Speaker 1:
At this time, I would like to introduce [Kathie Newcomb 00:00:02].
Katie:
Thank you. Hi everyone; thanks for joining us. My name is Katie Newcomb and I
will be facilitating today. The topic of today’s Forest Service Sustainable
Operations Peer Learning Webinar is Sustainability Leadership. We will be
hearing from two of our partners. We will hear about the sustainability program
at Federal Highway Administration and at Joint Base Lewis Mcchord. We will
hear from the National Renewable Energy Lab about technical assistance and
Forest Service partnership. Finally, from the Forest Service Sustainable
Operations Collective Green meeting Team, they will share the Green Meeting
event form. [My part is to introduce 00:00:44] Dan Donovan, the director of the
Office of Program Administration at the Western Federal Lands Highway Division
or the FHWA in Vancouver, Washington. So Dan, whenever you ready.
Dan:
Okay, thank you Katie. Hopefully everybody can hear me. I apologize I’m having
some computer problems so I’m not able to see my slides but I think we should
be able to get through this fine. I only have about a half-a-dozen slides to get
through. As Katie said, my name is Dan Donovan. I’m the director of the Office
of Program Administration in Western Federal Lands of the Federal Highway
Administration. We’re located in Vancouver Washington. I’m very excited about
the chance to participate in today’s webinar. We’ve been involved in
sustainability for about 10 years and I believe we have some things we can share,
but I also know that we have a lot to learn. I’m hoping not only to share some
information with you all, but to pick up some new information as well. Over the
next 10 minutes, I’ll be sharing a little bit about where we’ve been. Our keys to
leadership support, some of our successes and a little bit of what lies ahead for
us. Katie, could you advance to the next slide.
Katie:
Yes.
Dan:
First, I wanted to cover a little background. As I mentioned earlier we’re located
in Vancouver, Washington which is just across the Columbia River from Portland,
Oregon. Our agency here in Vancouver has about 200 employees, onsite
contractors and designs and builds roads for other federal agencies. From our
office, we cover five-state area. You can think of us as being very similar to a
State Department of Transportation with the exception that we neither own nor
maintain the roads that we worked on. Another big difference between us and
the State Department of Transportation is that … whereas the state DOT is very
concerned about the efficient movement of a lot of vehicles, we are most
concerned about fitting our projects in within the environment in which they’re
located. We like to say our projects lie lightly on the land. In fact, you could
probably say that this is our niche.
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The slide that you should be seeing shows a photo of our building and this is only
one of two government owned buildings that the Federal Highway
Administration has or uses. From a sustainability standpoint, I think it’s
important because owning this building has aided us in our ability to undertake
projects and achieve result. We can do what we do without having to work
through a landlord or another federal agency, but if you look at the building you
can probably see it’s an older building. The main building was built in the 1930s
and if you look at the far right hand end of the photograph, you might be able to
see a sloped roof building, this is the 1910 mule barn. Both these older buildings
post some challenges in terms of sustainability and energy conversation, but I
just want to point out, those are things that we have to work within. I’ve
mentioned that we design environmentally friendly projects and that we’re
located in the Portland Oregon Metropolitan area. I think both of these facts
contribute to a workforce that’s very sustainability minded. Given this, it may
not be surprising that it was our employees who started our going green efforts.
We had several employee led teams that started some projects including an
office wide recycling and composting program that began in 2005. Before that,
we had a smattering of here and there efforts but nothing of any magnitude or
focus. Additionally, we have a facility manager who has really up our game and
helped us take our sustainability efforts to a new level. Next slide Katie.
This slide should say key to leadership support. I wanted to share a few ideas on
leadership support because I think this is critical to a successful sustainability
program. I think the key to leadership support is knowing what is important to
your leadership. For our office this means three things our office likes plans,
goals, measures and targets, so for us the first key is having what we call a going
green implantation plan which has these goals and targets. We also have a team
to support the plan, and we have the right team members on this team, maybe
even a few green fanatics out on this team and it all combines to help us be
successful with sustainability. The plan gives focus and direction to our going
green team but also the plan helps maintain leadership support I believe.
The second key and I think this maybe a universal key is having a program that
achieve results and generates kudos. We have a good reputation with our
agency for being sustainability focused and we receive a good amount of praise
for what we’re doing. We also have an internal measure that’s part of our going
greener implementation plan to apply for at least two gong green type of awards
per year, this could be an office award, a group award or an individual award.
This may sound a little self-serving and perhaps it is, but I think from a leadership
support standpoint it is important because it’s hard not to support a program
that’s receiving positive feedback and recognition. Having this measure helps us
continue to receive that praise and positive feedback and helps this program to
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stand a good light, even the fact that I’m here today presenting will help
maintain leadership support within our office.
The third and last point on leadership support for our office is that money can be
tight. An office leadership is often reluctant to go too far out on a limb for green
initiative that may or may not pan out. Our office focus has been on items with
reasonable payback, something that we can sell as an investment rather than a
cause. We look at the payback period of all our going green efforts and we
typically only do those that have a quick turnaround. We also pursue what I call
free sources of money whether this be from our headquarters office who might
have end of year money available at the end of the year or applying for FEMP
funding. With the regard to the end of year money that our headquarter has,
what we’ve learned to do is to get projects ready to go just in case that end of
year money becomes available and we’re ready to obligate that money in a short
turnaround. Because often when that money becomes available to us, we don’t
have a whole lot of time to get the money obligated otherwise they don’t … they
hand it out to those who have projects that are ready to go. Next slide please.
This slide shows the front page of our going greener implementation plan. I
talked a little bit about that on the previous slide, but our going greener plan was
originally put in place to meet an agency going green requirement and was only
used by the going green team, but it’s continued beyond the demise of the
agency requirement and is now part of our local office’s unit plan. Having it part
of this … as part of our Western Federal Lands unit plan brings good visibility to
our going green efforts by ensuring that general office and our office’s leadership
hear about our sustainability effort on at least a quarterly basis. Our going green
plan has five goal areas in it. They include power and energy, recycling and
waste, paper, transportation, and marketing and education and that pursing the
awards that I mentioned a little bit ago falls under the marketing and education
goal area of our plan. Within this five goal areas there are 14 individual
measures covering everything from utility use to free deficiency to the award
nominations that I just mentioned. Next slide.
I wanted to talk a little bit about our successes. With the program that’s been
around for 10 years we’ve had a few successes. We’ve already been able to
achieve our energy conservation goals in Executive Order 13423. Our energy
reduction is at 41% versus the executive order requirement of 30%. Our
qualified renewable energy credit is 12% versus the EO requirement of 7.5%, and
our water reduction percentage is at 32% whereas the executive order
requirement is 16%. We’ve also been able to receive a few awards along the
way including … this isn’t necessarily award but something we’re really proud of.
We were a finalist for the Washington State Governors Award for Sustainable
Practices back when Washington State was doing that award. We’ve also
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received several Department of Transportation Sustainability Achievement
awards, as well as several Federal Highways Administration awards including
being the agency’s first recipient of the FHWA Going Green award. A small
success but possibly something somewhat unique is our implementation of a
100% recycled unbleached paper across our office. Maybe our greatest success
is the upfront consideration of sustainability efforts and projects. For example,
sustainability features are built in to almost all of our facility projects, including
requiring the contractors to do any of our constructions projects onsite within
our building to recycle the building waste materials. During our last two
bathroom remodels, we built in Graywater options that will allow us to use
rainwater from a roof for flushing toilets or other things like that, so we won’t
have to do a major remodel if we ever decide to implement that.
My last slide is on what lies ahead. What lies ahead for Western Federal Lands?
We’ve done most of the low hanging fruit that we know of, that we’ve already
ticked that. That means we either have to identify other easy options that we
haven’t thought of or pursue the more difficult and likely more expensive
options. Pursuing the more expensive options posses its own challenge in terms
of maintaining leadership support. As I’ve said earlier, our office tends to like
projects with short payback periods, so our best chance of receiving leadership
support in the future will be to pursue innovative funding sources, some o f that
free money that I’ve mentioned earlier. With regard to pursuing innovative
funding sources, we’re working on an application for FEMP funding paired within
energy savings performance contract to pay for solar installation on our building.
This is very much a new area for us, so it’s definitely pushing us beyond our
comfort zone even possibly beyond our internal expertise. The slide may not be
crystal clear, but it shows an early plan for a solar array on our building. We
scaled it back a little bit but this gives you an idea of what we might be … what
we’re looking at and if we’re able to live up to what we’re hoping, we’ll be able
to recover all of our energy costs from the solar array.
Over the past 10 years, we can show pretty large savings resulting from the
activities that we’ve undertaken. Another approach we may be considering
would be to suggest using the cost savings we’ve already realized to help pay for
some of our more expensive projects, essentially reinvesting our cost savings.
This one is an area I’m not sure how successful we’ll be though. Another thing
we’re pursuing is the designation of our building or our office as a bicycle
friendly employer by the league of American Bicyclist. This has been a pretty low
level of effort, but one I think our employees will really appreciate.
The last point I wanted to just highlight is our facility manager who I mentioned
has been a real strong … provided strong leadership with sustainability, he
started to think about retirement. In addition to this, we know that other
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changes can come along that might affect our sustainability focus. I’m hopeful
that we can weather any of this challenges, but with all these … with any change
like that it will prove whether we really are a sustainable centric organization
that we hope we are.
In that short period of time I hope you learned a little bit about what our agency
is doing and that you maybe thought a little bit about the leadership support and
how to get that within your office or agency. That concludes my presentation
and I don’t know when …I’ll be happy to answer questions whenever the
appropriate time is.
Katie:
Thanks so much Dan. Your energy and water reduction numbers are really
impressive. We have time for one or two questions right now and then if you
could stick around, if people have questions at the end that they can ask you
then too. Okay, as a reminder if you have a question over the phone, press star
1 or you can type it in the note. We already have one question on the note.
Dan, someone asked if you would be willing to share the going greener plan with
this group so we have an example of … or a model of what your office do.
Dan:
I’d be glad too. Will the best way be to just share that with you?
Katie:
Yes, yeah. Great, thank you. That was the only question on the note. [Inaudible
00:15:19], do we have any questions over the phone? Okay, well thanks … thank
you Dan. If you guys have questions for him, Dan will also be available at the
end of the presentation. Now, I will introduce Miriam Easley Villacian. She is the
Sustainability Outreach Coordinator at Joint Base Lewis Mcchord in Washington.
Miriam whenever you’re ready.
Miriam:
Thank you very much. My name is Miriam Easley Villacian. I’m the Sustainability
Outreach Coordinator for Joint Base Lewis Mcchord here in Washington State.
Thanks very much for having me here, looking forward to hearing the rest of
what everybody else has to say too. Next slide.
This [inaudible 00:16:10] will kind of give you an overview of the installation
where we are. You can kind of actually see our borders without actually seeing
the border where the community is encroached on us. We are essentially the
sixth or seventh largest city in Washington State, just depending on what service
members are here, if they’re deployed or not. We are looking at roughly
100,000 civilians, family members, service members and then an additional
100,000 retires that use the installation. For McChord field and Lewis North and
Lewis Main, that’s roughly 91,000 acres, and then there is also Yakima Training
Center at Eastern Washington that’s an additional 325,000 acres. Just to kind of
give you the idea that we’re working with the city here. Next slide please.
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We’re actually one of the first army organization … our Department of Public
Works is one of the first army installations to achieve a third-party EMS
Certification, so that happened in 1999. We still hold that certification the ISO
14001. We’re the first army installation to implement a sustainability program in
2002. The larger army actually ended using some of our work and what we’ve
done here to inform their army installation sustainability program. We were
chosen for the Net Zero pilot program, that’s something that the army launched
in 2011. We were chosen to be Net Zero Water and Net Zero Waste and we
decided we’re going to go ahead and pursue energy as well and then we wanted
to make sure that our net zero program reflected our sustainability program so
we do what we could and started to develop the Net Zero Air and Land as well.
You can kind of see the logo and the brand that we’ve been going for on the
bottom there. Next slide please.
As you can see here, we have six different sustainability teams working on seven
different goals. A lot of them before when we started in 2002 were essentially
pointing towards net zero anyway we just didn’t [call it as such 00:18:27], so we
recently revised them to incorporate a net zero goal. We also have an
environmental management system for the whole installation that provides
more of operational implementation, so it kind of helps just get the step by step
to these big goals that we’ve set for ourselves. We have quarterly board reviews
to report the progress to JBLM leadership, so installation commander and
different directorate leadership as well. Just to make sure that everybody is on
the same page and get feedback for how our progress is going. The next few
slides I’m going to talk a little more specifically about some of the different
programs that we have going on, so the next slide please.
For air quality, we have a few alternative fuel stations available on the
installation. Some of them are for government vehicles only, but we do have
one that’s publically accessible, if you can get through the gate, you can use it.
Additionally, we have about 15 neighborhood electric vehicles on the installation
for just kind of running around back and forth to meetings. We also have a few
Nissan Leaf and things like that. We’re trying to really want to see how electric
vehicles will work with our fleet and move towards that as much as possible.
Additionally, for the alternative fuels, for the air quality program goes, we have a
robust future production program include the shuttle that helps service
members, family members, government employees get around. Hopefully they
can get on the installation using car pools or van pools and then get around the
installation and things like that using the shuttle. Additionally, we work closely
with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to communicate burn ban and air quality
messages to the community. Next slide please.
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For our energy program, we do as much as we can to partner with other
installations. We partnered with Bonneville Power Administration and that has
helped us develop a program that basically just as about close 40 million dollars
in improvement with 18 million dollars in investment and that you can see we
getting about $4 million in cost savings and things like that. It’s mostly things like
building retrofit, different energy conversation projects to the buildings around
the installation. What’s great about these retrofit is, yeah, they improve energy
and cost savings but they’ve also kind of a quality of life benefit as well to the
buildings that have been retrofitted. A lot of employed have better work
environment whether it be improved lighting or better envelope to the building,
things like that. The top left corner that picture there, that’s the Warrior
Transition Battalion Building. That is something we’ve been kind of testing out
and see how solar works in our area and see if we can give payback on it. That
actually has been performing better than expected. The numbers that they gave
us were actually from the winter months as well and so it’s performing even
better … even during the winter month was projected, so there is some great
promise for that. On Yakima Training Center, we have solar and wind to look at
and for Joint Base Lewis Mcchord it’s possibly maybe looking into biomass as
well. We have a lot of scraps from here in our training area so we’ll be kind of
killing two birds with one stone there. Next slide please.
There is sustainable master plan. This recent one has actually just been released
probably just last couple of months we’ve now included Mcchord Field since we
just joint based, they’ve been working on making sure that there is kind of a fluid
connectivity between the two installations and that everything is working
together. The idea behind the master plan is you can build green buildings, you
can build the … but you really need to be focusing on the bigger picture as well.
That’s what the sustainable master plan is. You can read the planning vision
there on the top left. It focuses on the five design goals of mission capable
environment, sustainable community, walkable neighborhood, identifiable town
centers and complete streets. There’s tons more information about the
sustainable master plan. If that’s something that you’re interested in, we do
have a video that you can go checkout on that link below. Next slide please.
Just to kind of give you an idea some of the project that are incorporated in to
the master plan, one of the things is complete street. You can see here this is
the 2012 condition of Pendleton, that’s one of the main roads here on the
installation. Not a great place to walk down the street. You don’t really
necessarily want to see a mom pushing a stroller down to get to the commissary
which is kind of on the left hand side there. Next slide please.
With some works they’ll have it looking like this with the street trees and the
multiway boulevard and it’s pretty close to this now. The trees aren’t that big
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yet, but it looks pretty close to that right now. It’s a lot more friendly, more of
that neighborhood feel. Next slide please.
Then on the next side you actually see what the vision is, it’s going to be kind of
lively downtown with mixed use buildings. You’ll be able to drop your kids off
for dance class and make a run to the grocery store and all within your
neighborhood. If you look on the left here there is actually the town center
duplexes, so you can kind of live, work, and shop all in the same area and
hopefully, be able to not even to have a vehicle when you’re live around here.
Next slide please.
The next slide you can see an overview of what it actually looks like now. That’s
where we are today. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to reach that goal of the
previous slide in the future and kind of provide that community feel to our
service members and families that live here. Next slide please.
Gardening that is something we try to do on the installation for our community
here. The top one is one of our units here decided they wanted to have a victory
garden for his service members. We also have a community garden with the 60
plus beds on Lewis North and then we’re working to build one on McChord Field
as well. This really provides a great place for anybody in the community who
wants to come. A lot of these service members and their families’ lives and the
housing where it is really hard to have a garden so this kind of gives them their
own space. A lot of people decorate it themselves and they bring their kids and
it just kind of really great family environment for them. We have service
members there who are gardening as therapy to help with PTSD so this –
something like actually provide a lot of benefits to the community and health
benefits as well, teaching people about where their food comes from and
healthy eating and things like that. Next slide please.
Our products and material team is our bet zero waste side of it. We have few
programs under this. We have our illegal dumping investigator, everybody calls
him the trash cop and that started in 2005. He basically goes … not just on the …
not just on the [contained 00:26:17] area or the city area, but also in the training
areas and just kind of investigate the dump sites. People come and bring their
trash from home and they dump it all over the installation and he makes sure
that … he makes that [cliff side 00:26:32] area safe for the service members to
train in, cleans up the area. A lot of times what he’ll do is he’ll find whoever did
it because somebody will undoubtedly leave a piece of mail with their name on it
or something and he’ll track them down and basically make them responsible for
it. We do provide like have a small claim against them and then have them come
on the installation clean it up. They cleaned up about 2,500 sites since the
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program started in 2005, that’s roughly cost avoidance of about a $150,000 a
year.
Another program we’ve had is the unit deployment waste diversion program. If
one unit deploy they’re often left with nowhere to get rid of their stuff. They
have a whole bunch of stuff they want to get rid off before they deploy for a year
to year and half, so we provide these areas in front of their barracks to recycle,
donate get rid of what they don’t need in a responsible way so it doesn’t all end
up in the dumpster. We normally work with local nonprofit to get that to
women and children shelters. Also, we make it available to the community so if
there another soldier who wants something that’s in that area, then feel free
and take it. We also have a composting facility where you take post consumer
food waste from different facilities like our dining facility, the Child Development
Center, the commissary which is essentially our grocery store and then it is
composted onsite here at JBLM. Also do things like take [stone 00:27:59] debris
turned them into mulch and crush concrete and all of that stuff we actually bring
back to the installation. When we have projects like presentation projects and
we need mulch or compost, all that’s brought back and used. There is a cost
avoidance … dumping the material basically have about $1.5 million a year, but
then there is also the recycle product value of roughly $150,000 a year. We also
have a sustainable acquisition program on top of that, so that kind of provides
the net basis of the net zero, help reduce the virgin material consumed and
keeping things that aren’t recyclable where we use of the installation. Next slide
please
For our water resources, we are working on improving or rebuilding our
wastewater treatment facility. We’ll be producing [inaudible 00:28:55]
reclaimed water. A future phase of this project will implement like the purple
pipe system and things like that to get treated water, pushback upstream for
reuse. We have an active storm water measurement program with low impact
development. We work with Rain Garden onsite infiltration, and then there is
the reuse processed water that we’ve worked with where water from superfund
pump and treated system actually treats the water and then sends it to Madigan,
which is our hospital to help cool their HVAC for 7 minutes and put back into the
Aquaphor. That’s kind of a win-win for both. It was a huge money saving to kind
of take two projects and combine them like that. There is also pretty active
outreach with that for water conversation and storm water management. Next
slide please.
A lot of our installations are actually training areas, so we have a beautiful prairie
land around here, the South Sound Prairie this very specific prairie habitat.
There is about 1% less of the prairie habitat left in the world and we have about
90% of it. We have the largest contiguous South Sound Prairie that type of
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habitat in the world, so there is a lot that we have to do to maintain that. There
is a couple of species that has been listed in the Endangered Species Act that we
are dealing with right now there. The streaked horned lark and the Taylor's
checkerspot butterfly. We are also looking at listing the Mazama pocket gopher.
Those different species we kind of have to manage for. Now these prairies are
also fire dependent, so we do have a pretty active ecological burn program.
Again, working with our Puget Sound Clean Air agency just to make sure that
those interests are kept, both the air and the land interest. Next slide please.
Here is some of our rare and endangered spices that I spoke about. We have
actually had a Western Bluebird Program in place, I want to say since the 80s or
90s and so since we had a great success with that we have plenty bluebirds here
on the installation now. We actually partnered with the San Juan Island and we
relocated a lot of bluebirds to those islands and have reestablished their
population there as well. Also the Oregon spotted frog, we’ve been working
with [regional zoo 00:31:39] and Center for Natural Lands Management to
reintroduce those into JBLM as well. Next slide please.
One of our other projects or partner in this is the Sustainability In Prisons Project
based at the Evergreen State College. We work with regional prisons and they
do things like … some of them grow the frogs. We have another person growing
or raising butterflies or growing prairie plants, things like that. Additionally, on
the installation we have our own prison, the Northwest Joint Regional
Correctional Facility. They got a great net zero program going as well there.
They grow … they have a big Horticulture Program where they grow food that
they donate to local food banks around the installation. They’re working with
aquaculture, worm composting, solar … they have some solar to help power
their greenhouses. They have a great recycling program. They’re the big
champion of net zero here on the installation. If you speaks with the sergeant
major of the facility, he will tell you how much net zero and this program has
helped not just the bottom line but also the outlook that the inmates have just
on their time there, they really feel like that they’re giving back and kind of give
it a chance to change their lives because of that program. This is through a really
great data that they been able to take this stuff and really make it work for them.
Next slide please.
We also have a sustainable [inaudible 00:33:27] program. We were the first
designated public land to be Forest Stewardship Council certified. For every
mature tree that’s harvested we plant about 15 of them. That’s about a 100,000
trees planted annually with a result of roughly 2,500 times CO2 removal per
planting. We do sell the timber that we harvest and a portion of that actually
goes to the city to help pay for [inaudible 00:33:58] school. Next slide.
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Cultural Resources Program and they manage about 400 historic buildings and,
again, close to 400 archeological sites. Then we have those training areas and so
a lot it was [inaudible 00:34:17] brand. We actually partnered with them a lot
and they exercise their treaty rights to be able to come on the installation and
use the different sites for different activities that they have whether harvesting
materials from the forest or going to some of the sacred sites to hold
ceremonies. That’s been a really great program, really great kind of community
connected program that we have. Next slide.
For the outreach portion of it which is my main focus, we did brand our
sustainability in the zero program, so we kind of have our mother brand here,
the sustainable JBLM and then each of the net zero has their own brand as well.
Whenever we’re putting stuff out there around the installation, we make sure
that this is on that, they’re represented kind of eye-catching, I think people are
really … We have been using it pretty heavily in the last year and people are
really starting to recognize it and knows what it is. This has been really been
great to be able to have this kind of help communicate our message. Next slide.
Additionally, we have what we’re calling 12 months sustainability. Each month
we focus on different team. We do different outreach activities. Some of them
are just kind of our usual every day stuff where we’re posting in the base paper,
putting it in email distribution with newsletter and things like that. We’re now
actually working on doing really quick like, YouTube videos, nothing fancy
something kind of a handled camera and something just quick and maybe a little
funny that grab people’s attention. As much as we can, we’ve been looking at
how to do things a little out of the box just to get people’s attention, one
example is we had what’s called the recycling/MUB. Basically in a populated
lunch area catching an unsuspecting recycler off guard with about 30 to 40
people applauding their recycling efforts and have our joint base commander
come out and congratulate them. That kind of thing gets people interested it is
just something a little bit different. I kind of went through everything pretty
quickly because we have a pretty big program here, so it’s very high level. I
didn’t get into a lot of details, I want to leave enough room for questions. I do
actually have one more slide, this is kind of funny to think about kind of … I
would like to end my presentation with this and then whenever you’re ready you
can have the next slide which have my contact information.
Katie:
Great, thank you so much Miriam. Your comprehensive Net Zero plan is really
impressive. We have time for a couple of questions and then, Miriam, if you’re
available to stick around until the end of the webinar in case people have more
questions for you that will be great.
Miriam:
Yeah, no problem.
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Katie:
Okay, I have two questions over the note. If you have questions please type
them in on the note or press star 1 on your phone. So I’ll read the two questions
on the note while we’re waiting. The first is … and I think Dan can answer this as
well. How big are the sustainability teams mentioned? Is it made up of
volunteers or is it a full time job?
Miriam:
For us, sustainability is kind of weaved in a lot of people’s jobs. Our
environmental division is roughly 60 people. We actually only have one full time
designated sustainability employee and that’s me, but we also have [inaudible
00:38:00] is actually in the room with me, she’s a sustainability advocate. Then
we also have our sustainability program manager who is also our pollution
prevention program manager as well. It’s not volunteer basis, it’s all part of
everybody’s job.
Katie:
Great, thanks and Dan if you’re still on the line can you chime in what the size of
your team.
Dan:
Yeah, we have about six people. Ours are largely volunteer. They’re the people
who have tersest in doing it. We’re just fortunate that those people who have
interest happen to be in key areas that can do a lot for sustainability like, our
facility manager, our administrative officer, one of our procurement technician,
somebody from IT, somebody from our materials lab. We’re just fortunate that
the fanatics happened to be in the right place.
Katie:
That’s sounds good diverse team. Thank you guys. The next question is for
Miriam it says, what are responsible parties reaction to being busted by the trash
cop, are they surprised? What do they say?
Miriam:
Yes, sometimes they’re really surprised. One of the ways they bust them is
people actually bring their trash on and put it on our dumpsters so we’re
basically paying to throw away their trash. He actually placed cameras on there
and so he’ll catch people with their license plate and things like that just
throwing away trash. I think one of the funniest things was actually watching
that happen and then you come … you see a video footage later of the person
coming back looking around for the camera, so some people are surprised, some
people are mad, some people are just like you busted me, I’ll fix it, so different
reactions.
Katie:
Okay, thank you. That’s it for questions on the note. Do we have any questions
over the phone?
Speaker 1:
At the moment I’m not seeing any questions over the phone.
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Katie:
Okay, great. Well, thank you Miriam and thanks for sticking around in case
people will think of their questions later. Now, we’ll move on to our next topic.
I’m going to introduce Lexie Carroll, she’s the data manager for the Forest
Service Sustainable Operations Collective based out of Wyoming. She’ll will be
talking about and giving an intro to the National Renewable Energy Lab Technical
Assistance and Forest Service partnership and then Lexie will introduce our NREL
partner. So Lexie, whenever you’re ready.
Lexie:
Thanks Katie. Like Katie said, I’m Lexie Carroll. I’m currently the data manager
for the [SSOC 00:40:33] Collective and I sit on the Bighorn National Forest in
Sheridan, Wyoming. Just as a little background to start out, last year in 2013,
there were two key documents that were signed by leadership supporting a
greater focus on our agency wide facilities energy footprint and both of these
documents set goals to strive towards becoming a net zero agency. The first
document that was signed was an agency-wide Energy Reduction Plan also called
ERP. It was signed by all Forest Service deputy area representatives and this plan
provides a road map by which the Forest Service is now moving forward towards
meeting executive order goals, as well as our own energy reduction goals. One
of the goals in this energy reduction plan is striving towards becoming a net zero
agency.
The other document that was signed last year is a national agreement that
establishes nationwide sustainable operations collective and this was signed by
all national leadership council members. This agreement outlines [ORSA NW
00:41:37] role and responsibilities for successful corporate adoption of
sustainable operations practices.
Today we have [Alison Kent 00:41:49] with us. Alison is the senior engineer with
the National Renewable Energy Lab, also known as NREL. She is our point of
contact on an agreement that was signed recently between NREL and the Forest
Service. The [SSO 00:42:04]collective has aha a long standing relationship with
NREL since its inception and we have a relationship with Alison as well and we’re
excited to continue to have this relationship and have NREL help us in becoming
a net zero agency. Alison today is going to share with us some information
about that agreement that was recently signed as well as another agreement a
Memorandum of Understanding recently signed between the Forest Service and
FEMP, which is the Federal Energy Management Program. FEMP is a sister
agency of NREL. Take it away Alison.
Alison:
Thank you so much Lexie. Katie, can you go to the next slide please. Yeah and
you can even go one more slide forward if you like, but thanks for the intro Lexie
and thanks everybody for being with us today. I’ll talk a little a bit just some
introductory information on the Department of Energy, DOE and the National
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Renewable Energy Lab also known as NREL. I’ll talk you through the two
agreements that are in place between all those entities, one is the Memorandum
Of Understanding and then one is a formal contract between NREL and the
Forest Service. Lastly I’ll talk through some of the current technical efforts that
we have under was supporting Forest Service. Next slide please.
The Department of Energy has an office within that agency known as FEMP,
Federal Energy Management Program. FEMP’s purpose is to basically support
the federal government in implementing cost effective energy efficiency and
renewable energy and even vehicle, fleet based technologies. They do that
through technical assistance, through financial support and just to offering
resources to different federal agencies. There is a link here that I encourage you
to go look at, there is some really good resources on the website including a lot
of educational seminars and free information on all of those categories I just
mentioned, so energy efficiency, renewable technologies, fleet technologies, as
well as financing mechanisms. FEMP also offers support in financing
technologies and so if you’re wanting to implement project at your site but not
quite sure how to fund them there is some opportunities available to do so via
third-party financing and some [inaudible 00:44:27] on hand and funding to
support you in getting those projects implemented. Again, I encourage you to
just kind of look at that website, browse it and become familiar with the offering
associated with FEMP and how they could perhaps help you. Next slide please.
NREL is a National Renewable Energy Lab. This is where I work. We’re located in
Golden, Colorado and we’re one of the … about 15 to 20 national laboratories in
the Department of Energy National Laboratory Complex. We’re unique in that
we’re the only one that’s dedicated to renewable energy and energy efficiency
research and development. NREL develops renewable energy and energy
efficiency technologies and practices. Advances efficiency … advances related to
science and engineering and transfers knowledge and innovations to address this
[inaudible 0:45:20]. At NERL we have research centers tied around all of the
renewable energy technology areas, so there is a solar research area, wind, et
cetera, but there is also building science research both on the commercial and
the residential scale. There is an analysis center focusing on policy analysis as
well as technology deployment analysis. There is the deployment center, this is
actually where I sit, supporting federal agency and the private sector in
developing effective projects basically, so helping assess potential for energy
efficiency or renewable technologies and then helping to get those technologies
deployed. We’re really technology neutral. We’re trying just identify the most
appropriate technology before you get an application and then working to
provide support to get those implemented via different financing mechanisms.
There is also a website here for NREL. Again, I encourage you to go look at it,
become familiar with what we do. Next please.
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The first agreement I’ll talk about is between the Department of Energy and the
Forest Service. It’s actually between that office I just spoke about, FEMP and the
Forest Service and it’s an informal Memorandum of Understanding. It’s a one
year agreement and it’s kind of documenting this relationship or the
collaboration between DOE and the Forest Service. The goal behind is to achieve
a broader and more integrated agency-wide implementation of sustainable
operations practices. Our goal is just a year, the intent is that it will kind of build
the foundation for a longer standing relationship between DOE and Forest
Service and that relationship will carry on outside of this fiscal year. Next slide
please Katie, thanks.
As part of that MOA a few different tasks are outlined. One is specifically tied to
leadership engagement. The first is that FEMP staff will serve as a member of
the sustainable operations collective board of directors and will also sit on the
sustainable operation collective executive steering committee. That actually is a
FEMP representative from DOE, his name is Jesse Gary. He’s been really
engaged and excited to kind of get involved with the Forest Service and find out
everything that’s going on and see how FEMP can help. Then secondly, FEMP
and NREL staff is invited to get involved d on a day-to-day basis by participating
in programs of work teams. That’s both Jesse and myself becoming involved
more, again in day-to-day operations of team such as the Task Zero, Green and
Fire, Green Meeting Toolkit. There’s all these different teams that we’re
supporting by kind of just trying to be on call, review documents, provide
support as we can, really just to get up to seed with the work that’s happened in
these areas and that’s currently [inaudible 00:48:15] and identify methods or
mechanisms by which we can provide support either now or in the future. Next
slide please.
Also under this MOU are some tasks outlined associated to technical support, so
providing support to the energy reduction team via reviewing the energy
reduction plan, helping to develop of renewable energy strategies for the Forest
Service, kind of an national scale but also all the way down to the unit scale.
Then identifying energy conversation measures for implementation, kind of in
parallel with energy other support service has been conducting, helping to
identify opportunities for implementing those.
Secondly, supporting the track zero team. Reviewing the net zero guides that
had been developed and then supporting the development of a greenhouse gas
reduction and mitigation plan. For the more supporting the fleet reduction
team, so reviewing the fleet management strategy and supporting
implementation and fleet management tools. I think there are some other
supports that probably will be identified throughout this year that we’ll provide
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but this is kind of the skeleton of the work that we’re intending to do. Next slide
please.
The second agreement that we currently have in place is between the Forest
Service and NREL. This a five-year formal interagency agreement where the
Forest Service has asked NREL to provide some support. We’ll be providing
assistance on both the national and sub-national level to create processes to
track greenhouse gas emissions and then furthermore to identify opportunities
to reduce those emission. This is building off along same relationship Lexie
mentioned that we’ve been working with Forest Service for over 10 years now
and so we’re really excited to kind of continue on the relationship and the works
that we’ve done in the past over the next five years. It is nice in that DOE is kind
of supplementing and helping support this work in the first year and then we’ll
be able to carry it on over the next four years aft that. Next slide.
Under this NREL agreement there is a few tasks outlined. One is associated with
kind of continuing the most recent agreement that we did with Forest Service
but has ended a couple of years ago and that is to develop Forest Service specific
user guide or the GSA carbon footprinting tool. We have a project about two
years ago where we piloted carbon footprinting tools for Forest Service. A few
units piloted three different tools. We documented lessons learned associated
with that and effectively kind of outcome of that was that the carbon … the GSA
carbon footprinting tool seemed most [trusted 00:51:05] for Forest Service use.
As an outcome of that, we now would like to develop a Forest Service specific
user guide that details information for how you, as Forest Service staff can use
this tool where you can get the data that you need to use it or you can get
support to use it. That’s kind of one of the first task. The next is the net zero
guide review and validation, so helping to review those, validate the information,
provide [inaudible 00:51:30] or input as needed. Then lastly on the slide, provide
technical assistance to implement agency-wide energy cost and consumption
reduction plan and most specifically tied to that is identifying actions for cost
effective implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to
reduce greenhouse gas emission. Next slide please.
There were a couple of overlaps you probably spotted between the Forest
Service and NREL agreement and then the DOE Forest Service MOU and that’s
intentional. We are trying to identify from synergies between the work that
we’re doing and kind of dive right into work. The work that we really starting on
right now is a nationwide renewable energy screening. We’re going to be
planning to use a tool developed here at NREL called REOT. It’s the renewable
energy optimization tool and it optimizes based on a variety and kind of
[inaudible 00:52:31] that every user you’re able to define … you can optimize on
a 100% net zero energy. You can optimize on lowest [inaudible 00:52:36] cycle
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cost but it tells you for a particular site what combination of renewable
technologies and kind of your standard status quo scenario is most cost
effective. We plan to run that analysis for about 150 Forest Service Units to
analyze for these technologies listed here for hot water, solar PV, solar
ventilation preheat, wind, biomass and natural gas. To do that we actually
require some data from Forest Service and Lexie is busy collecting that data right
now. For every site that we’re going to be including in the analysis, we need
some location data just the latitude and longitude or the address, the annual
energy consumption and annual energy cost and that includes not only electric
but also natural gas or diesel or fuel oil, whatever, energy is used at a particular
site would be needed as part. After ENREL receives that data we will then
conduct the analysis utilizing algorithms specific to how the technology
performed, cost associated with the technology and census available at each
particular site, and then lastly taken into account the renewable resource that
every particular site as well.
The result of that analysis will include prioritize list of the sites best suited for
renewable energy system and that will include the technology type, size and
lifecycle costs. This is really meant to be a high-level screening of potential for
renewable technologies and to really help the Forest Service just to get a big
picture look at where renewables might be most cost effective. The intent is
that following that analysis then the ones that look most … precisely looks most
promising can be examined in more detail for feasibility. Either via onsite
feasibility study where we would go visit the site and look at the available land
and available [inaudible0 0:54:34] area and really consider some of those
assumptions we made in the REOT analysis. It could also be that, you know, you
on your forest know that your buildings are going to be included in energy saving
performance contract and you look at the report and realized that your site look
really promising for a solar PV, something you can [inaudible 00:54:54] perhaps
include in that contract. We are hoping that this can serve as a tool for planning
but also for actually project … for actual project implementation over the next
few years. Next slide please.
The second project that we are just kind of diving into right now is the
nationwide energy efficiency screening. Kind of in parallel with the renewable
effort we’re wanting to identify cost effective high priority energy conversation
measures for Forest Service. We will review past micro-grant projects and
energy audit results and type of generator [inaudible 00:55:33] list of the ECM
with the best estimated cost effectiveness. ECM is an energy conservation
measure and we’re just really trying to identify ones that seem s to be kind of
popping up in the majority of the audit report that Forest Service has been
conducting so that we can almost write the best practices guide or checklist of
technologies that should be considered for implementation on most sites. The
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idea is that these can then be implemented perhaps in third party financing or as
you’re doing equipment replacement for technologies such as lighting, water
fixtures, HVAC controls and HVAC system energy conversation measures. This is
something again that we’re just starting. Lexie is really busy gathering data for
this, so we’re doing that over the next couple of months and the NREL will be
staring the analysis on both these and the renewable screening in about two
months. Next slide please.
We’ve also provide a support in the development and review of the net zero
guide. The guide [inaudible 00:56:39] to assist the Forest Service green team in
meeting the goals of a nationwide sustainable operations collective program.
There are four guides, fleet, water, energy and waste and those … there is a fourday activity in January kind of trying to get those wrapped up and out. My
understanding is that those will be kind of continually evolving document and so
that something that we’ll continue to provide support and input on as they start
to be rolled out and use, and that information kind of continuously change. Next
slide please.
This is my closing slide. I just want to provide you with Lexie’s contact
information and my contact information. If you have any questions about these
projects of what we are doing, feel free to ask right now but you can also reach
out to Lexie regarding perhaps helping with the data collection or getting your
data to her. And then if you have any questions about NREL or the support that
we are providing you can also feel free to reach out to me, my information is
there. Thanks so much for your time.
Katie:
Thanks so much Alison. We have some time for questions. If you want to ask a
question over the phone, press star 1 or type it on the note. I have a couple of
questions in the note. The first one is … the question is about tools that will
track current data. The tools that were shared in the presentation seemed like
analysis for future panning but not current data tracking and the person was
curious to hear from Lexie, Alison, Miriam and Dan. I don’t know, Lexie you want
to start with the Forest Service?
Lexie:
Can you read that again, Katie?
Katie:
Yeah, sorry. They’re just asking about tools they can use to track data. I kind of
want you to touch on ENREL or for the Forest Service. So track like energy and
water data.
Lexie:
Sure, definitely. Yes, the Forest Service right now is in the middle of transitioning
to a new utility accounting system called Access and it’s part of an overall
contracted USDA, so all USDA agencies are going to be switching to those. We
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are not completely switched. We were supposed to be switched by beginning of
January, that’s been pushed back, so now it’s supposedly the end February.
Anybody in the Forest Service can get an account to be able to go in a look at
data. You won’t have the ability to change that but you can go in and look at
your data and I’ve seen a preview of the system and it’s much more user friendly
than anything we’ve had in the past. If you want information on how to get a
username and password for this new system please email me and I will send that
to you.
Katie:
Thanks Lexie and then Alison, Dan and Miriam, if you guys have any thoughts
about how you track data that’s will be great.
Alison:
I don’t. I know that every agency and even kind of sub-agency or bureau or
office within has their own tool, so I don’t have any great insight, sorry.
Dan:
We use … I mean very simple tools. We have just a small operation here so we
don’t have anything major you know spreadsheet. We get information from the
local utility provider. We got some data loggers and then we paid for several
energy audits, which have provided us information but nothing very
sophisticated.
Katie:
Okay, thank you.
Miriam:
This is Miriam. We don’t have anything comprehensive for that, for tracking
water and energy. We are working on getting all of our buildings metered and
having it connect to one system that we can read everything. We’re just having
some issues with the connectivity just because of the security issues. We’re not
quite there yet but we’re moving forward.
Katie:
Great, thank you and hopefully that answered the question coming through the
note. The next question in the note says, does ENREL have a policy that outlines
sustainable meeting or event practices, for example, onsite versus virtual
meetings and do they have any best practices in support of this?
Miriam:
We don’t gave a policy associated with it. I have to look about best practices. I
guess I’d say whoever asked that question will shoot me an email, but I do know
the Forest Service is developing some information or has developed I believe.
Lexie, do you have anything to add or am I misspoken?
Katie:
No, you’re correct, this is Katie, Alison. The person who asked is actually on the
green meeting team so I bet he was hoping to learn from another agency.
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Alison:
Okay, yeah, I would just say shoot me an email and I will see what NREL kind of
best practices are associated with that.
Katie:
Okay, great, thank you. We have one more question on the note. How soon will
ENREL’s review of the Forest Service micro-grant review and scoring report will
be available?
Alison:
Both the renewable and energy efficiency kind of micro-grant project is for this
fiscal year to be wrapped up, so I would expect late summer for both of those to
be done. So by the end of September definitely has to be done but hopefully
before that.
Katie:
Okay, great. Thank you. Are there any questions over the phone?
Speaker 1:
Yes, we do have a question over the phone. Caller, your line is open. [Inaudible
01:02:36] your line is open.
Speaker 5:
Did you say [inaudible 01:02:43].
Speaker 1:
I did.
Speaker 5:
Oh, I’m sorry. I actually typed my question into the note. It was a question
about the micro-grant reviewing and scoring. I’m sorry.
Speaker 1:
All right that’s fine. Thank you.
Alison:
Just to clarify that micro-grant question. We are not looking at micro-grant
applications kind of currently pending or currently being considered in funding
goes. Looking at past awarded micro-grant and past micro-grant applications
just to look for trend or opportunities that can maybe be gleaned from assessing
of those applications, so just to clarify.
Lexie:
This is Lexie. We may be looking at a national micro-grants program so it’s part
of the reason that we’re having ENREL help us yard all these regional programs
up.
Katie:
Great. Thank you Lexie and Alison. Are there any other questions over the
phone?
Speaker 1:
At this moment I’m not seeing any more question over the phone.
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Katie:
Okay, thanks and there are none in the notes either. Thanks again, Lexie and
Alison for that great presentation. Hopefully you can stick around until the end
in case there are more questions.
Alison:
Yup, I’ll be around.
Katie:
Okay, thanks. Now, I’ll move on to our next topic, the introduction to the green
events feedback form. We have Lara Polansky, the sustainable operation for
climate change coordinator for Region 5 on the line. Lara, whenever you’re
ready.
Lara:
Great. Thank you so much Katie. I would also like to acknowledge another
member of the Green Meeting Toolkit Team that were instrumental in
developing the form that I’m going to speak about for the next few minutes and I
realized that it is already 11:10 Pacific so I’ll try to move us along quickly to allow
time for Q&A at the end. Again, this is the Green Meeting Toolkit Team, I’m here
to [inaudible 01:04:44] for this form and review, Sherri Wormstead who played
the critical role and I believe that [Jim 01:04:49] and Sherri are on the line today
and can help answer questions and Meredith [Girard 01:04:56] was the one who
designed the form and made it accessible 508 compliant, so all three of those
folks have a big piece to play and I just have the opportunity to talk about it
today which is a lot of fun too. Next slide please.
The Green Meeting Tool Team basically provides for guidance and tools for
green meeting on-site, virtual and hybrid meeting s and conferences. I thought it
was important for the folks in this line to understand the big picture of the team
before diving into one of the deliverables of the team, which of course is this
feedback form. The team goals are stated here. The first and certainly the
largest of the goals is to create a toolkit that will serve as a gate way to learn
more about how to learn about, how plan, how to implement different types of
meetings. This could be onsite meetings, [inaudible 01:05:48] positional meeting
format 100% virtual meetings or a combination of onsite and virtual which is
increasingly common, so we define it as the hybrid meeting. These meetings
from just a few folks maybe 10, 20 folks to hundreds. We’re thinking about all
scales here.
The next team goal is to provide learn ongoing methodology and resources to
manage and update the toolkit. Realizing the best practices and technologies
are constantly evolving and so to make sure that our toolkit does the same. We
want to avoid redundancy in toolkit content. In other words, [there is this
01:06:27] question, what does NREL had or what does FEMP have in the way of
green meeting guidance. This is gathered already from the EPA and from GSA
and there is a lot out there on the topic but the idea is not [inaudible 01:06:44]
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but rather draw in those resources to create a one stop shop that is specific to
Forest Service needs and meeting membership protocol. We also want to invove
other resources as the team sees fit. One of the things that was not initially part
of the team but very [inaudible 01:07:04] became a key component was
Meredith Girard and her 508 compliance work realizing the way we meet and
especially when we are talking about virtual or hybrid meeting really does
require technology that measures with our 508 compliance accessibility standard
to allow true inclusive workforce environment and then to develop deeper
connections with the key members of the team realizing that very well part of a
system and the community. Next slide please.
Thanks. The feedback form was intended to learn about the sustainable actions
and consideration of integrated in Forest Service organized events. That’s a key
part there. We’re really are looking for things that are initiated and run by the
Forest Service as oppose to something that Forest Service employee might be
attending but posted by say, BLM, The Bureau of Land Management.
Information gathered in the feedback form will then be saved in a repository
that’s going to be accessible to all Forest Service employees. It’s a means of
cross pollination to share ideas and reduce duplication and to say well, okay if
you’re going to go and start planning an event from scratch what are some of
meeting best practices that [inaudible 01:08:25] and they work for you.
[Inaudible 1:08:28] the Green Meeting Toolkit team will actually analyze this
information and try to pullout some trends tools with … and we’re getting a
better feel for what to look technical assistance from the team will be needed to
further reduce the environment impact of meetings. This is really a very basic
diagram her but the idea is that the green event toolkit feedback form and
information that individual provide would then feed the green meeting toolkit
and it would be somewhat of integrated process so that the green meeting
toolkit team remains relevant and keeps advancing. Next slide please.
The target audience and outlines. On this side we have the target audience is
meeting organizers but I really wanted to emphasize that event organizers are
everywhere and coordinators of meeting [inaudible 01:09:31] getting the
message out to everyone who organizes events. These individual in all agencies
that maybe wear as one of their many hats the meeting organizer hat, but we’re
really talking about everyone that may ever be in that role. One of the things
that’s important to know about is before I o to the outline and the form is that
meeting organizers … in order to complete this form would want to collect some
information before and some information during the event to make sure that
they full information to complete the feedback form post event. The way that
we’ve laid out this form with a very clear instruction sheet help meeting
organizers understand what are those parts that need to be collected before and
during versus just reflected upon asked. [Inaudible 01:10:23] form allows folks
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at hone in on those type they need to be thinking about in real time as the
meeting is ongoing.
The form has five components by sections. This part … this one is information
[inaudible 01:10:37] all forms an event information section … section on
greenhouse gas emission and cost savings. This would be from avoided travel,
avoided facility costs. A post event feedback section and then finally robust
section on sustainable components of onsite or [inaudible 01:11:03] in a bit
more detail in just a bit. Next slide please.
Just a sneak peak, this is not a whole form that I’m going be presenting but we
certainly can post the full form in a way that folks can access it when the slides
are posted, as well as the webinar reporting so that’s all in one place. As I’ve
also mentioned form is already posted on the sustainable operation internal
website also known as the demonstration site and we can get folks a link for that
as well. This is the first spot, basically getting the respondent information,
wanting folks to identify what type f event it is, is t virtual, onsite, hybrid, et
cetera, and to describe it a little bit for us. We want to know how long it was, the
number of physical attendees and by virtual. Next slide please.
As I’ve mentioned, we also want to gather some information about the reduction
in footprint and also I guess cost of footprint of the event. We want to estimate
the emission avoided from reduced or perhaps nonexistent travel and [inaudible
01:12:24] estimated of travel cost savings and so that doesn’t have hodgepodge
way to do that and to calculate those values we actually provide a direct tool, it’s
not our tool, it was developed by the EPA, very simplified greenhouse gas
emission calculator and if one were to follow the hyperlink that’s imbeded into
the tool they’ve got to an Excel spreadsheet where you essentially plug in the
numbers in the business travel pad and [inaudible 01:12:52] number of emission
avoided and estimated travel cost savings. Again, anything is based on estimates
and one of the things we want to do for folks willing to take the kinds of
[inaudible 01:13:06] is minimize the burning and quantifying these things while
still providing some level of accuracy and so this pre [inaudible 01:13:14] should
be helpful for that.
Let me [inaudible 01:13:16] post event feedback. We don’t want to know just
what went well, we want to know what problems you encountered as well. Was
it with meting approval, was it with buy in for green measures, was it with
budget, technical problems such as the bandwidth issue, et cetera. We really
want to know those things and then know the lessons learned and how those
things are dealt with. The even rating piece which we reference the survey
result there it’s part of the pre or during meeting works that one would do that
they will essentially survey folks that were attending it to get their real tine
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feedback of how they felt about the event, where the satisfied with the event,
the use of technology, perhaps [inaudible 01:14:08] together, measures
incorporated or within [inaudible 01:14:14] or more dissatisfied and that’s the
kind of thing that we really want to capture as well. Next side please.
Great, so this is the charter list of the sustainable components of onsite or hybrid
events. This goes on for about full page within the actual form itself but I just
took a screen shot here. You can get a feel gradually for the types of feedback
that they were asking for to categorize [inaudible 01:14:46] marketing for
instance, planning an event purchases, refreshment. [Inaudible 01:14:52] all of
the different ways that you might go about incorporating green meeting
principles. It’s not just about reducing travel or it’s not just about how you
[choose 01:15:02] for the event but really think nearly everything you’re doing,
how the site is cleaned or where the site is placed or do you send everyone a
paper flyer or do you make a paperless commitment? All of these things and
then capturing, did we do it, did we not do it, does it not apply. This is just a way
of us as green meeting toolkit team understanding trends. Next slide please.
Great, I believe this is my second to last slide [inaudible 01:15:36] for here.
Another … one of the sustainable component [inaudible 01:15:41] technology.
How did we bring in technology to support green meeting principles? This is
again, trying t understand how folks are connecting to one another by meeting
they’ll be connect, other web platforms, [inaudible 01:15:56], et cetera. Even
with digital note taking encouraged. Then in the virtual technology piece, we ask
for further input. We really want to know how this was used, how did you not
just use the platform but how did you continue to engage folks in a virtual way
over the course of the perhaps multi-hour or multi-day meeting and that’s all
very valuable information to us. As you can see here, the form is submitted
electronically and you have an option to print it if you want but it is submitted
electronically to a number of the green meeting toolkit team so no need to even
PDFs and email anyone just happens automatically. Next slide please.
When the slide are posted you’ll be able to access the form in the collective and I
should say it’s not actually on the shared point site, that was my error, it’s on the
internal sustainable operation website. Unlike the shared point site, the internal
sustainable operation website is accessible by all Forest Service employees and
the hyperlink there will take you to the internal website. Katie, I’ll correct that in
the final version of the slides. So that’s where you can access the green event
toolkit feedback form and we really very much welcome your input on that form.
If you and your colleague go about planning green meetings, you know that I’m
happy to take any questions.
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Katie:
Thanks so much Lara. I just want to thank all of the speakers. It was a great
presentation today and we have about 8 minutes left for questions so if you
have questions for Lara or anyone else please press star 1 on your phone or type
it on the note. While we’re waiting, I’ll just let everybody know that as a
reminder the Peer Learning Webinars are now bi-monthly so the next one will be
April 2nd and we’ll send out announcement. The topic is Green Purchasing. I
don’t see any questions on the note. Are there any on the phone?
Speaker 1:
Yes, we do have a question on the phone. Kelly, your line is open.
Kelly:
Do you on this form do you just give it out to your district and your offices and
then ones … every time they create a meeting to hope that they kind of look at
this and go towards it … move towards it? Then also what do you do with all the
information afterwards?
Lara:
Great question, Kelly. This is actually the debut of the form. We have done
some data testing but the process you described of widely disseminating the
form [inaudible 01:18:48] typical business practices to fill out after an event.
That would be the ideal, absolutely. Then [inaudible 01:19:01] meeting of the
certain scale which are then margin off to [inaudible 01:19:05] filling up the form
but really the format design for every type of meeting. It is really very
dependent [inaudible 01:19:12] like yourself or perhaps if you’re not green team
leader. A green team need to kind of get that message out and [inaudible
01:19:20]. In the terms of what we’re going to do with the information, the
team itself will periodically pull the information of the minutes and kind of do a
trend analysis and then put forth some recommendations it’s a way to compile
tools that exist and create list of tools maybe helpful. That information will be
posted on the internal SSOC website so that all Forest Service employees can
access that kind of evolving information. I believe that Jim [inaudible 01:19:53]
and Sherrie Wormstead are also with us today so if you [inaudible 01:20:02].
Katie:
Thanks Lara.
Lara:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
We do have [inaudible 01:20:15] your line is open.
Seventh speaker: Thanks Lara [inaudible 01:20:17] for that great presentation. It is basically
anything we collect here is going towards like Lara was saying toward knowledge
base that we’re building on the green meeting toolkit site. Your information will
be really valuable because as we transition from today which is … we’re kind of
new to this technology and new to how we are doing both onsite as well as
virtual meetings or the hybrid, the two combined we’re learning as we go and
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the technology is obviously changing quickly as we go also. As we build this
capacity across the agency to be able to put more and more efficient and
sustainable meetings together we’re looking at this as a relaly valuable tool for
us to build that capacity.
Katie:
Thanks Jim. While we’re waiting, the link on the screen is probably too long for
everybody to write down but when we share this slides, there’ll be link to the
Peer Learning schedule for [inaudible 01:21:18] 14.
Kelly
Can you tell me where again I can get that form on the regional website. Where
would it be placed at?
Lara:
Absolutely, thanks for that question. The form is already posted on the
sustainable operation internal website. We can provide a direct link to that
when we post the slides also the word here on the previous slide that we’re all
looking at is already has the hyperlink to the form so again, once the slides is
posted you’ll be able to access it.
Kelly:
Okay, thank you.
Katie:
Thank you. All right, well, thank you again everyone for participating. Have a
good day.
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