programs designed to reduce port pollution.

We are so close! Please take action today and urge a friend, colleague or family member to do the same! This bill is vital to the health or all Californians and in particular, those that live closets to the ports. Take a minute to support this vital bill by clicking on http://lungaction.org/campaign/SB974_GovFinal.

Campuses nation-wide are taking initiative in contributing to the green movement. 11 Colleges have received a perfect score in Princeton Review’s Green Rating system (based on practices, policies, and courses in sustainability), which have all been given the Green Rating Honor Roll of 2008. These 11 universities include: Arizona State University at the Tempe campus , Bates College (Lewiston, ME), College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME), Emory University (Atlanta, GA), Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA), Harvard College (Cambridge, MA), State University of New York at Binghamton, University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH), University of Oregon (Eugene, OR), University of Washington (Seattle, WA), and Yale University (New Haven, CT).

These 11 universities have shown a great deal of initiative in the green economy. All of these colleges and universities are going above and beyond the standard of academic excellence and offer a green window to the 21st century. For example, Arizona State University is the first in the nation to have a School of Sustainability. Yale has a co-generation power plant, which contributes to Yale’s 43 percent emissions reduction. Harvard has spent over $12 million on its campus on lighting, ventilation, and onsite renewable energy to help shift the movement towards a greener campus.

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Progressive Media Network Working with NativeEnergy
to Purchase Carbon Offsets 

DENVER –
Air America Media (www.airamerica.com) will be offsetting the carbon footprint for all of its operations for the two weeks of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Through a partnership with NativeEnergy, Air America will mitigate global warming pollution from energy consumption, corporate travel and accommodations, employee commuting, freight shipments and waste to landfill with high quality carbon offsets as part of the Cascade Sierra Solutions Truck Efficiency Project (CSS).
“Air America has taken an important step in being environmentally responsible in reducing its carbon footprint with their decision to operate more sustainably during the DNCC and RNCC,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., environmental lawyer and co-host of Air America’s “Ring of Fire.” “By offsetting the CO2 pollution created over the course of these two weeks, they’re taking a stand against the global climate crisis, and encouraging all listeners, viewers and readers to take action to reduce the impact of their everyday emissions.”

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   The Home Depot®, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, expanded its long-term commitment to the environment and sustainability by launching a national in-store, consumer compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb recycling program at all 1,973 The Home Depot locations. This free service is the first such offering made so widely available by a retailer in the United States and offers customers additional options for making environmentally conscious decisions from purchase to disposal. The Home Depot Canada launched a CFL recycling program in November, 2007.
   At each The Home Depot store, customers can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, and give them to the store associate behind the returns desk. The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance. Read more…