Resourceful
Reduction
Efforts to lessen the environmental impact of a facility
can take on many forms.
By Anne Vazquez
With fuel prices hitting record highs this past summer,
facility managers are not the only people concerned with
getting the most from their dollars. Along with economic
concerns, this situation brings to the forefront a closely
related issue—conservation. Dependence on natural
resources is a fact of life, but with the move for building
green in full swing practical approaches to reducing consumption
are more readily available than ever before.
Resource conservation is a broad concept, which is a good
thing, since it offers facility managers numerous ways to
reduce the energy and materials consumed by their buildings.
These efforts can run the gamut from building utilities—such
as energy, oil, gas, and water—to waste items that
can be recycled for a second go-round in the life cycle.
A fundamental way to conserve resources is to reduce the
amount used in the first place. The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s (EPA) mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle,”
is a reminder that an efficient, streamlined approach to
consumption will help to lessen the impact on the earth’s
resources.
Energized Efforts
The demands of lighting, heating, cooling, and process
systems in a facility are part of what makes buildings such
large consumers of energy. According to U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE), in 2000 commercial buildings accounted
for 17% of the energy consumption in the U.S.
Lighting
is one necessity that can demand vast amounts of energy.
Choosing energy efficient lighting products, using occupancy
sensors to minimize demand, and installing natural daylighting
systems are ways to illuminate a space at a lower cost to
the energy supply. (As is the case with many conservation
measures, these strategies also result in lower costs to
the organization’s bottom line.)
Vaughn Aiken, facility manager at Trendway in Holland,
MI, has seen both energy and economic savings as a result
of the daylighting initiative adopted by the company. “Since
1990, every addition [to the original building] has incorporated
natural daylight,” he explains. “You can really
tell the difference from space to space—from the older
spaces without it to the newer spaces with it. We have also
seen savings on energy bills.”
Trendway controls its consumption with an energy management
system installed in about half of the 500,000 square foot
facility. The building elements controlled by the system
include the lighting and HVAC systems.
In addition to daylighting, Aiken attributes the presence
of this management system to the energy savings realized
at Trendway. “[It] certainly helps us to budget better,
because we have the historical information from the system,”
he says. “You can really fine tune the use of power.”
Some areas of the facility are not hooked into the system,
and motion sensors are used to save energy in those areas.
“All the bathrooms, except maybe one, have the sensors,”
says Aiken. Sensors are also in areas without frequent traffic.
“You don’t want lights going on and off a lot.
It costs more that way and uses more energy. We’ve
taken into account where we put the motion sensors. If an
area has frequent traffic, we won’t put one there.
We’ll have a light switch instead.”
The DOE estimates that HVAC systems account for about
one-third of the energy used in commercial buildings throughout
the nation. Reducing this figure can be realized in a number
of ways, including installing HVAC equipment designed to
be energy efficient.
Evaluating HVAC systems before purchase and throughout
their operating lives is key to ensuring efficient operation.
The first step is specifying equipment that is as energy
efficient as possible while meeting varying demand levels.
Heating and cooling demands also depend to a degree on other
building elements, including the type of lighting used,
how much natural daylight is brought in, how the space is
organized, facility operating hours, and outdoor climate.
To keep demand to a minimum, it is also prudent to assess
the integrity of the building envelope and verify that energy
is not being wasted by an HVAC system struggling against
outdoor temperatures.
Renewable Energy Sources
Of course, the best way to reduce impact on natural resources
is to eliminate the demand on those resources in the first
place. While that may have sounded impossible to the mainstream
several decades ago, the concept of creating energy “off
the grid” is increasingly common.
Resource-conscious people are powering buildings with
renewable sources, including the sun, the wind, biomass,
and geothermal (using the heat of the earth for building
applications, such as heating). This power is also referred
to as clean energy, since pollution emissions are drastically
reduced or eliminated.
Facilities can generate energy on-site if the infrastructure
requirement for a specific energy source allows for it.
This is the case with photovoltaic solar panels. By installing
the panels on the roof or other flat surface such as a parking
deck, a facility manager can turn the building into its
own power generator. Since 2002, the Santa Rita Jail in
Dublin, CA has operated a 1.18 megawatt photovoltaic system
on its roof. The facility has reported that the use of solar
power reduces its consumption of utility generated electricity
by 30%.
For other types of energy, such as wind energy, it is
often more feasible to purchase the power from a utility
provider. In this case, however, one must be sure that renewable
energy options are available in the region. By contacting
their utility companies, facility managers can often find
out quickly if this is an option.
Liquidate Assets
With under 3% of the water in the world suitable for drinking,
it is more important than ever to reduce the share that
buildings draw from the supply. Strategies of reduction
and reuse are effective in this arena.
In order to reduce water consumption by occupants, facility
managers can specify low flow showerheads, toilets, and
urinals, as well as faucet aerators. The presence of these
fixtures results in substantial water savings. Most low
flush toilets, for instance, use 1.6 gallons of water per
flush. Taking it a step further, waterless urinals, which
use specially designed cartridges to absorb waste and odor,
are another option. An added benefit of all of these items
is the reduced volume of wastewater produced, which lessens
the demand on treatment plants.
The reuse of water is a strategy that offers facility
managers an option that can be applied in a number of ways.
For instance, water from sinks, tubs, and washers—known
as gray water—can be gathered for reuse applications.
These can include watering plants, cleaning the building,
or perhaps washing a company fleet of cars.
In 2003, Santa Clara University (SCU) in Santa Clara,
CA began reusing water for its irrigation needs. With the
goal of easing demand on the public supply, the South Bay
Water Recycling Authority contacted staff at SCU about participating
in water recycling. This gray water travels to the city’s
wastewater plant, is decontaminated and screened, and then
it is returned to the SCU campus and used for its irrigation
needs.
“Currently, we use the recycled water for about
75% of the campus,” says Chris Young, team leader
for landscape and waste and recycling management at SCU.
The effort has yielded considerable savings. From April
2003 through October 2004, the university used more than
570 million gallons of recycled water, resulting in a 30%
decrease in the utility bill for that period. [For more
information on gray water, see “Sustainable By Design”
on page 60.]
As with renewable energy sources, reducing the demand
on the grid is one of the most effective ways to lower fresh
water consumption. Facility managers can achieve this by
collecting rainwater on site to use for building needs.
These systems consist of installing piping on the roof,
which catches the rain and funnels it to a tank or other
vessel down below. At intervals within the system, there
are filters that remove debris and can also clean the water
to drinking quality, if desired.
While irrigation is one of the more common uses for collected
rainwater, the applications can be as varied as individual
facilities. Hospitality and health care buildings, for instance,
may use rainwater to wash laundry.
The amount of water consumed by facilities with large
scale laundry operations is what led David Crawford to start
his company, Rainwater Management Solutions located in Salem,
VA. “I was involved with large industrial health care
laundry facilities,” he recalls. “These facilities
use a tremendous amount of water, gas, and energy. Some
of them process as much as 50 million pounds of laundry
a year.”
So how much water can be collected through rainwater harvesting?
“A one thousand square foot roof surface will yield
600 gallons per every one inch of rain,” Crawford
says. “A small percentage may be lost to evaporation.”
Materialism At Its Best
With much of the solid waste in the U.S. attributed to
buildings, there are many areas where facility managers
can scale back the amount of waste material that enters
landfills. To work toward this goal, there are two practices
a facility manager can implement—purchasing products
designed to have the least impact on the environment and
overseeing effective recycling programs.
Products that feature environmentally friendly materials
and are made in such a way that it is easier for the end
user to recycle them are options for the resource conscious
facility manager.
Less is more can apply in this arena as Aiken found when
outfitting ceiling spaces at the Trendway facility. “In
the newer buildings, there are no ceiling tiles,”
he explains. “We’ve used exposed, painted construction
instead.” This has required less materials to be installed,
but also has increased the light in those spaces.
When an item gets to the end of its useful life for the
facility, an effective recycling program is key to keeping
it out of the landfill. (With certain wastes considered
hazardous by the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act, this is not an option but a requirement.) Fortunately,
for those who wish to pursue this goal for unregulated items,
the avenues toward recycling choices have widened.
While virtually all facilities have access to services
for recycling glass, plastic, cardboard, and other common
items, it may be more difficult for the facility manager
to locate a recycler for less universal items. Some materials
may require more legwork than others.
James Dowling, environmental compliance administrator
for Trendway, faced just such a challenge a few years back
when looking to keep papered gypsum waste out of a landfill.
“There weren’t too many opportunities to recycle
gypsum waste,” he recalls. “I did find a facility
in northern Indiana that would take [it]. They segregate
the parts and then it’s used on crop fields, because
it helps make clay in soils and is impervious to water.
It acts like a lime to [nourish] the soil.”
Construction projects represent another opportunity to
conserve resources. The EPA estimates nearly 40% of raw
materials consumed in the nation are used in construction.
(This figure includes roadway, bridge, and dam projects
as well.) It is estimated that more than 135 million tons
of debris from construction sites are brought to landfills
every year, making it the single largest source in the waste
stream. Most of these materials, including wood, metal,
concrete, gypsum, asphalt, brick, and shingles, are recyclable.
In choosing to recycle construction waste, there are a
few issues to consider. First, as with all recycling, the
purer the waste stream the better. In order to ensure to
maximize materials reclamation, it is better for debris
types to be separated on site. The other option is to co-mingle
the waste types and leave it to the processor to separate
them.
Either option has its own logistical and cost issues.
For instance, if waste types are separated on site, recycler
costs will usually be lower. However, since on site workers
must separate the waste, they will need to be properly trained.
To maximize the recycling rate in a construction project,
The Institution Recycling Network (IRN), a cooperative recycling
organization based in Concord, NH, advises that the plan
be introduced to all parties involved before the project
begins. In a recently published guide prepared by IRN on
recycling construction waste in the northeastern U.S., it
is noted that early planning helped project managers of
a school construction and renovation project in Douglas,
MA, to recycle 444 tons of building materials. Since recycling
is less costly than disposal fees in many regions, these
efforts saved $31,000 for the 143,800 square foot project.
[“Recycling Construction And Demolition Wastes: A
Guide for Architects and Contractors” can be downloaded
at www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/cdhome.htm.]
There are many ways to reduce the consumption of resources
in buildings. It may be as easy as changing existing light
bulbs to more efficient models. Or it may require a detailed
plan distributed to numerous people and reviewed on a regular
basis. By implementing any number of conservation measures
in their buildings, facility managers can often help both
the environment and their bottom lines at the same time.
Information for this article was provided by interviews
with Aiken, Crawford, Dowling, and Young. More information
on conservation strategies and opportunities can be found
at www.doe.gov,
www.eere.gov, www.epa.gov,
www.sbicouncil.org,
and www.ir-network.com.
What strategies have reduced your building’s
consumption? Share your experiences by sending an e-mail
to avazquez@groupc.com.
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