Sustainability Assessments

Sustainability Assessments

Submitted by rockhoundbmw on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 10:43.
Last updated on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 16:31.

Vital Stats

Project Type: ongoing project

People Involved: 5

Project Video

The Problem

There are 6 Pennsylvania communities along the Great Allegheny Passage rails-to-trail that have been designated "Trail Towns" because they have services and amenities to offer to trail users. They are West Newton, Connellsville, Ohiopyle, Confluence, Rockwood, and Meyersdale. These communities are struggling economically, and jobs and businesses have been and are being lost. I am here with 4 other young professionals to help the Trail Towns with revitalization projects, including Sustainability Assessments for businesses.

Why It's Important

The 5 of us will contact businesses to offer Sustainability Assessments in order to help them reduce their operating costs through upgrades in energy efficiency, water conservation, and waste management. In turn, these businesses will help mitigate environmental costs and spread awareness of simple actions anyone can take to save money and the environment. By helping businesses save money, we are hoping they would be able to stay open. Also, once businesses have implemented suggested improvements that were contained in the Sustainability Assessment report, they will receive a sticker or certificate that they can place in their window to advertise that they have reduced their environmental footprint. These businesses will also be highlighted in advertisements and websites. This can attract new customers, especially trail users.

The Plan Of Action

As a student intern at the University of California, San Diego, I gained experience giving Office Energy Assessments. I will take my experience and templates from those Assessments and mold them into Sustainability Assessments for businesses. My four colleagues have also received training in conducting an energy assessment. We have created a guideline for the Sustainability Assessments and identified initial businesses to contact, and we need to purchase equipment to conduct the evaluations. Once we have the equipment, we will start conducting the free Sustainability Assessments. A report will be written with our findings and suggestions for improvement. We will present the report to the business and provide them with resources in order to reduce their operating and environmental costs. The Office Energy Assessments I have been involved in averaged about 33% energy savings.

How Can Others Get Involved?

Link:

If you own or work in a business in one of the Trail Towns and are interested in having a Sustainability Assessment, please contact us at trailtown@thesca.org or call our office at 724-603-3151.

Project Updates

04/20/09

Update: We have purchased and received the equipment necessary for conducting our Sustainability Assessments, and we plan on assessing our first business soon!

09/14/09

Update: We have conducted 8 Sustainability Assessments and have completed 2 reports so far. We have calculated that one of the businesses could save over $500 per year on utility costs by implementing our energy and water conservation recommendations.

Additional people impacted: 50
Additional people involved: 1

Final Grant Update

09/15/09

Bryan Ward

Number of people in the organization: 6
Number of people impacted: Directly, over 50 employees have been impacted so far. Indirectly, hundreds of people will be impacted as these organizations and businesses share the results of the sustainability assessments with community members and customers.
Describe the impact the grant had: The grant helped us purchase equipment for the Sustainability Assessments, which was a required (but unfunded) project for my organization. The grant also helped us provide, for free, some basic energy efficiency upgrades to businesses and organizations.
Project highlights: We get to share our sustainability knowledge directly with business owners who may have never paid attention to these things in the past but are willing to try to change. We were able to calculate a predicted savings of over $500/year for one of the businesses. A day out of the office to conduct a sustainability assessment is always fun!
How did the project unfold and develop? I developed data spreadsheets in 6 areas that we look for conservation and efficiency improvements during the Sustainability Assessments. The six categories are: Lighting, Electrical Equipment, HVAC, Water, Waste Management, and Beyond the Building. I also developed Pre-Assessment Forms for the business owner and employees to fill out additional helpful information, like business hours, utility costs, and habits. We tested our equipment that we purchased with the Do Something Grant and conducted a practice assessment in our office space. After 8 Sustainability Assessments, it is still a developing process, and we are working out some of the kinks in the assessment process, calculating predicted savings, and writing the reports. Our current process is to do a very brief (half-hour) walkthrough of the building to familiarize ourselves with it and note anything that may need a detailed look at. We then meet with the business owners and go over the Pre-Assessment Forms (now called Sustainability Assessment Questionnaires) to figure out their goals and what we should focus on. We then go back and do a detailed assessment of the areas we and the business owners have agreed upon. We have completed 2 reports, and after presenting the reports to the businesses, we plan on following up with them quarterly to check on their progress on implementing our recommendations. The Sustainability Assessments are becoming intertwined with a new project that our group is working on, which is a Sustainable Business Network. It is our hope that although we may only conduct Sustainability Assessments at maybe 2 businesses or organizations in each of the 6 Trail Towns every year, those businesses will network with other businesses and their customers in those communities and share our recommendations so more people will know how to live sustainably. Already, we have heard that one of our completed reports is being shared and some of our recommendations are being enacted. Slowly, the idea of living more sustainably is catching on in these Trail Towns.