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China Looks to Ramp Up Energy-Saving Retrofits

2013-05-21T16:13:44Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

When the posh architectural firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill designed the Chemsunny World Trade Center in Beijing, it was more efficient than a typical glass-walled luxury building in China. The fifteen-story building, formed of three connected towers, boasted a 50,000-square-meter “double skin breathing” glass wall—two panels of glass sandwiching a layer of air circulating between—which was about 40 percent more energy efficient than a typical glass facade. The building’s interlocking geometrical design, influenced by Chinese calligraphy, allowed for an expansive atrium and plenty of natural light. A large rooftop garden, irrigated with recycled water, provided a critical cooling effect.

The building was completed in 2006. When I toured the building last month, it wasn’t merely to admire the design. The building had already undergone an energy efficient retrofit.

The double-skin breathing glass wall is 40 percent more energy-efficient than normal glass.

China is still putting up buildings at an astonishing pace, although perhaps slightly slower now than its peak a few years ago, when it was estimated that China built 2 billion square meters of building space—the equivalent of every building in Canada—each year. The World Bank estimated in 2010 that nearly half of all the buildings constructed in the world over the next two decades would be in China.

China’s building sector accounts for more than 25 percent of China’s energy use, and Chinese buildings are on track to become responsible for one-fifth of the world’s coal consumption by 2020—stretching the limits of what China can supply. Improving the efficiency of its buildings, new and old, is a key part of China’s strategy to reduce energy demand.

By 2020, 30 percent of new construction in China will be green buildings, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Retrofitting existing buildings for energy efficiency is also an important strategy. There are already more than 40 billion square meters of building space on the ground in China (about 5 times as much as in the United States). The Chinese government has launched a program to retrofit homes in colder areas, and in its current five-year plan, aims to retrofit 4 million square meters of nonresidential building space in ten cities, reducing each building’s average energy consumption 20 to 30 percent. That would be the equivalent of retrofitting 16 Empire State Buildings—one of the largest office buildings in the world.

The Chemsunny retrofit is an unusual case, given its recent construction and existing energy-saving features. But the building’s owner, the state-run chemical giant SinoChem, was keen to set an example. They invested about $2.85 million in the retrofit, an investment that is expected to cut about 1,700 tons of global warming pollution while saving roughly $250,000 each year in energy costs. Older buildings, which are the typical targets for retrofits, would probably see quicker payback times. A recent retrofit of an office building in Nanjing, built in 1997, has an expected payback period of about five-and-a-half years.

To generate energy savings, the Chemsunny retrofit focused on the innards of the building, rather than its envelope. The lighting and HVAC systems were upgraded, and computerized controls installed to monitor building systems and meter their energy use. Much of the work was entrusted to Johnson Controls, the Milwaukee-based engineering firm that also retrofitted the Empire State Building, in addition to its work on the Ministry of Science and Technology Building in Beijing, China’s first green building. The Chemsunny World Trade Center earned a LEED-Existing Buildings Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The carefully measured energy savings at Chemsunny will go into preparing a case study on payback time that can help influence other builders and property owners. The government is setting an example by investing in selected cities for retrofit demonstrations, and in fact, has a massive opportunity for energy savings simply by retrofitting some of the 16 billion square meters of space it owns in city civil buildings alone—more than double the entire commercial building space of the United States. But ultimately, retrofits need to take off in the private sector, and hard numbers on cost savings will help move the market.

A comprehensive package of government policies can help overcome market barriers to retrofits in the private sector. New York City’s Greener, Greater Buildings Plan targets the city’s largest buildings, and requires that owners publicly disclose building energy use, just as they would square footage and property tax. Owners are educated on energy-saving measures and can take advantage of special financing programs to get capital for energy efficient upgrades. Other facets of the program include rigorous standards for lighting efficiency, which end up being highly cost-effective for building owners, and a tenant engagement program to ensure that tenants and owners work collaboratively.

A report from NRDC and the Boston Consulting Group found that if all of China’s commercial and residential buildings, new and existing, could cut energy use by 70 percent and 55 percent, respectively, by 2015, China would cut 2 billion tons of global warming pollution. It’s an optimistic figure, but it does demonstrate the enormous upside of making buildings more energy efficient, not only for China, but for the planet.

New Secretary of Energy Can Reduce Global Warming Pollution with Efficiency Standards and Continued Support for Clean, Renewable Energy

2013-05-16T12:49:37Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

“A low-carbon economy is absolutely critical,” Ernest Moniz told senators at his nomination hearing. As widely anticipated, Moniz, a former top Department of Energy (DOE) official and head of MIT’s Energy Initiative, was confirmed today as the new Secretary of Energy, with plenty of bipartisan support. We at NRDC look forward to working with Secretary Moniz to continue President Obama’s push to expand clean energy and efficiency. The President, in the budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 he recently released, would give Moniz a solid start in advancing the low-carbon economy, by increasing DOE funding for renewable energy, advanced vehicle research and development, and energy efficiency programs.

In the early years of President Obama’s first term, the DOE had a strong record in improving energy efficiency, particularly in its successful program to set energy efficiency standards for appliances, electronics, and other equipment. However, the agency’s efforts on this front slowed down and seemed to weaken in the second half. Until last week, the DOE hadn’t released any updated or new energy efficiency standards for nearly a year--despite firm statutory deadlines--resulting in a backlog in this highly effective program.

The silence was finally broken just the other day when the DOE issued new standards for the distribution transformers that sit atop power poles, which step down high-voltage current to the 110 or 220 volts used by appliances and equipment. There are about 40 million of these transformers nationwide, and strong standards would have translated into major energy and cost savings. But these standards were not as strong as they should have been, and left significant savings on the table. Moniz can make a big difference in getting DOE’s efficiency program back on track and renewing and accelerating its earlier success. He will also need to run interference at the Office of Management and Budget, where the slow review of DOE standards has contributed to the backlog.

Issuing strong efficiency standards, and updating them regularly, has proven to be a powerful and cost-effective approach to saving energy on a broad scale, reducing global warming pollution and saving money for consumers and businesses. However, seven other federal efficiency standards for equipment and appliances, ranging from microwave ovens to electric motors, are overdue, and other important ones are in the works. Secretary Moniz should move quickly to update these standards and pass energy savings onto consumers. According to the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, each day the overdue standards are delayed costs consumers and businesses about $10 million in lost savings, and produces over one hundred thousand metric tons of global warming pollution.

As secretary, Moniz can also continue to drive clean, renewable energy development that will provide an alternative to polluting fossil fuels. Under departing secretary Steven Chu, the agency oversaw $90 billion in clean energy investment, resulting, among other successes, in the weatherization of more than 1 million homes for low-income families, a move that saves nearly half a billion dollars in heating and cooling costs every year. DOE investments also helped double the domestic supply of parts for the wind industry, and supported nearly 200,000 renewable energy jobs as well.

The DOE’s investments in clean energy have been rated a success by independent analysts, despite a flurry of Republican attacks. The President’s budget for FY2014 strives to capitalize on this success by increasing the DOE’s funding for renewable energy research and development over last year, as well as funding for advanced vehicle technologies. It would also increase funding for the promising ARPA-E program, which supports early-stage clean energy research and enjoys bipartisan support.

ARPA-E is modeled after the Department of Defense’s highly successful DARPA, which spawned the Internet, GPS, and other commercially successful technologies. ARPA-E innovators are already starting to attract private venture capital for potential breakthrough technologies, such as high-energy lithium batteries that could be used for electric vehicles, low-cost solar panels, and powerful wind turbines that can operate at high altitudes and greater wind speeds. The game-changer for energy could be taking shape right now, thanks to support from ARPA-E.

Today’s technologies are helping get more clean cars on the road, more energy efficient buildings on the ground, and building a supply of clean, renewable energy to power our homes and businesses. But we need political leadership and consistent support for clean energy to speed the process, and create an environment where tomorrow’s clean energy technologies can thrive.

With his strong record in energy policy and in science, and his ability to work with the many diverse constituencies served by the DOE, Moniz is an excellent position to make progress on the President’s climate agenda. By pushing through the delayed efficiency standards, by helping scientists and innovators break through financing and bureaucratic barriers and speed their technologies to market, the DOE can help us meet our energy needs through greater efficiency and clean, renewable energy, instead of continuing to drive global warming pollution.

High School Journalists Tackle School Lunch, and More Good News about School Food

2013-05-07T14:31:09Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

“I bring my lunch to school every day because the school food is pretty disgusting,” Nick Hilliard, a senior at Apopka High School in Florida, told high school reporter Rachel Armstrong.

“If you’re willing to spend some money, you can have a well-balanced meal,” said a senior from Portland, Oregon, in her school newspaper.

“A lot of the food is oily. It doesn’t look good,” said a sophomore at California’s Oakland Tech, as quoted in her high school paper.

There’s little argument, from any corner, that school food needs to be better—more nutritious, more thoughtfully produced, tastier, and yet still accessible to the 32 million kids served by the National School Lunch program. High school journalists from across the country, whose stories I’ve quoted above, explored the issue this year as part of the first Healthy and Sustainable School Food Journalism Awards, sponsored by the Earth Day Network, the Epstein-Roth Foundation, the UC-Berkeley School of Journalism, and the Edible Schoolyard Project.

Most of the young journalists hit on the crux of the matter. Serving a healthy lunch to millions of schoolchildren, every day, is a highly regulated—and woefully underfunded—endeavor. Schools, no matter how good their intentions, face a number of barriers when trying to improve their food; not merely cost but operational issues, such as complex government reimbursements for food purchases, and infrastructure issues, such as outdated and outgrown kitchens.

But there’s good news at last on the school food front. Despite these hurdles, many schools are finding innovative ways to make school food healthier and more sustainable wherever they can. And parents, kids, and local farms and businesses can work with school districts to help make it happen.

Last fall, the Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves 650,000 meals a day, adopted a Good Food Purchasing Policy, designed to encourage the purchase of more nutritious, local, sustainable, and fairly produced foods. (NRDC helped design these groundbreaking criteria, the first of their kind.) When a major food buyer adopts guidelines like these, it not only helps ensure that kids have access to healthier foods in school—it also helps support local farmers and producers who run sustainable operations, which are less polluting than factory farms and chemically-intensive industrial agriculture.

Los Angeles Unified schools, as of February, have also stopped serving meat in the cafeteria on Mondays, in an effort to encourage kids to eat more plant-based proteins. And PS 244 in Flushing, New York, recently became the first public school in New York City, if not the country, to serve an entirely vegetarian menu. Going meatless will not only improve students’ health by reducing the risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes—it’s also good for the environment. The meat industry worldwide generates nearly 20 percent of man-made global warming pollution. According to the Environmental Working Group, if everyone in the country skipped eating meat and cheese once a week for a year, we would reduce global warming pollution by the equivalent of taking 7 million cars off the road.

Chicago public schools have made great strides in serving better meat in cafeterias. The majority of Chicago schools now offer freshly cooked chicken drumsticks, from birds raised without antibiotics on Amish farms in Indiana. Serving freshly cooked rather than reheated food is in itself a major improvement for Chicago schools. And by making large purchases from farmers who raise antibiotic-free chicken, the school system is helping preserve the effectiveness of medically important antibiotics. The vast majority of poultry and livestock operations regularly dose healthy animals with antibiotics, making these potentially life-saving drugs less effective when they’re truly needed, by humans or animals.

St. Paul, Minnesota, started a similar program to buy antibiotic-free chicken before Chicago’s—it could prove to be a model for other school districts, large and small, to bring healthier foods to school children, as well as help preserve essential medicines.

Connecting schools with suppliers of antibiotic-free meat makes good business sense, too. Suppliers of antibiotic-free poultry usually sell more popular cuts, like chicken breast, to grocery stores and restaurants at a good markup, but are often left looking for buyers for less popular cuts like drumsticks. A chicken drumstick just happens to be the exact portion size of protein required by federal school food nutrition standards. So caterer Chartwells-Thompson, which supplies food for about two-thirds of Chicago city schools, was able to meet nutritional guidelines with fresh, antibiotic-free chicken legs while paying just “a couple of pennies more per portion,” they told the Chicago Tribune, than they would for processed chicken nuggets.

In New York City, NRDC is working directly with the New York City Schools to advise them on sustainable purchasing practices. This work is tied to the larger efforts of the newly created Urban School Food Alliance—a group of six of the largest school districts in the nation that are looking to use their joint purchasing power to bring down the costs of sustainable foods. These schools serve almost 3 million meals per day --more than 800,000 in New York City alone — so the opportunity to boost sustainable foods in the nation's schools is enormous.

Since 2004, New York City public schools have been offering more nutritious menus for students, including fresh fruit at breakfast and lunch. Recently, the City has started introducing more whole grains, as per the government’s new nutrition standards for school food, replacing white bread with whole wheat bread, and offering whole grain pasta; it has also installed more than 1,000 salad bars in city schools. About 14 percent of city school foods come from local produce and dairy vendors, including organic yogurt from Stonyfield Farms.

Getting healthier food into school cafeterias is a massive but necessary undertaking. Improving school food is essential to kids’ health, as well an important part of the larger battle to fix our dysfunctional food system. The new nutritional standards being phased in this year by the USDA are a good start, cutting back on fat and salt and increasing portions of whole grains, fruits and vegetables. But schools, aided and prodded by parents and kids alike, need to find ways to make these standards work in their own cafeterias.

Try reaching out to your school’s food service manager to get a better idea of the challenges they face in improving school lunches, and where you might find opportunities for improvement. Pay a visit to your school cafeteria and find out for yourself what’s being served to your kids. There might be a salad bar, but can the first graders reach it? What exactly is in those hot dogs? Is the first ingredient in that dipping sauce high fructose corn syrup? Advocacy group PEACHSF has a solid, practical collection of how-to guides for parents on school lunch reform. You can also check out the Renegade Lunch Lady, Ann Cooper, whom I met at the TED-X Manhattan conference earlier this year, and her Lunch Box toolkit.

Raising awareness of where our food comes from, and how it’s made, as these award-winning high school journalists have done, is also an essential part of improving school lunches and helping kids eat healthier. As the contest’s third-place winner, Aditi Busgeeth, of Houston’s Alief Taylor High, said: “Sustainability is truly within reach, and school lunches are a progressive first step toward a healthier and environmentally aware generation of Americans.”

Charlotte's Pro-Transit Mayor a Good Choice to Head the Department of Transportation

2013-05-06T14:36:35Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

In 2011, residents of sprawling, fast-growing, Charlotte became part of a case study on obesity. Just a few years earlier, Charlotte had been one of the most car-dependent cities in the nation. But in 2007, the city launched LYNX, its first light-rail line. Researchers found that the Body Mass Index of light rail riders dropped by an average of 1.18 points--the equivalent of a 5-foot, 5-inch person losing about 6.5 pounds—compared to non-riders who also lived along the route. Light-rail riders were also 81 percent less likely to become obese over time, compared to those who drove to work.

So in addition to reducing harmful air pollution, saving gas, creating jobs, and easing traffic congestion, public transit can help you lose weight. Just another example of how the way we move is so critical to how we live. Transportation affects our health, our pocketbooks, our climate, and our economy. Anthony Foxx, Charlotte’s mayor and President Obama’s nominee to succeed Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation, seems to understand that. “He connects the dots between environment, sustainability, and transit,” says Shannon Binns, head of the nonprofit advocacy group Sustain Charlotte, who helped design Foxx’s environmental platform as mayor. Mayor Foxx’s commitment to public transit and alternative modes of transportation, as well as his appreciation of the needs of rapidly growing metropolitan areas, bode well for his potential to head our national transportation agency.

(Image courtesy James Willamor via Flickr)

In his first two weeks of office, Foxx signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, and transportation has been a key part of efforts to reduce the city’s carbon pollution. Last year, Foxx secured investment to expand Charlotte’s wildly successful LYNX light rail, bringing service from downtown north to the UNC-Charlotte campus. The project is expected to create about 7,000 jobs in the region, pushing North Carolina into the number two spot for clean energy jobs in 2012. Under his watch, Charlotte also launched a bike share program, installed electric vehicle charging stations, added sidewalks, and is pushing to launch streetcar service as well. (That project, launched with federal funding, is now getting pushback from the City Council and, disappointingly, from the formerly pro-transit governor of North Carolina, where the state legislature has embarked on a series of attacks on environmental policies.)

As head of the DOT, Foxx would have some big shoes to fill—outgoing secretary Ray LaHood was popular and a surprisingly strong supporter of public transit. But as a former mayor, Foxx would bring a much-needed urban perspective to our national transportation programs. The latest transportation bill shifted more funding to states, which typically prefer to spend on highway projects, at the expense of metropolitan regions. Having the mayor of a thriving city with a growing transit network at the helm of the national transit agency could help metropolitan areas get their fair share of the funding they need to serve their growing populations.

Should he be confirmed as the next transportation secretary, Foxx should, at the very least, continue LaHood’s legacy of investment into upgrading our outdated transportation network—not just roads but public transit as well--and faithfully execute President Obama’s groundbreaking fuel-efficiency standards, which are helping wean us off our dangerous dependence on oil. And as a relatively youthful Washington outsider, with a clearly demonstrated willingness to listen, perhaps he can bring some new energy to an aging industry. Given some room, Foxx could make real progress in bringing our 20th-century oil-dependent transportation network into a modern, multi-modal 21st century future, where more people have more options to get where they need to go, safely, affordably, and with less pollution.

Planting Food and Hope: The Inspiring Afterlife of South Central Farm

2013-05-02T13:51:21Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

It started as an empty lot on 41st and Alameda. It became, with care and patience and the hard labor of hundreds of families, 14 acres of productive farmland, a source of fresh food and pride for an underserved community. A decade later, in 2003, the City of Los Angeles decided to sell that land in South Central, which had been transformed from urban wasteland to arguably the largest community garden in the country. And then there was shock, anger, organization, fundraising, negotiation, rejection, a zucchini in a tailpipe, and finally, the bulldozers roared.

Yet out of the demise of South Central Farm came a tremendous victory. As Tezozomoc, one of the leaders of the fight to save the farm, wrote in OnEarth, “In the politics of impossibility, you win by losing. We won by losing. And we continue to win, planting hope all along the way.”

Tezo and the farmers went on to create an 85-acre, worker-owned, cooperative organic farm out of a roughy, scrubby plot of land in Buttonwillow, California, about 100 miles outside the city. Farmers rent a bus to travel back and forth to the farm, and bring the produce right back to the original South Central site to sell to the community. The group also founded the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund (SCFHEF), a grassroots nonprofit that helps bring fresh, organic produce to low-income urban areas, supports new farmers and promotes the establishment of new community gardens. NRDC honored Tezo earlier this month at the Growing Green Awards. I was inspired by Tezo’s story, and it was an honor for me and NRDC to present him the Food Justice Leader award.

The South Central farmers’ struggle and eventual victory reminded me of a similar episode in New York City which took place just a few years earlier, when Mayor Giuliani, for reasons that are honestly hard to fathom, tried to grab back more than 500 community gardens and quickly sell them to developers. I worked on the case from the New York State Attorney General’s office, while NRDC worked with community gardeners and parks advocates. We sued the city for trying to auction off the land without a proper environmental and land use review, as required by state and city laws. The gardens in total covered nearly 14 acres of land, and their impact on communities, here as in Los Angeles, or any urban environment, was undeniable. The court ruled for us, and stopped the sale.

Community gardens tend to spring up on empty lots in underserved communities, in neighborhoods that lack public parks as well as affordable fresh produce. In 2002, New York City’s Lower East Side, a hot spot for gardens, had only .6 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents; the city average was 4.6 acres—even this is about half as much as Boston. In many cases, empty lots are a neighborhood blight, filled with litter, rodents, and drug paraphernalia. The New York City Parks Department helped some gardeners with seeds and tools; but here, as in Los Angeles, it was ultimately the labor and dedication of volunteer gardeners from the community that turned these pockets of wasted land into safe, cool places to gather, relax, and grow flowers, herbs, and food.

As a sort of outdoor, grassroots community center, gardens play an invaluable role in urban life. They host everything from informal barbecues to performances to weddings. Some provide food to local schools; many donate to food banks. Green Thumb, the city office that manages community gardens, estimated that in the late 1980s, at their peak, New York City community gardens produced $1 million worth of fresh produce. A recent study in the American Journal of Public Health showed that community gardeners have a significantly lower Body Mass Index (BMI) than non-gardeners in the community. Other studies suggest that the presence of greenery can help lower crime rates. In the end, about 500 of the roughly 700 New York City community gardens were saved. More than 100 were purchased by two conservation groups, singer Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project, and the Trust for Public Land, in 1999. In 2002, the Bloomberg administration agreed to convert about 200 gardens into city parks, while 200 more were licensed to operate as community gardens. One hundred and fifty parcels could be developed as low-income housing, subject to review and on condition the city offered gardeners a substitute plot of land.

In 2010, the city’s remaining community gardens received a temporary extension of their license to operate, but gardeners are still seeking permanent protection from the threat of development. (The New York City Community Gardening Coalition just held its annual forum, Stand for Our Land, on April 27.)

Although the neighborhood of South Central has lost its farm, the community is now ably served by the SCFHEF, which brings organic produce to the community via low-cost farm shares and farmer’s markets. The group is also working to conserve heirloom crops, bring more organic ethnic produce to market, educate the community about healthy food choices, and expand the distribution system for agricultural cooperatives.

“Too often,” Tezo says, “the same people who work our fields during the day, planting and harvesting fresh produce, spend their evenings in line at the local food bank.”

Community gardens go a long way toward righting this injustice. As a source of fresh food, a peaceful gathering place, much-needed green space, and a symbol of pride, community gardens improve the health and well-being of urban residents. We salute the work of Tezozomoc and the SCFHEF to create a better food system, helping ensure that all communities have access to fresh, healthy food—not only producing it, but eating it as well.

[This post originally appeared in GOOD.]

Why We Save Whales

2013-04-19T15:02:27Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

There are few places on Earth where the waters are warm enough, safe enough, clean, quiet, and abundant enough in food for gray whale mothers to raise their babies. Laguna San Ignacio, off the coast of Baja California, is one such magical spot. For hundreds if not thousands of years, this place, against all odds, has retained its pristine character, its utterly peaceful waters, its bounty of fish. Pregnant whales travel 4,000 miles from the Arctic to reach this haven, where they rest, give birth, and prepare their young for the long journey back home.

Protecting the lagoon has become one of NRDC’s most vital endeavors—not just because of what this place means for whales, but what it means for all of us. This work has been about much more than putting up a fence around a pretty place. Saving Laguna San Ignacio is a concerted, multipronged effort that involves communities and their values, government and its commitment, activists and their passion, people and their livelihoods, and the rule of law. It takes all this and more to solve any environmental problem. And if we can do it to defend a gray whale nursery in Mexico, we have a chance to achieve success anywhere.

When I visited the lagoon last month, I saw firsthand how very easy it would be for a pristine place to lose its magic. We stayed in a small, solar powered encampment, and went out to the lagoon in small, low-lying fishing boats called pangas. Whale mothers actually nudge their babies towards the boats to play. They come close enough to look us right in the eye. Whales are the dominant presence in this environment, and not just because of their size. This is their place, their home.

One night, however, a ship came in from San Diego, the only one allowed to anchor in the lagoon because it was from a research institution. Its angular silhouette dominated the horizon. Its lights blazed brightly all through the night, dimming the moon and stars. We were awakened in the morning by the harsh noise from its loudspeakers. One ship, just one ship, completely transformed the place.

NRDC’s work with local communities and partners in Mexico has helped stave off multiple threats to the lagoon, including plans to industrialize its banks with mining operations and the construction of megaresorts on its shores. As of today, NRDC and our partners have managed to secure protective measures for 340,000 acres of land and 150 miles of coastline around the lagoon.

Thanks to these efforts, Laguna San Ignacio should be able to continue to nurture generations of baby gray whales. But there are new concerns looming. As Arctic ice sheets retreat and sea temperatures rise, whales must travel further north to feed, making their journey south even longer, leaving less energy for breeding. Every few years, scientists notice “skinny” whales in the lagoon—overfishing, global warming, and ocean noise are all suspect. And as global warming opens up new shipping lanes in the Arctic, big ships could cut through the whales’ migration path.

(Just a few days ago, I saw Arctic ice breaking up as I flew the northerly route to China. I took this picture out of the plane window, and was reminded again, as Earth Day approaches, of how our actions can affect the farthest reaches of the planet.)

When migrating grays encounter cargo ships in busy southern California, the results are sometimes catastrophic. Naval sonar exercises off the coast of California are expected to harass, injure or harm gray whales 11,000 times each year. Oil development in the Arctic could disrupt their winter feeding grounds, and also bombard the whales with noise. These threats may seem less immediate than a blueprint for massive construction on the shoreline, but they can be just as devastating.

But we can fend off these looming threats, too, just as we’ve managed to successfully defend the lagoon from repeated attempts at industrialization. We know how to limit the carbon pollution that is warming the poles and fueling extreme weather disasters. We’ve started down the right path by weaning ourselves off oil, making our cars more fuel-efficient, expanding clean energy and boosting energy efficiency. We can protect important ocean habitat, as California has done, to ensure that our waters remain productive and full of life. And the Navy can take common-sense precautions to reduce the impact of sonar on whales while still ensuring that our fleet is mission ready.

Laguna San Ignacio may seem remote, but it is deeply connected to all of us, through the air, land, and water we all share, the natural resources that we draw upon every day. Every time I get out in nature I see how rapidly our planet is changing. But every day I am also reminded that we have the knowledge and ability to become more efficient in how we use our valuable natural resources, and reduce our impacts on the environment, creating a more resilient, healthier planet. For the whales, and for ourselves.

After Life-Threatening Superbug Infection, a Missouri Hog Farmer Starts Over--Without Antibiotics

2013-04-09T14:17:07Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

NRDC’s annual Growing Green Awards ceremony last week kicked off with an indoor farmer’s market, where I got to taste about ten spectacular artisanal cheeses, organic strawberries from Swanton Berry Farm, and many other locally grown and locally produced foods. The care, passion and expertise that goes into these foods—as well as the minimal distances they have to travel—helps make them delicious.

And because they are sustainably produced, these foods also provide benefits even if you never have a chance to eat them—benefits to the soil, the water, the air, and even your health. This is particularly true in the case of hog farmer Russ Kremer, recipient of this year’s Food Producer award. His decision to raise his pigs without antibiotics is helping ensure that these life-saving medicines remain effective for all of us, if and when we need them.

In the spring of 1989, Kremer was gored in the knee by one of his Yorkshire boars, a muscular animal with the approximate shape of a locomotive and the weight of a good-sized grizzly. Kremer, a fifth generation hog farmer, didn’t bother going to the doctor for a few weeks, figuring it was a routine injury.

In fact, it nearly killed him. And the experience led him to reinvent his livestock operation from the ground up.

Kremer’s leg swelled to twice its normal size, and the infection didn’t respond to penicillin. Courses of streptomycin, erythromycin, amoxicillin and tetracycline also failed to have any effect. For two months the infection raged unchecked, and Kremer’s life hung in the balance. Kremer began to suspect that he himself was partly responsible. He was infected with a superbug, and he had picked it up from his own pigs. Pigs that got the bug because of the way he was raising them.

“I never expected the pigs I raised—or most importantly, how I raised [my pigs]—to send me to the hospital, fighting for my life,” said Kremer. Tests showed that he was indeed infected with the same drug-resistant strep that plagued his animals, and he was eventually cured with a potent cephalosporin, the only antibiotic able to combat strep on his farm. After his recovery, Kremer vowed to go back to the start. He began raising fewer, free-roaming, drug-free pigs, building on techniques his grandfather used to create a healthier, more sustainable hog farm, and helping other independent farmers do the same.

As a young man, Kremer had helped convert his family farm into a modern, conventional hog farm, employing the latest animal husbandry technologies and practices he had learned in college. To concentrate and expand production, he and his father built confinement buildings, dug out waste lagoons and pits. They increased the size of their herd and started weaning pigs early. They also added small doses of antibiotics and other additives to their pigs’ feed, with an eye to accelerating growth and to protect against infections associated with the animals’ crowded, dirty, stressful living conditions.

This practice is common on factory farms. So common, in fact, that the vast majority of all antibiotics sold in the United States go to animals—and mostly to animals that aren’t even sick. As a result of this overuse, “superbugs”—bacteria that are resistant to treatment by antibiotics--are on the rise. Scientists have determined that these bacteria can escape livestock operations, in the air, soil, and water, and on farm and meat processing workers. As superbugs spread out and exchange genetic material with other bacteria, antibiotic resistance spreads as well. When these bacteria make people sick, whether through a wound like Kremer’s, or something as seemingly routine as a child’s ear infection, the illness can be much more difficult to treat because standard antibiotics are no longer effective. Leading health and medical organizations have sounded the alarm about antibiotic abuse in the livestock industry, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency responsible for regulating antibiotic use in livestock, has failed to take decisive action.

NRDC is engaged in a legal battle with the FDA to demand that the agency do its job and step up to protect the public from this health threat. Despite being under court order to act, the FDA continues to drag its feet, and antibiotics continue to be misused on factory farms. While we continue to push the FDA to move forward with binding regulations to stop the misuse of antibiotics, the pioneering work and advocacy of farmers like Kremer is an absolutely critical part of efforts to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics. It’s also a critical part of the broader movement to revamp America’s food system.

More than 90 percent of pork produced in the United States comes from factory farms. Farms like Kremer’s, where the pigs are free-roaming and drug-free, and stay healthy through proper nutrition and humane living conditions, are a minority—-but they’re not alone. Kremer created a cooperative of sustainable hog farmers in the Ozark region, helping them pool their resources and develop relationships with big buyers such as Whole Foods, Costco, and Chipotle. Kremer’s work is helping to build an alternative food system, proving that antibiotic abuse is not a necessary part of livestock rearing, and that there is a broad market for pork raised without antibiotics.

We are all fortunate that Russ Kremer has a passion for pigs, and has dedicated his life to making hog farming healthier and more sustainable. We honor people like him each year at the Growing Green Awards--people who remind us that access to healthy food should not be a matter of good fortune, but a matter of course. Preserving the effectiveness of life-saving antibiotics and protecting people’s lives cannot be optional. Farmers, industries, government, businesses and consumers all need to work together to ensure that antibiotics are protected for those who need them most.

What If Government Took Food Waste Seriously?

2013-04-03T16:43:51Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

Last fall, employees at Jim Durst’s farm in Yolo County, California, harvested about 30 bins full of oddly-shaped organic butternut squash. These gourds would never see the inside of a grocery store--they had curvy necks or bulbous heads, making them unfit for big retail buyers. On some farms, this perfectly good organic squash might have been left in the field to rot. But Durst, and some other farmers like him, take the trouble to pick it so it can be donated to a local food bank.

“It costs us money to go through and pick them up, but it is minimal compared to the amount of good that it provides," Durst told AgAlert. Instead of being wasted, that squash helped feed families in need.

California is making it easier for farmers like Durst to donate excess produce with a 10 percent tax credit for food bank donations, a move that helps bridge the ironic gap between food banks that struggle to meet demand and the nearby fields filled with perfectly good crops left to rot for lack of buyers. This is just one simple way in which government action—whether through policy changes, research initiatives, or public campaigns-- can make a dent in food waste, and ensure that at least some of the 40 percent of edible food that goes uneaten in this country gets to people who need it. The EU has tackled food waste at the highest levels of government, and it’s time we did so in this country as well.

Encouraging donations is one way to keep good food from being discarded. Arizona and Colorado, like California, offer a tax credit for farmers who make food bank donations. A national tax incentive could also boost donations, and allow for interstate donations, too. After all, an Arizona farm might have a surplus when California’s growing season is slow, and that food could be channeled to where it’s needed most.

The federal government can step up in a big way to end confusion over expiration dates. Those “use by,” “sell by,” and “best by” dates typically have nothing to do with food safety. They’re simply a manufacturer’s “suggestion” for peak freshness, and are not regulated by any public health standard. Who knew? One survey suggests that 60 percent of Americans throw away food because of confusion over the date on the label. In the U.K., new government guidelines for expiration dates are expected to reduce this waste by 20 percent. Our government should take similar action—but in the meantime, remember that most food, when it’s stored properly, can be consumed beyond the date on the label. Your nose can tell you pretty clearly when milk goes bad. Also, check these USDA tips on safe food storage and consumption.

Innovation is another key to reducing food waste, and government action can help spark it. Many states have broadly defined block grant programs to “encourage competitiveness” for certain crops, including fruits, vegetables and nuts. Food waste prevention could be a focus area for these grants, encouraging innovators to test out new ways to reduce waste, and giving them a way to pilot their ideas.

In Massachusetts, the state legislature is about to enact a ban on commercial food waste in landfills, a move that is expected to save waning landfill space, reduce methane pollution, and encourage innovative ways to turn food waste into a valuable resource, such as compost or biogas energy. About half the state’s supermarkets, as well as other large institutions, already compost much of their food waste, finding it cost-effective because of big annual savings on disposal costs. The new regulations are expected to divert an additional 350,000 tons of food waste from landfills every year. This savings is critical, as the state’s landfill capacity is expected to drop from 2.1 million tons to 600,000 tons by 2020.

The U.K. has moved food waste front and center in the public eye, thanks to its Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which has helped reduce avoidable household food waste 18 percent. London is conducting a city-wide campaign as well, with Love Food Hate Waste awareness posters in Tube stations and on garbage trucks. A recent survey found that food waste ranked even higher than food safety as one of the top three food concerns for the British public. Imagine what a celebrity spokesperson could do to focus the American public on this issue. Bobby Flay and other celebrity chefs recently did a Food Network special on food waste, where they cooked a multi-course banquet sourced from food that was destined for the trash.

Finally, we need more information on how and where and why food gets wasted in this country. The existing data show that we have a problem, and it’s a big one. Further research can help us pinpoint how and where we can make the biggest reductions, quickly and cost-effectively. The European Commission completed a comprehensive food waste study in 2010, which helped set the framework for the EU’s goal of cutting food waste in half by 2020. Now the EU has launched FUSIONS, a four-year project to network and collect data on food waste across the EU. Comprehensive data on food waste in America can help us set our own national goals for food waste reduction and measure our progress.

Of course as individuals, we can all do our part to reduce food waste. But systemic change needs national leadership. If we want a more sustainable food system, we need to make reducing food waste a national issue. We spend $90 billion each year to make food that never gets eaten. We use twenty-five percent of our freshwater and four percent of our oil to produce, package, and transport food that feeds no one. These are our national resources being wasted, while 50 million Americans lack a secure supply of food. This is an issue that deserves our attention, in our homes, in our businesses, and from our local, state, and national leaders.

[This post originally appeared in GOOD, as part of a series on food waste.]

How Farms, Restaurants and Grocery Stores are Designing Food Waste Out of the System

2013-03-26T17:13:53Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

The apples were too small. Too small to meet the exacting standards of big grocery chains. Too small even for McDonald’s to use as Happy Meal snacks. They had a fighting chance to become caramel apples, but demand was low that year. A lucky grower might have been able to sell them for juice, if the demand was there, but in all likelihood, those perfectly tasty but small Pink Lady apples—2 tons of them--were destined to become cattle feed, or possibly even get dumped in a landfill.

This excess is part of the business of farming. In a recent survey of farmers, NRDC discovered that at times, as much as 30 percent of produce never makes it off the farm. Sometimes an item might not fit the cookie-cutter standards of major produce buyers; in other cases, a farmer might have more than his buyers want, because he overplanted in order to be sure the order would be filled. On top of this waste on the farm, even “perfect” fruits and vegetables that make the grade get wasted in stores and restaurants, in part because of a desire to please customers with an impression of abundance. Grocery stores throw out 43 billion pounds of food each year, about $15 billion worth of produce alone. Waste is designed into the food industry, all along the chain, and as a result, 40 percent of the food in this country never gets eaten. But a few smart businesses are finding ways to design waste out of the system, bucking conventional wisdom while saving money and improving customer satisfaction in the process.

Those too-small Pink Lady apples were intercepted by a company called FoodStar, which sources food in much the same way that a discount clothing retailer might source factory overruns. FoodStar teamed up with the California grocery chain Andronico’s to sell those apples from a special discount bin, where lucky customers snapped them up at a mere $0.69/pound. Instead of becoming cattle feed or garbage, those apples were finally used for the purpose for which they were intended—to feed people.

Image courtesy somehoosier via Flickr

Doug Rauch, a former president of Trader Joe’s, is hoping to launch his new chain this year, based on this model—sourcing food that isn’t bought up by big retailers for minor physical imperfections, overruns, or items pulled from retailers’ shelves because they’re approaching the expiration date (which in most cases have little to do with food safety, but are set by manufacturers as a suggestion for peak quality)—and offering it at a discount for consumers. He’s targeting a location in a food desert in Boston where fresh food is in short supply.

Major chains, like Stop & Shop and Price Chopper, are tackling in-store food waste in ways as simple as changing the design of product displays. “Pile ‘em high, watch ‘em fly,” is conventional grocery store wisdom, so a typical store manager keeps several days’ worth of food out on display, even if that means the food at the bottom of the pile might go bad. Stop & Shop redesigned its displays, using big baskets with false bottoms to give an impression of abundance while reducing the amount of fresh food brought out from storage. The chain saves about $100 million annually through this and other food-saving initiatives.

Dining halls, like those on college campuses, hospitals, and other institutions, have reduced food waste and are saving money with a simple operational trick--removing trays. It’s basic human psychology. In a cafeteria lunch line, our eyes tend to be bigger than our stomachs, especially when we have a tray to help carry extra food. Without the tray, people are more likely to take only what they will eat. The food service company Sodexo launched trayless dining at more than 300 college campuses, and reduced food waste by about 30 percent.

Restaurants are finding success with smaller portion sizes. TGI Fridays offers a “Right Portion, Right Price” selection that’s about one-third less in size and price than regular entrees; a year after their introduction, these dishes accounted for 15 percent of the restaurant’s orders. The Potbelly Sandwich Shop offers original-sized sandwiches, the same portion size as when the chain launched in 1977, and “bigs,” which are 30 percent larger. (This increase in portion size is typical of our times. A Joy of Cooking recipe that used to serve 10 now serves 7; the average cookie has quadrupled in calories since the ‘70s.)

Some institutions are going a step further to reduce waste, using a software system in the kitchen to help monitor and reduce waste at the back end. The University of South Dakota’s Sanford Medical Center was able to save nearly $100,000 and reduce food waste 43 percent with the aid of LeanPath, a program that monitors food waste and helps identify areas for waste reduction. With data in hand, the hospital was able to spot where and how waste was occurring, and make simple changes, like adjusting food orders down during the slow holiday seasons, and training staff not to overfill trays.

For any business, reducing waste makes inherent sense for the bottom line. But sometimes it requires a shift in thinking and in practice. In grocery stores, if waste figures are too low, managers interpret this to mean that there’s not enough product on the shelves. Farmers overplant for fear of losing big buyers. And consumers are certainly less inclined to buy an apple that’s smaller or splotchier than what they’ve come to expect. These barriers are not insignificant, but they are being overcome, with the aid of technology, entrepreneurial vigor, and informed consumers. There are $165 billion in food losses in this country every year. That’s money on the table—and smart businesses will pick it up.

[This post originally appeared in GOOD, as part of a series on food waste.]

Assaults on Successful State Renewable Energy Standards Continue

2013-03-20T18:23:59Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

Recently in Gray County, Kansas (population 6,005), schools bought iPads for their classrooms—a purchase previously unthinkable in this time of shrinking budgets--thanks to contributions made to the county by a local wind farm. In rural Cloud County, Kansas, three tiny towns now have gas stations, an enterprise made possible by wind farm contributions to a county economic development fund. The renovation of the Brown Grand Theater, in Concordia, Kansas, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is being funded in part by contributions from wind farms. Small towns across the state are reinventing themselves with millions of dollars of wind revenues being poured into education, small businesses, and community development. And Kansas now produces enough clean, renewable wind energy to power about 800,000 homes in the region. That’s enough electricity, for example, to run every household in Nebraska, and then some.

Wind energy has been a boon for Kansas, creating 13,000 jobs in the state and bringing $3 billion in investments in 2012 alone, all while helping keep the air and water clean (which will, in turn, help keep health costs down). So why is there a movement afoot in the state legislature—not just in Kansas but in nearly a dozen states--to quash the growth of clean, renewable energy?

In Kansas and elsewhere, a major driver of the wind industry’s growth has been the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a law that requires utilities to generate an increasing share of their energy from renewable sources. In Kansas, which has set a target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, all utilities are meeting the standards and most are well ahead of schedule, supplying cost-effective clean energy to consumers. By any measure, the Kansas RPS has been a roaring success, as have been similar standards in 29 states across the country. Yet state lawmakers in Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Michigan, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Montana, Maine and Ohio are suddenly demanding to repeal or weaken their state’s RPS.

These lawmakers aren’t working alone. Most belong to a fossil fuel-financed coalition of corporate lobbyists and state legislators, known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC recently joined forces with other conservative groups to dismantle the RPS in every state that has one, and drafted the model legislation now being promoted by its allies in state government.

But the benefits of an RPS are apparent to anyone who cares to look at the facts. By driving the growth of clean energy, an RPS helps bring jobs, investment, revenues, and a sense of pride to local communities across the country, all while helping provide clean air and clean water and reducing global warming pollution.

In Kansas, the RPS even helps attract new business beyond the clean energy industry. Candy-maker Mars recently chose to locate a new manufacturing plant in Topeka, in part because of the availability of wind energy, which fit the company’s interest in a zero-carbon footprint. It’s the first Mars chocolate factory to be built in the United States in the past 35 years, and it’s in Kansas.

In Montana, investment in renewable energy has topped more than $1.6 billion since the state's RPS took effect in 2006. Sixteen hundred Montanans have jobs that did not exist before. The Big Sky State's 650 megawatts of newly installed clean energy capacity is enough to power nearly 200,000 homes and cut more than 1.5 million tons of carbon emissions.

In North Carolina, a recent study found that the state RPS lowered typical residential electrical bills in 2012, and those savings will more than double within a decade. Likewise in Michigan, the Public Service Commission found that the current RPS is saving money for consumers. Reports flowing in from Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Texas all describe the economic lift and cost savings provided by RPS-fostered clean energy development.

Americans value the jobs and economic growth that clean energy can bring to communities—and many state legislators are getting the message. The Kansas State Senate, where Republicans have a supermajority, recently rejected a bill to weaken the RPS, and the House, also with a Republican supermajority, sent a bill attempting to repeal the standards back to committee. After a hearing in which testimony from chambers of commerce, county commissioners, steelworkers, faith-based groups and others were submitted opposing the repeal and describing the benefits of clean energy in their communities, the committee decided to delay voting. The bill to repeal the RPS in Kansas is tabled, at least for the moment.

This is a fight that no state can afford to lose. Renewable energy development, spurred by a state’s RPS, can translate into billions of dollars of investment, thousands of new jobs in struggling communities, and millions of dollars in revenue for dwindling state and local coffers. With these new energy sources come the added benefits of diversifying our domestic energy supply, making our air and water cleaner, and reducing the carbon pollution that is driving global climate change and extreme weather disasters.

In conjunction with strong and smart national renewable energy policies, state standards are crucial engines of growth that will bring us closer to a clean energy future. Polluted-funded front groups already seem to have the ear of some state legislators, but when the people speak up—as they are doing in Kansas—the message is loud and clear. Renewable portfolio standards need to be bolstered for the benefit of our communities, not dismantled for the benefit of polluters.

TechMunch: Smart Technologies That Help Reduce Food Waste

2013-03-18T15:11:55Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

In my family we used to play a game called Journey to the Back of the Fridge. We would embark on a voyage of discovery into the depths of my parents’ refrigerator, seeking wildly colored forgotten leftovers, covered with fuzzy mold.

Modern technology, however, could send this game the way of kick-the-can and Atari, albeit with less sorrow. The fridge of the future might soon be able to monitor its own contents, and alert you before your food becomes a science experiment. New technologies have made refrigerators 75 percent more energy efficient than they were 30 years ago. Now technology can help refrigerators become more food efficient as well. And several new technologies are already helping reduce food waste all along the supply chain.

Samsung and LG are set to introduce smart fridges with touchscreens that allow you to sync grocery lists with your smart phone, or suggest recipes based on ingredients stored inside. While some gadget lovers were underwhelmed (“When you pull dessert out of the fridge does it auto-post on your Facebook wall how fat you are? because then this sounds useful,” commented one user on the tech review site Engadget), this is pretty exciting technology.

Imagine how a smart fridge could help reduce food waste without stooping to public shame. What if your fridge could monitor its own contents, and ping you while you’re at the store to remind you that you still have yogurt and don’t need to buy more? What if it had five different temperature settings, instead of two, and could adjust itself to keep your food fresher, longer? What if it could let you know that your green beans were at peak freshness, and suggest a recipe for you to cook them? That’s where this technology is going.

While we await the advent of the food efficient fridge, we already have smart phone apps like Green Egg Shopper, which allows you to keep track of your food purchases and sort them by expiration date. The LoveFoodHateWaste app, developed in Scotland as part of the U.K.’s national campaign to tackle food waste, provides meal planners, portion planners, and other tips to help you shop for, prepare, and store food efficiently. The Food Storage and Shelf Life app can help sort out food storage stumpers, like where to store apples, and how long you can keep meat in the freezer.

Storing food properly is an issue, though, long before it ever gets to your fridge. The USDA estimates that grocery stores lose about $15 billion of fresh produce each year. Much of this loss stems from improper temperature management. Tracking and monitoring the temperature of produce—what they call in grocery store lingo, “maintaining the cold chain,” is critical to keeping food fresh. So some stores and growers are using a system that remotely monitors the temperature of individual pallets of food from field to store, rather than relying on spot-checking a truckload or container-load of food upon delivery. One case study found that a pallet of blackberries could lose almost half its expected shelf life in transit, while the one next to it on the truck could last twice as long. Ensuring that the riper pallet gets shipped out first allows a retailer to sell it while it’s still fresh. Intelliflex, the company behind this system, estimates that it can reduce food loss by up to 50 percent.

Packaging technologies can help, too. Marks & Spencer and Tesco, two major retail chains in the UK, are testing ethylene-absorbing strips in their produce packaging. Ethylene is the natural chemical released by fruits that promotes ripening, and eventually, causes mold. By soaking up ethylene, the strips prevent produce from getting overripe on the shelves. Marks & Spencer found that the strips extended the shelf life of strawberries from 4 days to 6 days, and estimated it would save 800,000 strawberries from spoiling. Tesco is using the strips on avocados and tomatoes, and expects to save millions of fruits each year. The strips will also help prolong shelf life once you get your purchase home, too.

Technologies like these can make big reductions in food waste all along the chain, from the farm (to distributor to retailer) to your fridge. And if your fridge isn’t smart enough to suggest recipes tailored to its contents, you can always try a low-tech solution. Cookbooks, like The Frugal Foodie or Use It Up, help you make the most of your ingredients, and waste less.

[This post orginally appeared in GOOD, as part of a series on food waste.]

Want a More Sustainable Food System? Cut Food Waste.

2013-03-15T12:36:51Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

I recently shared a stage with the White House pastry chef, the CEO of a $360 million company, and a woman who advocates eating weeds. We were all speaking at the TEDx-Manhattan conference, Changing the Way We Eat. Everyone I heard was inspiring, fascinating, and sometimes even funny (no mean feat when you have 12 minutes to present your talk, without any notes). All of us spoke about the need to change the way we eat in this country, for our health, for our children’s future, for the sustainability of our agricultural system and our planet.

People came to this conference because they wanted to change our food system. But few were aware of the scale of the problem of food waste. About 40 percent of all the food in this country is wasted. Any system this inefficient is not a sustainable system. That’s why reducing food waste is a critical part of improving the sustainability of our food supply. We can knock ourselves out boosting local and organic food, but it won’t do anyone much good if that food doesn’t get eaten.

We know the way to reduce waste is through efficiency. We’ve made great strides in energy efficiency over the past few decades, and we can do the same with food. It starts with personal action. American families waste up to 25 percent of the food and drink they buy. A simple tweak, like making a shopping list and sticking to it, or checking cupboards before going to the store, can dramatically cut food waste at home. In the U.K., they’ve found that following simple guidelines like these allowed households to trim their avoidable food waste 18 percent.

We can cut waste even further when we monitor it. Some restaurants and food service companies are already using waste monitoring and management software that can help cut food waste almost in half. And what if food sellers, like utility companies, encouraged their customers to use food more efficiently? They could offer smaller pack sizes, or coupons that allowed you to “buy one, get one later,” instead of sticking you with more than you can possibly use with a deal like “buy one, get one free.”

Finally, we need the government to start addressing food waste. Smart policies can protect and inform consumers and help them make more efficient decisions about food. A recent survey found that 60 percent of Americans throw out food prematurely because of confusion over expiration dates. These “best by,” “sell by,” and “use by” dates often have nothing to do with food safety. They are manufacturer suggestions for peak quality, and a source of confusion for consumers and retailers alike.

In the U.K., they estimate that a move as simple as setting guidelines for expiration dates (which they’ve just done) could reduce avoidable household food waste by 20 percent. The U.S. government can do the same to make a sizeable dent in food waste, quickly.

Our energy efficiency efforts have used smart government policy and public awareness to harness the powers of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Tackling food waste will require more of the same. It’s about being more conscious of what we buy and eat. It means encouraging growers and food buyers to develop stronger relationships, and retailers to find more ways reduce waste and save money. It will involve smart policies to protect and inform consumers and to spark innovation across the industry.

All of these things we need to make our food system healthier and more sustainable. We’ve already started doing it with our energy system. If we are serious about changing the way we eat, then we need to start addressing the problem of food waste.

American Consumers Are Paying a Climate Disruption Tax of 2.7%

2013-03-13T20:19:23Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

In South Dakota, voters recently rejected a one-penny increase in sales tax. “I feel we’re taxed enough already,” explained Kristi Schnider, a 35-year-old assistant manager at Applebee’s, to the Argus Leader.

The irony is that South Dakota residents are being hit with another, far greater, hidden tax—the cost of climate disruption. Last year’s prolonged and severe drought, which reduced corn yields by 18 percent and led ranchers to sell off their cattle and sheep, cost the state an estimated $1.7 billion. That cost would be the equivalent of tripling South Dakota’s sales tax rate, from 4 percent to more than 12 percent--a far greater hurt than that politically unachievable penny. And last year’s extreme weather wasn’t confined to South Dakota. It hit nearly every state in the nation, with a cost equivalent to raising sales tax rates across the country by an average of 2.7 percentage points.

This is the fine print of climate change—the part of the deal that really hurts, but no one wants to talk about.

Extreme weather in 2012 was remarkable not just for its economic and emotional toll, but for the fact that few states were left untouched, whether from the drought that scorched just about everything west of the Mississippi, to tornadoes in the plains, wildfires in the West, and hurricanes in the South and Northeast. Extreme weather damages reached a total of nearly $140 billion nationwide last year, according to insurer AON-Benfield, shaving about 1 percent off our total GDP. (While scientists can’t directly attribute a particular storm to climate change, we do know that carbon pollution fuels extreme weather, and we’re seeing an awful lot of it.)

If the total cost of climate disruption in 2012 were paid in each state like a sales tax--my colleagues Dan Lashof and Andy Stevenson have done the math—it would add an extra 2.7 percent, on average, to the bill for every purchase made in every state.

At least sales tax revenues are revenues—they help states fund basic services for residents. States cover about 30 percent of their budgets through sales tax. But the climate disruption tax won’t fix any potholes, build new elementary schools, or help pay medical bills. It’s a dead loss that helps no one. In fact, paying to rebuild washed out roads, dig out from under a blizzard, or evacuate endangered residents is a huge burden on local and state budgets (I can attest to this from nearly two decades of experience in state and local government).

This is the price we are paying for decades of inaction on climate change. As the planet continues to warm, these extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and they will continue to take a toll on American taxpayers.

Jobs from Clean Energy an Economic Bright Spot in 2012

2013-03-11T14:20:37Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

Don Lepard, a Chattanooga business executive, recently won a contract from his hometown to install 27,000 wireless, energy-efficient LED streetlights in the city. Lepard moved fast. In the space of a few months, his company, Global Green Lighting (GGL), acquired a vacant 180,000 square foot manufacturing facility in nearby Hixon, Tennessee, brought back production lines from its operations in China, hired 25 people and started making bulbs. By the end of 2013, the company plans to hire a total of 250 workers in skilled manufacturing, engineering, and marketing positions, and ramp up production at the Tennessee plant to as many as 20,000 LED bulbs each month.

Clean energy companies like GGL are continuing to drive job growth in the Southeast and in every region of the country, according to a new report by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), an NRDC affiliate. E2 tracked more than 300 clean energy and clean transportation job announcements in 2012 that could create more than 110,000 jobs across the nation.

These green jobs provide more than just livelihoods. They’re giving us the tools to cut carbon pollution and provide clean air and clean water while revitalizing communities, helping cities save money, and improving quality of life for local residents. Just take one example. In Holland, Michigan, the local economy got a multimillion-dollar boost when a yacht manufacturer successfully branched out into producing wind turbine blades. In addition to hiring 100 new workers, the company is sourcing services from a number of Michigan businesses, has made several million dollars in investments and purchases in the local community, and has joined forces with Grand Rapids Community College to train new technicians for future hires. The company expects to create 1,000 jobs by 2016.

Federal and state policies that support renewable energy and efficiency helped make these projects (and more, profiled in E2’s report) happen, bringing economic and environmental benefits to hundreds of thousands of people. Chattanooga kicked off its efficient lighting upgrades with federal stimulus funding, and benefited from investment in lighting innovation by the Department of Energy. The Michigan yacht manufacturer capitalized on increasing demand for wind energy driven by state renewable portfolio standards around the country (these standards require utilities to get a growing portion of energy from renewables) alongside state and federal clean energy tax incentives.

In many states, however, the benefits of renewable energy and the economic lift the industry can provide is under attack by a fossil-fuel-industry-backed group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Conservative state legislators affiliated with this group are working to overturn or weaken state renewable energy portfolio standards in more than a dozen states, including Kansas, where wind energy is booming, North Carolina, where solar is strong, Ohio, Missouri, and others. In these states and in communities across the country, the clean energy industry has been a source of growth, pride, and innovation. We need more businesses like these. It makes no sense to turn back progress.

President Obama’s goal of doubling both renewable energy and energy efficiency is within our reach, provided that the states and the federal government can ensure a stable, consistent environment that allows businesses to invest in clean energy, gives workers opportunities to find clean jobs, and spurs entrepreneurs to build exciting new companies.

To-Do List for the New Secretary of Energy: More Efficiency. More Renewables. Less Carbon.

2013-03-04T16:04:43Z

Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City

In 2008, Ernest Moniz, director of MIT’s Energy Initiative (MITEI), wrote an open letter to the newly-elected President Barack Obama, offering his recommendations on energy policy. He discussed the urgent need to control global warming pollution, stating, “We must begin moving toward a low-carbon energy future now.”

Moniz, Obama’s pick for Secretary of Energy, will soon be in a prime position to make good on his own recommendations.

As a scientist, Moniz is obviously a firm believer in the power of clean energy technology. MITEI projects under his tenure included windows that generate electricity, batteries built by viruses, and a biofuel made from yeast. But he also believes that technology must be complemented by policy in order to effect real change. As he said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2006, in order to address global warming, we must “have the will to take more than baby steps."

Meeting the Obama administration’s climate and energy goals will certainly take more than baby steps, especially from the DOE. But the agency has plenty of scope—and the authority--to make significant progress in cutting global warming pollution. In this regard, it’s helpful that Moniz is a policy expert as well as a respected scientist. We so often, as in the case with fuel efficiency, have the technical solutions at hand. We just need leadership and the right policies to put them into action.

We did it with cars. Thanks to President Obama’s historic fuel efficiency standards, we’re now on track to cut global warming pollution equivalent to the amount produced by 72 coal-fired power plants. Buildings could be next. Commercial and residential buildings account for 70 percent of America’s electricity demand, and yet the way our buildings consume energy—in how they’re built and how they’re used--is often highly inefficient. There are numerous ways to tackle this issue, but the DOE can do its part by keeping up to date with issuing appliance and equipment efficiency standards. In recent years the DOE has fallen behind on updating and issuing new standards, leaving an estimated $3.7 billion in savings for consumers and businesses on the table, and allowing the release of an extra 40 million metric tons of carbon pollution—the equivalent of that produced by about 10 coal-fired power plants.

The DOE can also use its own purchasing power and its knowledge of the market to get more energy-saving products into buildings, such as high-performance windows and efficient HVAC units. By connecting buyers and vendors and coordinating high-volume purchases, the DOE can help make these products more affordable and more widely used.

In addition to efficiency, continuing to support renewable energy research and development is critical in the fight to stabilize our climate. The renewable energy industry has grown rapidly in the past few years and is already showing great promise, as both a source of good jobs as well as a viable means of reducing carbon pollution. But economic and political uncertainty threatens to stall this growth. A continued push from the DOE can help get more renewable technology deployed and meeting our energy needs, instead of locking in our reliance on dirty fossil fuels.

As Under Secretary of Energy during the Clinton administration, Moniz was known for being able to work well with the diverse constituencies the DOE serves. It’s a skill that will surely come into play as President Obama works to deliver on his promise of tackling global warming pollution and moving forward with clean energy. With strong leadership from the President and at the DOE, this country can start putting more climate and clean energy solutions into place, and work toward a safer, more stable climate, for ourselves and for future generations.