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Top 10 Reasons to Get a Sustainability Audit

Story by Noah Botwinick, contributing author for the PeoplePlanetProfitBlog.com.
What is a Sustainability Audit?

An audit is a systematic evaluation process that is directed at verifying whatever facility, structure or organization getting the audit’s status is in regard to specific criteria. According to the professional association for EHS auditors, an audit is, “a systematic, documented process of objectively collecting and evaluating factual information in order to verify a site or organization’s… status with respect to specific, predetermined criteria (Auditing Roundtable, 1997).” The audit criteria are explicit measures or requirements, such as regulations, standards, performance indicators, metrics, principles, guidelines and corporate directions, that the auditor uses to evaluate the information gathered during the audit process. A sustainability audit is a type of audit that looks into the effectiveness of implemented sustainability programs measured against specific criteria. In other words, a sustainability audit is a way of learning about your facility’s or company’s energy practices and seeing how they compare to other companies and against official standards.

…a sustainability audit is a way of learning about your facility’s or company’s energy practices and seeing how they compare to other companies and against official standards.

 Why Should You Get a Sustainability Audit?

1)      Save Money:

 >  Save money on your electricity bills by pinpointing areas where energy is being wasted.
>  Many organizations and corporations have been undergoing sustainability audits because there has been evidence that increased financial performance has often resulted from improving performance in environmental areas.
>  Additionally, a company showing that it cares about sustainable practices attracts support from socially responsible investing groups.

2)      Preventative Measure:

In homes, buildings and facilities, an energy audit can help discover structural and safety problems such as rot and mold, before they lead to more costly damage.

3)      Internal management need:

A company looking to manage business risk and opportunity, support internal decision making, and/or build trust within various stakeholder communities can get a sustainability audit.

4)      Compliance with Government Regulations:

Getting a sustainability audit can help a corporation or business understand where it needs to fix its sustainable practices in order to comply with government regulations, and can help them deal with these issues.

5)      Prioritize:

Getting a sustainability audit can help a company, business or homeowner understand cost-effective improvement opportunities. By seeing all the issues laid out with their respective solutions,

6)      Home Improvements:

>  Make your home more comfortable and pleasant by figuring out how to properly heat or cool areas that are difficult to maintain at proper temperatures.
> Identify what cheaper options are available for heating and fuel bills.

7)      Increase Resale Value:

By auditing your home or business and fixing energy issues or installing energy upgrades and improvements, the resale value of the home or facility is increased; how much depends on the nature and extent of the improvements.

8)      Demands from shareholders, employees and financial institutions:

More and more companies are being pushed from stakeholders to look into a broader range of sustainable development issues in regards to an organization’s production. Although companies and businesses have been publishing their own reports regarding the sustainability of their own practices, stakeholders have been demanding audits because they represent an impartial, third-party investigation and report of a corporation’s sustainable practices. Thus, getting an audit improves the credibility of a company in the eyes of the stakeholders.

9)       Comparing Energy Practices:

By conducting a sustainability audit, a company can compare its practices to other companies within the same industry to understand where it stands and if further improvements are needed and in what areas. An audit enables this comparison because it measures everyone using the same impartial standards, thus making comparisons useful.

10)  Broaden Your Thinking:

A sustainability audit will likely identify dozens of initiatives in areas of a business previously never considered. By having an audit conducted, you will discover areas in your practices that can be improved upon that you didn’t even know about.

About Noah Botwinick

Currently attending Yeshiva University in New York. Majoring in political science. I’m passionate about protecting the environment and the world we live in. I believe that sustainable, clean and efficient energy practices hold the key to reversing the damaging effects we’ve had on the earth. In addition, I played on my college basketball team for 2 years and I’m the editor in chief of the YU yearbook. 

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RECs Explained

Story by Noah Botwinick, contributing author for the PeoplePlanetProfitBlog.com.

What are RECS?

Renewable Energy Certificates, which also go by the name Green Tags, Renewable Energy Credits, Renewable Electricity Certificates, or Tradable Renewable Certificates, are the tradable property rights to the energy generated from renewable energy resources. In other words, RECs are non-tangible energy commodities in the United States that represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour of electricity was generated from a certified renewable energy source. One REC is created when one megawatt of renewable energy has been generated and delivered to a local power pool. Ownership of an REC denotes that the owner purchased renewable energy; however, the actual electricity itself that is represented by the certificate is actually sold separately and is used by someone else.

How Did RECs Come About?

The necessity for RECs, which came about in the 1990s, came about because the electricity from renewable generators that is fed into the electricity grid gets mixed together with the electricity that comes from other, traditional energy sources. As a result, it is impossible to tell where each specific electron came from, so they can’t be sold individually. RECs are a way of making it possible to essentially purchase these electrons in the energy pool that came from renewable energy sources.

What Types of Energy Sources Qualify for REC Certificates?

-          Solar Electricity

-          Biomass

-          Low-impact hydropower

-          Wind Power

-          Fuel Cells that use renewable fuels

-          Geothermal energy

Why Buy RECs?

-          Meeting Government Standards: There are policies in place that require electricity service providers to incorporate a minimum level of renewable energy into their electricity supply. Such energy regulations, such as state Renewable Electricity Standards (RES) and Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) (http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=4850 ), outline which energy technologies or resources can be used, as well as explain how electricity service providers must act in accordance with these regulations. Electricity service providers must either generate enough renewable energy to meet this obligation, or they can simply purchase enough RECs to fulfill their renewable energy requirements. Thus, RECs can be used to meet compliance with government renewable energy policies and regulations. Rather than a company completely revamping the way it receives its electricity, it has the option of purchasing RECs, either from another company or from the energy generator themselves. By purchasing RECs, the company is giving business to the renewable energy sources without having to actually change anything.

-          Environmental Benefits: Buying RECs enables the clean energy generators to keep on producing their clean energy and selling it. This is crucial because approximately 38 percent of the greenhouse gases produced in the United States come from traditional sources of electricity generation ( EPAs 2009 Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks), and the buying of RECs adds more clean energy to the power grid and helps decrease the amount of electricity generated from greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels.

-          Energy User Preference for Green Electricity: Energy user preference for green electricity has led to the buying and selling of RECs as retail, commercial and industrial energy users seek to meet their own self-imposed renewable energy goals. By purchasing RECs, a company can do its share in helping the environment without actually taking tangible steps towards going green or using renewable energy themselves. RECs are also beneficial because they allow such buyers to support electrical generators that use renewable energy resources from all over, not just those that are close enough to supply them with clean energy. This allows green energy plants to increase their business because it enables more energy users to buy their products.

-          Supporting Renewable Energy: The buying and selling of RECs are crucial for the continuing production and usage of renewable energy in industrialized countries. Producing electricity from clean energy sources is often more expensive than energy derived from traditional energy sources. So, when someone purchases an REC, they are helping pay the additional costs associated with producing renewable energy. The more renewable energy generators are able to be set up and supported, the more benefit there is for the environment. Without RECs, renewable energy generators would not be able to remain functional due to the costs associated with producing energy from renewable resources.

-          Supporting Clean Energy Projects: Money generated from the sale of an REC can help fund clean energy projects.

-          Balancing the Market Flow:  Purchasing RECs can help balance the supply and demand for clean energy. By separating the eco-friendly benefits of clean energy generation from the actual electricity itself, the clean energy generator can get a fair market price for its electricity and help energy consumers elsewhere offset the emissions associated with their fossil fuel generated electricity use.

How are RECs Sold and Bought?

There are two ways that RECs are sold by clean energy generators. Either the generator can sell the electricity and the REC to an energy utility, which then resells both the electricity and the REC to an energy consumer, or the REC can be sold to an a REC Marketer, who can then resell just the REC to a consumer who is interested in supporting a clean energy generator.

RECs can be bought easily from an REC marketer, either as a one-time purchase or in monthly installments. There are several business that sell RECs online, and each marketer can offer different product options, such as which type of clean energy you are supporting. The cost of RECs varies, because it depends on the type of renewable resource that was used to generate the energy, as well as where it is purchased from. Generally, people purchase enough RECs to cover either a portion of or all their electricity use, thereby offsetting their own carbon emissions footprint. However, buying any amount of RECs is beneficial for the environment

Who are the Largest purchasers of RECs in the US?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Certificate_(United_States)

The Air Force: The largest purchaser of RECs in the US government

• 899,142 MWh worth of RECs

University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia: The largest purchaser of RECs among colleges and universities

• 192,727 MWh of RECs (from wind power)

Intel: The largest purchaser of RECs among large corporations

• 1,302,040 MWh purchased (in 2007)

Whole Foods: The largest purchaser among retailers

• 509,040 MWh worth of RECs (enough to counteract 100% of its energy needs)

What is on an REC?

Each REC states the location of where the energy came from, the source of where it came from and when it was generated. Additionally, each REC tells the purchaser about the renewable fuel sources, the emissions that are emitted from the renewable generation as well as avoided emissions, the vintage of the generator and the eligibility of the source for certification. Each REC tells the owner that its purchase has prevented more than 18,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. A certifying agency gives a specific serial number to each REC, which is a unique identification number to make sure it doesn’t get double-counted. Each REC is also given an independent tracking system, in order to ensure that each REC is legitimate and used only once.

Picture taken from: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110426_windwakes.html

About Noah Botwinick

Currently attending Yeshiva University in New York. Majoring in political science. I’m passionate about protecting the environment and the world we live in. I believe that sustainable, clean and efficient energy practices hold the key to reversing the damaging effects we’ve had on the earth. In addition, I played on my college basketball team for 2 years and I’m the editor in chief of the YU yearbook. 

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The Third Industrial Revolution – Jeremy Rifkin

Source Forbes  http://www.forbes.com/sites/terrywaghorn/2011/12/12/jeremy-rifkins-third-industrial-revolution/

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the best selling author of nineteen books spoke about his new book “The Third Industrial Revolution” – the possibility that a distributed energy revolution is possible because at some point “we all can create our own energy, store it, and then distribute it to each other because the third Industrial Revolution “is an economic game plan. We have the science and technology to do it, but it will mean nothing unless there is a change in will.” The first Industrial Revolution, Rifkin argues, “brought together print and literacy with coal steam and rail. The second combined the telegraph and telephone with the internal combustion engine and oil.”

The Third Industrial Revolutionwith Jeremy:

How did you come up with this idea?

My read on history is that the great economic revolutions occur when two phenomena come together. When we change energy regimes, it makes possible much more complex economic relations. When energy revolutions occur, however, they require communication revolutions that are agile enough to manage them. If you look at the 19th century, print technology became very cheap when we introduced steam power into printing. That decreased the cost and increased the speed, efficiency and availability of print material. At the same time we established public schools in Europe and America. We created a print literate workforce with the communication skills to organize a First Industrial Revolution driven by coal and steam power.

Then we did it again in the 20th century with the convergence of communication and energy: Centralized electricity—especially the telephone and then later radio and television—became the communication vehicles to manage a more dispersed Second Industrial Revolution, organized around the oil-powered internal combustion engine, suburban construction and the creation of a mass consumer society.

Energy historians only deal with energy, and communication historians only deal with communications, but in history you can’t really do one without the other. That’s the framework that led me to this kind of search, and the Third Industrial Revolution really came out of that narrative on how history evolves.

So, what exactly is the Third Industrial Revolution?

First of all, it’s based on a new convergence of communication and energy. The Internet has been a very powerful communication tool in the last 20 years. What’s so interesting about it is the way it scales. I grew up in the 20th century on centralized electricity communication that scales vertically. The Internet, by contrast, is a distributed and collaborative communication medium and scales laterally.

We are in the early stages of a convergence of Internet communication technology with a new form of energy that is by nature distributed and has to be managed collaboratively and scales laterally. We’re making a great transition to distributed renewable energy sources. And we distinguish those from the elite energies—coal, oil, gas, tar sands—that are only found in a few places and require significant military and geopolitical investments and massive finance capital, and that have to scale top down because they are so expensive. Those energies are clearly sunsetting as we enter the long endgame of the Second Industrial Revolution.

Distributed energies, by contrast, are found in some frequency or proportion in every inch of the world: the sun, the wind, the geothermal heat under the ground, biomass—garbage, agricultural and forest waste—small hydro, ocean tides and waves.

About Justin Ragusa

I am an Eco-Entrepreneur, author, and webmaster of PeoplePlanetProfitBlog.com I love living green and try to incorporate all I do in this industry. Let me know if you have any questions, I’ll show you how to make a rewarding and profitable career in the Energy Industry… just contact me.

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North American Power’s Mission to Millions Fundraising Program Rapidly Accelerates Power to Give in First Six Months

As Thousands of Customers Opt into Successful Customer Referral Model, Company is on Track to Give More Than $150,000 to Deserving Charities in 2012

SOUTH NORWALK, Conn., Nov. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ – North American Power, one of the nation’s fastest growing retail electricity suppliers, has accelerated charitable giving through its new philanthropic initiative Mission to Millions, which allows customers to direct company funds to deserving charities each month when they pay their electric bill. Within the program’s first six months, North American Power has seen exponential growth in charitable donations with thousands of new customers participating in the program each month and current donations reaching six times what they were when Mission to Millions launched in April 2011.

“Social responsibility and philanthropic giving will always be at the core of our mission,” says North American Power CEO, Kerry Breitbart. ”But the fact that we’re giving our customers the choice of where to give, and that they’re acting on this choice in record numbers, means the world to our non-profit partners.”

Mission to Millions has allowed North American Power to rapidly increase charitable giving as the company grows. Since March 2010, North American Power has placed more than $75,000 in the hands of worthy charities – with $40,000 of those donations resulting directly from Mission to Millions.

“It’s amazing what a dollar per month per customer means when you multiply it across our growing customer base,” says North American Power Chief Marketing Officer, Greg Breitbart. “Our goal is to donate $1,000,000 by the end of 2013.”

Mission to Millions is comprised of more than 20 local, national and international organizations including Dress For Success, Home For Our Troops, Malaria No More and Heifer International. For more information visit: http://napower.biz/102376/renewable-wind/video

ABOUT NORTH AMERICAN POWER

As one of the nation’s fastest-growing retail electricity suppliers, North American Power places community at the center of its mission; helping consumers make smarter energy choices, giving back to non-profits through fundraising programs including Mission to Millions, creating sustainable income opportunities and offering customers a variety of energy choices that positively impact the environment, including American Wind, a new, national 100% renewable energy product. For more information, visit http://napower.biz/102376/renewable-wind/video

About Justin Ragusa

I am an Eco-Entrepreneur, author, and webmaster of PeoplePlanetProfitBlog.com I love living green and try to incorporate all I do in this industry. Let me know if you have any questions, I’ll show you how to make a rewarding and profitable career in the Energy Industry… just contact me.

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Wear a Potato Poncho to the Music Festival

CNN’s Morgan Breaks Silence On ‘News Of The World’

In the mid 90's, Piers Morgan cut his teeth as an editor at Murdoch's London tabloid The Sun and then became the top editor of its sister Sunday paper News of the World. Two of his successors have been arrested and a third lost his job along with his staff when the paper closed.

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Rupert Murdoch To Appear Before Parliament Panel

Rupert Murdoch, his son and the former head of his newspaper business in the United Kingdom are expected to appear before a parliamentary committee Tuesday. They are due to be questioned about the phone hacking-scandal at the News of The World.

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CalPERS Investments Up 20 Percent For Fiscal Year

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, known as CalPERS, has reported its best earnings in 14 years. CalPERS is the nation's largest public pension system and provides benefits to about 1.6 million state and local employees, retirees and their families.

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Twitter Sets Record During World Cup Final

Twitter says users around the world were sending more than 70,000 tweets per second about the game, which is a new record. It's even more than the speed of messages that went out on news of the royal wedding — or even the death of Osama bin Laden.

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China’s Baidu Reaches A Deal, Cisco Confirms Layoffs

China's top Internet search engine Baidu has reached an agreement with Sony, Universal and Warner to distribute music through a site called One Stop China. And to Silicon Valley, where the Internet equipment giant Cisco has confirmed it's laying off staff. The company is trying to boost profits, so it's cutting 6,500 jobs.

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