GLRPPR Sector Resources Recent Documents

Green Remediation Best Management Practices: Landfill Cover Systems & Energy Production

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:25:38 GMT

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Principles for Greener Cleanups outline the Agency's policy for evaluating and minimizing the environmental footprint of activities undertaken when cleaning up a contaminated site. Use of the best management practices (BMPs) recommended in EPA's series of green remediation fact sheets can help project managers and other stakeholders apply the principles on a routine basis while maintaining the cleanup objectives, ensuring protectiveness of a remedy, and improving its environmental outcome. Remediation at thousands of sites across the United States involves hazardous waste from former industrial landfills or waste piles, aged municipal landfills, or illegal dumps. A cover system is commonly installed at these areas as part of proper closure to serve as a surface barrier that contains the source material, reduces contaminant exposure or migration, and manages associated risk. The environmental footprint of activities needed to install and maintain a cover system can be reduced by adhering to EPA's Principles for Greener Cleanups

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CDP Supply Chain Report 2012: A New Era: Supplier Management in the Low-Carbon Economy

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:55:46 GMT

Climate change has become a mainstream business issue, and large global corporations are now extending their gains in internal carbon management to the next opportunity: their supply chain. Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has been collecting data on corporate greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions for almost a decade. Global companies that have been exposed to these information requests for many years understand the value of measuring and reporting their emissions, and they are now pushing their suppliers to report more climate change-related information and take greater action to reduce their emissions. This represents a much larger opportunity: indirect emissions (meaning those from the supply chain) represent as much as 86% of a company's total emissions.

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Retail: A Pivot Point for Sustainability

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:29:54 GMT

In spite of the economic downturn, the retail industry is continuing its efforts to drive sustainability through its supply chain. In the attached article, Five Winds Director and Head of Strategic Sustainability Services, Kevin Brady, proposes that major retailers are the 'pivot point' in sustainability as they influence thousands of suppliers and touch millions of customers. The article provides guidance on how to develop a strategic response to the retailers' efforts in a way that will position your company for long-term business success.

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All auto shredding: evaluation of automotive shredder residue generated by shredding only vehicles

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:35:55 GMT

A well developed infrastructure exists for the reuse and recycling of automotive parts and materials. At the end of a vehicle's useful life many parts are removed and sold for reuse and fluids are recovered for recycling or proper disposal. What remains is shredded, along with other metal bearing scrap such as home appliances, demolition debris and process equipment, and the metals are separated out and recycled. The remainder of the vehicle materials is call shredder residue which ends up in the landfill. As energy and natural resources becomes more treasured, increased effort has been afforded to find ways to reduce energy consumption and minimize the use of our limited resources. Many of the materials found in shredder residue could be recovered and help offset the use of energy and material consumption. For example, the energy content of the plastics and rubbers currently landfilled with the shredder residue is equivalent to 16 million barrels of oil per year. However, in the United States, the recovered materials, primarily polymers, cannot be recycled due to current regulatory barriers which preclude the re-introduction into commerce of certain materials because of residual contamination with substances of concern (SOCs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The source of the PCBs is not well understood. Old transformers, capacitors, white goods and ballasts from lighting fixtures are likely contributing factors. The project was designed to evaluate whether vehicles of varying age and manufacturing origin contribute to the PCB content in shredder residue. Additionally, the project was designed to determine if there are any trends in material composition of the shredder residue from varied age and manufacturing groups. This information would aid in future material recovery facility strategy and design. The test utilized a newly installed shredder plant to shred four categories of automobiles. The categories were defined by vehicle age and the manufacturing company and location. Each category of vehicles was processed individually through the shredder plant and the resulting shredder residue was analyzed for its materials composition and presence of PCBs and leachable metals. The results show that shredder residue from all vehicle categories tested are not significant contributors of PCBs and leachable metals. It was evident that leachable cadmium levels have decreased in newer vehicles. The composition of the shredder residue from each of the four categories is similar to the others. In addition, these compositions are approximately equal to the composition of typical shredder residues, not limited to automotive materials.

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Strategy Guideline: Advanced Construction Documentation Recommendations for High Performance Homes

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:27:07 GMT

As whole house energy efficiency increases, new houses become less like conventional houses that were built in the past. New materials and new systems require greater coordination and communication between industry stakeholders. The Guideline for Construction Documents for High Performance Housing provides advice to address this need. The reader will be presented with four changes that are recommended to achieve improvements in energy efficiency, durability and health in Building America houses: create coordination drawings, improve specifications, improve detail drawings, and review drawings and prepare a Quality Control Plan.

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Building Energy-Efficient Schools in New Orleans: Lessons Learned

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:22:53 GMT

Hurricane Katrina was the largest natural disaster in the United States, striking the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, and flooding 80% of New Orleans; to make matters worse, the city was flooded again only three weeks later by the effects of Hurricane Rita. Many of the buildings, including schools, were heavily damaged. The devastation of schools in New Orleans from the hurricanes was exacerbated by many years of deferred school maintenance. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), began providing technical assistance to New Orleans' schools to improve energy efficiency and reduce school operating costs. Initial technical assistance included energy audits of open and operating school facilities and consultation on energy-efficient design strategies, energy modeling, and pre-design and design reviews for new schools. 30% energy savings over code requirements were recommended based on strategies described in the Advanced Energy Design Guide (AEDG) for K-12 School Buildings, published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The experiences of incorporating energy efficiency after Hurricanes Katrina Rita in four new schools-- Langston Hughes Elementary School, Andrew H. Wilson Elementary School (which was 50% new construction and 50% major renovation), L.B. Landry High School, and Lake Area High School--and one major renovation, Joseph A. Craig Elementary School--are described here to help other school districts and design teams with their in-progress and future school building projects in hot-humid climates.

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Financing Sustainable Water Infrastructure

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:36:54 GMT

Our nation's freshwater infrastructure faces a critical juncture. Largely built on systems developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, our water infrastructure is aging, our technology outdated and our governance systems ill equipped to handle rising demand and environmental challenges. Additional strain is being placed on these systems from a variety of sources, including pressures from urbanization and changing climate conditions, such as increases in both droughts and extreme one-day precipitation events. While these challenges are significant, they are not insurmountable. In fact, they can be viewed as drivers of much-needed change in how we finance and develop our water systems to meet future demands. New financing models and pricing flexibility, which are necessary to pay for new infrastructure and to support legacy systems, provide enormous opportunity for positive transformation necessary to keep pace with the rapid changes being experienced by counties, municipalities and investor owned utilities. This report seeks to tackle these issues and deliver some recommendations on how to understand and confront the pressing need for more sustainable and integrated water infrastructure financing models.

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Final Report of the Governor's Task Force on Waste Materials Recovery and Disposal, Three Years Later: An Update

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:45:49 GMT

This report update describes which of the 10 Recommendations from the "Final Report of the Governor's Task Force on Waste Materials Recovery and Disposal" either complete, in progress, or work remains to be done.

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Energy Efficiency: The Slip Switch to a New Track Toward Compliance with Federal Air Regulations

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:46:25 GMT

The U.S. is poised to make a major transition from dirty, outdated, and wasteful energy resources to a cleaner, more efficient energy system. Over the next decade, a suite of federal regulations required under the Clean Air Act will impose compliance obligations and set standards for multiple air pollutants. While energy efficiency has been a significant energy resource for decades, the convergence of new air regulations, a recovering economy, and an aging network of outdated power plants makes energy efficiency an increasingly attractive option. Recognizing this, the EPA has crafted rules that allow for energy efficiency to be used for compliance or as a complementary compliance tool. EPA has provided guidance for how energy efficiency can be used in the context of air regulations, but past efforts to incorporate energy efficiency as part of an air quality compliance strategy have had limited success. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, stakeholders and policymakers will need to proactively, and strategically address some long-standing barriers to using energy efficiency as a tool to comply with air regulations. This report provides an overview of the opportunities as well as a brief history of previous efforts to use energy efficiency as a tool to comply with federal air regulations. The report concludes with a discussion of major barriers that have arisen in this context and makes recommendations for how these barriers can be overcome.

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Designing Products and Services with Sustainable Attributes: An Internal Assessment Tool for Product Developers

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:04:41 GMT

When designers are commissioned by an employer or a customer to create a new product or service, they are required to consider a number of variables including aesthetics, availability, durability, maintenance, materials, processing technology, cost, customer needs, and performance specifications. In the past, it has been difficult to include environmental considerations because of a lack of a generic systems approach to compare material specification options. As a result, design professionals have had little opportunity to document environmental sustainability improvements in their products. The Design Work Group of the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum has developed an Environmental Impact Matrix (EIM) Rating System as a tool to evaluate progress toward achieving sustainability in new products and services.

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