CLEED

Sustainability Consultancy for Cultural Institutions

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#Rochester Museum and Science Center @ROCrmsc to develop Regional #Green Infrastructure Showcase

rmsc2As the Greece Post reports, The campus is now undergoing a huge sustainability demonstration project called the , set to be completed by the end of the summer.

The new RMSC campus will feature areas to explore green infrastructure and sustainability, including rain gardens and interactive displays. The Environmental Facilities Corporation awarded $525,000 for the installation of a new porous pavement parking lot and bioretention areas on campus to decrease and treat . The areas capture and filter stormwater runoff from roadways and parking lots and water several low-maintenance native species plants, many of which are adaptable to high volumes of water.

“We at the RMSC care deeply about our local watershed and are taking action to protect it by creating new landscape campus features,” said Kate Bennett, RMSC president. “One responsibility as the community’s museum is to demonstrate options that create a sustainable future for our region and our ecology.”

Guests will be able to participate in green infrastructure workshops at a learning pavilion. The pavilion includes a green roof complete with plants and a water harvest collection area that captures roof runoff.

rmsc
Courtesy of RMSC

The stormwater runoff process will be showcased in an artistic educational glass design called “Genesee River Watershed,” created by local artist Nancy Gong and sponsored by the . The art glass will divert water from the pavilion roof to a rain garden. In another exhibit area, downspouts will transfer water from roofs to rain barrels. A treadle pump, a human-powered suction pump, will offer guests an opportunity for physical activity in understanding the irrigation process. Other areas with porous pavers and concrete will reduce runoff and winter salting requirements. For every tree that was removed during construction, two new ones will be planted on the campus.

RMSC exhibition components include a rain garden puppet theater, explanations on how porous pavements works and various interactions with the . RMSC’s new campus will be incorporated into the Stormwater Coalition of Monroe County’s ongoing series of Green Infrastructure Trainings and Workshops, as a green infrastructure tour stop and as a location for workshops.

Also, students are including the campus transformation as their environmental science senior capstone with the objectives of designing and implementing a monitoring plan to establish the effectiveness of the various green infrastructure areas and to provide scientific information to support exhibit development.

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#AAM2016 Follow Up & @PICGreen SEA Awards

aamexpoHere is a recap of the PIC Green Events at AAM 2016 Conference and Expo. First, all the events and sessions were an overwhelming success! So, it shows there is a definite growing interest to learn how to make your institution more sustainable.
We had the following sessions:
1. Energy Efficient Cold Storage
2. Future Choices – Best Practices for Profession
3. Environmental Sustainability – Power, Influence and Responsibility
4. Stages of Sustainability
5. Sustainability Sins

picOur winners for the SEA (Sustainability Excellence Awards) for the following categories: Facilities, Programs and Exhibits were as follows:

usbotanicAnd the field trip to the US Botanic Garden was educational and bursting with sustainable initiatives, we even received our very own instruction manual for teaching. Check out the Sustainable SITES Initiative!

The Expo had a few highlights, but I have to mention the Virtual Reality Booth by SimWave Consulting in Canada. If you are an interactive museum, then you are going to want to keep an eye on their technology.

And a huge thank you to the Natural History Museum for letting us use their booth and partnering up in many ways moving forward!

Until next year in St. Louis…..keep up the green momentum!

 

 

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Business Focus: @ENERGgroup and the @MuseumLiverpool

museum-of-liverpool

A couple months back I attended a NYSERDA CHP (Combined Heat & Power) Expo in NYC. All the companies were vetted by NYSERDA and able to provide concrete energy management solutions with CHP systems. I, of course, spoke to all the companies and sought out those who had previously worked with museums, one company stood out: ENER-G. Originally a British company with global offices, plus a local office in NYC, they provide organizations across the globe with energy management services, sustainable technologies and renewable energy solutions, to help them intelligently generate, buy and manage energy.

Back in 2010-2011 ENER-G installed four new CHP units for, at the new (at the time) Museum of Liverpool, which guaranteed annual savings of more than $750,0000. “And the ‘trigeneration’ technology, which created highly efficient heat, electricity and cooling, also reduced carbon emissions by 884 tons each year – equivalent to the environmental benefit of taking 295 cars off the road.” Pretty impressive!

What’s even more interesting is that ENER-G was commissioned by National Museums Liverpool, the group responsible for all the diverse museums in Liverpool to design and install the new CHP system at the Mann Island site  – part of the famous Pier Head at the core of the World Heritage Site on Liverpool’s famous waterfront. And ENER-G will solely operate and maintain the plant for 17 years. The actual CHP system was split between a faciliteis room in the Museum of Liverpool and the historic Great Western Railwlay (GWR) Goods Shed on Liverpool’s waterfront. “ENER-G converted the Goods Shed into a state-of-the-art energy center with sophisticated remote monitoring and diagnostic facilities. When designing and building GWR ENER-G had to adhere to planning conditions and design the energy center to operate independently of the utility electrical supply.”

Now to explain a little more about how the CHP or cogeneration system works. It generates electricity and recovers and reuses the majority of the heat created in the process. In conventional power stations this heat is simply wasted into the atmosphere through power station cooling towers and along the miles of electrical distribution cables needed to bring the power to site. Instead, by using CHP to generate electricity on site the heat is used to provide heating and hot water for the museum in the winter, and air conditioning and chilled water via the absorption cooling system in the summer months. The utility grid supply will provide additional back up, if required. Using a system like this automatically sets your institution up for major energy and financial savings.

The Museum of Liverpool are also able to use the GWR Building housing the CHP plant for an educational resource in its own right. As it has a small visitor facility where groups can gain an understanding of the technology and its contribution to the museum’s sustainability. Not only was the museum able to drastically reduce their energy consumption, but they also gained a teaching tool for others to learn and follow in their footsteps.

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NYCCGC Grant Recipient for Stormwater Feasibility Study

community-gardening

Finally NYC is starting to use the inherent resources we already have, like the , to propose solutions to potential future flooding. Since 1996, the NYCCGC has promoted the preservation, creation, and empowerment of community gardens through education, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.

NYCCGC just announced they are the recipient of Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery funding from the New York State Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR) to undertake a feasibility study for stormwater capture best practices within the community gardens of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Gardens Rising, the name of the study, will focus on the forty-seven community gardens in Lower Manhattan and combine a green infrastructure study and Master Plan to increase the permeability and stormwater capture in the area.

According to NYCCGC “the Master Plan will examine the feasibility, costs, benefits and impacts of proposed stormwater capture locations and methods to increase permeability and green space in the neighborhood gardens to better absorb stormwater and runoff.” Important to note, the majority of the gardens reside within an area that was severely flooded and impacted during Superstorm Sandy.

This is a major step forward not only for community gardens, but also for a sustainable NYC as a whole. As NYCCGC notes, these garden are finally being recognized as a vital environmental asset. It puts community gardens at the center of the greening movement in New York City.

NYCCGC states that they “envision this as seed money to attract more greening programs and grants into our community. They want “Gardens Rising to be interwoven with permaculture, solar energy, rat abatement policies, composting practices, citizen science, and other ideas and practices that will evolve with this process.”

Wouldn’t it be great is to see NYC using all their resources, museums, parks, public buildings, etc to create a master city wide disaster plan! And this grant is a step in the right direction, I know I look forward to hearing more about Gardens Rising.

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Green Mountain Energy Helps Philadelphia Zoo Be More Sustainable

philly

This is super exciting news to me, I know a bit nerdy! I’ve been a customer for about 8 years and thoroughly support everything they do, so finding out that they were able to partner up with the Philadelphia Zoo on solar golf carts…very cool.

The donates to many projects that “enhance the quality of life through long-term, sustainable solutions that focus on people and the planet.” Recently, the Philadelphia Zoo was the proud recipient of $100,000 to be dedicated to increasing it’s already existing sustainability initiatives. The money was chosen to fund solar golf carts, which will immensely help zoo employees to get around the 42-acre park in much less time and more efficiently. Each solar-powered golf cart can generate enough clean energy to drive more than 1,600 miles annually. That’s a lot of miles around the park!

As the nation’s first zoo, Philadelphia is doing a tremendous job creating and implementing . “With more than 1.35 million visitors annually, they aim to educate their community, model sustainable practices and provide their visitors with tools for taking action to live greener in their own lives, empowered to make a difference.” Presently the Zoo is working toward strategies to lessen their environmental footprint in five key areas:
1) improve energy efficiency
2) reduce, and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
3) consistently conserve, and increasingly collect and reuse water
4) Use current best practices to manage stormwater on site and
5) conserve resources and avoid the use of hazardous materials through waste diversion and green purchasing.

This is very commendable, as we all know thoughtful zoos require an enormous amount of people’s energy and mechanical energy to run. It’s more than important to keep the animals healthy, it’s an utmost necessity!

Also if you’re in Philadelphia any time soon, right now they also have a unique exhibit called , which is “an array of artist installations, some larger than life, each one telling stories of endangered animals through the use of recycled, reduced, reused, repurposed and renewed materials.”