All the green building technology in the world won’t bring down energy use and carbon emissions if building occupants don’t use it. With that in mind, Green Technology Forum sat down to talk with

GTF: You say that occupancy behavior is holding us back from reaching environmental building performance goals. How is it holding us back?

Ashley Halligan: First of all, per a study that Lucid did, they demonstrated that tenant habits account for 30-50 percent of energy use in a building. Similar studies estimate 10-30 percent, though many of those studies are not based on empirical data, while Lucid's was.

They've deemed this "plug loads," which received light mention in the article. "Plug load" essentially refers to any device in a commercial building that uses energy. This includes computers, fax machines, cell phone chargers, printers, etc. These are all things that cannot be moderated by Building Automation Systems (BAS), so even with a savvy environmental design plan intact, heavily influence overall energy usage.

Typically, BAS can regulate lighting and thermostat patterns to intertwine with the standard hours of building use. That said, if occupants are faultily leaving lights on when rooms are unattended during business hours, failing to report leaky faucets or running toilets, or leave electronics on when unnecessary, these things collectively and significantly add to overall usage. 

GTF: How can software help?

Ashley Halligan: Software can help by illuminating usage patterns and offer live reports of current usage. By making these measurements and data visible and easy to decipher, occupants will become more engaged in the overall endeavors of the design team. These applications provide a platform for usage comparisons which, in turn, can be useful in terms of the competition we discussed in the article. The software can also be integrated into social media platforms allowing more interaction between facilities and their occupants. 

Additionally, there are software programs that handle the BAS as well, so there are several solutions from a technical perspective as well. The software that I gave more emphasis to are the types of programs that can gauge and monitor usage, provide graphical feedback to users in an easy-to-identify-with format and can create a social network for occupants.

"We could theoretically be paying a national average on the order of $5.00 a gallon before the 4th of July," he estimates, adding that, "this of course assumes that nothing bad happens in the Middle East that restricts or seriously threatens the flow of oil exports and sends prices much higher."

Nothing bad like Iran threatening to close the Straight of Hormuz? 

But Whipple concurs with Tom Kloza, chief analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, that we will see pump prices topping out between $3.90 and $4.25 a gallon, a fall-to-spring increase of only 40-45 percent. But, "an increase of only 40-45 percent," he adds, "would be the smallest winter-spring price rally in this century."

"$4 a gallon," he argues, "is something the average American has seen before and can comprehend - forecasting $5 gasoline for six months from now is simply not acceptable considering the economic and political havoc it would be likely to cause."

"As they did before, consumers would cut back on consumption, but this time it is different as much of the “fat” (discretionary travel, recreational driving by teenagers, etc.) has already been wrung out by the weak economy. U.S. oil consumption is currently down about 2.3 million barrels per day since 2005. Wringing out the next 2 or 3 million barrels per day is going to be much more painful especially if the cuts have to happen in weeks or months rather than decades."

My concern with this line of thinking is that at some point we will run up against the problem of infrastructure. As gas prices rise, we may cut back on driving and other oil-dependent activities, but our entire civil infrastructure from highways to home heating is built on oil, so while we may want to switch to renewables if gas hits $4 or $5 per gallon, we simply won't be able to do it quickly enough. 

We've somehow got to pry the politicians (and much of the public) out of their inertia and rebuild our infrastructure to support renewables. It's a massive undertaking, but if we don't we're just digging ourselves deeper into crisis.

Electric bikes are one of the greenest ways to get around, but sometimes locking them up outside isn’t ideal. With the AE-bike from Sinclair Research, you can fold up your electric bike in under 10 seconds and tuck it under your arm like a briefcase.

The lightest electric folding bike in the world at 14 pounds, the AE can travel up to 20 miles on a single charge of its 24 volt Lithium Polymer battery pack. It also features conventional bike pedals for backup power.

 With a suggested maximum rider weight of 85kgs (187 lbs), the AE may not handle the bulkiest of riders, although Sinclair says it’s fully tested to hold more weight.

Look for the AE-bike to become available later this year, and if you just can’t wait you can reserve one now. Riders in the UK may qualify for a discount up to 50% of the purchase price through a government rebate program (hey US government, where’s our electric bike incentive program?) Sinclair also makes a non-electric version with the same fold-up capability.

While Los Angeles County and the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Kuai have implemented similar bans, Seatlle is now the largest US city to outlaw plastic bags.

The law states simply that, "No retail establishment in the City shall provide a single-use plastic carryout bag to any customer."

The Seattle council voted to charge a 20-cent fee on paper and plastic bags in 2008, but the plastics industry spent $1.4 million backing a referendum to overturn it, according to KEPR TV.

Plastic Ban Report explains that the ordinance cites the Washington State Legislature in RCW 70.95.010(4) which found that it is “necessary to change manufacturing and purchasing practices and waste generation behaviors to reduce the amount of waste that becomes a governmental responsibility.”

Seattle currently uses approximately 292 million plastic bags annually, only 13% of which are recycled, according to Seattle Public Utilities. But that will all change when the new law takes effect July 1, 2012.

1. World Wildlife Fund

Probably one of the most well-known and widely recognized organizations, the World Wildlife Fund is the front runner when it comes to conservation efforts. The organization boasts nearly 5 million members across the globe and works hard to protect endangered species and conserve habitats. 

1. Sierra Club

Another widely known organization, the Sierra Club works hard to get people out and about exploring nature. Since one of the first steps to helping the environment is developing an intense appreciation for it, this is a key component in spurring motivation. The club also promotes energy conservation to counteract global warming and safer and healthier communities.

1. Natural Resources Defense Council

The National Resources Defense Council (or NRDC) works hard to engage people in preserving natural habitats. They are one of the few groups whose central focus covers a large variety of issues instead of tackling just one or two major issues, and they have effectively spread globally in their efforts.

1. Center for a New American Dream

This organization works diligently to show people that to live the American Dream they have to preserve the habitat they’re living in and the resources that we need to survive. People are encouraged to do a variety of things to live a greener life, such as taking a personal stance in green living through tactics such as recycling and taking a bigger approach through donations to help wildlife, habitats, climate change, etc. 

1. Friends of the Earth

Another globally active organization, Friends of the Earth has groups on every continent in the world. Friends of the Earth tries to attack the most pressing issues happening, both environmentally and socially, as well as figure out solutions to prevent these issues from spiraling out of control.

So many people make the mistake of thinking that someone else will save our planet, but it starts with you. Joining one of these organizations, or any other of the many organizations out there, will help you connect with people and take the first step in making our planet a better place to live.

Guest Author Bio

Melanie Slaugh is enthusiastic about the growing prospects and opportunities of various industries and writing articles on various consumer goods and services as a freelance writer. She writes extensively for internet service providers and also topics related to internet service providers in my area for presenting the consumers the information they need to choose the right Internet package for them. She can be reached at slaugh.slaugh907 @ gmail.com.

Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.

Our data suggest that EA-free plastic products exposed to common-use stresses and extracted by saline and ethanol solvents could be cost-effectively made on a commercial scale and thereby eliminate a potential health risk posed by most currently available plastic products that leach chemicals having EA into food products.

Schumacher's 1973 classic, Small is Beautiful, is one of the most influential books published since World War II, according to the New York Times. In it, he explains that consuming more resources won't solve our economic or societal problems. The "logic of production" must be brought under control. 

". . . The fight against pollution," he writes, "[cannot] be successful if the patterns of production and consumption continue to be of a scale, a complexity, and a degree of violence which, as is becoming more and more apparent, do not fit into the laws of the universe . . ."

His efforts to align technology and industry with natural order live on at Practical Action (which he helped found under a different name), and the New Economics Institute.

As I walked along its fallen trunk, feeling its mass beneath me, I wondered, "How could I transform this into something even approaching the beauty of the original tree?" It's true that what we call inspiration or imagination play a big role in design, but I believe in an integrated approach to design and making that places much more emphasis on process than on so-called inspiration.

In fact, I've always liked the answer that artist Paul Klee gave when he was asked how he found inspiration for the strikingly original and creative images in his paintings. He said something to the effect of, "Well, I first make the frame, then I stretch the canvas, then I prime it, and by I that time I know what the painting wants to be." In other words, inspiration isn't magic, it can grow organically from paying close attention to our materials.

That story was very much on my mind as I sat down on the great tree trunk to ponder its transformation into some useful, beautiful object. I quickly realized that the question of what to do with it was not so much a practical question as an ethical one. My ideas about what to do with it were guided by the words of a Japanese woodworker I once met. He said, "Skill is the ability to care about materials."

His words have a striking convergence to what Klee said about inspiration. Could it be that what we call skill and what we call inspiration are both, in fact, the ability to care about materials? I considered first the material. The beauty of the wood was what had drawn me to it in the first place. It inspired care in me in a way that synthetics like plastic could not. Then I pondered what it meant to care. What actions reflect care, and which show disdain for materials? In the case of the tree, it had fallen naturally, so I felt I was showing more care than if I had gone out and cut it down.

Then came the questions of how to move it. I'm not up for sawing its three-foot diameter trunk by hand, and I don't care for the noise and air pollution of chain saws, so I was grateful that some of it had already been sawn into logs by someone else's chain saw. But the chain saw raises a third question: Do some tools or power sources enable us to care more heartfully than others?

I'll explore the answers I came up with to these questions in future posts, but for now I want to sum them up in a more general way that could help define an ethic of design and making. I'm intentionally limiting them to the issue of care for materials rather than environmental consequences like recyclability or carbon emissions in order to focus on these two design and craft issues, skill and inspiration, that are essential yet often overlooked in the environmental debate.

1. Do some materials inspire us to care about them more than others?

2. Do some tools and methods empower us to show more care than others?

3. Do some power sources enable us to care more heartfully than others?