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Green Star's Latest Awardees (2007-2008) Alaska Islands & Ocean Visitor Center Great Harvest Bread Company Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center From the Far Corners Photography Municipality of Anchorage City Hall Full list of Green Star Awardees Alaska Islands & Ocean Visitor Center earned a Green Star Award on February 14, 2008. Alaska Islands & Ocean Visitor Center in Homer houses office and interpretive exhibits for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and the Kachemack Bay Research Reserve. The visitor center was opened in 2003 to provide environmental education about the refuge and share information about ongoing research. With a focus on sharing information with its 60,000 visitors each year, the visitor center has excelled at building Green Star initiatives into its daily activities, including displays, talks, and other education programs. The center is proud of the fact that it diverts 80% of its waste (by weight) from landfilling through reuse, recycling and composting. A series of topic-specific bulletin boards line the wall above the center’s recycling station with topics ranging from what is recyclable to the benefits of using kenaf to make paper and the downside of drinking bottled water. The Green Star coordinator at the center has perfected the use of gentle persuasion to ensure that all staff members are thinking about the impacts of their actions. He provides information, offers services, and requests participation in numerous activities, such as paper use reduction, recycling, clean-up, and reuse. Some of the initiatives include:
And all award application documents were submitted on one-sided scrap paper! Now that’s walking the walk! Alaska Railroad Corporation recently recertified its Green Star Award in addition to earning an Air Quality Award on January 30, 2008. Its efforts toward earning the Air Quality Award include:
The U.S. Department of Energy calculates that 38 percent of the average building’s energy losses are due to air leaks cause by leaky walls, windows, and doors. The remainder of the heat loss is conducted, radiated and convected out of the building because of inadequate or improperly installed insulation, structural defects and design flaws. Infrared imaging has helped the Railroad to identify these problems, often not detected by the naked eye. Easy fixes have already been made in many buildings and a plan has been developed to continue with more extensive upgrades and repairs. Great Harvest Bread Company earned a Green Star Award on January 27, 2008. Pioneer Natural Resources received a Green Star Award on December 1, 2007. The company earned its Award within six months of enrolling in the Green Star program, showing initiative and motivation. The company’s Green Team has established an annual baseline to track successes. This includes copy/print counts, daily computer shut-off, regular conference and cubicle lights shut-off. The team also communicates regularly through the company’s intranet about ideas to help build the Green Star program. Auto shut-down of equipment -- The visualization room (used by geoscientists and loaded with high-tech equipment) is now automated to wind down after a specified period of no use. This saves power and extends the life of expensive lighting in the room. In its offices, the company has made a concerted effort to reduce paper use by reducing font size, decreasing margins to fit more text on each page, working with the IT department to encourage duplex printing, and reducing the number of banner (cover) sheets printed. They are currently tracking the decrease in the amount of paper purchased. Pioneer also is taking an active role in energy efficiency efforts by emailing and meeting with the facilities supervisor to discuss improving the lighting and HVAC systems. Pioneer leases office space and hopes to encourages the building manager to improve the zoning of lighting in the space. “The water-borne paint actually performs better than solvent-based paints. It is what the high-end car manufacturers use,” says Kevin Stalder, owner of Driven Auto Body. “Even with its higher quality performance, it is still less expensive to use.” Driven Auto Body also installed new lights in its body shop area, replacing 32 old 400-watt sodium and metal halide lamps in its shop area with T-5 fixtures and lamps. This was a $10,000 retrofit. That is saving about $200/month. Newly installed ceiling fans also have increased energy efficiency and air leaks in the walls were sealed. Most recently, Driven Auto Body installed double glass doors between the parts area and the shop to reduce heat loss. Roof repairs are next on the list of energy-efficiency upgrades. U.S. Army, Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks, received an Air Quality Award on December 1, 2007, based on its extensive programs to educate its personnel and their families, numerous facility upgrades, and its data tracking efforts. Here are just a few of the initiatives in place:
USR Corporation earned a Green Star Award on October 15, 2007. URS Corporation is an environmental and engineering firm that believes in Green Star’s values of “good for business, good for the community, good for the environment.” In fact, when they consolidated four firms in the late 1990s, all four were already Green Star members! Here are just a few examples of URS' environmental commitment: To decrease its energy use and carbon emissions, offices are lit with super-efficient T5 lighting, and lighting is zoned so that individuals have control of their own offices. Restrooms and entry areas have motion sensors. These actions have cut their lighting costs by at least 40 percent. URS also recycles many products, uses as little paper as possible, and uses recycled-content paper, including 100% recycled copy paper Perhaps one of the most admirable aspects of URS’ efforts is its community service. Each month, URS develops a community service project and now that they are Green Star Award winners, they incorporate environmental awareness into their programs. For example, in July 2007, employees donated needed paper products, such as napkins, paper towels and toilet paper, to the Covenant House. Valerie Watkins, URS’ Green Star Coordinator worked with the community project coordinator to provide a list of recycled-content products that employees could donate. Thanks to these efforts, the majority of the paper products the Covenant House received were made from recycled material, which included hundreds of rolls of toilet tissues and thousands of napkins. Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center received a Green Star Award on September 15, 2007. Susitna Elementary School received a Green Star Award on May 14, 2007. Ingrid Bodensteiner, a teacher at Sustina Elementary, included her students in every step of the Green Star Award process, from the initial site assessment to the completion of the award application. In fact, when Green Star staff first met with the school, Ms. Bodensteiner's students were fully prepared to ask all the right questions to move Susitna Elementary toward earning the Award. The process started with Ms. Bodensteiner’s recycling club. Prior to the formation of the recycling club, the school librarian would collect paper around the school and personally transport it to the recycling center. To get the whole school involved, the students created a video promoting recycling in Susitna’s classrooms. Now, the recyclables are taken to the recycling center not by one dedicated individual, but by a group of twelve teachers, working together, on a rotating schedule. However, the recycling club didn’t stop at recycling, the students truly considered their relationship with the environment and its resources. Instead of just recycling used paper, the Susitna students initiated a paper reuse program. Through measurements and tracking, students estimate that they collect 5 reams of paper per week for one-sided reuse, saving 180 reams of paper per year or $800 by not buying new paper. To conserve water and energy, the fifth and sixth students created a bulletin board and wrote morning announcements advertising a water and energy conservation campaign. They invited the entire to school to participate in a poster contest promoting the responsible use of resources. Additionally, students wrote and preformed a skit about resource conservation and took their show on the road, from classroom to classroom in Susitna Elementary. The students also looked at their own behaviors conducting a survey of recycling before and after the Green Star programs were initiated in the school. The students also learned the value of reuse, preservation and history by refurbishing a wall-sized painting created by students at Susitna over 15 years ago. They kept that mosaic, and made it more beautiful, rather than throwing it away. Green Star is proud to support and recognize schools whose teachers and students demonstrate that being responsible citizens and community members is an important part of learning, living, and growing up. From the Far Corners Photography received a Green Star Award on April 20, 2007. The Alaska Regional Office of the National Park Service received a Green Star Award on April 23, 2007. Looking at pollution prevention on a large scale, the Alaska Regional Office considered environmental impacts from the ground up when its Anchorage office was built to LEED standards. Carpet, ceiling tiles, and various surface materials throughout the building are made from recycled-content materials. The offices are lit with energy-efficient lighting and computer monitors were all upgraded to more efficient flat screens. Internally, at the office level, the National Park Service has recycled 15,000 pounds of materials since 2004, including mixed paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, and plastic bottles. The National Park Service even takes its environmental efforts outside of the office to help clear the air by encouraging its employees to take alternative transportation. Employees are offered free bus passes within Anchorage, discounted passes for vanpools out to the Valley, and a secure bike enclosure to encourage employees to avoid creating vehicle pollution by biking to work. The office staff participates in the annual Bike To Work Day to raise awareness of alternative transportation options in Anchorage. Royal Celebrity Tours received a Green Star Award on February 5, 2007. With numerous opportunities to implement waste prevention initiatives in its offices, maintenance shops, rail cars, and motor coaches, Royal Celebrity has done a lot! In its offices, RCT recycles a wide range of materials, delivering them periodically to the recycling center using a luggage handling truck. Recyclables from the Fairbanks office are transported to Anchorage by motor coach for delivery to the recycling center as well. Guests on motor coaches and rail cars are asked to place water and soda bottles and cans in separate baskets so they can be collected for recycling. They also are served food and beverages using reusable dishware and napkins. In its maintenance shops, RCT collects used oil, antifreeze, fluorescent lamps, and batteries for recycling. RCT also retreads old motor coach tires. Maintenance staff also remove the new rear tires from each coach and replaces them with retreads. This extends the life of the new tires for use on the front wheels. In an effort to save money and reduce emissions, RCT tracked the time its motor coaches spent idling before and after implementing an idle-reduction initiative. In sampling 13 coaches over two three-year periods, the company found idling time had been reduced by almost 17%. Spurred on by this success, RCT hopes to see further reductions in 2007.
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