Sustainable City Network Magazine - Vol. 17 - October 2015

BEST PRACTICES FOR LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION & HEALTHCARE.

SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK

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VOLUME 17 OCTOBER 2015

PORTLAND’S BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE LEADERBOARD SERIES SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.

10 GREEN DORM ROOMS 12 POWER UP ANYWHERE 28 FORECASTING THE NEXT PANDEMIC

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E CITY SUSTAINAWBL ORK NET

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contents

VOLUME 17 OCTOBER 2015

Green Dorm Rooms Get Students on the Right Path 10 Power Up Anywhere with Solar Charging Stations

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Sustainable Procurement More Than Buying Green 15 Gentrification Without Losing the Neighborhood 19 Reusing Historic Buildings

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Forecasting the Next Pandemic

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cover story

PORTLAND’S BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE

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Reducing Waste in the Operating Room

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

The Best of Sustainable City Network is a quarterly magazine highlighting the most popular articles posted on sCityNetwork.com, an online trade publication that serves government, education and healthcare institutions in all 50 U.S. states and the provinces of Canada.

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Essentials for Facilitating Remote and Online Meetings

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Online Course - Oct. 13-15, 2015 Learn how to merge your existing facilitation skills with online technology to manage meetings effectively even when you cannot get people together in the same room. This 6-hour online course provides a practical model and extensive toolkit for designing and facilitating online meetings. Instructor Mike Fraidenburg.

Learn more at http://sCityNetwork.com/Meetings

Sustainability in the City of Portland, Ore.

Free 1-Hour Webinar - Oct. 29, 2015 Susan Anderson, director of the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and Michael Armstrong, sustainability manager, will share insights into the programs, projects and strategic plans that have made Portland one of the most sustainable cities in the world. Learn how they reduced per-capita carbon emissions by 35 percent and increased their bicycle commuting percentage to nine times the national average.

Sponsored by Crescent Electric Supply Co. Learn more at http://sCityNetwork.com/Portland

from the editor Welcome to Sustainable City Network Magazine – the Best of sCityNetwork.com! This quarterly magazine is a compilation of the most popular articles on our web site and in our email newsletter, the InBox, which is delivered to more than 40,000 leaders in government, education and healthcare across the U.S. and Canada. Sustainable City Network produces advertiser-supported, non-partisan articles, webinars, trade shows and white papers that provide local institutions with quality, organized and timely information about sustainability projects, plans and best practices. This magazine is another way we fulfill our mission.

Randy Rodgers Publisher & Executive Editor SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK www.sCityNetwork.com 801 Bluff Street Dubuque, IA 52001 563.588.3853 randy@scitynetwork.com

OUR MISSION “To make U.S. cities more sustainable through quality and well-organized information.”

In this issue, we continue our Leaderboard Series with a profile of Portland, Ore. Learn how they built a bridge where light rail trains, streetcars, buses, bikes and pedestrians are welcome... but cars and trucks are not. Considered by many to be one of the most sustainable cities in the world, Portland puts a tremendous emphasis on transit-oriented development, mixed-use communities and walkable neighborhoods. It’s helped them reduce their per-capita carbon emissions by 35 percent since 1990. They don’t have a “sustainability plan” because all their plans are sustainability plans.

In our cover story, you’ll meet Susan Anderson, director of the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and Michael Armstrong, sustainability manager, who will present a free one-hour webinar on Oct. 29 (sign up for the live event or download the recording afterwards at http://sCityNetwork.com/Portland).

In other top stories: Learn how colleges and universities across the country are getting their students to adopt “greener” lifestyles. When you think about the thousands upon thousands of dorm rooms in America, even a little improvement can have a huge impact. And, check out Page 12 for our article on the latest stylish and functional laptop and cell-phone recharging stations... you’ll wish there was one on every corner! On Page 15, you’ll discover how sustainable procurement isn’t just about ‘buying green’ anymore. See how some are incorporating human rights, ethics and diversity into their buying decisions.

Other articles in this issue focus on gentrification; reducing operating room waste; reusing historic buildings; and some of the latest ways that scientists are using computers to develop early warning systems for infectious diseases.

The articles in this magazine have been selected by our readers. We’ve packaged them together in this convenient magazine format, available as a digital download or in print at sCityNetwork.com/Bestof.

We hope you find value inside.

The U.S. Leader in Sustainability News & Information Best Practices for Leaders in Government, Education and Healthcare [3]

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PORTLAND’S BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE RIVER CROSSING: NO CARS OR TRUCKS ALLOWED

BY RANDY RODGERS, PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR

P hotos

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C ity

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Tilikum is a Native American word meaning people, tribe or family, and as its name implies, the “Bridge of the People” not only connects two sides of metropolitan Portland, but it also symbolically connects the Portland area’s ancient tribal past with its decidedly sustainable future.

SUSAN ANDERSON Director, City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG Sustainability Manager, City of Portland

At first glance, the Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People spanning the Willamette River in Portland, Ore., looks like any other cable-stayed bridge in any other river city. But take a closer look and you might notice something different.

“Our focus has been around how to create as many walkable neighborhoods as possible so you can get all the things you need on an everyday basis… without having to get in your car,” Anderson said.

Traversing this new bridge, which opened on Sept. 12, are light rail trains, streetcars, buses, people on bicycles and pedestrians. But, you won’t see a single private car or truck – because, on this bridge, they aren’t allowed.

“Portland is in the midst of an incredibly beautiful place and there was a strong desire by the people who lived here, and by the thousands of people who were moving here, to create a wonderful place to live and to keep it a wonderful place to live,” Anderson said.

“It wasn’t in response to a specific threat, it was more of a forward looking desire to keep the place as amazing as it is.”

Tilikum is a Native American word meaning people, tribe or family, and as its name implies, the “Bridge of the People” not only connects two sides of metropolitan Portland, but it also symbolically connects the Portland area’s ancient tribal past with its decidedly sustainable future.

“This bridge is a fantastic illustration of exactly the future we are now building here,” said Michael Armstrong, sustainability manager in the city of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS).

But, it hasn’t always been that way “Portland’s air quality in the ‘70s was really bad, just like a lot of other places, and so we invested in transit and walkable neighborhoods and we really made improvements. Fifteen years ago, the percentage of people commuting by bike in Portland wasn’t much different than a dozen other American cities of our size, and today Portland’s percent of bike commuters is nine times the national average,” Armstrong said.

Susan Anderson, BPS director, said the city’s emphasis on land-use planning, transit oriented development and walkability has been a primary factor in building Portland’s reputation as one of the most sustainable cities in the world.

She said the community’s passion for sustainability has its roots in the environmental movement of the 1960s.

In the late 1970s, the city first established an energy office, which managed the city’s energy programs and policies, including those related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and ultimately making Portland a pioneer in green building and climate-change mitigation.

As director of the energy office in 1993, Anderson was involved in drafting the city’s original Climate Action Plan, the first such plan established by a local government in the United States. Since then, total local carbon emissions have declined by 14 percent, while the U.S. as a whole has seen a six percent increase. Portland has made this progress despite adding 160,000 people to its population since 1990, according to Anderson.

“We’ve reduced our per-capita carbon emissions by 35 percent,” she said. “So, that’s really the big story; and then there are dozens of smaller projects that illustrate how we got there.”

In 2000, the city council combined the energy office with the city’s solid waste and recycling group to form the Office of Sustainable Development, which merged in 2009 with the Bureau of Planning to become the BPS. Armstrong said the merging of these departments and the evolution of the city’s management structure has been important to the integration of sustainability into everything the city does.

“Plans are long-term pathways to achieving a strategic vision,” Armstrong said. “We don’t want to have a plan that isn’t a sustainability plan. That’s why Portland doesn’t have something that is labeled a ‘sustainability plan,’ because all of our overarching strategic guidance includes sustainability.”

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An atypical political structure Portland’s form of government is unusually decentralized. Its city council consists of Mayor Charlie Hales, elected in 2012, four nonpartisan commissioners and an auditor, all elected at-large. The mayor and each of Portland’s commissioners has executive authority over a portfolio of city agencies, which are assigned by the mayor.

So, because all city agencies don’t report to a single mayor or city manager, “we all literally have different bosses when it comes to working across agencies,” Armstrong said. “Our office works for the mayor because when he was handing out responsibilities he kept the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability for himself, along with a number of others. A different city commissioner is responsible for transportation; a different one is responsible for parks; and a different one is responsible for housing.”

“On paper this might seem to have a very high potential for chaos and stalemate,” Armstrong said, “but what you find in reality is we’ve developed a really strong collaborative approach.” He credited the city’s unusual political structure with generating many of the city’s most creative and locally popular initiatives. At least a dozen referendums attempting to convert the city to a more conventional form of government have failed at the ballot box, he said.

The city government interfaces with the public through its Office of Neighborhood Involvement, which helps fund seven district coalitions of volunteer-based neighborhood associations. These associations represent 95 officially recognized neighborhoods in the city. Anderson said it was Portland’s active and engaged neighborhood groups that helped develop the city’s Solarize Portland initiative, which was a solar panel volume-purchasing program led by Portland area neighborhood associations that brought solar energy to almost 1,000 Portland homes between 2009 and 2012.

Tackling climate change… for everyone This summer, the city council approved its latest Climate Action Plan, which will guide Portland’s carbon reduction efforts for the next five years. One of the unique aspects of this plan is that it contains specific language addressing equity.

“This plan will result in many benefits, such as a stronger economy, new jobs, lower energy bills, transportation improvements and a cleaner environment,” Anderson wrote in a recent blog posted on the city’s web site. “Efforts should ensure that all residents, and especially those from under-served and under-represented communities, share in the economic, environmental and health benefits related to reducing carbon pollution.”

Portland has also embraced and benefited from the state of Oregon’s energy efficiency programs. A focus on weatherizing more than 40,000 multi-family units and other programs have resulted in an 11 percent reduction in per capita household energy consumption since 1990, Anderson said.

■■ “Fifteen years ago, the percentage of people commuting by bike in Portland wasn’t much different than a

dozen other American cities of our size, and today Portland’s percent of bike commuters is nine times the national average.” -- Michael Armstrong, sustainability manager, City of Portland [6]

“People now can talk about sustainability and climate change and that is a motivator for some people, but for most of the years we’ve done this work, the motivation was totally around improving comfort, saving money, making life easier or doing it because you wanted to be cool,” she said. “So we’ve spent a lot of time working on behavioral marketing and trying to get people to change behavior… and we’ve learned a lot about that and have applied it in the development of our programs.”

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Portland’s sustainability programs will be the subject of a free Sustainable City Network webinar Oct. 29.

See www.sCityNetwork.com/Portland for registration information.

Separating the smelly stuff

Looking to the future…

Three years ago, Portland started collecting residential food scraps along with yard waste every week, while reducing trash collection to every other week. By picking up the “smelly stuff” every week and collecting the rest of it less often, the result has been a 35 percent reduction in garbage going to the landfill, Armstrong said. It’s also helped push the city’s recycling rate up to about 70 percent and has tripled the amount of compost the city had been generating, without raising collection costs. In fact, Armstrong said, garbage collection costs have decreased each of the last three years.

Anderson and Armstrong said BPS has an aggressive agenda over the next three to five years. Here are some of the things the bureau will be working to achieve:

Sustainability as economic development Anderson said Portland learned more than a decade ago that sustainability could be an economic engine, creating green jobs, attracting a talented workforce and helping businesses reduce costs.

When the city council decided in 2000 that all city-funded buildings would have to be built to LEED standards, and later to LEED-Gold standards, architects in the city began to get LEED certified. As a result, Portland became a hub of sorts for architectural firms that could design buildings to LEED specifications.

“By doing that, we created this big pool of architects, designers and developers who are creating LEED-Platinum and LEED-Gold projects in Portland and all over the world. One of our exports, really, is this talent pool. And so now we’re trying to do the same thing around waste reduction and a whole slew of other sustainable technologies.

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Equity – From ensuring that reductions in carbon pollution benefit everyone, to making sure energy efficiency and renewable energy are affordable and that city amenities are accessible to everyone, equity will be at the heart of BPS’s priorities, Armstrong said.

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Community solar – Portland is urging the state of Oregon to change its regulatory policies to allow for community solar, so that apartment dwellers and others who can’t generate their own renewable energy on-site can still purchase renewable energy generated elsewhere.

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Mixed-use neighborhoods – The bureau will be working to increase the city’s stock of 3- to 5-story multifamily housing units with retail stores on the ground floor in safe, walkable and affordable neighborhoods near public transit corridors.

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Replacing the gas tax – Armstrong said Portland is encouraging the state of Oregon to change the way it funds the state’s transportation systems; replacing the gas tax with a fee assessed on a per-mile basis. A pilot program is currently under way.

Portland’s Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People, which opened Sept. 12, was built for its light rail trains, as well as the Portland Streetcar, buses, bicycles, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles. Private cars and trucks are not permitted on the bridge, and trains and buses must cross the bridge no faster than 25 mph. At more than 1,700 feet in length, the bridge is the largest car-free transit bridge in the U.S.

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Sage advice

From the Mayor’s Desk

“I’ve been working on these issues for 20 years now,” Anderson said, “and 90 percent of our successes have been built on market-based mechanisms, figuring out ways to change people’s behavior by using either financial incentives or disincentives. But, climate can’t wait for that anymore. It’s imperative that we move somewhat quickly, so we need to make some of these more systemic and regulatory changes in the next 10 years. That takes political champions. You can come up with the greatest programs in the world, but if you don’t have a business and a political champion then none of this stuff will happen.

“So don’t spend so much time trying to get a program exactly perfect.

Spend more time developing the political and business groundswell of support for what you’re trying to do, so you can actually build momentum.” n

Some of Portland’s recent sustainability initiatives, and Mayor Charlie Hales’ upcoming priorities, include:

MAYOR CHARLIE HALES

• Green Bonds resolution: The Portland City Council in June passed a resolution to establish the City’s interest in exploring “green bonds” and other climate-related tools to finance infrastructure projects that have environmental impacts, encouraging environmental best practices in capital projects.

• Energy Performance Benchmarking policy: The policy requires large commercial buildings — 20,000 square feet and larger — to track energy performance, calculate energy use and report to the city.

• Energy from renewable sources: Currently city operations get nearly 75 percent of their power from renewable sources — solar, biogas, in-pipe microhydro, etc. The goal is to get to 100 percent.

• Solar at city buildings: Currently the city generates 540,000 kilowatt hours annually from solar panels at 10 of its sites. The goal is to generate 2.36 million kilowatt hours with solar panels across city facilities.

• LED street lights: The city of Portland has converted more than 20,000 street lights to LED, saving about $100,000 per month and nearly $1.5 million per year. The goal is to transition all 55,000 of Portland’s streetlights by the end of 2016.

• Clean diesel: The city’s entire diesel fleet is clean diesel. The goal is to make clean diesel engine conversions more accessible to minority- and women-owned and emerging small businesses, which face hurdles to the investment.

• Electric vehicles: The city plans to add to its fleet 40 electric vehicles, making 20 percent of the city’s sedans electric by the end of 2016.

• Fossil fuel disinvestment: Mayor Hales plans to bring to the city council a policy that will put the top 200 fossil fuel companies on the city of Portland’s do-not-buy list for direct investment of city funds.

■■ TriMet, the Portland metropolitan area’s regional transit authority, built

the Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People. Construction began in June 2011. According to city officials, the bridge was “future proofed,” built higher than originally planned in order to accommodate the rising sea levels that are predicted in the decades to come.

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• Demolition tax: Hales is asking the city council to enact a tax on the demolition of modest single-family houses when property owners plan to build larger, more expensive houses in their place.

He says the tax would be intended to “ensure Portland’s prized neighborhoods remain liveable and affordable.”

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Green Dorm Rooms Get Students on the Right Path Sustainability as a Lifestyle Lesson Plan

BY JENNIFER FODEN

JOCELYN BREELAND Communications Director for Residential and Dining Enterprises at Stanford University

CASEY ROE Outreach Coordinator at Sustainable Duke.University

As universities and colleges work to become more sustainable, administrators are looking for ways to educate – and encourage – their students to adopt “greener” lifestyles.

Consider the thousands (upon thousands) of students on each campus across North America, and the impact of students adopting a more sustainable lifestyle is quite significant.

Through environmental education and outreach, there is an “opportunity to facilitate generations of students in learning to lead sustainable lifestyles not only on campus, but for decades to come in their future communities,” said Jocelyn Breeland, communications director for Residential and Dining Enterprises at Stanford University.

One of the best ways universities and colleges can educate the student population about sustainability is to lead by example. A number of Brown University’s residence halls have achieved LEED certification. Stanford takes a similar approach.

“We have made infrastructure changes throughout our 350+ residences that make it easy for students to reduce their energy and water consumption and reduce waste,” Breeland said.

MEGGIE PATTON Academic and Student Engagement Coordinator at Brown University.University

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As a visual teaching tool, some universities and colleges have created model “green” dorm rooms to use as an example. Duke University in North Carolina sets one up during the summer, when prospective students are on tours with their families. It includes a packing list of sustainable

■■ Brown University students set up a dorm room in the middle of Wriston

Quad.

items to bring to campus with them, such as organic bedding, LED lighting, smart power strips, energy efficient appliances, drying racks for clothes and environmentally friendly cleaning supplies, laundry detergent and personal products. Brown University offers a virtual “green” dorm room to interested students as well.

Duke University has 30 volunteer Dorm Eco-Reps on its first year campus to administer the Green Dorm Room Certification to their peers.

“Residents complete a checklist about their daily behaviors related to sustainability, receive a prize for participating, and meet with their Dorm Eco-Rep to discuss how they can lead a more sustainable lifestyle,” said Casey Roe, outreach coordinator at Sustainable Duke.

Brown University’s approach to dorm room sustainability was to develop a pilot program where “facilities management provided efficiency upgrades to a targeted dorm while simultaneously educating its residents about the upgrades to their building and the personal choices they can make to save energy,” said Meggie

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Patton, academic and student engagement coordinator at Brown University. “To increase student awareness of resource consumption and personal responsibility, our office funds an annual energy savings competition called Brown Unplugged. Individual residence halls are metered for electricity use over a baseline period and then compared to the competition period. Students can see their residence hall’s progress year-round via this user-friendly dashboard.”

Beyond the “green” dorm room, universities and colleges also can help facilitate sustainable living decisions with outreach campaigns.

This might include signage, social media, events, giveaways and more. Students can be encouraged to help reduce water use by shortening shower times, running full loads of laundry and reporting leaks, Breeland said. Opening shades to bring in natural light and adding plants also are good ideas. Something as simple as water bottle refilling stations, as well as recycling and compost bins in each dorm and across campus, also makes a sizable difference. Stanford University even publishes a Student Sustainable Living Guide with plenty of suggestions.

Empowering students to take action can be one of the most effective strategies in encouraging sustainable living on campus, and long term. Participating in university and college clubs, campus-wide campaigns and initiatives, as well as student job and research opportunities geared toward green living helps students develop leadership skills and work experience, while learning the value of sustainability.

“We have seen consistent growth in students interested in volunteering for sustainable projects and student membership in environmentally-focused student groups,” Patton said. “We assess student awareness each year via the Brown is Green survey, which doubled in respondents over the past two years. Notably, we saw increases in ‘the importance of climate change as a defining issue of their lifetime’ and ‘recognition that being involved with sustainability programming in college will make them more marketable when looking for a job.’”

Duke University has a Green Grant Fund, which provides seed funding for students’ sustainability ideas. Past funding has been allocated to a bike-powered concert, solar compacting trash and recycling bins, a sustainability walking tour using a folding pocket map and more.

Duke also offers student internship programs, where students design and lead their own campus projects, as well as a campus farm, which has had more than 700 undergraduate volunteers.

■■ Duke University’s model Green Dorm Room

events. Students have led the outreach effort for a composting pilot on campus, completed a recycling assessment for Greek housing, planned the annual energy competition, spearheaded a donation collection program, audited the dining footprint and more.

And every year, Stanford University hires eight to 15 student interns who conduct research on sustainability challenges and implement or test solutions. For example, two graduate student interns identified compatible LED light alternatives for Stanford’s fluorescent fixtures, calculated the return on investment for installation, and surveyed student satisfaction with the change in light quality. Students also are actively engaged in student and campus groups dedicated to sustainability efforts. Duke University has 24 clubs focused on sustainability, such as Food for Thought, Environmental Alliance, Campus Sustainability Fellows, Duke Students for Sustainable Living and more.

From Duke, Stanford and Brown to Boston University, Notre Dame and University of South Carolina, campuses across North America are committed to encouraging students to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle in their dorm rooms and in their future. n

Brown University runs the Brown is Green initiative, which integrates students into planning various campus sustainability programs and

Universities and colleges encourage students to adopt a more sustainable lifestyles [ 11 ]

Sustainable City Network Magazine

Power Up Anywhere with Solar Charging Stations Recharging Laptops and Cell Phones with the Power of the Sun

BY JESSICA CHAPMAN

Joe Kobus was on his way back from a Colorado whitewater rafting trip about a decade ago when he got the idea for his company, EnerFusion Inc. Flying standby, he ended up waiting in the Denver airport for the better part of a day and in search of a convenient, free way to charge his laptop.

JOE KOBUS Founded EnerFusion, Inc., in 2006 University

KISE’ ZETTEL Business Development Manager for NRG’s Portable Power Division

BETH FERGUSON Principal at Sol Design Lab based in San Francisco

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An engineer by trade, Kobus started thinking about solutions to his charging challenge. Today, his growing company employs more than a dozen people with the goal of ensuring fewer people find themselves stranded without outlets to charge their cell phones, computers, tablets and other electronics.

Kobus’ solution? Public charging stations powered by solar energy.

EnerFusion now has its solar charging stations in more than 50 locations – including the island nation of Trinidad – and has no plans of slowing down any time soon. Their main clientele are college campuses, with captive audiences of green-minded, multitasking, on-the-go individuals – all armed with mobile devices, laptops and other gadgets in need of frequent charges.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Kobus quipped, “so I looked at several different ways of providing a sustainable way to plug in outdoors and developed our Solar-Power Dok flagship and then a few derivative products. We incorporated a lot of different functionality in terms of allowing people to plug in – USB ports, LED lighting. You can work at night.

It’s all off-grid and fully sustainable. You can put one in the middle of a tropical island.”

EnerFusion’s most popular product is its “Solar-Power Dok,” a circular picnic table made of recycled plastic with solar panels atop its umbrella cover, outlets on its stem and Wi-Fi capabilities as well.

Other products include more compact, standalone structures in a couple different sizes mounted with a single solar array and outfitted with different charging capabilities, for use at bus stops or other high-traffic areas.

EnerFusion isn’t the only company aiming to capitalize on the surge of interest in renewable energies and the declining cost of solar technology in recent years. Large corporations like NRG Energy, the largest independent power producer in the United States, have gotten into the solar game as well in response to what it sees as a legitimate and growing market desire.

“Millennials are coming into play,” said Kise’ Zettel, business development manager for NRG’s Portable Power Division. “They want to decide how to get their power and we support people making their own decisions, keeping powered and on the go. Our product Street Charge station really demonstrates how NRG is trying to meet those needs and be responsible as well.”

The Street Charge, which looks like a sleek, slender windmill, can be seen in dozens of locations throughout New York City, as well as on a number of college and corporate campuses and various public spaces. The idea arose in the wake of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, when many residents, stranded without power, were in need of accessible, free power sources.

AT&T, which had provided mobile charging units powered by diesel after the storm, partnered with an NRG-owned solar company called Goal Zero to roll out the mobile, solar-powered unit. The Street Charge can now be found in more than 100 locations, including internationally.

“Not only are communities loving them, but cities are loving them too,” Zettel said.

Other companies, like the San Francisco-based Sol Design Lab, have uncovered very specific niches for their products. The company got its start in Austin, Texas, in 2009 after one of its two principals, Beth

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Ferguson, created a solar charging station as her graduate research project. Her post-graduation efforts in the solar arena caught the attention of planners for the popular annual film and music festival South by Southwest, which began supporting her work and featuring her distinctive, repurposed 1950s gas pump charging stations at subsequent festivals. Sol Design Lab’s solar charging stations have also been featured at the Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza festivals, among others.

Solar charging stations can cost anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars each. Some companies, including NRG and Sol Design Lab, also rent their charging stations, including some big-name clients like Whole Foods and the Sierra Club. Charging stations are also low-maintenance.

“Music festivals really inspired me, the first couple years, it was just music festivals,” Ferguson said, adding that the festival exposure gave the company a footing among a young population eager for sustainable, communal, free options for charging their phones and laptops.

“Students started contacting us, asking us to bring [charging stations] to colleges … Clients are often 19 years old.”

Sol Design Lab has just two employees, to keep costs down, and contracts out for services, such as installation, when needed.

“Depending on the project, we do a lot of creative partnerships so we don’t have a lot of overhead,” Ferguson said. “That’s the secret to a lot of this.

We get fabricators, web designers, tech people when we need to. We work with universities, partner with offices of sustainability, get help with project management and accounting, along with grants.”

■■ Sol Design Lab charging stations have been featured at several different music festivals,

including South by Southwest and Lollapalooza.

The company’s artistic charging stations can be seen on campuses including Stanford University, the University of California at Santa Cruz and Ferguson’s alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. Ferguson said she loves working with students and is exploring the possibility of bringing Sol Design Lab’s solar charging stations to high school campuses as well.

The frequent placement of solar charging stations on college campuses is no accident. Not only are college students typically more open to new products, but they also tend to travel with at least a couple electronic devices at any given time. And in addition to being a savvy marketing move, it’s also wise financial strategy. Ferguson pointed out that some college campuses, including UT-Austin, collect student fees for sustainability initiatives, generating a fairly accessible pool of resources precisely for projects like solar charging stations.

■■ The Street Charge station from NRG’s Portable Power Division can be found throughout New

York City

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

■■ The Solar Power Dok from EnerFusion includes outlets, lighting and WiFi.

“We haven’t had to touch any of [our installed charging stations] yet,” EnerFusion’s Kobus said.

NRG, on the other hand, prioritizes training people on the ground, such as campus facilities managers, in the event of any maintenance needs on their products, though they also offer a maintenance package with their products if customers want it.

“They are easy to purchase, easy to install and easy to take care of and use as well,” Zettel said.

Location is obviously an important consideration for a solar installation, and can be tricky, but for the most part, as long as stations are exposed to sunlight at least several hours a day, they can continue to do their job. Stations also can be customized with university colors or branding, features that both EnerFusion and NRG offer their customers.

While tracking usage at charging stations remains anecdotal for the most part, their popularity among the general public – particularly youth – is unquestionable. Sol Design Lab has recorded some usage by having “data counters” document each user, as well as by having people provide a signature when they charge their device. In order to better monitor how much their stations are being used, the company is currently developing software that can track usage more accurately and give users relevant information about, for example, the energy they are saving by powering up with solar.

But for these companies it’s just as much about educating the public about alternative energy choices as it is building a product.

“They’re a marketing tool and an education tool,” Zettel said. “They’re also cool looking and aesthetically pleasing. People see them and think it’s so cool. People ask questions and then they’re able to really talk about it.” n

Solar-powered charging stations growing in popularity [ 14 ]

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Sustainable Procurement – More Than Buying Green Holistic Approach Includes Human Rights, Ethics and Diversity

BY MICHELLE VOLKMANN

LEO MACKAY Vice President of Ethics and Sustainability at Lockheed Martin

JOE KOBUS Director of Outreach & Operations for the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council

Incorporating sustainable procurement policies at public and private institutions has been a growing trend in recent years. But while some organizations still define the practice strictly in ecologic terms, many are now incorporating the other two fundamental aspects of sustainability — economic viability and social equity — into their buying decisions.

So, rather than simply purchasing “green” products that benefit the environment, proponents of sustainable procurement are increasingly shifting their business to environmentally friendly suppliers that also happen to treat their employees and subcontractors ethically.

stewardship to drive affordability and innovation,” said Leo Mackay, vice president of Ethics and Sustainability for Lockheed Martin. “It involves analyzing supplier activities — from materials sourcing to shipping — to make better decisions that strengthen business ethics, advance social and economic inclusion, and foster resource efficiency.”

The company began to incorporate environmentally-conscious procurement practices in 2008 as part of its original Go Green goals to reduce carbon emissions, water use and waste sent to landfills from direct operations.

In 2012, Lockheed Martin broadened its approach to sustainable procurement. The corporation established a Corporate Sustainability Office and completed its core issues assessment.

And, by the way, as the purchasing power of these organizations continues to grow, the price of “buying green” is coming down.

“Through internal and external stakeholder workshops, a cluster of supply chain topics emerged as among six high-impact areas for Lockheed Martin sustainability,” Mackay said. “Over the past two years, we have introduced a supplier code of conduct, issued a voluntary sustainability assessment to key suppliers, analyzed supplier spending using Life Cycle Assessment methodologies and developed a business ethics mentoring program for suppliers, as well as other new initiatives.”

“We define (sustainable procurement) as managing our extended supply chain to achieve sustainability through social responsibility and environmental

Mackay explained that through these workshops held in 2013, Lockheed Martin determined three focus areas for supplier sustainability (Conflict Minerals, Counterfeit Parts and Supplier Standards) and five corresponding performance indicators, including: • Increase percentage of eligible respondents completing our Sustainable Supply Chain Management Voluntary Assessment; • 100 percent of Lockheed Martin’s Suppliers Receiving our Supplier Code of Conduct (via open Purchase Orders); • Assess 100 percent of Lockheed Martin’s top 500 suppliers below target threshold for Dun & Bradstreet SSI Score and have risk mitigation plans as necessary;

BETH ECKL Director of Environmental Purchasing at Practice Greenhealth

DANIELLE VITOFF Program Manager of the California Sustainability Alliance

• 100 percent of Eligible Purchasing, Quality or other affected employees completing Counterfeit Parts Awareness Training; and • Increase percentage of suppliers with deliverable hardware with acceptable counterfeit work control plans, as assessed by Lockheed Martin’s Business Areas. [ 15 ]

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■■ 2013 SPLC Summit Attendees

Since incorporating these performance indicators, Lockheed Martin has reported some successes, but the company recognizes its efforts are only one link in a global supply chain made up of more than 16,000 direct vendors.

“In some respects, the environmental impact attributable to our suppliers is 65 times that of Lockheed Martin’s own business operations, so we encourage them to adopt sustainable practices,” Mackay said.

Lockheed Martin was a founding member of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, which was established in 2013 to help member organizations navigate through the marketing rhetoric and determine which products actually meet their strict procurement guidelines.

“Today, there are so many eco-labels in the marketplace,” said Sam Hummel, director of outreach & operations at the SPLC. “How does a purchaser know which claims are legit?” [ 16 ]

The green label confusion prompted the council to develop “robust guidance” for its 140 member organizations, which together wield more than $200 billion in global purchasing power. The council provides strategic training and tools that can be used as benchmarks for sustainable purchasing by its members. They also have access

“In some respects, the environmental impact attributable to our suppliers is 65 times that of Lockheed Martin’s own business operations, so we encourage them to adopt sustainable practices.”

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to a supplier directory that matches buyers with suppliers. These suppliers are vetted by SPLC, so buyers can trust their environmental claims.

SPLC describes its organization as a broad coalition that brings organizations interested in green procurement to the same table.

Participants include federal agencies like the EPA and GSA, as well as social interest organizations such as Fair Trade USA and environmental interest organizations like Healthcare Without Harm.

It also includes state and local government purchasers, university purchasers, corporate purchasers and suppliers.

“It goes beyond going green, it encompasses a more balanced set of social, economic and governance indicators.”

Is sustainable purchasing more expensive for either the supplier or the purchaser? Not necessary, Hummel said. In fact, there’s a tandem push to make environmentally responsible purchasing cost effective on both ends of the supply chain.

“We need sustainable decisions to be affordable,” he said.

It’s a misconception that sustainable procurement automatically increases costs, Mackay said.

“In fact, today we procure eco-friendly goods at cost parity in many cases. It also is true that certain sustainable goods and services

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Holistic purchasing starts with suppliers and ends with consumers. may lead to cost avoidance – materials that last longer, lubricants that reduce toxic disposal volumes or, say, systems that carry less cyber risk,” he said. “As the overall demand for sustainable products increases, price premiums will further erode. Meantime, we seek to map sustainability factors to prevent supplier turnover and reliability challenges — stemming from a range of activities from unfair labor practices to counterfeiting.”

Strategic, environmentally preferable purchasing needs to look beyond purchasing costs, added Beth Eckl, director of the Environmental Purchasing Program at Practice Greenhealth.

“We encourage organizations to look at the total costs of ownership,” Eckl said. “There’s the main cost of the product, but there’s also the use cost or product’s life cycle and the disposal costs associated with that product.”

Practice Greenhealth, is a nonprofit and member of the SPLC. It provides resources and tools to guide its 1,300 members in the U.S. and Canada on standards for environmentally preferable purchasing.

“Sustainable health care that’s good for the environment, good for patients and staff, and good for the bottom line means action plans to eliminate mercury, reduce and recycle solid waste, reduce regulated and chemical waste, reduce energy and water consumption, create healing environments, and establish green purchasing policies,” its website states.

Within the health care industry, environmentally preferable purchasing is important because it goes beyond the environmental impact, including both patients and employees.

“What we buy really does matter,” Eckl said. “Procurement is a central point and the best place to reduce environmental impacts within an organization.”

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Consideration of a product’s life cycle also was emphasized in the 2010 Local Government Green Procurement Guide, developed by the California Sustainability Alliance.

“By weighing not only the purchase price of a product but also its full lifetime cost, green procurement policies can help local governments save money, create local green jobs and improve overall sustainability when compared to using similar products,” said Danielle Vitoff, program manager of the alliance.

The guide was developed in partnership with the city of Ontario, Calif., but it was designed to be used as a resource guide by other local government entities in California, Vitoff said.

A challenge for green procurement is “developing criteria and determining whether products meet this criteria,” Vitoff said, but “this is becoming less of an issue as it is more common to find environmental sourcing resources.”

As sustainable procurement evolves, the emphasis on equity and ethics becomes more in focus.

“It goes beyond going green, Mackay said. “It encompasses a more balanced set of social, economic and governance indicators.”

Sustainable procurement is a holistic approach, Hummel added.

“We are talking about human rights, ethical conduct and supplier diversity,” he said. “Sustainable procurement is a lot of things.” n■

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Gentrification Without Losing the Neighborhood Communities Struggle to Maintain Identities as Prosperity Grows

BY JESSICA CHAPMAN

Have you heard of “the Whole Foods effect?”

ED McMAHON Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute

In the real estate world it’s considered a phenomena whereby the arrival of a Whole Foods, an upscale grocery store featuring organic produce and products, can predict a neighborhood’s gentrification. The event supposedly signals a tipping point, leading to rising property values in the neighborhood and the addition of similarly upscale stores, boutiques and retail outlets nearby.

As it turns out, the theory has some evidence to back it up. According to a 2012 Salon magazine article, “Evidence suggests that Whole Foods can accelerate gentrification in particular ways. A new Whole Foods may not cause property values to shoot up on its own, but it can set into motion a series of events that change neighborhoods.”

PAUL BRUHN Executive Director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont

John Mackey, Whole Foods’ former (now co-) CEO himself acknowledged “the Whole Foods effect” in a 2007 interview with Fortune magazine.

“The joke is that we could have made a lot more money just buying up real estate around our stores and developing it than we could make selling groceries,” he said in the article. “That’s one reason we have a lot of landlords aggressively [trying] to get us in as tenants.”

Gentrification is generally considered as the arrival of more affluent residents in an urban, often neglected, neighborhood, resulting in changes to the area’s culture and often displacement of longtime, poorer residents. These demographic changes are frequently accompanied by the relocation of more upscale businesses and retail outlets to the area, such as yoga studios, juice bars, doggie daycares and established chains like Starbucks and Whole Foods.

While risky, the promise of untapped markets in new areas appeals to many businesses, especially those with deep pockets and a household name. For example, coffee giant Starbucks is thought to be capable of kick starting the gentrification of a previously under-served neighborhood via market-savvy calculation about where to open its stores.

But the company is definitely no dummy when it comes to real estate.

According to a 2012 article in Business Insider, “you can bet that big chains like Starbucks spend a lot of money and time analyzing neighborhood potential before they open up a new store … If you see them [Starbucks or Whole Foods] opening in a new neighborhood, it’s a sign that the neighborhood is up-and-coming, and therefore a smart real estate bet.”

A 2014 report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) called “Retail in Underserved Communities” details some of the considerations businesses – both big and small – must make, as well as the hurdles some must overcome when locating in an under-served area. The report names factors like site availability and assembly, local approval processes, matching the retailer to the market and inaccurate or insufficient market information as being able to encourage or deter retail development.

The report also discusses barriers to entry. For example, underwriting challenges might confront businesses seeking to open in a new, urban location. Whereas large, chain retailers typically have an easier time, since they “are backed with corporate lines of credit and have flexibility to own or lease, build new construction, or retrofit an existing property,” smaller, mom-and-pop type businesses might have more problems establishing themselves as a result of reluctance from lenders and even commercial redlining, the practice of selectively denying a contract or lease.

No matter what infusion of capital or number of affluent clientele a shiny new franchise might bring to a revitalizing neighborhood, there is the risk of creating a neighborhood that looks like any suburban strip mall, said Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow with the ULI. “The more any one place becomes just like others, the less competitive advantage you have,” he said. “You can sow the seeds of your own destruction because if you have all the same stores [as everywhere else] you lose your cool, your specialness. The smart savvy cities are looking

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■■ Whole Foods Market is an American supermarket chain specializing in organic food. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it opened its first store in 1980. As of

2015, it operates 427 stores in North America and the United Kingdom.

for some blend. There’s a tipping point – you want to have locally-owned businesses, mom-and-pop stores, a few chains to help stabilize rent, but if you reach the tipping point, you start to go downhill again.”

Striking into new territory, especially if it will lure wealthier residents and clientele, is a good idea from a real estate perspective – the property owners and landlords who stand to make the most money the most quickly from a neighborhood’s gentrification.

The Business Insider article cited a real estate expert who was very straightforward.

“One of the best ways to stretch your buying dollar is to find a neighborhood that is in transition,” he said. “Called fringe or transitional neighborhoods, they are typically close to major metropolitan areas and were once neglected and less desirable. Is there a trendy restaurant where a tattoo parlor used to be? These neighborhoods are now beginning to enjoy a new life and your goal is the find them.”

In a lengthy report on gentrification by American Public Media’s “Marketplace” program, one Los Angeles professional house flipper explained how he markets revitalizing neighborhoods to potential homebuyers. He admitted he relies on the small businesses that set up shop in a revitalizing neighborhood, going so far as to call them a “seed [ 20 ]

of transformation — something he could point to and say, look, this neighborhood is changing. He needed to convince potential home buyers of this, yes. But just as important, he needed to convince the people who were giving him money to flip those homes.”

Some communities, concerned about small, local businesses being replaced by chains in gentrifying neighborhoods, are pushing back against what an August 2015 Governing magazine article describes as “hypergentrification,” or the “mature stage in the gentrification process when merely affluent residents are displaced by the truly rich, and when commercial real estate properties reach a market value that makes it difficult for anyone but a national or global corporation to pay the asking price.” The effect, according to the article, is that “the attractiveness of New York’s gentrified neighborhoods has lifted commercial rents to the point where many small-scale tenants – even those operating at a profit – can no longer afford to pay them.”

In response to the issue, concerned New York City business owners, residents and advocates have brought the Small Business Jobs Survival Act before the New York City Council which, if passed, would allow commercial tenants more negotiating power in the lease renewal process and place certain restrictions on rent increases.

While gentrification’s increased costs are often the main reason for controversy among neighborhood residents, the changes also have

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brought unexpected financial savings in some cases. A recent New York Times article detailed how some New York City co-op residents were able to offset building maintenance costs by opening the ground floor to upscale restaurants and shops willing to pay a great deal in rent for the location.

The article details how, as a result of the opening in one building of a Mrs. Green’s Natural Market and a restaurant focusing on gluten-free dishes, one resident’s monthly maintenance fees went from $816 per month to just $20.40, and a “special assessment” fee of $170 per month was eliminated as well.

Locating in a residential building can be a win-win for businesses as well as residents, McMahon said.

“Mixed-use is starting to take off,” he said. “It creates more value for the city, for the property owner, and it also turns out that people like sleeping upstairs and shopping downstairs.”

There are lessons to be learned from small communities as well, confronted less by gentrification but seeking the same preservation and retention of unique, small businesses and social places to meet as their neighbors in larger cities. Paul Bruhn, executive director of the

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Preservation Trust of Vermont, helped launch “community-supported enterprises” in a number of Vermont towns, which directly engage the community in helping to open or maintain local businesses by selling “shares” to defray operation and equipment expenses.

“Community ownership of the real estate, equipment and furnishings protects the community’s investment as well as the charitable investment,” Bruhn wrote on the organization’s website. “It also makes it possible for a start-up business to start-up without debt. Most of these enterprises are more likely to succeed if there is limited or no debt.

If the community owns the space, equipment and furnishings; and one business fails, the infrastructure is still there for the next edition.”

“If you don’t have a place for people to connect and come together, it’s just another subdivision and you don’t connect, and it changes how a community works,” Bruhn said. “We think these enterprises are absolutely essential to the success of small communities.”

The success of a community can be defined by the success of its “third places,” he added. Home and work are the first two places, but a “third place” – a local bakery, pub or grocery – is one where people truly connect with others. n

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Reducing Waste in the Operating Room Hospitals Have Big Incentives to Reduce Healthcare Waste

BY SARA BOOTH

Of all the waste a hospital generates, as much as 20 to 30 percent comes directly from the operating room.

Surgical procedures sometimes result in hospitals discarding tools that have been opened but never used. What’s more, disposing of operating room waste isn’t a simple matter of throwing it in a dumpster bound for the landfill; state and federal laws require some materials to get special treatment that can cost 10 to 15 times as much as ordinary waste disposal.

So, there are a lot of good reasons for a hospital to take a second look at how it’s handling OR waste. But there are complicating factors, as well.

“Hospitals are fairly risk-averse, and for a very good reason,” says Kelly Weisinger of Emory University. “It’s challenging to be the first to try something.”

Weisinger is the sustainability programs coordinator for Emory, and one of her department’s major projects is the “greening” of Emory University Hospital and Emory University Hospital Midtown.

Starting in July 2014, the two hospitals joined the university in implementing a comprehensive plan to keep waste out of the landfill, aiming by the end of 2015 to divert 65 percent of total waste into other disposal streams, such as recycling and composting.

While the university was already recycling and composting quite a bit when the program began, operating rooms were further behind.

“We had some ad-hoc recycling happening, but we hadn’t taken a comprehensive look at healthcare waste,” Weisinger said.

Any such look will turn up a variety of complexities that might surprise people who aren’t medical experts. It can be difficult for healthcare workers to see how to make changes, but Gundersen Envision, the “green” arm of Wisconsin-based Gundersen Health System, offers a number of initiatives to help out. Eric Bashaw, program manager for Comprehensive Waste and Environmental Compliance, understands the complexity of the problem.

“A hospital is one of those weird facilities that generates every industry’s form of waste. There’s food waste, and facility operations waste such as light bulbs, and the same sort of paper waste that office buildings generate,” Bashaw says.

■■ There is a lot of plastic, blue wrap and white cardboard used in the

packaging of surgical instruments. Wisconsin-based Gundersen Health System was throwing away an average of 45 pounds every day. A nurse champion in the OR worked closely with Gundersen’s sustainability coordinator to develop a system for recycling. Recycling bins were placed just outside of the ORs. Now, before a patient is brought into the OR, nursing staff separate the plastic and cardboard and put the materials into the bins.

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“But then in the operating room, think of the variety of waste you’re working with. You have medical supplies, wrappings, the devices themselves. Pharmaceuticals. Blood and fluids and tissues. The gowns and drapes become contaminated with fluids, and then they’re bio-hazard waste. Even the heavy-duty disinfectants that are used become chemical waste that has to be disposed of.”

In the case of the Emory hospitals, one discovery involved the way surgical supplies were purchased. Supplies for surgery can be ordered in a prepackaged kit, with all the necessary tools and supplies placed on a single-use tray and shrink-wrapped. “When we did a little supply-chain thinking, we realized that it might be easy to purchase pre-packaged trays, but often they contain more or different instruments than a particular surgeon uses,”

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“A hospital is one of those weird facilities that generates every industry’s form of waste. There’s food waste, and facility operations waste such as light bulbs, and the same sort of paper waste that office buildings generate” Weisinger says. So instead the hospitals began assembling their own surgery kits, using trays that can be sterilized and reused, packed with only the instruments and supplies that will actually be used.

Some instruments must be discarded after use. But these can now be collected by Stryker, a medical technology company, for recycling. Other devices, from laparoscopic devices to blood pressure cuffs, can be reprocessed and reused. In 2014, Emory diverted more than 12,000 pounds of these and other devices from the landfill.

Sometimes medical supplies and equipment are neither used nor expired, but simply no longer useful at a particular facility.

Emory has partnered with MedShare to donate these to needy medical facilities, where they can be used rather than discarded.

Some OR waste is fairly simple to deal with. Surgical instruments arrive wrapped in plastic, cardboard, and “blue wrap” (a fabric-like substance made of polypropylene plastic. If these materials are taken into the operating room, there’s a risk of contamination during surgery so they have to be discarded.

Gundersen’s nursing staff instead separate these materials outside the OR, allowing them to be recycled.

Disposing of bio-hazardous waste costs an average of 28 cents a pound, while recycling costs an average of just a penny a pound.

So it’s easy to see how processes like this, while they take time, can save thousands of dollars in waste processing fees simply by keeping clean cardboard separate from bio-hazards.

In the case of blue wrap, some was recycled and some was used by volunteers to create aprons, tote bags, wheelchair and walker bags. This saves both the cost of recycling and the cost of purchasing those items, not to mention building volunteer relationships.

While changing habits can be difficult, changes like these tend to reduce costs, which makes them easy to consider. “It’s a winwin,” Weisinger says.

Still, patient health is often a concern in a variety of ways.

If a patient has a highly infectious condition, no amount of sterilization is going to make it a good idea for the staff to reuse [ 23 ]

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the gowns they wore during the surgery.

And even something as simple as a recycling bin can be bad news if it clutters up the operating room and slows response times.

“We try to think downstream,” Bashaw says. “You don’t want anyone coming in contact with it. And if you’ve ever been to a recycling center, you know that if you send it, they will be in contact with it; they’re not following healthcare procedures.

“We always try to ask ourselves: Would we recycle this if this patient had MRSA (a staph infection)?”

And yet, says Bashaw, the best green champions are in the operating room.

“When you’re a surgeon removing a tumor, you think about how environmental conditions affect health. You think, ‘Could this have been prevented?’ “ “Hospitals began using disposable equipment and supplies for a good reason, and they resulted in a far lower infection rate,” Weisinger says. “But the technology has advanced so much that it now makes sense for the operating room to be a little less disposable.” n

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Reusing Historic Buildings The Ultimate in Sustainable Development

BY JULIANNE COUCH

To some, the term “historic preservation” summons an image of old-timers sitting around a dusty museum basement, trying to find a way to save drafty old houses that remind everyone of the good ol’ days.

KERRY DAVIS Principal and Architectural Historian with Preservation Solutions, LLC

PEGGY BROOKER Volunteer with the Casper, Wyo., Historic Preservation Commission

In reality, “historic preservation” means finding ways to both honor the heritage of a place, and capitalize on its existing resources in order to revitalize a community.

That’s according to Boise, Idaho-based Kerry Davis, principal and architectural historian with Preservation Solutions, LLC. She is a qualified historic preservation consultant with the State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO) in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and Oklahoma. Her experience includes documentation and eligibility assessments for more than 22,000 buildings and structures, as communities try to determine which economic tools are available to help them with funding.

Historic preservation is a way to “capitalize on existing resources,” Davis said, which means surveying properties to determine whether they are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, a program managed by the National Park Service. If they are eligible, there are funds and other incentives to give these structures an even longer life and facilitate rehabilitation project financing.

Even if a place is not deemed historic, that is still good to know since structures as young as 50 years might be eligible for certain incentives.

Structures built long ago are still standing for a reason, Davis said.

“They were often built to last this long and with superior materials such as old growth timber, which has a much tighter grain profile

and is thus much more water resistant than woods being used today.

Additionally, buildings depreciate at a faster rate than in the early 20th century, so there is little incentive now for builders to use high quality construction materials,” she said.

“ From a sustainability standpoint, historic preservation is the ultimate in re-use” “From a sustainability standpoint, historic preservation is the ultimate in re-use,” Davis said. “Instead of land filling and then extracting and processing and shipping new construction materials, we look at embodied energy in an existing structure, thus capitalizing on the time and energy already spent. In the long run it is more efficient and goes back to concept of repair rather than replace; we don’t need to buy new all the time.”

One community that hired Davis’ company is Casper, Wyo. The city of about 55,000 has long been a hub for oil and gas production, an industry notorious for boom and bust cycles. In the 1980s, the city’s historical society noticed that some of Casper’s old structures were being torn down and replaced with little thought to the cultural loss the community was experiencing as a result. So they arranged for a survey to determine whether any of their buildings would be eligible for listing on the National Historic Register. They knew such a listing could be a powerful tool to maintain and rejuvenate their town through grant funds and various state and federal incentives.

Unfortunately, that survey found that the downtown wasn’t historic enough to be listed on the National Register.

“Fast forward 30 years,” Davis said. “Now those building that were 20 years old are now 50 years old.”

That’s enough to be considered eligible for the National Register and thus a number of financial incentives, she said. Davis was able to document more than 200 buildings in the city’s central area between December 2013 and June 2015. As a result of her work, Casper will have a database their city and county assessors can utilize. If someone is looking at a property for redevelopment, they can pull up [ 25 ]

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■■ The Natrona County High School is undergoing renovation that preserves its original features and removes some elements that were added on in later years.

all the information about when it was built, who the architect was, what uses the property has seen and how its appearance has changed through the years.

“Finding out if a building is historic or not is a great planning tool for cities,” Davis said. “Knowing which incentives and/or tools are available can guide city activities. Whether it be revitalization or wholesale redevelopment, determining National Register eligibility can help target limited city resources, as well as enable property owners to leverage private investments toward revitalization.”

In addition to helping a city determine what might be eligible for listing in the National Register, conducting a survey helps them understand and plan for what is known as a federal undertaking.

According to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties, and afford the ACHP, as well as any local [ 26 ]

interested parties a reasonable opportunity to comment. That means that any federal action – licensing, funding or permitting – that has an impact on cultural and natural resources must be reviewed.

For example, if the U.S. Forest Service wants to permit a ski area to expand, they have to take into account its impact on cultural and natural resources, Davis said. Even if a project simply uses federal money, such as a block grant, “they are required to take into account the potential impact, and mitigate any adverse effects.”

A third benefit of conducting a survey is that it frees time and money for cities like Casper. “Instead of running every building up the flagpole to check eligibility, now they’re all done,” Davis said. “They just look in the database to find out what the building is eligible for.

Knowing what they have is an effective planning tool for all kinds of decisions.”

Davis recognizes the strong emotional impulse that might motivate a community to honor its heritage. When looking at the built

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environment, the sense of a past place and time that makes a place unique is very real, she said. All shopping malls might look alike to many eyes, but every downtown is different in its size, scale, texture and massing.

“That was enlightening,” she said. “We caution anyone, if you have any area where the buildings aren’t in really good shape, get them surveyed. If they are in a historic district or contributing to a historic district, get them surveyed.”

Historical society members often express their desire to preserve important places and will then communicate that desire to their planning department, community development department, city council or other relevant body. Davis has several suggestions for cities that want to do the sort of planning Casper has done.

Other parts of the Casper story have more satisfying conclusions, Brooker said. After Davis’ survey, a developer came to town to renovate an empty building and convert it into apartments. The developer contacted the Wyoming SHPO because the building had previously been a low-income housing project for which federal HUD funds had been used. That meant that the new developer had to have approval by the state for the project. Brooker said the Wyoming SHPO had documentation that the building was eligible for the National Register and indicated they’d like to see more detailed plans.

“All these groups need to remember that preservation is more than an emotional mechanism. It is an economic development tool,” she said.

Peggy Brooker of Casper is one individual who approached the notion of preserving local heritage with a strong emotional motivation, yet she understands the economics of it, too. She noted that around the time of the 1980s survey, Wyoming’s SHPO approached communities around the state about becoming a Certified Local Government (CLG.) This is a partnership of local municipalities with their SHPO and the National Park Service, in which communities become certified as CLGs and eligible for funding and technical assistance. The Casper Historic Preservation Commission went through the process, and now Brooker is its part-time staff member, managing its administrative functions.

The commission recently increased from seven to 11 volunteers, appointed by the city council.

“So many people are interested in being on the commission,” Brooker said. “A lot of people have seen buildings torn down and the way Casper is changing. They want to preserve what we have left and save it, even repurpose it for another use. They just don’t want to see it torn down.”

Brooker has come to realize that a passion for local heritage is not enough in this age of tear it down and build it again. It takes professional preparation and training in the languages of government officials, architects, developers and private property owners. Brooker recalls a recent Wyoming SHPO workshop on how to survey buildings, which was attended by CLG members from around the state. They were all interested in the buildings, but when it was time to prepare a building survey they realized they didn’t have the skill set.

“We had no background in how to identify or describe buildings or architectural features. We came to realize we didn’t have the expertise to do it and that we needed to go for a grant and have it done professionally,” Brooker said.

Even during the time that Davis’ work was ongoing, Brooker said, some buildings in a section of Casper known as the Yellowstone District were demolished. This was disappointing since some of the buildings that could have supported the historic district application were destroyed before they had a chance to be included.

“SHPO worked with the developer, and all parties involved had the information they needed to review the project and make the project better,” she said.

The project is still ongoing, and it appears the historic fabric of the building – the façade, some of the stairway and some of the walls – will be preserved to make it still eligible for the National Register.

Communities that aren’t yet CLGs or that want to know about historic preservation as an economic development tool should contact their state’s Historic Preservation Office, said Davis. “Just say, ‘Here’s where we’re at, here’s our size, we’re not sure what our approach to development should be,’ and so on. Also call neighboring communities and ask what they did and if they have any helpful advice or insight.”

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a conference each fall that Davis also recommends. Sessions include everything from survey techniques, city planning and fundraising to how to repair wood windows. There also are statewide SHPO conferences.

“Even if you don’t plan to do any historic preservation, it is good to become familiar with the planning elements,” she said. “Being conversant in the issues and funding tools would be helpful for any city manager.”

Finally, being knowledgeable about historic preservation can help even when a community’s emphasis is on green building.

“The U.S. Green Building Council is often focused on new construction; however, LEED certifications and tax incentives for green work in older existing buildings is getting better,” Davis said. “Instead of investing in infrastructure on unplowed ground, we should try to use what is there. LEED and historic rehab can work together to make this happen.“ n

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Sustainable City Network Magazine

Forecasting the Next Pandemic Computers Crunch Big Data to Offer Early Warning

BY THE CARY INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES

The study, led by Barbara A. Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most emerging infectious diseases are transmitted from animals to humans, with more than 1 billion people suffering annually.

Safeguarding public health requires effective surveillance tools.

“Historically, emerging infectious diseases have been dealt with reactively, with efforts focused on containing outbreaks after they’ve spread,” Han said. “We were interested in how machine learning could inform early warning surveillance by revealing the distribution of rodent species that are effective disease reservoirs.”

With University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology colleagues John Paul Schmidt, Sarah E. Bowden and John M. Drake, Han employed machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to reveal patterns in an extensive set of data on more than 2,000 rodent species, with variables describing species’ life history, ecology, behavior, physiology and geographic distribution.

The team developed a model that was able to predict known rodent reservoir species with 90 percent accuracy, and identified particular traits that distinguish reservoirs from non-reservoirs. They revealed more than 150 new potential rodent reservoir species and more than 50 new hyper-reservoirs – animals that might carry multiple pathogens infectious to humans.

“This study shows the value of bringing new analysis techniques together with big data,” study co-author John Drake said. “By [ 28 ]

combining ecological and biomedical data into a common database, Barbara was able to use machine learning to find patterns that can inform an early warning system for rodent-borne disease outbreaks.”

The data is significant, Han said.

“Results equip us with a watch list of high-risk rodent species whose intrinsic traits make them effective at carrying infections transmissible to people,” she said. “Such a list is increasingly important given accelerating rates of environmental change.”

Among the take-aways: all rodents are not created equal in their ability to transmit disease. The riskiest reservoir species are those that mature quickly, reproduce early and often, and live in northern temperate areas with low levels of biodiversity. The paper adds to the growing body of knowledge that ‘pace of life’ affects infection tolerance in animals.

“Biologically-speaking, species that bear as many offspring as possible in a shorter period of time may tend to invest fewer resources in immune response compared to slower-living animals. This could make certain rodent species more effective disease reservoirs,” Han said.

Geographic areas found to have a high diversity of rodent reservoirs included North America, the Atlantic coast of South America, Europe, Russia, and parts of Central and East Asia. Predicted future hotspots of rodent reservoir diversity spanned arctic, temperate, tropical and desert biomes, including China, Kazakhstan and the Midwestern United

■■ Researchers employed machine learning,

a form of artificial intelligence, to reveal patterns in an extensive set of data on more than 2,000 rodent species, with variables describing species’ life history, ecology, behavior, physiology, and geographic distribution. This flying squirrel was tagged for the study.

Photo by Holly B. Vuong, Cary Institute/Rutgers University

Dr. BARBARA A. HANS Disease Ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.

Scientists believe they may soon be able to fight emerging diseases before they have a chance to spread into global pandemics. By merging big data with artificial intelligence, a recent study showed “machine learning” could pinpoint rodent species that harbor diseases and identify the geographic hotspots most vulnerable to new parasites and pathogens.

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States. A majority of new reservoir and hyper-reservoir species are predicted to occur in the upper latitudes.

“It was surprising to find more emerging rodent-borne diseases predicted for temperate zones than the tropics — given assumptions that the tropics are where new diseases originate,” Drake said. “This result shows how data-driven discovery can correct such stereotypes.”

Findings provide a basis for targeted surveillance efforts, which are vital considering the cost of monitoring for emerging infectious diseases.

“Turning our predictions into preventative measures will require collaboration with experts on the ground,” Han said. “It’s where the real work begins. A start would be to look at the newly predicted rodent reservoirs and assess which have increasing contact with people through activities like urbanization, agricultural and hunting practices, and displacement from political or climate instability.”

The machine learning techniques applied in this study are currently being used to explore new questions, including potential reservoirs of Ebola virus and other filoviruses. Research was made possible through a National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellowship. n

The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is a private, independent, nonprofit environmental research organization located on 2,000acres in New York’s Hudson Valley. A world-premier center for ecosystem science, areas of expertise include disease ecology, forest and freshwater health, climate change, urban ecology, and invasive species. The science program is complemented by education, communication, and outreach initiatives.

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