Cities are taking steps to make parking greener.
Some cities, like Ann Arbor, MI, have been able to construct “green parking lots.” They include permeable pavement that allows for more natural water runoff flow and a decreased use of volatile organic compounds.
In Washington DC, starting in July, four 90-day trial runs of advanced parking spot technology will start for on-street parking. The systems will allow for license plate identification, payments via cell phone, and the sensors that help monitor payments.  But the true green aspect of these pilot programs is the possibility for those sensors to direct spot-hunters towards available parking areas, using real-time satellites.  730 tons of CO2 are released – and 47,000 gallons of gasoline are wasted – every year in DC from cars that drive around looking for vacant parking spots. By making information about parking spot availability up-to-date and viewable through a GPS system or cell phone application, these emissions could drastically be cut.
A less futuristic approach has been the examination of the benefits and costs of different types of parking.  According to Professor Shoup at UCLA, on-street parking should be more expensive in order to cut down cruising and make off-street parking more competitive, and revenue from those meters should be used in the surrounding neighborhoods. Also, there should be fewer off-street parking requirements, which would allow for more innovative and greener buildings and higher internalization of the costs of driving to work.
Hopefully, we will see all of these solutions combine to make the use of private transit better for the environment.

You pay your utility bills – water, electricity, gas – every month or so, but do you know what is specifically using up those resources and your money? Google released its PowerMeter a few years ago to encourage people to track their energy consumption.  If you get your energy from a company who has partnered with Google PowerMeter, you can track your energy use daily, compare it to previous use, and see which appliances require the most power for free.  If your energy comes from a non-partnered source (Georgia Power or DTE, for example), then purchasing the separate electricity monitor may now be worthwhile; Google is lobbying for the release of TV White Spaces.  These are empty channels left from the national switch from analog to digital television, and are perfect for inexpensively transmitting information like personal electricity use in real time. In addition, Google PowerMeter is set up so that in the future, it could monitor the consumption of water and gas in the home. Although there have been some malfunctions with Google PowerMeter, such as higher energy costs in California homes after installation, wide-spread at-home monitoring of utility use is on the horizon, and will allow for less demand at peak hours and a decrease in fossil fuel consumption.

Although it emits over 20% of the world’s greenhouse gases, the United States has no formal legal controls on GHG emissions. However, in the wake of climate change science, state legislation, and expectations of federal regulation in the future, many individuals and businesses participate in voluntary carbon markets. These markets can be in the form of “over-the-counter” trades or a legally-binding cap-and-trade system under the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Both markets have been experiencing drops in prices and participation.  The over the counter market fell from $7.30 to $6.50 per metric ton in the last year, while the CCX – which deals with almost half of US carbon trading – reported volume of carbon trades dropped 27%. These losses have been attributed to the poor economy; as profit margins narrow, companies often find little left over for investment in non-essential (a.k.a. not legally required or immediately producing a return) items.  Fortunately, even though the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, most businesses in the US expect there to be legislation concerning climate change and GHG emissions in the near future and have started to plan for it, either by using the CCX or reporting emissions in sustainability reports.
Even with this dip, the voluntary carbon market was a $387 million industry in 2009. Even though businesses are not necessarily making the monetary commitment to the environment now, carbon trading will most probably be a promising and growing industry in the future.

The European Union has made some surprising allowances for dirty power plants.  Proposed legislation states that coal-powered plants that contribute to acid rain are allowed to stay in operation without modification as long as they are shut down by the end of 2023.  While some industrial plants will be required to install advanced pollution-control technologies and reduce emissions by 2012, the use of large combustion plants will be allowed until 2020.
Despite these exceptions for coal plants, the legislation is expected to overall make alternative energy sources cheaper than fossil fuel use.  Maybe this is possible because the EU relies on coal for only 13% of its power, whereas the US gets over 50% of its energy from coal power plants.  While retrofitting coal plants to be more environmentally friendly may seem to be the greenest option, forcing the elimination of these plants by 2024 in the EU is a sure sign of future use of alternative energy sources.  This, in turn, spurs investment in green energy now, leading to more infrastructure and money for renewable sources. Even though these unregulated coal plants can emit thousands of tons of CO2e and cause harm the environment through acid rain, at least the damage is short-lived.  Perhaps this approach is better than the US’s mentality of upgrading coal-powered plants and, therefore, continuing our reliance on dirty sources for the majority of our energy.

Recently, Greenpeace released a report – Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook – in which it outlined how the world can rely on 95% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.  Through a combination of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, creating binding emissions targets, and setting strict efficiency standards, the $18 trillion worldwide investment would result in 12 million jobs and a peak in CO2 emissions in 2015.
The main goal of this report is to show that climate change legislation is a feasible option, even with the global economy still in a recession. The green energy industry already generates over $100 billion annually, so investment in renewable energy sources is economically and environmentally sound. With talk of China possible adopting climate change regulations before the US, as well as the Gulf oil spill’s demonstration of our huge reliance on oil, these investments would also bring political benefits.
How believable are Greenpeace’s claims? The first version of the report, which came out in 2007, estimated renewable energy could provide 156 MW by the end of 2010; by mid-2009, the sector produced 158 MW of energy.  But to reap full economic benefits, Greenpeace says that legislation has to be put into place. The bottom line is that switching to renewable energy and cutting our carbon emissions by 85% needs community, governmental and global support.

Overall, President Obama’s speech on Tuesday night about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico left people unsatisfied.  At only 18 minutes, the speech addressed the current clean-up efforts and future plans for compensation, but critics say there was a lack of specifics as to how all of this would be achieved.  Bringing in new leadership to increase industry regulation and creating a third party to manage the damage payments from BP are good ideas, but citizens in the Gulf and around the country do not feel reassured. The President also used the opportunity to push for clean energy alternatives.  Although he did not mention efforts to cut back specifically on carbon emissions, an aide recently stated that “no traditional ‘energy only’ bill [without climate-change provisions] meets their sense of what’s credible as a response to BP, or the president’s own 2008 rhetoric.” The federal government hopes the silver lining of this disaster will be a national awareness of energy use and foreign oil dependence, which will spur support of legislation for more efficiency, alternative energy, and climate change regulation. But with many people blaming the government for allowing the spill to occur and not responding adequately, is it possible to trust Obama to properly regulate climate change?

Most Fortune 500 companies publish some sort of sustainability report. Unfortunately, there is a wide gap between reports with real substance and reports that are a lot of smoke and mirrors. During this year’s CCX Annual Meeting, I sat in on a panel discussion that helped to clear the air. It was entitled “Sustainability Marketing: Communicating your efforts to customers, investors and the media.”

The were some real environmentally-responsible heavy hitters on this panel, which included: Jim Kharouf, Editor, Environmental Markets Newsletter; Curtis Mabry, Vice President, Sales Marketing and Communications, Veolia Environmental Services North America Corp.; Jane Madden, Senior Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability, Edelman; City of Chicago, Department of Environment and Therese Van Ryne, Senior Manager, Global Communications, Motorola.

The panel agreed that in order to instill trust a company’s sustainability report must be authentic, honest, and transparent and MUST include metrics, specifically, a carbon footprint. Ideally the carbon footprint audit should come from a third-party audit and include as much detail as possible.

Quantifying scope 1 and 2 emissions has become commonplace for most large companies, but few publish them. Companies that have stronger management teams are looking upstream and measuring their supply chain partners’ footprints or looking at carbon generated on a product basis. Progressive manufacturers with complex supply chains are now using Life Cycle Assessments to measure and report their total carbon impact on a product-by-product basis.

The panel also suggested that companies that wish to lower the carbon emissions of vendors and subcontractors should utilize their purchasing departments. Therese Van Ryne also mentioned that more and more RFPs include carbon reduction prerequisites and having a handle on carbon metrics is a competitive advantage. [Motorola has reduced their carbon footprint by 20 percent since 2005.]

We are proud that all of our clients know (at a minimum) how much greenhouse gas they are generating from scope 1 and 2 emissions. More and more are digging deeper and having us conduct LCAs for their products, essentially to get a leg up on their competition. We predict that in the next year or so every sustainability report will include comprehensive carbon footprint data.

US energy secretary Steven Chu recently announced $980 million in public and private investments for carbon capture and storage projects. The projects, located in Texas, Illinois and Louisiana, will hopefully be prototypes for future carbon capture and storage in certain industries, like methane and ethanol plants; the government has a goal of 5-10 working operations by 2016. The three projects will divert up to 6.5 million metric tons CO2 from the atmosphere.  This a small fraction of the 5.8 billion metric tons CO2e emitted in the US every year, but the potential for more cost-effective methods in the future makes carbon capture and storage a possible option for reducing industrial emissions.
The projects will use technologies that force the collected CO2 into confined spaces such as saline reservoirs and oil fields in which the gas may help move previously unreachable oil to the surface.  The pressure and depth of these storage areas, as well as secure capstones, prevent the CO2 from reaching the atmosphere.  Although these projects do make manufacturing less cost and energy efficient, the government hopes that the net reduction on CO2 emissions will make it worthwhile.
A similar project was recently declared a success in France, where over 120,000 metric tons CO2 were stored in a depleted natural gas reservoir, so maybe the government’s high expectations for industry-based carbon sequestration are not unwarranted.

We were at the CCX annual meeting and heard some interesting things. One area of growth is the continued development of market solutions to environmental issues. Basically, Cap & Trade worked for acid rain and has proven a great solution for environmental risks. The problem (oft repeated at the meeting) is the name Cap & Trade – instead of Cap & Reduce. Politics has clouded reality and the name has loomed larger than the benefit.

One example is the water markets. There is currently trading in rights to put nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay. This is involving farmers who use nitrogen in their fertilizer.  The president of Red Barn Trading Company, Peter Hughes, described how they have been trading water rights and the market growth.

Renewable Energy Credits (“RECs”) are also showing more clarity and increasing opportunity. The CCFE trades futures on RECs. What is clear is that market players are looking for a clearing house. The traders and brokers in the market said that setting a price is not the end of the trade it is the beginning. This means that terms are being negotiated over long periods of time. That settlement risk is high and that there is a need for a clearing exchange.

Currently there are Renewable Portfolio Standards (“RPS”) in 32 states and Washington D.C. They vary in level and what they accept. This leads to confusion and hurts trading. It looks likely that the federal government will set a nationwide RPS. That would jump start the trading in RECs.

Stay tuned.

An important part of doing something good for the environment is recycling.  Recycling programs are funded on a regional level and can vary greatly depending on where you live; Fresno, CA features recycling containers in its parks and has a motor oil recycling program, whereas Houston, TX recycles less than 10% of its waste and has curbside recycling available to less than a quarter of its residents.

Instead of skimping on recycling programs, many cities are now creating incentives for citizens to recycle.  Some towns have rewards programs that give discounts at participating stores based on the weight of recycled items.  Certain states provide tax exemptions for the use of recycled machinery or converted furnaces that use recycled oil or Freon.

Cities outside of the US are taking even bigger steps to increase recycling.  In Edmonton, hundreds of recycling bins are equipped with motion-activated sound devices that sing blues songs about proper recycling materials.  Whole counties in the UK allow citizens to earn up to £135 every year for at-home recycling efforts.

Overall, these efforts have increased the amount of waste diverted from landfills. And if manages correctly, city recycling programs can actually cost less than traditional waste management.