Congratulations to Kim!

Our very own Kim Schaefer got a thumbs up from MyCity4Her in their newsletter for creating Baltimore City’s first ever Green Building Standards and for moving into the fabulous new digs across from Patterson Park.

TerraLogos Raises the Bar for Maryland Schools

The Maryland state Interagency Committee on School Construction, chaired by Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, State Superintendent of Schools, has published a new report:

HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING INITIATIVES IN MARYLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS

ENERGY CONSERVATION, ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES, AND HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING PRACTICES

SUBMITTED TO THE BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS

Governor Martin O’Malley

Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp

Comptroller Peter Franchot

January 2010

Evergreen Elementary School, LEED Gold

You can find the report at http://www.pscp.state.md.us/Reports/High%20Performance%20Initiatives%20Jan%202010.pdf

They chose the one school in Maryland that best represents the standard of excellence for the state:  Evergreen Elementary School in St. Mary’s County.

TerraLogos project was Sustainability Consultant on Evergreen Elementary, completed last year with TCA Architects.

Moving

I read somewhere that the five most stressful types of life events are:

1. moving
2. death of a family member
3. divorce
4. severe illness or injury
5. job loss

I believe it’s true. I have lived through all five types of events, so I suppose I am qualified to say so.

Notice I placed moving at the head of the list. We just finished moving our office…..not that such an uncomfortable experience in our recent activities would influence my judgment.

It’s done. We are in a wonderful building, with room to thrive and grow in.

MWS

New Digs and Links

Our new office is on the Northeast corner of Patterson Park! I am loving the views (except for for the one of the First Mariner building- not my favorite!) There’s always something going on in Patterson Park: http://pattersonpark.com/

I’m especially excited about the free summer concert series. And Fluid Movement’s annual only-in-Baltimore water ballet/ performance art is on this weekend! http://www.fluidmovement.org/

Now that it’s rained and the temperature is a pleasantly cool 86 degrees, the park looks especially inviting. But I need to get some boxes unpacked. For a green firm, we sure do seem to have a lot of stuff- where did it all come from?

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

We put our stuff in recycled boxes we ordered from http://www.usedcardboardboxes.com/
This company sells, well, used cardboard boxes. Brilliant.

Baltimore City Green Building Standards Update

Yes, Virginia, there is a Green Building Standards, and it will be here soon!

In case you are unaware, I am the Project Manager the BCGBS project for TerraLogos, and TL is the consultant hired to design, implement, and provide technical review assistance for the Standards.

After much revision and refinement, the Baltimore City Green Building Standards are finally on the way. The largest tasks in the last few months have been:
1. Making sure we avoid all of the implementation and administrative problems seen in other cities, while simultaneously
2. Complying with the unique Baltimore legal standards for program administration, and
3. Briefing the new leadership team in the Mayor’s office about all of the pertinent features and benefits of the Standards, and
4. Setting up all the software to support the web interface for the Standards.

All is finished now, except for #4, which is in process.

More to come!

MWS

The Baltimore Fire Department is the best!

Last Wednesday I was waiting for a red light in the City on my way to work in my car. As the light turned green, I noticed a woman trying to stand up from the bench at the bus stop on the corner. She began to falter, then lost consciousness and slumped into the gutter. I was already moving in traffic, and there was no place to pull over. I dialed 911 as I worked my way around the one-way streets back around Patterson Park. Five minutes or so elapsed before I was able to work my way back to that corner.

I began to check the woman visually for trauma or injury, when the Baltimore City Fire Department truck showed up. Talk about a quick response! They were on scene in less than six minutes. I briefly told the fireman what I had seen. The woman was still unconscious, and looked terribly ashen. The fireman bent down and said, “Hon, wake up. I need you to get up now Hon.”

Hon. Even the firemen say hon. Even during a medical emergency, hon. Welcome to Baltimore, where the Fire Department is the best – get there quick and do a great job — and they never forget to call you hon.

MWS

Yesterday, April 22, was Earth Day.

Yesterday, April 22, was Earth Day.

Every day is Earth Day at TerraLogos.

All of our work is aimed at preserving our planet. We do not, after all, have a spare Earth sitting in the basement somewhere.
We select all of our means and methods of work to minimize our impact on the planet. We use recycled products, recycle our waste, and buy green power.

All of us try our best to do the same at home.

So, while we understand the importance of Earth Day in helping people recognize the issues and modify the behavior, we ask you:
• Can you make today Earth Day as well?
• Can you recycle more today?
• Buy a contract for green energy ………. today?
• Turn the A/C thermostat up, or even off ………… today?
• Make an effort to buy recycled products whenever and wherever you can …………… today?
• How about tomorrow as well?
Every little bit helps. A myriad of small steps will aggregate into huge strides for humankind, for the Earth, for you.

Happy Earth Day ………………… today.

Two Sides of our Society

I attended the Smithsonian Institute annual Kite Festival in Washington, DC on 27 March 2007 with my youngest daughter, who is 17. After admiring the many fanciful kites and displays of acrobatic flight, we then walked around the Tidal Basin and enjoyed the views and the crowds. The cherry blossoms were in their full glory. The atmosphere in the crowds of botanical admirers was dignified, cultured even.
I remarked to my daughter that I had a cognitive difficulty in reconciling that scene of reserved gentility with the events the previous weekend, when Congress passed the (almost) final version of health care reform legislation. Angry mobs were gathered in Washington, chanting vulgar epithets, throwing debris, and spitting on members of Congress as they made their way from the Capitol to a House office building. The ultimate denigration that day was when several agitators used the N-word when cursing at Representative John Lewis, of Georgia. Democracy ain’t always pretty, but that wasn’t democracy. It was more thug-ocracy.
It is hard sometimes to imagine that the same society that produces movements extolling culture and refinement also produce ugly mobs and disgusting behavior. It is difficult, but it is necessary to recognize the potential for evil that exists in us all – as a society as a whole, and within each of us as individuals. Every society has the potential for both evil and beauty. The Germany of Goethe and Beethoven and Mozart and Mann also was the Germany of Hitler and Goebbels and Speer. The Japan of Zen gardens and haiku and tea ceremonies was also the Japan of comfort women and banzai charges and Korean repression and Chinese atrocities. The America of Walt Whitman and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Frank Lloyd Wright and John Fogerty was also the America of Dred Scott and the Ku Klux Klan and Japanese internment camps and the Edmund Pettus bridge. No society has an exclusive claim to moral superiority, any more than any individual can claim personal purity. Every day is another test of our mettle, another chance to struggle to do the right thing.
We are a society that throngs to admire the Cherry Blossoms. We are the same society that gathers to threaten and curse our elected officials when they disagree with our politics. It was a hard lesson to share with my daughter, one that I would rather have skipped. But ignoring the potential for wrong that exists in all of us will never work to keep our society’s darker impulses in check.

MWS

Leading by Example

On October 5, 2009, President Obama signed Executive Order 13514- Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance.   And then the White House asked Federal and military personnel to contribute ideas for strategies to meet the goals of the order.   You can find a copy of the “GreenGov Challenge” Final Report here:

greengov-final-report-1

We hear a lot of commentary about how wasteful our government is, but these government employees had a lot of great ideas for how to reduce carbon emissions, energy and water consumption, while creating healthier, more sustainable buildings.   Many of these strategies are FREE.   I love common-sense ideas that prove  green doesn’t have to be expensive or hi-tech.   Here are a few of my cost-free favorites:

*Powering down all desktop computers, locally connected printers, and other non-networked peripherals at the end of the day will reduce energy consumption.
−Aaron Helton, OPM, Washington, DC

*Interior stairwell doors should be unlocked in federal buildings. This would allow employees to use the stairs instead of having to take the elevator. Not only would this be green, but this would also encourage a healthy and active lifestyle.
−Andy, Washington, DC

* Change the work dress code–thermostats could be a degree or 2 higher in the summer and a degree or 2 lower if people modified how they dressed. Skip the jacket and tie in summer / add a sweater in the winter. Japan is already doing this.
−Barbara J., Bangkok, Thailand

* Stop completely redoing offices each time a new political is appointed. Does there need to be new carpet and furniture installed every 6 months to a year?
−Laura S.

TerraLogos: eco architecture will be at the NFMT 2010 Conference next week, here at the Baltimore Convention Center.   This year, the National Facilities Management & Technology conference is hosting a number of green seminars, including “Green Building Detour:  The Impact of Executive Order 13514 on Your Building,” sponsored by the Alliance for Sustainable Built Environments.   We’re looking forward to talking with Facility Managers about sustainable strategies that save money and add value to their buildings.  It’s a free conference, so sign up and come meet us there!  http://www.nfmt.com/

By the way, that photo at the top is, of course, by Ansel Adams, (Grand Tetons, Snake River) as is this one, of the very-green(!) Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico.  I’m excited because the U.S. Department of the Interior is unveiling an exhibit of murals by the photographer, originally commissioned in 1941 by Harold Ickes,  Secretary of the Interior under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

From the DOI website:  “Ickes believed that the Interior building, which was completed in 1936, should be symbolic of the Department’s mission to manage and conserve our nation’s vast resources. So in 1941, he hired Adams to create a photographic mural for display in this building that reflected the department’s mission: the beautiful land, the proper development of our resources, and the people we serve. “   What a powerful way for a government agency to  lead by example.  Read more about it at http://www.doi.gov/news/doinews/2010_03_10_news.cfm.

This also calls to mind the recent passing of Edgar Wayburn, a tireless campaigner for the preservation of our natural resources and National Parks.    “In destroying wilderness, we deny ourselves the full extent of what it means to be alive,”  he said.   His obituary can be found in the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/us/10wayburn.html?ref=obituaries

How do you lead by example?   Share your thoughts with us!

Green Technology

My grandmother's solar-powered clothes dryer.

The best green technologies are often the simplest and least expensive.