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Clean Air-Cool Planet is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated solely to finding and promoting solutions to global warming.
| Greening the Office As a solutions-oriented organization, Clean Air-Cool Planet immediately committed itself to exploring and modeling creative, practical, and progressive measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In making design and purchasing decisions for our Portsmouth, NH-based office, we sought to minimize our contribution to the waste stream, support environmentally-responsible companies, and conserve energy and natural resources. We offer the information here to help you in your own efforts at creating healthy, sustainable, "green" spaces. If you live in the greater Boston area, or are just interested in getting new green building ideas or inspiration, check out the Boston Society of Architects’ web page, with information about the Sustainable Boston initiative, and the GreenBuild conference coming to Boston in 2005.
Lighting Lighting represented the greatest opportunity to minimize greenhouse
gas emissions, so we made this a planning priority. The office layout
makes maximum use of daylight. Individual offices all have outside windows,
often making it unnecessary to turn on the lights in those rooms at
all, and glass panels bring daylight into the interior common areas.
Lighting consists of 32 watt Philips T8 fluorescent tubing. Each fitting
has only two tubes, and all except those in the meeting room are equipped
with two-step dimmers. At full capacity CA-CP's lighting load is only
0.6 watts per square foot. The emergency exit light is standard for
the building and uses LEDs.
Electricity Supply We explored different options for purchasing environmentally friendly
electricity, to encourage demand for renewable resources and to offset
our power use from polluting sources like coal, oil and nuclear plants.
Sun Power, a Massachusetts-based solar electric utility, sells a renewable
energy "upgrade" in the form of ReGenTM certificates;
customers still receive the actual electrons for their lights and appliances
from their normal supplier, while buying a certificate earmarked toward
Sun Power's investment in solar power production, thus helping to stimulate
retail competition for electricity. PG&E National Energy Groups
also offers a "green" product; by purchasing Pure WindTM
certificates customers pay a premium for renewables, while helping the
company offset its $15 million investment in the Madison Windpower project.
Furniture Most of our furniture is recycled; several other pieces were made by
local craftsman Bruce Charest, from sustainably-harvested timber certified
by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and supplied by local lumberyard
Northland Forest Products. The desk chairs are made from recycled plastic,
and our four Danko Persing chairs in the reception area use salvaged
seat-belt seconds as webbing, and laminated maple for minimal waste.
Carpet We looked at both Interface and Shaws Contract for our carpet, and
although Interface has the more comprehensive company-wide sustainability
policies, their product was not available in the small size we needed
and had a lower recycled content. We chose Shaws "Jekyll"
fully-recyclable carpet tiles with recycled tufting, and Shaws "Ecoworx"
backing (non-PVC, low VOC, recycled and fully recyclable). Adhesives
are water; not petroleum-based.
Paints and Adhesives Paint can pose both waste and health problems. Volatile organic carbons,
found in most paints, have been linked to poor air quality; heavy metals
also present can result in health and disposal dangers. An increasing
number of low-toxicity, low-VOC, and even reprocessed or recycled paints
continue to be made available to interested consumers. We specified
low-VOC paint from ICI/Gliddon for all applications.
Appliances and office equipment Our refrigerator is Energy Star compliant, as are the printers, copier,
and fax machine. We invested extra resources in a duplexer for our HP
printer, which allows for the creation of double-sided documents, resulting
in significant paper conservation. We also chose to use primarily laptop
computers rather than desktops, since laptops are generally more energy-efficient.
Ceilings and Walls Time and budget constraints prevented us incorporating strawboard paneling
or other alternative wall materials in our design. However, we were
able to use salvaged steel door frames for all the offices. Armstrong
ceiling panels were chosen for their combination of high light reflectivity
and high recycled content. Instead of vinyl baseboard trim (a potential
source of dioxin), we used FSC certified pine from Northland Forest
Products.
Heating and Ventilation We had little opportunity to influence this area of our energy consumption since the building system was already in place. Fortunately, 100 Market Street uses a high efficiency two-stage heat pump system. We chose a single heating zone for the office because the cost of a second compressor would have increased our build-out costs beyond the limits of our budget. Additional Resources: www.eei.org,
www.epri.com |
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