It’s no secret that buildings are energy-hungry beasts. They account for 40% of our total energy use in the U.S., making it pretty obvious that if we want to be serious about energy efficiency, we need to tackle our building stock. According to the Department of Energy, our building energy consumption was 48% higher in [...]
At a meeting last week, one of the other meeting attendees stated that he didn’t believe that the concept of sustainability was going to have staying power in the business world. He just didn’t see it as something that resonates with company executives and drives them towards change. Initially, we were surprised that someone could [...]
15 December 2010 – 9:21 am
Statement of the obvious: It takes a lot of energy to heat something up by hundreds of degrees in a relatively short period of time. The U.S. Department of Energy states that heating processes use about 5.2 quadrillion BTUs energy annually, which equals nearly 17 percent of all industrial energy use. In many industrial applications, [...]
14 October 2010 – 10:14 am
This month, let’s consider the flea market principle of sustainability. That’s the concept that says your trash may be someone else’s treasure. There are plenty of examples in the consumer market: paper made out of recycled waste paper, hats made out of used plastic bottles, handbags made out of thrown-away Capri Sun containers. With some [...]
Here’s a question for you—try to answer truthfully. Do you know how energy flows through your facility? We’re not just talking high-level here. Can you quantify just how much energy is being used by the myriad of energy-consuming devices in your facility? And if you run a manufacturing plant, can you quantify how much energy [...]
Perhaps the color is a lovely shade of grass green, but from both an economic and environmental perspective, just how green is all that manicured lawn out there? The answer is: not very. In the last few years interest in native grasses and their use in corporate environments has been driven by two complementary sets [...]
With the dramatic jump in PPL electricity rates on January 1, 2010, and the pending PECO increases on January 1, 2011, savvy business owners are investigating energy audits for their businesses. But what exactly are energy audits, what can they accomplish and what should you look for in having one done? Energy audits are one [...]
17 February 2010 – 11:12 am
For those of you who are PPL customers, how did you like that last electric bill your company received? Something of a shock, perhaps? The rate cap for electricity generation expired on January 1, 2010, for all customers of PPL, and prices zoomed up 20 – 40%. And we’re betting for that much extra electrical [...]
