Dr. J round idea!

 “Quick! Close the door, are you trying to heat the outside?” Living in a cold climate, I am sure we all have heard someone complain about the rush of cold air as you open the door. Now multiply that by 550 people walking in and out continuously to a single point of entry and you see in fact that heating the outside is exactly what we were trying to do using our precious fossil fuel. Unfortunately Building A doesn’t have the sun’s resources to produce heat, so replacing the lost heat in a green way wasn’t an alternative. In walks Dr. John Withrow, who saw beyond the box we reside in to come up with a solution that would benefit all concerned. Dr. John submitted an idea to the Green Team for a rotating door to replace a conventional door that had become dilapidated with use. In his research of circular doors, he discovered that fuel dollars in winter and the electric bill in summer would be reduced if the building could be equipped with an alternative round door entry. Below Dr. John Withrow is given a plaque “For Suggesting Building A’s Malfunctioning Main Sliding Doors be Replaced with Energy-Efficient Revolving Doors. Your Forward Environmental Thinking Resulted in a Significant and Permanent Reduction in Building A’s Energy Usage and Carbon Footprint.” Building “A” saw a 9% reduction in electricity consumption and a 16% reduction of natural gas in the first year. We applaud Dr. John for such a great idea.

Composting is WORKING Great in Building A

About 8 months ago Building A switched to A-1 Organics for our composting partner. Since the switch our cost has gone down, our client satisfaction has greatly improved and the amount composted has increased!! Great job everyone and keep up the good work. We are averaging about 5,000 POUNDS of compost from Building A every month. Lots of reduction in the land fill, and making great garden mulch!!!

Summer Bike-To-Work Day coming June 26

Summer Bike-To-Work Day is just around the corner ! 

 Wed. 6/26/2013 6:30 – 9:30 a.m.

This year the entire NRRC campus will be coming together to sponsor a Breakfast Station at the intersection of the Spring Creek and Mason bike trails, just NE of the NRRC campus.

Last year, over 300 cyclists enjoyed goodies from La Luz Mexican Grill and Great Harvest Bread, and photo-ops with Smokey Bear at our station.

We need plenty of help serving this happy throng, so go to our VOLUNTEER SIGN-UP PAGE and sign up for a guaranteed good time.

Bike-To-Work Day is a city-wide event sponsored by FC Bikes.  Check out their web page to find an interactive map of all the breakfast stations and information about other activities during Bike Month.

Bldg E Green Tour

The Bldg E Green Team hosted a tour of Bldg E for Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland employees in the Supervisor’s Office on April 1st and again on April 25th for employees of the Canyon Lakes Ranger District.
The tour began with an update on forest-wide sustainability actions that have been accomplished to date and others in the works. Forest-wide energy and water consumption information was shared with employees, including consumption specific to Bldg E. Next, the participants rotated through four stations manned by Green Team members that focused on different environmental footprint areas.

Station 1 (Fleet & Transportation)
Station 2 (GreenPurchasing)
Station 3 (Sustainable Leadership)
Station 4 (Waste Prevention & Recycling)

The idea for the tour evolved from a Forest Leadership Team tour of New Belgium Brewery. New Belgium Brewery is a well-known local Sustainability champion where the culture and core values of sustainability are clearly evident within their employees and their business practices. The Green Team’s mission was to motivate our fellow employees to think about our own business practices and make sustainable choices.

To learn more go here.

The People’s Garden at Building B

In 2010, a group of employees in Building B created a People’s Garden in response to Secretary Vilsack’s People’s Garden Initiative. This initiative challenged employees to create gardens at USDA facilities. The garden was initially planted in pots on the back deck. This effort was made possible by a grant from the building managers which provided funds to purchase matching pots for the garden. Each pot was adopted by an employee in the building, who was responsible for its care during the work week. Volunteers would come in over the weekends and on holidays to maintain the plants. The garden was located on the back deck for the first two years, then moved to the front of the building due to lack of sunlight and wildlife activity out back. 

 

This will be the second year that the People’s Garden is located in the front area of the building. Each year, the People’s Garden Committee sends an  e-mail to everyone in Building B recruiting volunteers. Over the years, Building B employees have supported the garden by donating time, seeds, plants, and cuttings. 

The garden has produced a variety of produce including zucchini, acorn squash, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peppers, spinach, radishes, swiss chard, chives, broccoli, and strawberries. In 2012, 358 pounds of produce were grown and donated to the Food Bank for Larimer County. The caretakers of the garden also accept donations  of excess produce from employee’s home gardens to donate to the food bank. To learn more about the Building B People’s Garden, contact 2013 Coordinator Kasey Remley at Kasey.V.Remley@aphis.usda.gov.

Tree Pruning Workshop at the People’s Orchard

Watch Fort Collins expert horticulturist and nurseryman Tom Throgmorton in action as he demonstrates proper pruning techniques for fruit trees. You’ll learn how pruning can help improve tree health, branch framework, and future fruit yield.

The pruning workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, March 19, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Registration is $10, payable to our partner, the Gardens on Spring Creek. Walk across Centre Ave to register or call 970.416.2486 with your credit card information. The workshop will be held at NRRC’s People’s Orchard, just south of Building A at 2150 Centre Avenue, in Fort Collins. Everyone is welcome to participate: campus employees and their family members as well as the general public.

Tom Throgmorton is owner and operator of Throgmorton Plant Management, LLC., a landscape installation and maintenance company and horticultural consulting firm. His name may sound familiar — Tom has been offering timely, local gardening advice on KUNC for decades.

If trees still at the orchard still need pruning when the workshop is done, student volunteers can finish the job. If you’re interested in volunteering and honing your new pruning skills, bring work gloves and a pruner from home (if you have one). Bypass (scissor) pruners work best. We will have a few extra pruners that volunteers can borrow.

See you at the workshop!

Building A reduces energy, saves dollars

Building A has had a 33% decline in gas usage and a 15% decline in electricity usage since 2008 for a savings of $116,000! I pulled off the data for the last 5 years of energy consumption for Building A on the NRRC campus and put it in an excel spreadsheet. The charts below summarize the usage. We think the revolving door is responsible for some of the decline but not all. We have reduced servers and there are government initiatives on energy conservation. For example all our printers were replaced last year with energy-efficient printers, and we installed light switches with motion detectors for our business rooms. I calculated an average total savings from 2008 to 2012 at $116,000.  Way to go Building A! 

 

 

Can the Can, Building C

Can your garbage can and win! We are launching a 10-day campaign at USGS FORT (NRRC Building C) to reduce the number of garbage cans in our building.

Why? This is an effort to reduce the amount of trash we send to the landfill and instead redirect our waste towards recycling and composting. In the coming weeks, we will be rolling out a new recycling program and a new composting program. Our janitors will be reducing the times per week that they empty trash cans and they will start emptying the new recycling bins and new compost bins.

Our goal is to encourage employees to get rid of their personal office garbage cans and share garbage bins across wings and among cubes. If you and your office neighbors join together, your wing could win! Win prizes! Win for the environment! And win a little bit of exercise taking your trash down the hall.

How can you Can Your Can? Bring your garbage can to the 2^nd floor Atrium behind the front desk and put it under the label for your floor/wing. Label your can with your name.

The number of cans that are “canned” per wing will be tallied and the wing with the highest percentage of people Canning Their Can will win!!

Can-the-Can Timeline:

March 6^th, 2013 to March 15^th, 2013

Please post comments/questions/concerns below.

Building A’s Green Efforts Featured in the Northern Colorado Business Report

The green efforts of Building A employees at the NRRC were recently featured in ClimateWise magazine, in the October 2012 issue of the Northern Colorado Business Report. This annual magazine recognizes the green efforts of eight ClimateWise partners. Our article (on page 9) discusses our successful revolving-door project and our ongoing whole-building composting efforts. Good job Building A!

Benefits of Telecommuting!!

Have you dreamed of telecommuting but just have not woken up yet?? Click on this link and read more… There are a lot of benefits to you, your employer and YES, to the environment if you telecommute even ONE day a month!! Cut and paste this address to your browser, and start saving…http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/how-much-money-would-you-save-by-telecommuting/795?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660