Sustainability Assessments

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 you can get involved:

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.