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FV:Thanks so much, Emily, and thanks everyone for your patience. This is new technology to us and I think it will go well. I’m happy to be here today. We have a great webinar for you. It’s called ‘Green Purchasing in Construction and Contracting’ and we have a great lineup of speakers. Today we’ll be hearing about green purchasing in construction and contracting, a few case study examples from different forests, energy savings performance contracts and utility energy service contracts.
Our first speaker I’m happy to introduce is Linda DuLac. She’s a purchasing agent with the Region 6 Eastern Washington Acquisition Group, and she leads the green purchasing team with the Sustainable Operations Collective. So whenever you’re ready, Linda.
LD:Okay, [unint.]. We’re going to be looking at two different topics today: one is green purchasing and construction, and then we’re – in contracting – and then we will be looking at what another forest has been doing that’s outside of the contracting realm on green purchasing and construction. Next slide.
There are several guidance key – sustainable guidance that we have that you can see listed here. We’re going to look at the very bottom one, the USDA Sustainable Procurement Program, because that’s really our direction and our policy on sustainable operations for all USDA agencies. Next slide.
And we’re going to just quickly go over the components of the SPT and then each component will have representation on two case studies to show how we’ve met these components. It starts with a recycle content and, and that those components are recycled. Energy efficiency; containing the maximum bio-based content practical; sustainable acquisition is also that, those that are environmentally preferable. Next slide. They also include electronic product environmental assistant, or EPETE. They’re water efficient; they don’t deplete the ozone in the atmosphere, and they’re non-toxic or less toxic with their alternatives. And did you know that the USDA policy states that a preference for all of the above items shall be established in all of our contracts as appropriate? So what we’re going to be doing is looking at components that are – were in a solicitation in a contract for construction of a new building, and then followed by those components that are a result of sustainable assessments in exit [unint.]. Next slide.
The Cle Elum Ranger District in Region 6 contracted for a new addition to be built. Next slide. The contract line [regent’s diseptations] were the driving force to design and build a [lead] certified end product. Manyof the sustainable products that were included in these contracts can be obtained for your use in your construction of buildings and any maintenance projects that you have in your existing buildings. Next slide. Cle Elum is not unlike many of our district offices and field offices, in that we’re, many are remote: they’re not next to big metropolitan areas and big sources of resources and products. This district happens to be 83 miles from Seattle, Washington, which is the biggest metropolitan area, but you must cross a major mountain range to get to it. It’s just on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, which results in very little precipitation. It snows in the winter, and it’s at the 1900 elevation. All of these are important when we’re looking at sustainable products. Next slide.
In the construction of this building we used, we re-used existing concrete sidewalks. We broke them up and then we reused them, and you can see in walkways and a patio area. The surplus materials that were left from the breaking up of the existing contracts were sent to a nearby aggregate and cement plant for incorporation into an aggregate mixture. So here’s where we met the USDA Sustainable Procurement with Recycled Content. Next slide.
We also looked for local rocks for our posts. This resulted in a savings of fuel delivery by getting to other sources that were further away, and it also provided regional aesthetic appearances. Next slide. The building materials that were selected had recycled content. Even the topsoil that was removed during the excavation was set aside and used later in the landscaping of, around the building. Next slide. To meet the Sustainable Procurement for Energy Efficiency, we had installed smart thermostats to control the day and night temperatures and air exchange. The lights are low wattage fluorescent Energy Star. Light sensors were installed to automatically illuminate sections that were occupied; if they weren’t occupied then lights would go off. The HVAC systems were, consisted of [sent] energy heat pumps and water heaters, and then the windows and doors are low E. All of these examples can be used to utilize any upgrading that you do for your existing buildings. Next slide.
And then we have the bio-based content. We had a minimum of 50% of wood based materials were certified as bio-based. We used woodchips and bark mulch that were used in the landscaping and the rain garden. Drought-resistant native varieties of trees and plants were, shrubs were selected to reduce our water use. And then of course our janitorial products are all bio-based. Next slide. Cleaning products are non-toxic. The paint was low volatile organic compounds, and you don’t hear that term of VOC, low VOC, that’s what it stands for. The low VOC paint is a really good way for you to meet your Sustainable Procurement. I’ve worked in many different offices and I don’t know how many of them we’ve painted another room or a wall that needed to be retouched. Select those VOC paints, that’s another way for you to meet our legal requirements for using environmentally preferable products. Next slide.
There are several areas that we meant to be water efficient. We used low flow faucets. Next slide. The no flush urinals, it eliminated potable plumbed water for use in flushing. It saves approximately three liters of water per flush. Next slide. And then we had in, the landscaping consisted of a rain garden. As we stated before, the trees and shrubs were selected for drought resistance, that were typically found in our region. This is another easy way for your to meet the Sustainable Operations in your existing buildings, is to remove areas that are grass and replace them with native plants and shrubs that are drought resistant. Next slide. The roof eaves drain into a rock-covered buried pipe, which drains into the landscape rock garden. Again it provides moisture for those drought resistant plantings. Next slide.
And then there were several of the buildings, construction of this building, there were several materials that were selected to, so that, that do not deplete the ozone layer. And most of them are the low VOC content that included adhesives, sealants, the paint. No products were allowed to contain the urea formaldehyde resin. It did take additional time for a literature research to find these materials. And then we did some on site checking of the product labels to make sure that they complied with the requirement of the low VOC content. It also required us to allow some additional time for product availability, because the products weren’t off-the-shelf that we could get in the local area. We had to send away for them. Next slide. There were several non-toxic products. The ceramic tile adhesives, the [force] sealants, our carpets are Green Label Plus, the counter laminates and adhesives are non-toxic products. So when replacing any of the flooring in your existing buildings, be sure to not only look at the type of floor replacement you’re doing, but look at the sealants and adhesives that are being used to lay that product down. Now I know of several, on, in our area, we’ve had just this year a couple of contracts that we awarded to replace several sections of flooring, and it’s an easy way to meet our Sustainable Procurements requirements, by just looking at the type of product and then the adhesives and sealants that you’re going to use to lay it down. Next slide.
There are several sources of sample construction language and they’re’ listed here. This is being recorded so you can go back and take a look at these web sites. Next slide. Okay, now we’re going to hear from Diane Berry, she’s with the Huron-Manistee National Forest. She’s a public affairs specialist and she has some case studies to share with us, how their forest has met several of the sustainable procurement requirements from the USDA direction. I’m going to turn it over to you, Diane.
DB:All right, thank you. Yes, I am glad to participate today. I’ve been a member of the Green Team we have here on the Huron-Manistee National Forest land at Northern [Miller] Michigan, and I recently shared some of our accomplishments while I was out in the great state of Washington, and had opportunity to meet participants this last spring at Sustainable Operations. And in sharing some of the accomplishments was asked to be a participant. And I’ll just jump into the first slide talking about energy efficiency in our supervisor’s office, and this is a facility about 15 years old. And we have contracted an assessment of our heating, ventilation and cooling system in our building. We’ve had a lot of difficulties maintaining even temperatures and have had a lot of unseasonal maintenance issues. So we did contract an assessment and were able to identify areas to make some standardized improvements, and we have already realized some of those savings through the uniformity of those programmable thermostats. And I did mention we have seven zones, actually seven different furnaces within the attic of our one office here. So it’s quite a challenge to have that standardization. And we have already realized, as compared to last year, we’ve reduced the energy consumption by 2,008 kilowatts as compared to last August with our comparable outdoor temperatures during those same periods.
Next slide please. And another thing that we had done to increase the energy efficiency in our supervisor’s office is to install the motion sensors inside the buildings as well as outside the buildings, and of course that ensures that the lighting is only on during usage of the building, and the photo sensors have been installed in the ceilings. We had a lot of rooms already installed with the motion sensors. We’ve expanded that to include the front foyer, which is always open to the public. The exterior lighting was an addition this year. And in addition to that we did have a number of the high intensity cam lights, there were floodlights that we had replaced early on, and that has seemed to be an immediate realization of cost and energy savings.
Next slide please. And one of the things that we find that we can do, of course, across the forest, and at the individual work station, is the installation of timers, of surge protectors and timers such that people are able to completely shut down their computer systems during the time that they’re not there, so that they are typically off from 7:00 pm until 6:00 am. And we’ve also installed those on our primary printers and copying machines throughout all of our four district offices and our supervisor’s office.
Next slide please. In addition, we have a district office over on the Lake Huron side of the forest, that we have conducted an infrared energy audit of. And that has helped us identify some key areas to direct some our resources too, to help insulate, isolate the areas of our prime heat loss areas. And we conducted that during a cold temperature period and we’re going to repeat that after addressing some of those targeted areas. And included in that assessment was identification of two specific areas where we have gone in and included some insulation and some, the expandable foam. We’re looking at some additional resources to further address some of those heat loss, energy loss areas and possibly do some additional capital improvement funding, this particular office is an area that was an old Air Force space, administrative office. It was quite old and quite a heat sump air, heat sink, if you will.
Next slide please. In the area of reducing our resource use we have had rain sensors installed at our supervisor’s office as well as one of our ranger districts, and that is a system that allows us to identify the trigger points, such that if we’ve had a recent rain event then those sprinklers will not come on. So that was another accomplishment that our Huron-Manistee National Forest Green Team accomplished this year at two of our offices.
Next slide please. This slide shows one of our Green Team newsletters that we have distributed to all of our employees and this is just one page showing the cost phasing that was realized through use of our video [halo]conferencing equipment, and it indicates that just by using that equipment, bringing people together through that technology, we were able to save approximately 30 gallons of fuel and, or at that time over $100 of fuel and, I think more significant, is the total employee time that was not lost in the driving to a face-to-face Green Team meeting, which was 23 employee hours. And in the newsletters we share green tips that people can use at home as well as reminders in the office to power down our computers, we do discuss some of the accomplishments of the Green Team and try to stay current. A lot of timely information is shared – as you can see in this one we had identified the free electronics recycling event that was held here in Cadillac, Michigan, and other events included the household hazardous waste collection days. And next slide please.
People always seem to be interested in what it takes to go green, and so I included what our expenditures included this year. And we did have some in surge protectors that were [unint.] out, the forest, we do have four district offices in addition to our supervisor’s office. We did include the energy audit this year, and we will have a follow-up audit, which will be about $75. The [Mayo] ranger district housing upgrades included some window replacements at the seasonal housing locations. The irrigation rain sensors I mentioned, that was two units. The, and again, the supervisor’s office is a leased building so we did go to the channels, contacting the landlord and of course we take ownership of any modifications made to a leased building here, but we certainly are realizing the value and the energy of cost savings from those upgrades. The, you can see the costs that we did spend on those, for the energy conservation, which included the HVAC assessment as well as the timers, the lighting systems. And we have [unint.] that, and that’s not, it’s going to be repaid within a three year time frame. The Huron forest upgrades I mentioned, the insulating, the caulking, the sealing of the windows, the focus on the areas where we had a direct conduit between the interior and the exterior of the building, and then a last item I included was the Green Team awards. And we hadn’t included any [Rocky Mission] awards for a few years on our Green Team but we recognize it’s important to reward the people who have put the effort in to further the reduction of our environmental footprint on our forest, and some of the things that we have provided as Green Team are the, are reusable water bottles, our famous steel travel mugs, and it was such a Green Team award that brought me to the Sustainable Operations opportunity here by seeing Ashley Owens with her Sustainable Operations t-shirt on! So I think it’s important that we show how proud we are to be part of this effort and to get the conversation going.
Some of the other green tips that we have shared, we do, we had a story of electronics that we, that’s shared at one of our safety meetings. And we’re now of course focusing on the green purchasing, and there’s a lot of great web sites that we’ve gone tapping into. So that’s all I’d like to share with you unless you have any questions for me right now.
FV:Thanks so much, Diane. We’re actually going to hear from one more person and then we’ll take questions for Linda, Diane and Jennifer, our next speaker. So thank you Linda and Diane, you guys gave some great examples of different products and things you can purchase to help reduce your environmental footprint. So now I’d like to introduce Jen Knudson, she’s the facility engineer on the Caldwell National Forest and she’ll be sharing about their water bottle filling stations. So whenever you’re ready, Jen.
JK:Hi! So I’m Jen, and we got approved for this project. It was a micro-grant from our Sustainability Operations from the regional office. We, this became a need for us because we were having a huge amount of, number one and number two plastic bottles being used in our office. We have no way to recycle them in our local community. The reason that we were getting why people were wanting to bring bottled water to our office was because it had a bad taste in the building. They didn’t like the chlorination from the city. We explored putting in a whole-building filtration system but that area was wrapped in asbestos pipe. And I had seen this water bottle filling station and it looked like a really, maybe a better way to address the problem, to reduce the amount of plastics we had. It has really encouraged people also to fill up their water bottles before going out to the field. This is located at our supervisor’s office. Next slide.