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Sports Stadiums and Arenas Announce Energy Efficiency Goals at White House

2011-12-02T17:32:22Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

President Obama is today announcing nearly $4 billion of investments in combined federal and private sector energy upgrades to buildings over the next 2 years. Today’s commitments, announced along with representatives from more than 60 organizations, are part of the Administration’s Better Buildings Initiative, launched in February 2011 by President Obama.

The Better Building Initiative is designed to support job creation by catalyzing private sector investment in commercial and industrial building energy upgrades to make America’s buildings 20 percent more efficient over the next decade. The goal is to reduce energy costs for American businesses by nearly $40 billion.

Joining President Obama today at the White House will be Martin Tull, Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance. The Green Sports Alliance is a coalition founded in 2010 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Paul G. Allen’s firm Vulcan Inc., and six professional sports teams based in the Pacific Northwest representing six different professional sports Leagues, including the Seattle Mariners (MLB), the Seattle Seahawks (NFL), The Seattle Sounders (MLS), the Portland Trail Blazers (NBA), the Seattle Storm (WNBA), and the Vancouver Canucks (NHL).

The mission of the Green Sports Alliance is to support professional sports teams and leagues by advancing and coordinating their work toward improved environmental stewardship.

Since its founding in 2010, the Green Sports Alliance has grown into a national organization that now includes the support of eight North American professional sports leagues and more than 35 professional sports teams.

The stadiums and arenas used by Green Sports Alliance member teams currently represent over 20 million square feet of facilities in 17 North American cities. Last year, commercial buildings consumed roughly 20 percent of all the energy used by the U.S. economy.

As a partner in the Better Buildings Initiative, the Green Sports Alliance will help coordinate GSA members to reduce the energy use of their facilities by at least 20% by 2020 in aggregate. Green Sports Alliance members will identify and undertake energy conservation projects and will promote the Better Buildings Initiative to all new members and partners.

Green Sports Alliance members are already proving that this goal is attainable. In the past two years, the World Champion St Louis Cardinals reduced their overall energy use at Busch Stadium by 24%. Similarly, the Seattle Mariners and Portland Trail Blazers have implemented conservation strategies and facility improvements that have already resulted in energy savings of 30%. And Century Link Field, home to the Seattle Seahawks and Sounders FC, is completing an energy retrofit that will reduce its energy use by 16%. In Los Angeles, AEG’s STAPLES Center, another GSA member, is implementing a variety of conservation measures through their ISO 14001 certified Environmental Management System to reduce electricity consumption overall by 12%. Most recently they have begun a comprehensive lighting retrofit that will replace almost 3,000 halogen fixtures with more energy efficient LEDs throughout the facility by early 2012, saving over $80,000 per year.

Supporting the Better Buildings Initiative will help encourage professional sports teams and their venues to implement conservation projects that will result in significant financial and environmental performance.

Equally important, the ongoing work of these professional sports teams on behalf of environmental stewardship will help educate millions of sports fans to the fact that all of us, every business and every individual, needs to take action to address the great ecological crises of our time, including global climate disruption and biodiversity loss.

Moreover, the supply chain of professional sports is also being influenced by this industry’s greening efforts. As an industry generating approximately $450 billion in annual economic activity, professional sports is among the largest industries in the United States, and certainly among the most influential. All industries meet at a professional sporting event: the auto industry, the food and beverages industries, the plastics industry, the textiles industry, the chemical industry, the banking industry: all of these industries sponsor of affiliate with professional ports in some way.

Consequently, when professional sports go green, these global industries notice.

With all professional sports leagues now working to address global climate disruption and other ecological ills, a cultural shift in our society’s relationship to environmentalism is taking place. Ecological discussions are moving intelligently away from the low road of partisan politics and instead, towards the high ground of smart business practices and civilized, socially responsible behavior.

Recycling Can Create 1.5 million New Jobs and Reduce Greenhouse Emissions

2011-11-15T05:34:13Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

A new report released today by a coalition of labor and environmental groups estimates that recycling 75 percent of the nation’s municipal waste, in combination with incentives for manufacturers to use recycled raw materials, will create nearly 1.5 million desperately needed new jobs by 2030.

The report, More Jobs, Less Pollution, also estimates that by using a much higher level of recycled materials in manufacturing plants, we can reduce global warming pollution by as much as 276 million metric tons by 2030, an amount equal to eliminating the emissions of approximately 72 coal-fired power plants or taking 50 million cars off the road.

The report was prepared by the Tellus Institute for the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations that includes the Natural Resources Defense Council, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Service Employees International Union, Recycling Works! and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

Never in our lifetime has it been more important to merge environmental progress with jobs.

The country is underachieving when it comes to recycling and our nation suffers the effects of historically high unemployment rates every day.

This report raises our hopes. It confirms that organized labor and environmentalists can join together in behalf of ecological progress and jobs production, and it reminds us that recycling, the most popular environmental activity, still holds great potential to heal the planet in an ecologically and economically productive way.

This report can help educate and encourage policy makers at all levels of government about what they can do to create a more robust recycling system for our planet and our economy.

Most of the materials in the municipal waste stream are recyclable or compostable or are non-combustible. We know that recycling is the best ecological and economic route for about 80% of the materials in the waste stream. But we lack the policies to get those materials recycled.

There is increasing pressure to combust the materials in our waste stream for one time energy benefit. But this is not only a waste a resources, it is a jobs killer: The new report More Jobs, Less Pollution shows that recycling produces between 10 to 20 times more jobs per ton of material processed than does combustion or landfilling.

However, the United States’ lacks the policies to recover higher levels of materials from our wastes and we lack the policies to get the materials that we do recover recycled at manufacturing facilities in the USA. As a result, the recycling system in the USA is underachieving, and it is supporting jobs abroad. The promise of recycling remains unfulfilled.

We need to change that.

To do so, we need not only to divert materials away from incinerators and landfills. We also need to stimulate investments into new manufacturing facilities in the USA that will process those materials into new commodities and produce jobs in doing so.

What can you do?

Get the word out about this report.

For decades we’ve been talking about recycling being the most jobs-producing environmental policy but never in our lifetime has it been more urgent to develop that potential. We have never faced an economy this dire and we’ve never confronted so many urgent ecological threats.

Study the policy options in this report and see policies what might work in your community to increase recycling: For some communities it might be enacting Extended Producer Responsibility laws that help finance local collection programs through fees levied on consumer products companies. These laws exist in throughout Europe and Canada, alleviating the financial pressure of waste management on localities and stimulating most successful recycling rates. For other communities it might mean enacting enhanced container deposit laws, which are known to be the most successful approach to materials collection ever devised. And for other communities it might mean offering investment tax credits or other government incentives to encourage manufacturers to expand their use of recycled raw materials.

Every community can benefit from implementing some of the policies outlined in this report.

Share this report. Download copies of it, send the PDF around to policy makers and local businesses.

Get the word out: the potential of recycling to reduce pollution and create jobs is once again confirmed.

Municipal Waste is Not Renewable Fuel

2011-10-26T11:00:00Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

Should municipal solid waste (MSW) be converted into energy? Is it a renewable fuel?

Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) require electric utilities to generate a certain percentage of electricity from renewable energy sources. Although there are no federal renewable energy standards, as of 2010 twenty-eight U.S states had adopted an RPS standard.

While there is near unanimity among environmentalists, policy makers, and industry officials that recycling should be given priority in how we manage our wastes, in numerous states with RPS standards municipal waste is in fact classified as a renewable fuel and strong lobbying efforts are underway working to expand the number of jurisdictions that classify municipal waste as a renewable fuel.

It would be a mistake to classify municipal solid waste as a renewable fuel without carefully examining the facts. Most of the materials found in MSW cannot be considered a renewable fuel.

Let’s start with a description of what we are dealing with.

Here is the characterization of municipal solid waste according to the EPA, for 2009, the last year for which data are available:

Plastics: 12.3%
Metals: 8.6%
Glass: 4.8%
Paper: 28.2%
Food scraps: 14.1%
Yard waste: 13.7%
Wood: 6.5%
Rubber, Textiles, Leather 8.3%
Other: 3.5%

Each category of waste has its ecologically optimal disposal route, and both public policy and private investments should encourage the routing of materials found in the waste stream to their best use. How should each category of municipal waste be handled for best ecological result? For the reasons summarized below, most, about 75% - 80%, should be recycled.

Plastics (12.3% of MSW) are petroleum. Some are made from natural gas, and a small amount might be made from coal. Although plastics contain about 12,000 Btus/lbs, they are fossil fuels and cannot be classified as a renewable energy source. Petroleum based plastics should be recycled.

Metals (8.6% of MSW) are made from non-renewable ores and minerals. They cannot be classified as a renewable fuel. Nor are they well suited for combustion. Metals are low in Btus (300 Btus/lbs compared with 12,000 Btus/lbs for plastics) and should be recycled. It is as a secondary raw material at the manufacturing sector, not in a combustor, that metals provide the greatest energy benefit.

Glass (4.8% of MSW) is manufactured using non-renewable fossil fuels, and is made from a non-renewable, albeit currently plentiful raw material. Nor is glass ideally suited for energy recovery. It is not high in Btus, containing only 60 Btus/lbs. Glass should be recycled.

Paper, (28.2% of MSW) for many reasons other than those relating to energy calculations, should be recycled. We can debate whether all forests should be considered renewable, but certainly many that are being destroyed for paper making are ecologically rare and biologically irreplaceable. The bio-chemical processes at certain forests currently used for paper making are not always renewable. Moreover, the manufacture of paper involves the use of non-renewable energy, and pulp and paper mills are classified as a “major” source of hazardous air emissions by the EPA. Most consumers would not consider as “renewable energy” or “environmentally preferable” a fuel whose production engenders the emission hazardous air pollutants (or wipes out vast tracts of natural forests, consuming more water than virtually any other industrial process). Paper should be recycled and should not be considered a renewable fuel.

Food scraps (14.1% of MSW) that cannot be recovered for redistribution should be composted or sent to a sewage treatment plant. They are high in moisture, not particularly high in Btus, 2,000 Btus/lbs compared with 12,000 Btus/lbs for plastics, 7,200 Btus/lbs for paper, and 8,000 Btus/lbs for wood. And food waste is high in nitrogen, a GHG pollutant when emitted from waste combustors.

Yard waste (13.7% of MSW) should also be composted. Its Btu value is only 2,800 Btus/lbs, but let’s assume for argument’s sake that it is comprised entirely of woody debris at 8,000 Btus/lbs, (which it isn’t), and can be considered renewable and combusted for energy recovery.

Wood (6.5% of MSW) is generally a renewable resource (see qualification about certain ecologically rare forests referenced above) and is combustible, producing 8,000 Btus/lbs. Moreover, wood recovered from the MSW stream cannot be composted due to contaminants and should not be landfilled due to the emissions it causes. Wood recovered from MSW should be combusted for energy recovery.

Rubber, Textiles, and Leather (8.3% of MSW) are manufactured using fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources. Given the nature of their manufacture, they cannot be considered a renewable fuel despite their high Btu value, ranging from 7,500 Btus/lbs (textiles and leather) to 10,000 Btus/lbs (rubber). These materials should be recycled or composted, and the portion not recovered for recycling can be considered for combustion for energy recovery, but cannot be considered renewable fuel.

So the only portions of the municipal waste stream that can be considered a non-recyclable renewable fuel is wood and a portion of yard wastes. If we inappropriately include all yard wastes in this category and correctly include all wood, they together total 20.2% of the waste stream. That is why NRDC estimates that about 80% of the MSW stream is either recyclable, made from a non-renewable resource, or is otherwise not well suited for combustion due to low Btus (or a combination of all three).

Even if we also unrealistically added in the entire 3.5% of the non-descript “other” category of MSW as being entirely a renewable material, combustible, and not recyclable, that would still only amount to 23.7% of the waste stream as being suitable for combustion, and that includes the assumption that all yard wastes should be combusted, none composted.

Based on the above, the reader should note NRDC’s position that none of the materials in the MSW stream should be landfilled. Minimizing landfill waste by increasing recycling and reducing waste streams is a far better policy than converting trash for energy. Still, capped landfills release significant methane that can and should be captured to produce energy and reduce highly-polluting flaring.

About 12% of all MSW is currently combusted in the U.S. for energy recovery, (as of 2009). Of that amount, NRDC would estimate that more than half of all the material being sent to existing combustors is either recyclable, compostable, non-renewable, or non-combustible. These materials should be diverted away from combustors through a process we call “fuel cleaning”.

Consequently, the least-cost, the fastest, and the most ecologically sound approach to new combustion capacity dedicated to renewable waste is fuel cleaning at existing MSW combustion units.

NRDC estimates that fuel cleaning at existing waste combustors might free up about fifty percent or more of combustion capacity for energy recovery from non-recyclable, renewable, combustible materials.

Until that is done, NRDC does not see the need to discuss the development or permitting of new MSW combustion (or conversion) capacity.

Moreover, we see no basis for classifying MSW combustion as currently practiced as an energy source supplied by renewable fuel.

Wind is renewable.

Sunlight is renewable.

Water is renewable.

The non-renewable petroleum, ores, minerals and other materials that comprise MSW, and that are refined and manufactured through polluting processes that rely on the use of fossil fuels, are not renewable fuels.

Cork: A Model of Sustainable Business

2011-07-29T13:30:00Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

When it comes to the functional integrity of the biosphere, small things matter. Indeed, it is the small things in the global ecosystem that keep Homo sapiens and other forms of life alive. Ants produce soil. Bees pollinate a third of all the food we eat.

Similarly, it is the small daily purchases that we make day-in and day-out that add up to global market demand, and it is the characteristics of market demand that instigates—or helps reduce global ecological pressures. For example, the estimated ninety million tons of global warming pollution emitted every day does not come from just a few large sources but from contributions made by millions of emitters, large and small, each adding to a problem that has become nothing less than a planetary emergency.

In the same way, the single disposable plastic bag you might unwittingly take home from the grocery might not seem like a meaningful contribution to our ecological crisis. But in fact, every minute tens of millions of other consumers are also taking home a disposable plastic bag, which adds up to more than 100 billion bags distributed in the United States annually: hence, the production and use of plastic bags is now a major consumer of fossil fuels and the most ubiquitous form of liter on the planet, threatening everything from marine mammals to our very food chain.

The bottom line: however small your day-to-day actions may seem, our collective purchases can add up to meaningful regional and global impacts—even when it comes to something as seemingly insignificant as wine bottle stoppers.

According to the Portuguese Cork Association, the production of petroleum-based plastic wine bottle stoppers causes fifty percent more global warming pollution than does the manufacture of natural cork stoppers, and the production of metal screw caps for wine bottles produces anywhere from three to five times as much global warming pollution, depending on how much recycled content is mixed into the metal production process.

Perhaps even more importantly, the traditional production of natural cork is an environmentally superior process which supports the preservation of grassland forests, Mediterranean biodiversity, small-scale agriculture, and fast-disappearing cultural traditions.

The importance of buying intelligently in order to produce global ecological benefits was underscored for me most recently during an informative visit that I took to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) cork oak grassland forests in Portugal, known as the Montados. There, cork bark is harvested by shaving it from the trees. The shaving of a cork oak tree takes place once every nine years, without the need to cut it down.

Economically, the cork oak grassland forests of the Mediterranean Basin are a model for sustainable business practices. Biologically, these Mediterranean Basin forests are an ecological treasure, which is why Conservation International has designated the region a biodiversity hotspot. According to CI:

“The flora of the Mediterranean Basin is dramatic. Its 22,500 endemic vascular plant species are more than four times the number found in all the rest of Europe; the [Mediterranean Basin] hotspot also supports many endemic reptile species… The Mediterranean monk-seal, the Barbary macaque and the Iberian lynx, which is Critically Endangered, are among the region’s imperiled species.”

The region hosts important habitat for Mediterranean birds, including more than one hundred migrating birds that includes raptors such as the African kite, the Booted eagle and the Bonelli eagle. Forty percent of region that I visited in the Tagus River Watershed is covered by cork oak grassland forests, which supplies drinking water to about two million people in Lisbon and its surrounding regions.

In the era of impersonal, globalized, homogenized commerce, it is refreshing to note that most of the cork oak grassland forests in Portugal are family-owned. There are over 1,000 small scale family owned cork forest proprietors in Portugal, which supplies more than half of the world’s cork market. The average size of a Portuguese cork oak family forest is in the range of 200 hectares. Often these ownership families join together into societies to manage their forested landscapes more economically because experience has shown that it takes about 300 hectares of forest land to get the income adequate for proper forestry management, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC is the only forest certification program that NRDC and most other environmental groups consider credible.

The agricultural workers who harvest cork, a peaceful, non-polluting, small-scale commercial culture that has been practiced almost the same way for centuries, are among the highest paid agricultural field workers in the world, earning between 80 Euros to 120 Euros per day. The workers at the forests that I visited were provided with medical health care insurance and worker’s compensation insurance that provides wage replacement and medical benefits for the rare few who might get injured in the course of employment. The workers are sensibly paid not on the amount of weight they rush through to harvest, but instead are paid based on a fixed daily wage, in order to assure that they perform their harvesting work with due regard for the health of the trees.

At the invitation of some of Portugal’s most historic cork producing families I visited these grassland forests because I advise corporations, including some of the world’s most prominent entertainment and sports businesses, on how to reduce the ecological impacts of their procurement and operations. As we all know, forest-based products can instigate gigantic ecological pressures. For example, the paper industry is the number one industrial pressure on forests, the third largest industrial emitter of greenhouse gases, and the largest industrial consumer of freshwater. So when I advise corporations on the need to switch their toilet paper, copier paper, or packaging to paper made from post-consumer recycled content, it might seem marginal, but that is far from the case. Everything adds up.

Commenting on the largest cork growing region in the world, Gilles Kleitz, project manager at Agence Française de Développement (AFD) said:

"The ecosystem of the Mediterranean Basin underpins the livelihoods of tens of millions of people in both the EU and outside, both directly through agriculture, tourism, fishing, forestry or any of the multitude of other industries that draw directly on the natural resources of the area, or indirectly by providing freshwater, pest control, pollination and other key services. Our legacy must be that this global biodiversity hotspot is maintained and restored so the people of the Mediterranean can continue to thrive."

Contrary to a popular misconception, there is no shortage of cork trees. Quite the contrary, cork trees can live up to 250 years and the valuable expansion of cork grassland forests that was instigated in the early 1990s will add 25 percent more cork trees for harvesting in the next few years. It takes 25 years before the bark from a cork oak tree can be shaved productively and without harming the tree. The bark is then left to regenerate and is reshaved. Regulations prohibit reshaving of the bark no more frequently than once every nine years. And cork is eminently recyclable as well.

The effects of global climate disruption are already being felt on the grassland forests that supply cork and support a sustainable, culturally unique way of life: irregular weather patterns now more often interfere with harvesting, and summer now comes earlier in Portugal, instigating longer periods of droughts that decrease the thickness and economic value of the tree bark over its nine year period of re-growth.

But the most severe threats to Portugal’s Montado grassland forests come from ecologically inferior competition in the form of petroleum- and metal-based bottle stoppers, which have been penetrating the market and are used in as much as 30 percent of the world’s wine bottles. The shift to these less desirable bottle stoppers by vintners threatens to reduce the income produced by maintaining and shaving the cork oak trees, devaluing the region and risking its conversion into industrial agricultural uses or some form of human settlement. This would have devastating effects on the Montado’s biologically rich and culturally rare habitat that provides low impact jobs for thousands of people. This makes avoiding plastic and metal wine stoppers all the more urgent, and greater consciousness about the impact of our everyday purchases all the more vital.

Administration Launches Jobs Killing E-Waste Initiative

2011-07-21T18:20:16Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

It is well known that recycling produces more jobs than any other form of waste management. Indeed, recycling is among the most productive of green jobs producers. Moreover, the environmental benefits of responsible recycling are well documented, especially when it comes to preventing the wholesale dumping of toxic electronic wastes into the developing world.

So why did the White House Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship issue a report this week that supports those irresponsible companies which are exporting electronic waste to the developing world, undermining the chance to produce e-waste recycling jobs here in the United States and perpetuating the export to vulnerable developing nations of unprocessed toxic electronic waste?

Legislation to prevent the export to vulnerable developing nations of unprocessed toxic electronic waste is urgently needed. Such a bill, the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, is now garnering support in both houses of Congress. But in a political environment in Congress where even the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury is being put at risk, where proposals to emasculate the EPA are running rampant, we cannot assume that such legislation will be enacted soon by both chambers of Congress and signed into law by the President.

It is in this context that we must assess the counterproductive recommendations on e-waste export contained in a long-awaited report issued yesterday by the White House Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship, a Task Force comprised of representatives from the U.S. EPA, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the General Services Administration.

The export of unprocessed electronic wastes is the number one environmental problem plaguing e-waste management in the United States. Unfortunately, as documented in an Emmy-Award winning feature on 60 Minutes, many so-called recyclers lead unsuspecting businesses to believe they are recycling e-waste domestically, but they are in fact exporting the toxic waste to the developing world, where it is ripped apart, burned, mixed with acids and otherwise horrifically mismanaged, destroying water supplies, ruining the landscapes, polluting the air, and subjecting some of the most already burdened populations on Earth to medieval health risks and, ultimately, greater economic hardship.

The White House Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship report could have and should have helped lead the United States e-waste market away from a reliance on e-waste exports. As of 2005 seventy-four percent of used electronics in the United States were exported and as the electronic waste stream has grown since then, there is no reason to presume that percentage of e-waste exports from the U.S. has gone down. The Task Force is certainly not unaware of this fact and its report states:

“Used electronics in developing countries, which include exports from the U.S. and other developed countries…are causing negative health and environmental effects…The Task Force has serious concerns about unsafe handling of used electronics, especially discarded electronics…in developing countries, that results in harm to human health and the environment. For example, there are problems with open-air burning and acid baths being used to recover valuable materials from electronic components, which expose workers to harmful substances. There are also problems with toxic materials leaching into the environment due to improper disposal of e-waste in developing countries.”

The logical response to address these environmental and public health threats in the developing world would have been for the General Services Administration to announce that it will not use any recycler that cannot certify conclusively that it does not export any unprocessed e-waste. Unfortunately, the GSA, a member of the Task Force, did not do so.

To the contrary, the Task Force actually provides cover to those who are exporting electronic waste with the lofty sounding rhetoric that it will “provide technical assistance and establish partnerships with developing countries to better manage used electronics.” Oh, really? So now the United States is going to invest in China’s recycling industry, or India's, or other developing nations like Ghana's, to bring them up to 21st century standards? The U.S. Congress is cutting health care funding for seniors, cutting funds for school lunch programs for poor children, and promoting laws that make it harder, not easier to promote environmental responsibility whether it involves blowing up Appalachian mountains for coal or addressing the U.S. contribution to global climate disruption. How likely is it that we will invest resources to enhance recycling facilities abroad, and should we even be doing that?

As a member of the White House Interagency Task Force, the General Services Administration failed to proclaim that it will not rely on any recycler who cannot assure that none of the e-waste it is handling is being exported. Instead, it said it will assure that it works with “certified recyclers.” But the fact remains that the inferior R2 certification program, one of the only two certification programs in use, allows for e-waste to be exported to developing nations. Only the E-Stewards certification program assures that unprocessed e-waste will not be exported, and only the E-Stewards certification program comports with international laws against e-waste dumping. And the GSA has not committed to use only E-Steward certified recyclers, and it has not said it will assure that no electronic wastes produced by the U.S. government are exported.

Clearly, special interest pressure got to the Task Force. The same type of special interest pressure that is now attacking the EPA for regulating air pollutants, for regulating water pollution, for regulating greenhouse gases, for regulating mountaintop removal coal mining, has been putting pressure on the White House to prevent the proper regulation of e-waste.

In an economic climate where jobs production is paramount, the Task Force report will result in not one new e-waste recycling job being produced. To the contrary, I have already been told by an E-Steward certified e-waste processor that they may dismantle the equipment and have to lay off the workers they’ve substantially invested in because processing e-waste domestically in an ecologically responsible way is at a significant disadvantage competing with the economics of dumping wastes abroad.

To their credit, many business and municipalities are taking a more responsible approach than the Interagency Task Force and are seeking out those e-waste processors that are E-Stewards. The Broadway Green Alliance, a consortium of all forty Broadway theaters and almost 200 touring productions is a notable and high minded responsible example. So are many professional sports teams concerned about engendering environmental liabilities.

With the failure of the White House InteragencyTask Force to responsibly address the issue of e-waste exports, the obligation now shifts to the private sector. What all municipalities, businesses and all generators of e-waste must take away from the Task Force report is that they need to act on their own to assure that their used electronic wastes gets recycled domestically for both economic and public health reasons.

However, the single largest generator of electronic wastes in the United States, indeed, the largest generator of e-waste in the world, is the federal government itself, and it must lead by example and it should have assured us that all of its e-waste would henceforth be recycled domestically as well. Unfortunately, it did not.

The Greenest All Star Game Ever

2011-07-12T18:12:32Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

As the movement to green professional sports continues to broaden its reach, (witness the recent launch of the Green Sports Alliance), those of us involved in this noble work continue to be inspired by the strong commitment to environmental stewardship shown by Major League Baseball. Much of the credit goes to Commissioner Allan H (Bud) Selig, who has marshaled and motivated incredible talent at MLB League headquarters in behalf of ecological progress. According to Commissioner Selig, “Baseball is a social institution with social responsibilities and caring for the environment is inextricably linked to all aspects of the game. Sound environmental practices make sense in every way and protect out natural resources for future generations of baseball fans.”

The most recent example of MLB’s commitment to environmental stewardship and fan education is being implemented and prominently publicized at the 2011 All Star Game in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Diamondback’s Chase Field. For this event, watched by 100 million viewers and virtually every pro-sports vendor in the nation, MLB has prioritized environmental attributes when it selected materials ranging from paper for tickets and programs to wood and other materials used as building supplies.

To help reduce All-Star Week’s environmental footprint, the 2011 All-Star Game itself, as well as the All-Star Workout Day, the Home Run Derby, the All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game and the All-Star Futures Game are being offset with “Green-e Certified” renewable energy credits. MLB All-Star FanFest, the largest baseball fan event in the world, will be held at the LEED Silver Certified Phoenix Convention Center and will also be offset with “Green-e Certified” renewable energy credits. MLB All-Star FanFest volunteers are also receiving complimentary METRO light rail passes to encourage their use of public transportation.

Over the past few years the Diamondbacks and Chase Field have implemented a number of energy efficiency initiatives, including the replacement of less-efficient electronic components with new Energy Star certified products and LED equipment. Earlier this season, the D-backs built a solar shade structure that covers more than 17,000 square feet of the Chase Field plaza. The solar shade structure provides shade over the ballpark’s heaviest used entrances while also generating solar power. During the 2010-2011 off-season, the ballpark roof of Chase Field was recoated with an Energy Star certified material which improves the ballpark roof’s reflectivity rating and thermal emittance rating, which helps to reduce the heat island effect in downtown Phoenix.

Moreover, the Diamondback’s already well-developed recycling program, which has been in place for several years, is being enhanced for the All Star Game: in-stadium messaging will encourage fans to recycle, “All-Star Green Teams” will circulate throughout the stadium during all ballpark events to collect recyclables from fans, and 100 new recycling bins will be installed at the ballpark for All-Star Week and will remain at Chase Field permanently. Food waste and food-soiled paper from the stadium will be turned into compost, which can be used as fertilizer. This is the first time a composting program has been implemented at an MLB All-Star Week and it is estimated that 66 tons of material will be diverted from the landfill through recycling and composting efforts. Continuing an initiative pioneered by MLB and NRDC in 2008, the red carpet used in the All-Star Red Carpet Show is manufactured with 100% recycled plastics, not from petroleum.

Besides promoting recycling, in-stadium messaging by MLB is running NRDC inspired messaging on its LED boards and an NRDC PSA to promote other ways fans can be more environmentally conscious. And an NRDC Eco-Tip of the Day is running on the Team Green Program landing page on MLB.com.

Perhaps my favorite greening effort by MLB at this year’s All Star Game is the League’s development of a greenhouse at a local veterans home that will enable the veterans who reside at the home to grow fruits and vegetables and help make their budding horticulture program a success.

You can read more about the great environmental work that the Diamondbacks and MLB have done at this year’s All Star Game by going to MLB’s Team Greening Program, but I would be remiss in not reminding you that this important work comes on the heels of previous path breaking environmental initiatives launched by MLB. For example, last year MLB announced the launch of a comprehensive software system developed in collaboration with NRDC that is designed to collect and analyze environmental data related to stadium operations across the 30 Clubs. It was the first time a professional sports League anywhere in the world implemented a program to consistently collect data for the purpose of documenting environmental practices, and for sharing information about environmental best practices at stadiums. The four categories of environmental data being collected by MLB include 1. Energy use; 2. Waste generation; 3. Water use, and; 4. Paper procurement.

Forty years after the first Earth Day brought Americans of all persuasions into the streets to celebrate Mother Earth, the environmental community’s relationship with professional sports has matured: millions of fans—and businesses--have been educated to the fact that MLB cares about environmental stewardship, a messaging accomplishment that is impossible to quantify. As a result, the supply chain of professional baseball and millions of fans are getting the message that our Earth is in need of better stewardship. How good it would be if members of Congress paid attention to this important cultural shift.

Bravo to Major League Baseball. Personally, I’ve always loved baseball, and I’ve played the game throughout my life. But today I once again feel a special admiration for that great League, and I urge all professional Leagues and teams, indeed all companies and all Americans to follow the lead established by our National Pastime, and take stock of your impacts on the Earth.

(To learn what you might do, go to the award winning NRDC Team Greening Advisor for MLB, and click on your favorite team. A toolbar on top can guide you as you seek to lighten your ecological footprint.)

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: The National Research Council Should Investigate

2011-06-23T13:00:00Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

In 2009, Dr. Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science brought together a distinguished group of the nation’s leading researchers from diverse fields to study the ecological effects caused by mountaintop removal coal mining. In January 2010, they published a peer reviewed article in Science Magazine titled “Mountaintop Mining Consequences.” Among this group were several members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Here is how Dr. Palmer summarized her team’s research when it was published:

“The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop mining is strong and irrefutable. Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes.”

Now, another peered reviewed article about the effects of mountaintop removal mining has been published, this time in the journal Environmental Research. This most recent research reports on the association between mountaintop mining and birth defects in counties that host or border upon mountaintop mines. In this most recent study, data were analyzed from the National Center for Health Statistics’ natality files by a team of researchers led by Dr. Melissa M. Ahern, of Washington State University. They concluded the following:

“The prevalence … [of] birth defects was significantly higher in mountaintop mining areas compared to non-mining areas [even after controlling for covariates]…Rates were significantly higher in mountaintop mining areas for six of seven types of defects: circulatory/respiratory, central nervous system, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, urogenital, and ‘other’. There was evidence that mountaintop mining effects became more pronounced in the later years [of the study] (2000 – 2003) versus earlier years (1996 – 1999). Spatial correlation between mountaintop mining and birth defects was also present, suggesting…birth defects in neighboring counties. Elevated birth defects rates are partly a function of socioeconomic disadvantage, but remain elevated [even] after controlling for those risks…Rates for any [birth] anomaly were approximately 235 per 10,000 live births in the mountaintop mining area versus 144 per 10,000 live births in the non-mining area.”

Not long ago, when I had the privilege of serving on a committee of the National Research Council that produced the book Waste Incineration and Public Health, I was reminded of something very basic: Science is not just another opinion. Resolving the most serious ecological problems, like those instigated by mountaintop removal mining, requires adherence to sound scientific facts that are not limited by politically driven scientific compromises. Advancing sustainable ecological policies is dependent on a respect for the facts. Dictators have a history of trying to manipulate scientific facts to suit their political self-interest. Government and business leaders in the US should resist doing so.

As we all know too well, and sadly, the legislative arena is not a place where determining the truth is the principal objective, whether defined as sound economics or honest biological assessments based on the latest life-science data.

As the movie The Last Mountain documents so well, Congress and coal-state legislatures routinely behave like wholly owned subsidiaries of the polluting industries, and the coal industry in particular. Indeed, the most energetic response that the U.S. Congress has offered to date regarding the studies documenting the impacts caused by mountaintop removal mining has been its effort to try to impede the US EPA’s ability to regulate the damaging practice, not to limit it. Don’t bet the future of Appalachia on the remote prospect that this Congress will protect it: That ain’t happening.

Given the risks that mountaintop removal mining engenders, what is to be done? Congress won’t help. And, of course, the governments of West Virginia and Kentucky long ago sold their souls to King Coal. Certainly the business community at large must make its voice heard. Utilities that use coal must demand that the practice of acquiring coal via mountaintop removal practices must end. But I have been at the Wall Street table with bankers who invest in or otherwise provide financial support for mountaintop removal mining, and I can attest that even the most common sense market based initiatives to limit the practice won’t come easy, much less soon enough.

More, much more, needs to be done to convince businesses and legislatures, including the US Congress, that mountaintop mining must end, that it is killing people, causing birth defects, poisoning water supplies, and destroying the Appalachian miner’s livelihood and the region’s unique cultural heritage. As Henry Fair’s photos have documented, it is wiping out some of the most biologically rich temperate forests on Earth.

To date, the research generated by university researchers and other scientists has been effectively ignored by Congress and other legislative bodies. Thus, the tragedy of mountaintop removal mining remains legal. To help break through this willful ignorance by Congress, bought and paid for by the coal industry and its allies, the National Research Council needs to intervene. Already published and peer reviewed research underscores the urgency to do so. The nation’s preeminent scientific agency needs to be heard on this issue: the National Academy of Sciences and its National Research Council were not established to be ignored.

Certainly every agency with any jurisdiction whatsoever over mountaintop removal mining needs to acknowledge by their actions the published research about the effects of mountaintop removal mining, whether they involve ecological destruction or birth defects.

To help those agencies, and to help legislatures and citizens as well, the National Research Council needs to commission a study of mountaintop removal’s ecological and public health effects in Appalachia.

And until such a National Research Council report is issued, the US EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior should implement a categorical moratorium on the issuance of new permits, regardless of a mine’s size or location.

How to Manage Food Waste

2011-06-16T14:27:34Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

Food waste is approximately 14% of the household waste we discard. Food waste is of concern to environmental agencies and municipalities because in landfills food waste is a primary cause of methane gas emissions, a very potent greenhouse gas, and the methanogens that food waste supports in landfills also cause the mobilization of other pollutants in landfills, resulting in an increase in both air pollutants and leachate.

In waste combustors, food waste is a cause of nitrogen oxide emissions, which is also a greenhouse gas, as well as a cause of smog and respiratory illness. Moreover, since food waste can contain as much as 70% water, it is not a high Btu fuel, and therefore is not well-suited for combustion. The best disposal option for food waste is neither landfilling nor incineration. Ideally, food waste should be composted. If you have a compost bin where you live, you can incorporate food waste into your home compost – if not, consider setting up a home compost system. Home composting avoids transportation of organic wastes, saving fuel and other resources associated with transporting waste. There are many resources describing the options for home composting, including http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=441 – these range from backyard bins to vermicompost (worm bins), and can be tailored to fit your needs. In some communities (such as San Francisco), food waste is collected in curbside recycling programs, usually along with yard waste. Typically, in a municipal composting system, you can compost a wider variety of wastes (including animal products and food-soiled paper) than you might be able to accommodate in home composting. Check with your local waste management authority to find options for the disposal of food and yard wastes in your community.

If you don’t have access to composting, you can dispose of most food waste in under-sink food waste disposers, also known as garbage disposals. Many municipal wastewater treatment facilities have anaerobic digesters that extract energy in the form of biogas from solids in the waste water, and most can produce soil amendments such as fertilizer from processed solids. Some wastewater treatment systems benefit from the addition of food solids, because that can make the process of converting waste into energy more efficient, but too much or the wrong types of food waste can overwhelm the system. This is one of the reasons it makes sense to use in-sink disposers as a complement to municipal and backyard composting programs. Moreover, in-sink food disposal systems increase the amount of water used at home. Although this increase is only a small amount for any individual home, the added water from tens of thousands of homes switching to in-sink disposal units can be significant. Finally, cooking oils, fats, and greases should never be disposed of down the drain. Even if you use hot water, detergents, or garbage disposals, oils can congeal in pipes and potentially contribute to sewage backups.

To sum up, food scraps should not be sent to landfills or incinerators. Instead, the best option for disposing of food waste is composting, whether at home or in a municipal system. The next best option is typically an in-sink waste disposer – but check to make sure your community isn’t running low on water before using garbage disposals, and make sure only to put allowed wastes down the drain.

NCAA Final Four Goes Green

2011-04-04T15:41:07Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

The cultural shift toward ever increasing environmental responsibility is being given added momentum by the current NCAA Final Four event.

For the first time in the history of the NCAA Final Four, a Sustainability Committee was formed to incorporate ecologically intelligent practices into the event’s planning and production. The paper products and other supplies that were purchased, the facilities and services being relied upon, have all been selected with a sensitivity towards reducing the threats we all face from global warming, deforestation, toxic wastes, and hazardous chemicals in our water and food.

After all, without clean water and clean air, without a chemically stable atmosphere, we cannot play basketball.

As one of the most culturally influential sporting events in the United States, it is gratifying to see the NCAA Final Four producers take their environmental obligations very seriously. This year NRDC was honored to have been a founding member of the NCAA Final Four Sustainability Committee, teaming up with LG Electronics, Waste Management, Reliant Park, the City of Houston, and the George R Brown Convention Center to help launch the long journey we all need to take to reduce our collective ecological footprint.

The first thing we did was commission a Sustainability Performance Assessment to gauge current sustainability practices at the facilities and identify opportunities for improvement. This Sustainability Performance Assessment was used to develop the baseline data against which the NCAA Final Four Sustainability Committee is measuring our achievements.

With support from the City of Houston, 100% of the energy used by George R Brown Convention Center was supplied by renewable wind power; solar panels are being used to operate emergency power systems; and energy efficient water pumps that use 60% less energy than the previous pumps were installed.

At the Reliant Stadium, carbon offsets into wind and solar power projects were purchased from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which by itself results in avoided global warming emissions totaling 210 US tons in CO2 equivalents, representing about 509,000 auto miles.

Recycling bins are conveniently located everywhere one walks at the event: 600 recycling bins have been permanently added to the facility, and there is now a one-for-one ratio of recycling bins to waste bins at this giant facility. At least four times during each game the large jumbotron screen looming over the stadium reminds attendees to “act responsibly” by recycling their waste.

(See www.nrdc.org/greenbusiness/guides/sports/ncaafinalfoursustainability.asp for more details on the NCAA Final Four event’s environmental initiatives.)

There are 400,000 student athletes in the NCAA, and millions more pay attention to NCAA events. What a contrast it is today to witness the embrace of environmental stewardship by the NCAA Final Four producers, as well as all the major professional sports leagues in North America, while political ideologues in Congress and in many state governments attack essential environmental protection agencies. Politically inspired attacks on environmentalism not only ignore scientific facts, but run counter to mainstream American culture.

Sports matter. The most widely watched TV shows worldwide are sports shows. And professional sports is a multi-hundred billion dollar non-partisan business, so its embrace of environmentalism helps us deflect ideological and politically inspired attacks on the environmental agenda.

Besides helping to accelerate a cultural shift in how Americans view environmental issues, this work is helping to send a meaningful signal to the multi-hundred billion dollar supply chain of professional sports. The environmental message that the NCAA is sending to the marketplace, which is also being sent as well by the team presidents, commissioners, and stadium operators in professional sports, is potent: in the 21st century, environmental criteria must be part of your business.

( see http://www.nrdc.org/greenbusiness/guides/sports and http://www.greensports.org/mlb for more information about NRDC’s work greening professional sports.)

Green Sports Alliance Launched

2011-03-21T17:31:00Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

Representatives from the major professional sports leagues in North America came together today to announce the launching of the Green Sports Alliance (GSA). ( http://www.greensportsalliance.org )

With public endorsements from league Commissioners, and from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, it is the first time that teams from Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and Major League Soccer (MLS) have collaborated on a common agenda to reduce their impact on the environment.

The GSA was conceived of and initiated by NRDC and representatives of Paul G. Allen’s sports teams in the fall of 2009. Mr. Allen, a founder of Microsoft, owns the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers and is co-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC.

Founding members of the GSA include MLB’s Seattle Mariners, NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, WNBA’s Seattle Storm and MLS’ Seattle Sounders FC. Members of the GSA representing sporting facilities include Safeco Field (Seattle), Qwest Field and Qwest Field Event Center (Seattle), KeyArena at Seattle Center (Seattle), the Rose Garden (Portland) and Rogers Arena (Vancouver). These organizations are working in close partnership with the NRDC, the U.S. EPA, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation and Portland State University to identify and adopt innovative environmental initiatives and share information about best practices and opportunities to measure and reduce their impact on the environment.

Joe Abernathy, President of the Board of Directors of the Stadium Managers Association, (and the Stadium Operations Manager at Busch Field in St. Louis,) also weighed in favorably on the formation of the Green Sports Alliance: “The Stadium Managers Association is very excited to hear about the formation of the Green Sports Alliance. Their objective of developing an advanced environmental model for sports facilities aligns with our objective to assist stadium managers in achieving the highest levels of facility operations. The Stadium Managers Association looks forward to working with the Green Sports Alliance on these common objectives of enhancing the efficient and sustainable operations of stadiums.” (See below for statements by league Commissioners and US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.)

The commitment by six professional leagues to enhance their environmental profile in a meaningful and public way marks a watershed in the history of professional sports. This type of inter-league collaboration is unprecedented. And it also marks a watershed in the history of environmental advocacy; forty years after the first Earth Day, environmental advocates have finally joined their cause with one of the most culturally influential sectors on Earth, professional sports. Hopefully, all professional leagues worldwide will follow their lead.

Since 2004, NRDC has been a leader in the greening of professional sports and entertainment. In 2004 NRDC helped green the Philadelphia Eagles football team’s Lincoln Financial Field. We then began collaborating with professional sports more widely in 2005 and in 2008 NRDC initiated the launch of the Broadway Green Alliance (http://www.broadwaygreen.com/ ) that has brought together all Broadway theater owners and scores of productions throughout the nation in behalf of environmental stewardship. In 2009 NRDC launched the Music Saves Mountains Campaign ( http://www.musicsavesmountains.org/ ) to protect the Appalachian region and we initiated and have overseen the greening of the Motion Picture Academy Awards and GRAMMYS since 2007.

There are cultural barriers to sustainability, besides financial and technical barriers, and this culture-influencing work is helping to shift perceptions globally about how we should treat the organism that gives us air to breathe and water to drink.

As the principal environmental advisor to Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Soccer (MLS), the NCAA Final Four Sustainability Committee and the United States Tennis Association (USTA), and one of the advisors to the National Football League (NFL), NRDC’s work greening North American sports leagues is the most comprehensive and successful sports greening initiative in the world. As a result of NRDC’s work, more than 100 professional teams have adopted environmental initiatives at their stadiums or arenas, and countless “Jewel Events” by the leagues have benefitted from NRDC’s guidance and expertise. ( see http://www.nrdc.org/greenbusiness/guides/sports and http://www.greensports.org/mlb ) for more information about NRDC’s work greening professional sports.)

Sports matter. Outside of the family, the most influential role models in our society are athletes and entertainers. The most widely watched TV shows worldwide are sports shows. And professional sports leagues are non-partisan businesses, so their embrace of environmentalism helps us deflect ideological and politically inspired attacks on the environmental agenda.

What a contrast it is today to witness the embrace of environmental stewardship by all the major professional sports leagues in North America, while political ideologues in Congress and in many state governments attack environmental science and attack as well the work of our essential environmental protection agencies. Politically inspired attacks on environmentalism not only ignore scientific facts, but run counter to mainstream American culture.

Besides helping to accelerate a cultural shift in how Americans view environmental issues, I believe that this work is helping to make a meaningful difference on the multi-hundred billion dollar supply chain of professional sports. The environmental message that team presidents, Commissioners, and stadium operators are sending to the marketplace is potent: To do business with professional sports, environmental criteria must be part of your business. That message is being heard by the chemical industry which helps maintain professional contest fields, the food and beverage industries which feed the fans, the energy industry, the auto and consumer products industries that provide energy to and sponsor league and club events.

Below are the statements in support of the Green Sports Alliance by the six Commissioners of professional sports leagues in North America and from Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

From MLB Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig

“Major League Baseball applauds the leadership shown by the Seattle Mariners’ environmental efforts. Their participation in the Green Sports Alliance demonstrates the commitment made by MLB and our Clubs to act in environmentally-sensitive ways. We support all the members of the professional sports community working to advance this important cause and wish the Green Sports Alliance the best of success.”

From NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell

“The NFL is proud to support the greening efforts of the Seattle Seahawks. Environmental stewardship is important to the NFL and all our clubs, and the Seattle Seahawks are a leader in this area. Enhancing the sustainability of professional sports is a worthy goal, and we wish the Green Sports Alliance great success.”

From NBA Commissioner David Stern

“The Seattle Storm and the Portland Trail Blazers are helping to lead the way on the greening of professional sports and the NBA and WNBA are grateful for their leadership. Their participation in the Green Sports Alliance holds the potential to further the greening of professional sports nationally and we wish the GSA the best of success in this important endeavor."

From NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman

“The NHL strongly supports the greening efforts of the Vancouver Canucks. Their participation in the Green Sports Alliance brings teams together from all professional leagues in the Pacific Northwest and aligns with the NHL’s environmental initiatives. This effort holds the promise of even further greening of professional sports."

From MLS Commissioner Don Garber

“Major League Soccer and MLS W.O.R.K.S. are proud of the tremendous work Seattle Sounders FC are doing in conjunction with the Green Sports Alliance. Our league prides itself on giving back to the communities that support our clubs, and enhancing the environment is an initiative that all of us at MLS support.”

From EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson

“EPA commends the founding members of the Green Sports Alliance for recognizing the importance of protecting the environment and stepping up their green game. We thank them for their commitment to protecting our health and the environment. We hope that their efforts and the work toward environmental innovation will inspire their many fans and fellow teams to make choices that protect our people and our planet.”

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon and led by Executive Director, Martin Tull, the GSA will host a Green Sports Summit in August of 2011 in Portland, which will bring together facility managers, event producers and marketing directors with environmental leaders such as NRDC to share best practices and discuss opportunities and challenges the teams face in their respective cities.

Pro Sports Leagues Embrace Solar Power

2010-09-08T19:08:18Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

“Sports matter. They hold a singular position among leisure time activities and have an unparalleled impact on the everyday lives of billions of people…Sports shape and stabilize social and …political identifies around the globe…to an unprecedented extent…Sports’ major protagonists…[are] global icons.” So say the authors of a recently published book titled Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture.

Given the cultural influence of sports it is noteworthy that in the past month every major professional sports league in the United States has distributed the Solar Electric Energy Guide for Stadiums and Arenas recently published by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. Every league is now encouraging the development of solar power to all 140 professional teams and the operators of their stadiums and arenas. (You can view the Guide at http://www.nrdc.org/greenbusiness/guides/sports/solarguide.asp )

Think of the potential it offers to environmentally minded consumers and businesses alike to have the support for environmentalism coming from Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer. NRDC is the principal environmental advisor to all these leagues. We have joined with professional sports to advance environmental goals because the most potent barriers to sustainability just might be cultural barriers more than they are financial or technical barriers.

Sports is culturally iconic and to address our ecological crises we must change the cultural assumption that it is OK to pump more and more climate changing chemicals into the atmosphere each and every day and expect nothing to happen. We must change the cultural assumption that it is OK to rely on an economic system that forces more and more species into extinction. We must change our cultural assumption about how we relate with the organism that provides air to breathe and water to drink.

Emitting carbon and instigating biodiversity loss by thoughtless purchasing and thoughtless production should become the cultural equivalent of drunk driving, of racism, of child abuse, of sexual harassment. Damaging the Earth must become culturally unacceptable. Sports’ embrace of environmentalism can help us get that message out.

It is rare for all professional sports leagues to join in a common initiative. Throughout US history professional sports leagues have joined in supporting our troops in times of war. They have joined to support racial equality. And now they are stepping up for the environment.

The promotion of solar power to all professional sports teams by all professional sports leagues reflects a meaningful cultural shift in our nation’s thinking about energy and the environment that is taking place throughout the business community and the nation at large. It’s not about politics; it’s about what is right for the world. Yes, it is true that Congress failed to pass a bill limiting the emission of global warming pollution. That is an awful abdication of governmental responsibility. However, what the distribution of the NRDC/BEF solar Guide points out is that the private sector does not have to wait for government action in order for it to address the urgent issue of climate change.

To date, seven teams have installed solar arrays at their stadiums or arenas, and these include AT&T Park (San Francisco Giants) , STAPLES Center (LA Lakers/Clippers/Kings/Sparks), US Airways Center (Phoenix Suns), Progressive Field (Cleveland Indians) Pepsi Center (Denver Nuggets) Coors Field (Colorado Rockies) Fenway Park.

Hopefully, most if not all professional stadiums and arenas will follow their example and will install some type of solar array within the next five years. It doesn’t need to the largest solar array in the world to be meaningful, especially it if it is built on a visible structure like a sports stadium or arena.

Indeed, the fact is that there is not any one single answer to the ecological crises that we face. It is not a matter of just reforming China or just changing consumption in the USA or just eliminating Hummers from the marketplace. The fact is that we will solve our ecological problems when billions of people and millions of businesses shift towards ecologically intelligent procurement and operations. The example of professional sports today confirms that we don’t need to wait for government to act in order to advance that agenda.

The embrace of environmentalism by professional sports provides us all with a new and large opportunity to educate people worldwide about the need to do something, however small it might seem, to protect our biosphere.

On the Passing of NYT reporter John Holusha

2010-08-30T12:51:54Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

Environmentalists and thoughtful people everywhere lost a compatriot last week with the passing of John Holusha, a longtime New York Times business reporter.

John Holusha arrived in New York in the late 1980s from the New York Times’ Detroit desk. Throughout the 1990s and until 2004 or so, my colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council and I spoke often with John, collaborated with him on stories, and we read his work regularly.

John was among the first mainstream business reporters to pick up on the economic development potential of clean technologies and he wrote often and valuably about the intersection of business and environmentalism. In the early 1990s John wrote about battles at the Federal Trade Commission as environmentalists and industry reps fought over the meaning of proliferating eco-labels. John, a realist, would probably not express much surprise at the fact that the issue of eco-labeling that he wrote about almost twenty years ago remains ineffectively addressed by the FTC to this day.

John wrote about recycling, real estate, anything having to do with business, the more technology it involved, the better. I was one of a number of sources who provided background briefings for John on various environmental issues and I spent time doing that during NRDC’s behind the scenes battle with various agencies in the Clinton White House. This was back in 1993 and 1994, as we worked to draft a first-of-its-kind Presidential Executive Order that would require federal executive branch agencies to buy environmentally preferable goods and services. After we won the battle to get the Executive Order signed by President Clinton, John wrote the front page New York Times article about it.

A number of us at NRDC also worked with John throughout the 1990s as he followed and wrote about our project to develop a recycling paper mill in the South Bronx. An environmental remediation project anchored by a newspaper recycling mill, the paper recycling project was also designed to help stimulate green jobs in an economically depressed area.

John broke the story about that South Bronx paper recycling mill, known as the Bronx Community Paper Company, in a front page Business Section article in May of 1994. It was a lengthy and accurate description of the project, accompanied by a large, above the fold photo, and although John was a fan of the paper mill project, his article was balanced in giving voice to the project’s small group of detractors, and realistic about the hurdles we faced.

John was as interested in engineering and finance as he was in politics and environmental policy. The Bronx recycling mill was designed by the artist Maya Lin, an aesthetic aspect of the project that John particularly liked. His positive and inspiring support for the vision behind the paper mill project encouraged many of us to believe that our noble endeavor would succeed. After all, because of his work our project literally passed “the front page test”.

John was an insightful and fair reporter, two traits among many that made him so widely trusted. Although John was trained as an engineer, he caught on early to the fact that along with the technical and financial hurdles to sustainability, there are also many cultural barriers, and that cultural impediments to sustainability might be the most potent barriers of all. He was a realist.

John was not without his bias, and he didn’t pretend to be. To his credit, John’s personal bias was humanitarian and empathic. Commenting to me over lunch one afternoon, he mused about the Bronx paper mill project’s humanitarian vision. Besides making money by recycling paper, the project was designed to help alleviate poverty in New York City, provide social and medical services, and finance a homeless dormitory and a book store. Financially, from a business point of view, it was a heavy lift. John admired its technical features but its social vision seemed to appeal to him most: “I know I’m supposed to be neutral” he said, “but I really hope this project gets built.”

I am certain that there are many, many people out there who have similarly warm tales to share about John Holusha’s smart, professional and humane approach to his work. He was a very decent, sweet man. His much-too-soon passing is a loss, and I extend deepest sympathies to his family from all of John’s friends and admirers at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

End the Dumping of e-Waste into the Developing World

2010-08-15T12:58:54Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

The New York Times Magazine published a photo essay titled “Dumping Across the Digital Divide” this week, which documents the dumping and hazardous management of electronic waste in Ghana. (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/08/04/magazine/20100815-dump.html )This practice is not limited to Ghana and infects many other developing countries including China, India and Pakistan.

As NRDC’s representative to the United Nations Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste in the late 1980s, a treaty that was intended to end the dumping of hazardous wastes by industrialized countries into the developing world, I have watched with disappointment for almost two decades as the United States stands virtually alone in the world in not ratifying that treaty. The dumping of electronic waste, which was a very small fraction of our concern when we negotiated the Basel treaty, is now a huge hazardous waste problem in the developing world, contaminating water supplies and land with toxic heavy metals, dioxins, PCBs and acids, and putting some of the world’s poorest populations at great risk.

Even with all that we know about this illicit, dangerous and unethical trade, it is unlikely that the United States Congress will ratify the Basel treaty due to opposition from unethical waste processors with strong political clout in Washington, DC. And it is even less likely that Congress will enact amendments to the Basel treaty adopted by European Union nations that strengthen it and make the export of e-waste to the developing world outright illegal.

Self-interested firms who export e-waste to the developing world misleadingly argue that this is a “Free Trade” issue. Or they claim to be “donating” used electronics to poor people around the world who can’t afford new electronic equipment. What they are really doing is hiding behind phantom policies that sound nice but in fact export poisons to some of the poorest people on Earth, people already disproportionately burdened with unimaginable ecological, financial, social and political problems.

A new certification program called e-Stewards can help US businesses and consumers avoid becoming complicit in e-waste dumping. E-Stewards, which certifies that a recycler is not exporting e-waste for dumping, is the only certification program designed and supported by the environmental community. E-Stewards certification is also the only program that comports with international laws against e-waste dumping. Businesses and consumers should be wary of recyclers touting any other certification scheme for e-waste management, or none at all. Indeed, some e-waste certification schemes were designed by representatives of the companies that engage in dumping and seek to preserve business as usual.

A History of the First Testing The Waters Report

2010-07-28T14:00:00Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

The opening sentence of NRDC’s first Testing the Waters report, published in the summer of 1991, began as follows:

“During 1988, an unusually high number of beach closures on both coasts, which were linked to uncommon amounts of floatable wastes, focused public attention on the potential health risks of swimming in coastal waters.”

Unlike today’s more comprehensive, national analysis, our first Testing The Waters report, which my colleague Sarah Chasis and I originated, was a study of beach closings in only ten coastal states. And while today we know that closures are due primarily to sewage and storm water contamination, that was not initially clear in the late 1980s, when reports of medical waste and other debris washing up on beaches was an almost daily occurrence.

NRDC was a different place then. We were a smallish group of lawyers and technical specialists and in 1991, when the first Testing The Waters report came out, we had about 160,000 members and contributors, about one-tenth the membership that we have now. We had five offices, New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, a newly opened office in Los Angeles and we still had a Honolulu office, which we no longer have. (Today we also have offices in Chicago, Beijing and an outpost in Montana.)

The first Testing The Waters report was produced before the internet existed, before email and before NRDC had installed desktop computers. Data gathering and research for the report was painstakingly done in a library, by telephone and by what is now referred to as “snail mail”. We wrote the report and designed the tables and charts on legal pads and then passed our notes on to colleagues who performed what was then called “word processing.” It is possible that some younger folks might not know what “word processing” is. Essentially, what we then called “word processing” is what we would today call “typing into a computer”. But this was way back before office computers provided routine access to an internet and before email, when computers were first evolving and the first advance they offered was faster typing, with previously unheard of cut and paste options, which was then known as “word processing.” There was no electronic version of the first Testing The Waters report. If you wanted copies, you wrote us a letter by “snail mail” and we’d send you a copy, for free. Today, we can send you a PDF of the first report in about five seconds. At that time, the term PDF did not exist.

Back in 1991 NRDC had no communication department. All senior program staff, including Sarah and I, wrote our own press releases, organized our own press conferences and interviews, and maintained our own personal relationships with reporters. The press conference for the first Testing the Waters, at which Sarah and I both spoke, was a big deal and our release generated national news.

The best things in life are often unplanned, and such was the case with Testing The Waters. As mentioned above, in the late 1980s floatable debris was washing up on U.S. beaches at an unprecedented rate. In part this was due to unscrupulous waste haulers trying to avoid newly implemented federal and state waste management laws, which made safer disposal more costly, especially for the biological and pathological wastes generated by medical establishments. Much of the waste generating public attention was medical waste, including syringes, test tubes and blood soiled debris. The public was alarmed and the media attention was fierce. I was being interviewed almost daily on the subject, having served on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's Peer Review Panel for its Report to Congress on the Health Implications of Medical Waste. (I even appeared on Larry King to discuss the issue, right after an interview with Elizabeth Taylor).

One state that seemed disproportionately affected by waste wash ups was New Jersey. It seemed that New Jersey was disproportionately affected because that state most frequently closed its beaches due to debris washing up. But was N.J. really suffering from more waste washing up, or did the state seem to be more affected because it was more protective of its citizens and closed its beaches more often when a waste incident occurred?

That was the question that N.J. Congressman Bill Hughes had at the time and he called NRDC Senior Attorney Sarah Chasis to find out what she knew about the subject of beach closures. Since I direct NRDC’s waste management program, Sarah asked me what I knew about waste washing up on beaches and how often it caused beach closures in N.J. and other states.

“Good question” I thought. I did not know how wastes washing up on beaches affected closures state-by-state, and I told Sarah that I would look into the issue. I assigned my research assistant at the time, Jennifer Kassalow, to work with me investigating beach closure standards. (Jennifer later married another NRDC researcher, Sam Hartwell, they had three children and moved to Kenya to do social and environmental work there.)

It also occurred to me that besides reviewing beach closure standards, it would be informative to count the number of beach closures in the states that we were studying, since that had never been done. At that time no one documented how many beach closures took place. I thought it was an interesting question worth investigating.

Since most of the wash-ups of waste were happening on the Atlantic coast, Sarah and I decided to focus on the eastern seaboard. Also, in that pre-computer era, focusing on our side of the continent was logistically easier. Moreover, since NRDC had just newly opened an LA office, we figured it would be good to include California in our study as well, which we did.

Thus, the research design for Testing the Waters began to evolve.

What a simple but great idea that was, and it was totally unplanned.

Neither Sarah nor I had any idea how to do the research we embarked on, since no one entity collected the data we were seeking, so we figured it out as we went along. Not only was there no national database of closures, which our work has since established, but even within individual states data were only sometimes collected, usually county-by-county. Our data gathering was painstakingly laborious and there were moments when I thought that the study simply could not be reliably produced.

As the data trickled in by phone and mail, we were able to establish early on that by far most closures, and certainly the greatest risks, stemmed not from floatable debris washing up on shore, but from high levels of bacteria in coastal waters, primarily due to sewage and storm water contamination.

Moreover, as it became clear that few counties or states kept data on beach closures, and the federal government did not do so at all, much of our original findings focused on what valuable public health related information was not being captured. We discovered that there was no agreement on which indicator organism to use to diagnose bacterial contamination, no nationally or regionally consistent closure standards, and that testing procedures and closure standards often varied even among counties within a single state. Needless to say, there was no federal or regional coordination of testing protocols, closure data gathering or beach closure practices. The risks we identified were meaningful, and the process for keeping the public safe and informed was anarchic, when it existed at all.

Our report was a bombshell. EPA was furious and on the defensive, counties and local authorities governing some of America’s greatest tourist regions were mortified by our findings, and also on the defensive. This was not a welcome report among state regulators, or within the multi-billion dollar coastal tourist industry. The media had a field day and our important message was news all over the country.

Although we started with only 10 states, we documented 2,400 beach closures in 1989 and 1990 combined, [1,400 in 1990 alone]. At the time, I was truly shocked by how many beach closures we documented. Now, sadly, we document tens of thousands of annual beach closures, many times our original findings.

Without initially aiming to do so, we became a catalyst for the more consistent and modern approach to beach closure testing and monitoring that now takes place routinely throughout the United States. Our work led to EPA reforms on monitoring, and it led to requirements for public notification about testing results and closures. Our work helped support the drafting and passage of the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000 (the Beach Act), which required states to perform proper monitoring, authorized funding for that monitoring and directed EPA to do research and update its beach water quality standards.

Needless to say, since our first report was published, all the research for subsequent Testing The Waters reports has benefitted from the increase in data gathering, the development of more consistently applied testing protocols and reporting that our initial report engendered. Beach water quality and the health of beach goers are much better off because of all that. Moreover, since our first report was produced, the availability of the internet, email and computers has made our research and production of Testing the Waters a lot easier. For more on the report, read Sarah Chasis' post.

The 20th annual Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches

Broadway Green at the White House

2010-07-20T16:50:59Z

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, NYC and throughout the world

President Obama and the First Lady celebrated Broadway last night in the East Room of the White House and two co-founders of the Broadway Green Alliance, Susan Sampliner, Company Manager of Wicked, and I, were invited. (http://www.broadwaygreen.com/) Our attendance, as environmentalists working with Broadway's theater owners and influential decision makers to help reduce the environmental impacts of The Great White Way, was a gentle but meaningful recognition by the White House that every sector in our society, even entertainment, has to do something about climate change and other ecological crises.

Every day, more than ninety million tons of greenhouses gases are emitted into the atmosphere, and each day more are emitted than the day preceding. At the same time, we are losing an acre of tropical forest every second, and have been for twenty years. We lose an acre of wetlands every minute, and forests are being converted into toilet paper. Our oceans are at risk, saturated with oil, acidification, and plastic debris, and biodiversity loss is occurring at a rate and scale that is unprecedented in human history.

Obviously, these pressures are not the result of only one single bad actor. They are the result of billions of ecologically ignorant production and consumption decisions. All of us, all industries, and all consumers contribute.

Hence, while some members of the Senate are willing to regulate carbon emissions only from power plants, and many other Senators are not even willing to regulate carbon at all, we must find innovative approaches to mobilize our economy and our culture to respond to the planetary emergency we face. Indeed, the fact is that even if a law is enacted that regulates carbon at power plants, we still need to move all other sectors in our society away from fossil fuels and towards other ecologically intelligent practices.

Broadway theaters are small contributors to the climate crisis. But the willingness of theater operators, and touring productions, to collaborate with NRDC and adjust their practices to reduce their carbon footprint and impacts on biodiversity sends an environmentally informative message to some of the more than forty million people who visit Broadway shows in New York City and around the country each year.

Broadway’s visibility is global. People from all over the world come to see Broadway shows, and if they walk away learning that Broadway has gone green due to the outreach efforts of the Broadway Green Alliance, they might be reminded that addressing the global ecological crisis is everyone’s responsibility. And with so many people around the world disappointed by the lack of carbon regulations in the United States, their tourist visit to Broadway, or one of Broadway's 200 touring productions, helps them learn that there are meaningful non-governmental initiatives taking place in the United States to address climate change and other ecological pressures.

Broadway’s cultural influence is also social and political, which is why Broadway’s embrace of environmentalism is important. As the President said last night, Broadway shows are more than entertainment, they have been “shaping our opinions about race and religion, death and disease, power and politics.” And now Broadway, through its work with the Broadway Green Alliance and NRDC, is helping to shape opinions about environmentalism too.

Besides public education and the education of the many supply chain vendors servicing Broadway’s theaters, some of the accomplishments that the Broadway Green Alliance has instigated in the past two years are tangibly meaningful, and include the following:

All 40 Broadway theaters have converted marquee and roof signs to LEDs, CFLs, or cold cathodes (as of April 2010). These bulbs typically use 20% the energy of traditional marquee bulbs. Upper theater signs have also been replaced, using bulbs that consume only 25% of energy used previously. Incandescent lights are also being replaced with CFLs in dressing rooms.
Energy efficient lighting upgrades have been installed at 90% of touring venues.
31 of 39 theatres have instituted comprehensive recycling programs both front of house and backstage, and many productions are incorporating significant paper use reductions backstage.
84% of all scenery from shows that have closed since January 2009 was recycled or reused.
Through a sponsorship with LG, all forty Broadway theaters are replacing older washer/dryers with energy and water efficient (Energy Star rated) machines. The energy savings achieved by making this switch is enough to power all Broadway theatre marquees for more than 3 months.
Productions are switching to rechargeable batteries and greener cleaning products.
Many productions are replacing the use of bottled water with water filtration systems and reusable bottles.
Roundabout Theatre Company’s Henry Miller’s Theatre and Disney’s New Amsterdam Theatre both have installed waterless urinals, and signs above their waterless and low-flow devices educate patrons about this water conserving technology that they may want to use in their own homes or businesses.
As part of the BGA’s “Touring Green” program, touring shows have offset over 4,000 tons of carbon emissions associated with the transport of their equipment by investing in wind power and other renewable energy projects offered through program partner Native Energy.
Almost all productions now running on Broadway have selected a “Green Captain”, on site to educate performers, crew, and management alike about the constant need to reduce ecological impacts and help implement more sustainable practices during productions.

Besides the political, economic and technical barriers to sustainability, there are also cultural barriers to sustainability. By engaging our nation’s cultural elite in behalf of ecological progress, meaningful steps are advanced which make addressing our climate crisis and other ecological problems more culturally accepted. We must end the cultural assumption that it is OK to destabilize the chemical stability of our atmosphere, or blow up forested mountains in Appalachia to acquire coal for energy. Collaborating with cultural elites helps us get that message out.

Last night, the movers and shakers of Broadway were in attendance, and they noticed the White House’s embrace of the Broadway Green Alliance. Robert Wankel of the Shubert Organization was in attendance, as were Nick Scandalios of the Nederlander Organization and Paul Libin of Jujamcyn. Collectively, these people manage about eighty percent of all Broadway theaters. Millions of people see their shows each year, and all of their organizations work with the Broadway Green Alliance, as does Broadway League Executive Director Charlotte St. Martin, who was also in attendance last night. Nor did it hurt to have Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, learn of Broadway’s interest in greening, and last night provided that opportunity as well.

Hopefully, our government will soon adopt a comprehensive law limiting climate changing pollutants. Science certainly dictates that that should be done. But the slow pace of legislative reform and the urgent ecological needs of the planet don’t work in tandem. Consequently, market based initiatives are called for, whether or not government properly accepts its responsibilities. By using the visibility of Broadway and other culture influencing sectors to leverage our message to the industrial supply chain, NRDC is working hard to move our economy and public sentiment towards ecological sanity, whether government acts or not.