Axion International Holdings is increasing the performance of its recycled plastic bridges with a contact from the U.S. Army to build two railroad bridges that can support 130 tons.

Axion will be building the bridges, which will be made almost entirely of recycled post-consumer plastic, at Fort Eustis in Virginia, the home of the US Army Transportation Corps. The bridges will be used for locomotives and freight traffic as part of military movements and base exercises.

Local and federal dignitaries celebrated the opening of a development at Fort Shafter, the U.S. Army Pacific Headquarters, that’s being hailed as the greenest neighborhood on a military installation and the largest project of its kind for the Army.

One year on: A progress report on the Government’s Greening Government ICT
Source: Cabinet Office
From Press Release:

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is responsible for up to 20 per cent of carbon emissions generated by Government offices. Each year it generates around 460,000 tonnes a year, the same amount created by a million households in a month or a jumbo jet flying around the world more than a thousand times.

Last year the Government was one of the first in the world to introduce measures to tackle the huge financial and environmental cost of ICT. Departments were asked to take 18 key steps including turning off all machines at night, extending the lifecycle of computers, reusing as much IT equipment as possible and increasing server efficiency.

In the first year alone some of the success stories include:
• The Department for International Development (DfID) donating old equipment to charities in developing countries
• The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saving £2.35million by replacing 9,500  computers and 2,500 printers every five years rather than every three
• The Home Office (HO) saving £2.4million a year by removing unused IT equipment and improving efficiency
• The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will save 200 million sheets of paper a year through cutting down the number of printers in the department and changing the default setting to double-sided printing

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 912 KB)

To harness the collective wisdom of America’s more than 1.8 million Federal and military personnel, we’re launching the GreenGov Challenge – an online participatory program that challenges federal and military personnel to take part in implementing the President’s Executive Order on Federal Sustainability by submitting their own clean energy ideas and suggestions and voting on others.

In coordination with National Energy Awareness Month, any Federal employee or military member can submit a clean energy idea to WhiteHouse.gov/GreenGov from October 19^th through October 31^st.

At the beginning of November, some of the top ideas will be presented to the Steering Committee on Federal Sustainability – a group comprised of a senior official from each agency who is responsible for delivering each agency’s sustainability plan. Though anyone can see the ideas, only Federal and military personnel can participate – so this is their chance to positively impact how their agencies will meet their 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.

Abstract:
The United States Army has embraced the goal of incorporating sustainability into its operations, all the while meeting its primary mission to defend the United States. The Army also has indicated a desire to be both transparent and accountable, so it has adopted a recognizable reporting framework ­ as outlined by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). This review considers the Army’s response to the GRI framework in its recent sustainability report, and points out opportunities to strengthen both. It also makes recommendations to improve the Army’s reporting and goal-setting efforts by making them more meaningful and more measurable. Such changes are necessary to achieve full sustainability, especially given the many challenges facing an organization as large and diverse as the Army. While making these changes, progress must be communicated to both internal and external audiences ­ especially the general public ­ in clear and substantive terms. This report further outlines how Army personnel can become leaders in global sustainability reporting and suggests that numerous benefits will result from setting well-articulated, appropriately scaled goals and tracking progress toward those goals over time.

Salazar Launches DOI Climate Change Response Strategy
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today launched the Department of the Interior’s first-ever coordinated strategy to address current and future impacts of climate change on America’s land, water, ocean, fish, wildlife, and cultural resources.

“Across the country, Americans are experiencing first-hand the impacts of climate change, from growing pressure on water supplies to more intense droughts and fires to rampant bark beetle infestations,” said Salazar. “Because Interior manages one-fifth of our nation’s landmass and 1.7 billion acres on the Outer Continental Shelf, it is imperative that we tackle these impacts of a failed and outdated energy policy. This secretarial order is another milestone in our continuing effort to change how Interior does business to respond to the energy and climate challenges of our time.”

The secretarial order signed today at Interior’s command center establishes a framework through which Interior bureaus will coordinate climate change science and resource management strategies. Under the framework:

• A new Climate Change Response Council, led by the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Counselor, will coordinate DOI’s response to the impacts of climate change within and among the Interior bureaus and will work to improve the sharing and communication of climate change impact science, including through www.data.gov;
• Eight DOI regional Climate Change Response Centers, serving Alaska, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, the Midwest, the West, Northwest, and Pacific regions – will synthesize existing climate change impact data and management strategies, help resource managers put them into action on the ground, and engage the public through education initiatives; and
• A network of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives will engage DOI and federal agencies, local and state partners, and the public to craft practical, landscape-level strategies for managing climate change impacts within the eight regions. The cooperatives will focus on impacts such as the effects of climate change on wildlife migration patterns, wildfire risk, drought, or invasive species that typically extend beyond the borders of any single National Wildlife Refuge, BLM unit, or National Park.

+ U.S. Department of the Interior Climate Change Response Strategy

Most people reach government and other public sector websites by using Google and other search engines. This site is a guide to the tools and best practices that can help you reach, communicate and engage with your community. Most of these tools are free, so they can also help you do more with less.

Check it out at http://www.google.com/publicsector/.

The White House has opened an online storefront where federal agencies can purchase cloud computing services. Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, said that the new service — called Apps.gov – is designed to reduce redundancy and costs by pooling information technology resources across government organizational boundaries, Kundra said.

The General Services Administration assembled an interagency team to build Apps.gov, GSA officials said. Creating a way for agencies to share resources, rather than operating separate and distinct IT systems, was a priority of the team, Kundra said.

Energy efficiency is another consideration.

Besides encouraging better collaboration among agencies, Kundra said he expects cloud services to reduce energy consumption because agencies will be able to share IT infrastructures.

The White House will be going green as the administration considers LEED certification.

This conference offers a day of nuts-and-bolts advice on energy conservation, stormwater management, waste reduction, green building, sustainable landscaping and potential funding.

Registration is $150 until Sept. 10, then $175, with group discounts available. Registration closes Sept. 23. For more information or to register, contact Mary Horek at the University of Illinois Extension, 630-445-3216, e-mail mhorek@illinois.edu, or view the conference web site at http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/elc/.

A first-of-its-kind guide is designed to help states save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by adopting clean energy practices in their facilities, operations, and vehicle fleets.

States spend about 10 percent of their operating budgets on energy bills, yet these costs can be reduced by implementing well-designed energy management and greenhouse gas reduction programs. For example, in New York, where a 2001 executive order directed state agencies to reduce energy consumption by 35 percent by 2010 relative to 1990 levels, the state saved $54.4 million in energy costs from energy efficiency improvements between fiscal years 2001-2002 and 2003-2004.

The Department of Energy recently underwent an energy audit by its inspector general and the results (PDF) were not good. It seems none of the seven facilities surveyed were complying with the department’s own power-saving guidelines when it comes to computers.

The Navy is pioneering a “hybrid electric driv”” to propel new ships as it seeks to cut consumption of fuel and be more environmentally conscious. Navy ships accounted for roughly 40% of the fuel consumption across the DoD in 2008. The Office for Naval Research is hoping to improve that figure.

Your computer has an off-button. But if you’re like most people, you don’t use it very often. Maybe you like to leave certain programs or files open so that you can easily pick up working where you last left off. Maybe your computer’s start-up process is frustratingly slow. But leaving these devices on all the time is a problem. A typical desktop computer wastes almost half of the energy it draws, mostly in the form of heat. Turning a computer off when you’re done for the day — and utilizing built-in “sleep” or “hibernate” modes — can reduce the amount of energy consumed by 60 percent. Still, many employees prefer to leave their computers on all night rather than logging off and shutting down.

King County government says it has cut the energy use of personal computers by an average of 38 percent since installing software that reduces PCs’ energy use when they sit unused for more than 15 minutes.

Imagine printing out an unnecessary extra page every time you print a two-page document, and then having someone else pay for it. In so many words, this process describes the extent of waste involved in federal government printing. According to a study released by Lexmark International, $440.4 million of the annual $1.3 billion spent on government printing costs is wasteful.

The Defense Logistics Agency has been making an effort to point out its support of green products in its combat support output. This is partly as a response to green technology demands by consumers and to recent pro-green legislation, such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The U.S. Defense Department, the nation’s single largest consumer of energy, is putting increased focus on cutting its energy consumption and ensuring that future weapons are more energy efficient, the Pentagon’s new chief weapons buyer said on Monday.

The U.S. EPA has released the first portion of its Rapid Deployment Energy Efficiency (RDEE) Toolkit Planning Guide to help states, local governments, and other program administrators design and implement effective energy efficiency programs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The Planning Guide provides key information on the following 10 energy efficiency programs with proven track records across the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors:

• Home Performance with ENERGY STAR
• ENERGY STAR Labeled Products
• Residential Efficient Heating and Cooling
• Residential Energy Audit and Direct Installation
• Non-Residential On-Site Energy Manager
• Non-Residential Prescriptive Rebates
• Non-Residential Retro-commissioning
• Non-Residential Benchmarking and Performance
• Non-Residential Custom Incentives
• Commercial Food Service Efficiency

The Guide presents information that can be used to select and plan for any one of these programs or for the development of a portfolio of these programs, including details on the target audience, likely near-term penetration rates, average energy savings per participant, annual program costs per participant, and the number of jobs created.

Implementation Guide

The U.S. EPA has also released the RDEE Toolkit Implementation Guide ­ Phase I. The Implementation Guide provides states and local governments with the information that they need to prepare and implement RDEE programs, both individually and as part of a portfolio of programs. It is being released in two phases:

Phase I (available now)

• Program/portfolio benchmarking
• Overview of strategies for customer targeting and marketing
• Training needs and resources overview

Phase II (available June 2009)

• Marketing strategies and tactics for each RDEE program
• Examples of and links to specific trainings
• Templates of and links to RFPs and proposal evaluation matrices
• Detailed program timelines
• Measurement and verification details

Visit www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/ee_toolkit.html to learn more about the RDEE Toolkit and to download the Planning Guide or Implementation Guide. The RDEE Toolkit was developed through a joint effort of EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy, with technical input from the Leadership Group of the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency.

Help Line

The RDEE Toolkit Help Line is also available as a go-to resource for RDEE questions. The goal of the Help Line is to assist state and local governments in deploying ARRA energy efficiency funding in a successful, sustainable manner. The RDEE Toolkit Help Line is available at 866-602-7333 or RDEE@icfi.com. Please note that all questions related to energy-related funding provided by ARRA should be directed to DOE at  www.eere.energy.gov/recovery or 1-877-EERE-INF (1-877-337-3463).

State government leverages automated discovery and a comprehensive asset database to assess energy consumption and associated emissions from 50,000 hardware devices.

Citing financial and environmental reasons for the change, the governor said he hoped local governments and businesses would follow the state’s lead.

Just months after the federal government bailed out ailing U.S. automakers, it’s lining up as a major customer. President Obama this month announced a plan to purchase more than 17,000 American-made green cars to replace aging vehicles in the government’s fleet. The hybrid and other alternative fuel cars won’t literally be green … well, at least we don’t think so.

Going green is a laudable idea here, even if gas prices are again on the decline. It’s smart government to spend less on gasoline, while simultaneously helping reduce carbon emissions.

The showroom shopping spree will be funded from the $787 billion stimulus bill and cost roughly $285 million. The General Services Administration will sign the papers on the cars, which the administration said will be purchased by June 1. No word on who gets to pick the vanity plates.

Gov. Pat Quinn is marking Earth Day by ordering state agencies to reduce waste and taking steps to make the Governor’s Mansion more eco-friendly.

The nation doesn’t just run on Dunkin anymore. Sizzling grease from fast food may soon fuel the nation’s military vehicles.

In recent years, technology advancements have made it easier to telecommute, a green move that many governments are encouraging, CIO Today reports.

This unique event is where the policymakers and government agencies, facilities managers, architects, engineers and product suppliers meet together to learn about cutting edge technologies and how to negotiate a path to reducing greenhouse gases, water conservation, reducing pollution and the host of other environmental initiatives and regulations.

The Summit, now in its third year, is developed under the auspices of an advisory board co-chaired by Secretary of State and Consumer Services Rosario Marin and Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency Linda Adams. Complete education program and Expo with over 200 exhibitors is all part of the event.

Group discounts available. For information and to register, go to:  http://www.green-technology.org/gcsummit/ or call 626-577-5700.

States must now certify that their building codes meet the requirements in ASHRAE/IESNA’s 2004 energy efficiency standard, under a ruling issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that finds the standard saves more energy than an earlier version.

Indiana public employees and visitors to the Government Center’s cafeterias will now be eating and drinking out of bio-based plastic containers made from Cereplast compostable resins.

Please join the Council for a symposium dedicated to greening Illinois state government operations and policies. Registration is free and includes breakfast and lunch. To register, visit http://www.standingupforillinois.org/green/symposium_sg.php. Morning panelists will discuss energy efficiency and conservation programs, green procurement, green leased office space, and recycling and waste reduction. Morning working groups will provide an opportunity to exchange best practices and brainstorm future sustainability projects with other agencies.

After lunch, Lt. Governor Pat Quinn will address symposium attendees and present the 2008 Green Government Awards to state agencies that have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to improving the sustainability of their programs and operations. From 1:30 to 3:00pm, the Green Governments Coordinating Council will hold its final quarterly meeting of the year. Everyone is welcome to stay for the meeting and participate in further discussion.

DOE and the U.S. Department of State signed a Memorandum of Understanding on December 8, agreeing to conduct energy assessments and improve environmental and energy management at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. Under the agreement, DOE will conduct evaluations of overseas facilities and identify opportunities to increase energy and water efficiency, utilize renewable energy, and implement environmental sustainability measures by utilizing Super Energy Service Performance Contracts. The State Department operates and maintains more than 18,000 facilities in more than 280 locations around the world, and has completed 62 new embassy compounds since 2001, with another 34 under construction.

The US military is fighting a new enemy: global warming. But is the Pentagon really going green, or just trying to save money? Judge for yourself.

The federal government has invested billions of dollars over the past 16 years, building a fleet of 112,000 alternative-fuel vehicles to serve as a model for a national movement away from fossil fuels.

But the costly effort to put more workers into vehicles powered by ethanol and other fuel alternatives has been fraught with problems, many of them caused by buying vehicles before fuel stations were in place to support them, a Washington Post analysis of federal records shows.

Aviation and the Environment:  Initial Voluntary Airport Low Emissions Program Projects Reduce Emissions, and FAA Plans to Assess the Program’s Overall Performance as Participation Increases.  GAO-09-37, November 7.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-37
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0937high.pdf

Energy Efficiency: Potential Fuel Savings Generated by a National Speed Limit Would Be Influenced by Many Other Factors. GAO-09-153R, November 7.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-153R

Mayor Manny Diaz of Miami and Mayor Greg Nickels of Seattle today announced the formation of the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools, a coalition of mayors seeking to strategically harness the leadership and creativity of mayors across the country to promote the benefits of green schools in their communities. Developed in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Alliance will work to accelerate implementation of programs supporting the 2007 U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) resolution calling for green schools for all children within a generation.

A grade school metric system error cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars extra for the first purchase of carbon offsets for the House of Representatives’ “Greening of the Capitol” initiative, a program designed to counter greenhouse gas emissions created on the government campus.

Registration and Exhibits open at 9:00 a.m.
Speakers and Workshops from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Hosted by the Village of Lisle, Benedictine University, and The Morton Arboretum. Presented by the State of Illinois Green Governments Coordinating Council.

Benedictine University Krasa Center
5700 College Road
Lisle, IL 60532

Registration for the 2008 Sustainable Cities Symposium is free.

• Symposium Registration
• Symposium Program

City of Wichita officials unveiled a fleet of 12 Honda Civic hybrid vehicles during Friday morning news conference at Century II, saying the 2008 model vehicles will be placed in service in September.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of America’s most important national science labs, has signed an $89 million energy savings performance contract with Johnson Controls, Inc. to apply advanced energy conservation solutions and to build a biomass gasification system with a ’super boiler’ to power its campuses. Being the most competitive and reliable of all renewable energy systems, the biomass power plant will reduce the lab’s fossil fuel requirements by 80% and, in combination with conservation efforts, push down energy costs dramatically.

Join us for this free webinar on bottled water impacts and tap water solutions. Presentations will include:

• Gigi Kellett, Corporate Accountability International, on the social and environmental impacts of bottled water.
• Courtney Godwin, RPN, on best practices in bottled water alternatives.
• Nancy Read and Nelson Nieves, NYC Museum of Modern Art, on their office’s switch to bottle-less water coolers.
• Chandra Johnson, City of San Francisco, on the City’s June 2007 policy phasing out bottled water and their experiences thus far.

Register today to reserve your space.

Utah’s Aug. 4 implementation of a four-day work week could result in higher job satisfaction and lower levels of work-family conflict, according to a Brigham Young University (BYU) study. Those benefits translate into higher productivity, researchers say.

Rex Facer and Lori Wadsworth of BYU’s Romney Institute of Public Management examined the outcome of a Utah city’s transition to a schedule in which most employees worked four 10-hour days a week. Their paper appears in the June issue of Review of Public Personnel Administration.

The city council will discuss a “sustainability inventory report” Tuesday that is meant to show where the city stands in terms of energy usage and conservation.

Utah this summer will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, joining local governments across the nation that are altering schedules to save money, energy and resources.

Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he’s making the change to reduce the state’s carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.

See also: Utah Four Day Work Week Environmentally Friendly at Sustainablog.

The Boston Society of Architects hosted a conference earlier this week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to consider how cities can take steps to address climate change.

Planners from some proactive cities spoke about their efforts, which address many areas, including green buildings, water use, distributed energy generation, and waste reduction.

City governments’ response to climate change ranges from cutting-edge distributed energy to adding more bike lanes and trees.

Climate change experts from four cities–London, Toronto, Chicago, and New York–spoke about the connections between sustainable urban design, energy, the economy, and human health on Monday at the Mass Impact Symposium, organized by the Boston Society of Architects and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cities fighting to be the greenest in the land should look to Victoria, British Columbia, for some tips.

In April, we wrote about cities hiring sustainability or energy directors to encourage departments to turn off lights and shut computers when they’re not in use. Fayetteville, AR, is doing a lot in that regard.

But Victoria is doing additional things I hadn’t heard about elsewhere. I observed a few this week while walking around Canada’s “fittest city.”

New explosives could be more powerful and safer to handle than TNT and other conventional explosives and would also be more environmentally friendly.

Two ENERGY STAR campaigns continue the push to reduce energy use and energy bills while reducing greenhouse gases.

Green IT has become one of the fastest-growing trends in IT today, across all sectors and levels of government. Examining the ways in which state CIOs can become involved in shaping and promoting green IT practices and policies, this brief explores the critical role that state CIOs play in reducing their state’s carbon footprint. Featuring examples of successful green IT initiatives in state enterprise practices today, this brief highlights the many ways in which states are managing their IT hardware as well as utilizing technology to reduce their carbon footprint. With the states taking the lead in many aspects of green efforts nationwide, state CIOs have an opportunity to move the green benefits of an initiative to the forefront of strategic thinking and project planning, and this brief provides several starting points from which state CIOs can begin on the path to incorporate green IT efforts into their enterprise practices.

The webcast will be held on May 28, 2008, 2:00 ­ 3:30 PM (Eastern Time). To register for the webcast, send an e-mail to CleanEnergyWebcast@icfi.com. You will receive a confirmation email with registration information within 24 hours.

Priority for registration will be given to local and regional government staff and officials. If multiple staff from your agency wish to participate, we ask that you share a computer and phone line, as space is limited. EPA plans to record and post these webcasts on its Clean Energy website. For More information, to access the background paper, or to view past webcasts, click here.

Additional Training Opportunities

ENERGY STAR and ICLEI Cities for Climate Protection
Thursday, May 29, 2:00 – 3:30 PM EDT

Learn about ENERGY STAR tools and resources that can help you improve the energy performance of your buildings and help you promote energy efficiency to the broader community, within the framework of ICLEI’s Five-Step/Milestone Approach for Climate Protection.

Attendees will receive introductory training to EPA’s online benchmarking tool, Portfolio Manager, and learn how benchmarking can be included in efforts to create a greenhouse gas emission inventory with ICLEI’s Clean Air and Climate Protection software. Portfolio Manager allows users to establish baseline energy performance in buildings, measure and track energy use and associated carbon emissions over time, and prioritize building upgrade investments. In addition to tracking energy use, Portfolio Manager includes features to allow users to track and manage water consumption.

To register, visit https://energystar.webex.com and click on the link for the May 29, 2008 training.

NACo Green Government Webinars

The National Association of Counties (through the support of the Green Government Initiative sponsors) will host a series of FREE green government webinars. The intended audience is any elected county official or county staff; however anyone interested in learning more about the county role in green government practices is encouraged to register. Participants will learn valuable background information on each subject, discover new resources, and hear case studies from various counties. See the list of topics and register.