Energy Sustainability, Olympics-Style
Dancing on a sustainable power floor that lights up when dancers move on it, a film that connects the dots between Olympic athletes and powerful electrical energy, and an environmentally-friendly home – that’s BC Hydro’s Power Smart Village pavilion at the Olympics.
Hello from Vancouver, home to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. BC Hydro is using their role as the Official Supplier of Electricity to the Games as a platform to promote a message of conservation, Simi Heer explained to me. Simi is BC Hydro’s Power Smart Media Representative.
BC Hydro provides electricity to 94% of British Columbians, and is the third-largest electric utility in Canada. Their Power Smart program has been delivering a sustainability message for years, encouraging British Columbians to consume less electricity.
It was fun to dance on the electricity-generating floor at Club Energy, and watch as the colored lights beneath the floor turned on and flashed with my dancing speed. The floor is also part of BC Hydro’s message of how we impact and are tied to energy. According to Simi, 1.1 million watts of electricity were generated the first two days from people dancing on the floor. She told me that the floor has generated around six kilowatt hours of electricity in just over a week, enough for six loads of laundry. That’s a lot of dancing. “The message we’re trying to show is that it’s hard to generate electricity, so we should be wise in how we use it,” Simi commented. Electricity doesn’t excite everyone, so the dance floor “makes it more interesting.”
Also at the Power Smart Village pavilion is a short film that draws parallels between athletes using their bodies efficiently and people using energy wisely. Sometimes people need to be trained in conservation messages, just like athletes require training to become skilled in their sport. Lack of knowledge can be a major stumbling block in getting people to live more sustainably.
Another onsite display is the Home of the Future, which is made of two recycled shipping containers. The outside is made of B.C. cedar board siding and pine beetle wood. Inside, a Smart Washer & Dryer and Smart Refrigerator monitor energy levels and do their most intensive work when the energy demand is low. Part of BC Hydro’s Olympics effort is to recruit British Columbians to become members of Power Smart, and reduce their energy consumption by 10%, reports Simi. It’s one step along the road to living sustainably.
Tags: 2010 Olympics, BC Hydro, Climate Change, Club Energy, Conservation, dance floor, generating electricity, Home of the Future, Power Smart, Power Smart Village, sustainability
Sustainability for Businesses
The Burnaby Board of Trade held an Environmental Sustainability Forum for Business yesterday evening that is worth writing about. Hosted in the architecturally stunning Electronic Arts building, the event featured a panel of four environmentally friendly speakers with good business tips.
As the panel was introduced, it was noted that the pathway to being green is often less clear than the desire to be sustainable. Thus, it was fitting that the first speaker was Peter Robinson, CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation that helps teach people how to be sustainable.
Peter suggested that sustainability targets should include longer term solutions that apply to the whole system, that balance production and consumption, are transparent and include accountability. Making operations efficient and reducing energy and waste helps a business save money. The next step is reducing their product’s footprint, by making it and its packaging greener. Level three involves greening your network – your customers, suppliers, producers, and not least your employees. As in the palm oil article I posted recently, examine your supply chain. How green is it and how could it be made more sustainable?
Maureen Cureton, Green Business Manager at Vancity (see www.vancity.com/greenbusiness), spoke next. Vancity, she started, was the first North American-based financial institution that became carbon neutral. They accomplished this through focusing on building energy savings, paper use, employee commuting and bus travel. Items such as 100% post consumer paper cost more, she acknowledged, but reductions in consumption helps offset costs. Vancity’s environmental commitments generate employee and member (customer) loyalty as well as enhanced brand value which far outweighs any residual cost increase.
TJ Galda, Chair of the Electronic Arts Green Team, was next. He opened by saying sustainability gives a business a good triple bottom line – including the business, the environment, and the corporate cultural attitude. They’re thorough at EA (as it’s called) – the paper towels get composted. TJ made an excellent case about the benefits a business receives when employees are happy, and increasingly employees want to go home at night and tell their children that Mom or Dad works at a planet friendly company.
David Moran, Director of Public Affairs and Communications for Coca-Cola Canada, rounded out the panel. Coca-Cola Canada is a huge company, and it takes time to change a company that size. But they’re making a good effort. They’re examining ways to reduce their sugar footprint, and to become carbon free. A beverage container now contains a significant amount of sustainable material. And managers present their efforts to their Board of Directors annually, who importantly support the green shift.
The event was wrapped up with a Q&A session, during which the speakers responded to questions with knowledge and a genuine interest in helping businesses become sustainable.
Overall, it was a great event and hopefully this article will help businesses everywhere and of any size examine their own footprint and make it sustainable.
Tags: BBOT, Burnaby Board of Trade, Coca Cola, David Suzuki Foundation, Electronic Arts, green business, sustainability, Vancity
