Enviance Blog

Introducing the Sustainable 16: America’s Top Environmental Studies Programs

This morning Enviance and Environmental Leader introduced the Sustainable 16, the country’s top undergraduate environmental studies programs. These are top programs selected out of scores of schools who were invited to participate and/or submitted a survey response to a panel of expert judges from companies like CH2M HILL, Trinity Consultants, The Brattle Group, Valero and Enviance. They are, in alphabetical order:

•  Baylor University
•  Colby College
•  Colorado State University
•  Cornell University
•  Duke University
•  Humboldt State University
•  Montana State University
•  Ohio State University
•  Purdue University
•  Rochester Institute of Technology
•  Temple University
•  University of California, Davis
•  University of Florida
•  University of Michigan – Dearborn
•  University of North Carolina – Asheville
•  University of Texas at Arlington

The above 16 schools will now battle it out to determine who will be named National Champion on April 2. That determination will be made by the same panel of judges, and will be based on both the original surveys filled out by the colleges, along with essay, photo and video support from students and faculty submitted between today and March 19.

So how does our field in the first-ever March Madness Tournament for Environmental Studies stack up with the actual NCAA Men’s Basketball field? We think it stacks up pretty well when you consider that Baylor, Colorado State, Duke, Florida, Ohio State, Purdue, UNC-Asheville and Temple all made both fields. So when the tournament starts on Thursday, more than 10 percent of the NCAA Tournament bracket will have a shot at winning two championships on April 2.

It gets even more interesting when you consider that Montana, Texas, Michigan and University of California—Berkeley all have sister campuses from their respective state university programs in the Sustainable 16. Sure, they have athletic bragging rights, but only UC Davis, University of Texas at Arlington, Montana State and University of Michigan at Dearborn can bring home the environmental studies trophy home to their respect state programs.

You want Cinderellas? How about Colby, Cornell, Humboldt State and Rochester Institute of Technology?

Yes, the March Madness Tournament for Environmental Studies has it all, including passion and intrigue…favorites and underdogs. Check back on March 26 to see who makes the Environmental Eight and support your school’s entry now!

For schools in the ‘Sustainable 16,’ please follow this link for details on how to send supporting materials to the judges: http://www.enviance.com/march-madness/

Crunch Time for Universities and Colleges with Top Environmental Programs!

The short-form submission period for the March Madness tourney that will name the top undergraduate program for environmental studies closes in less than 72 hours!

Will a favorite take the crown or will we see a Cinderella run to the title? Will your alma mater prevail or will a hated conference rival cut down the 100-percent recyclable nets? Those are the questions on everyone’s mind as we approach the deadline to submit and be considered for the title of, “Top Undergraduate Environmental Studies Program” in the country.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve received a lot of interest from some of the country’s most prestigious higher-education institutions in participating in the tournament to be named the top undergraduate environmental studies program in the country. The March Madness-style tournament, sponsored by Enviance and Environmental Leader, will culminate in a national champion on April 2. Will your school be overshadowed by a conference rival or take home the crown?

We’ve had interest from more than a dozen of the premier environmental studies programs and will close the contest to new submissions on Wednesday, February 29 at 9:00 p.m. PST. To participate, schools simply need to fill out this short submission form. If your school is selected by our panel of industry experts, it will make our “Sustainable 16” list.

After being selected for the “Sustainable 16”, students and faculty will have until March 9, 2012 to submit short video testimonials, and/or a short 300-word essay, explaining why their school’s program deserves to be crowned tops in the nation.

The 2012 National Champion, announced April 2, 2012, will be awarded:

• A $5,000 cash donation to the university’s environmental & sustainability department.
• An all-expense paid trip to San Diego, Calif. for the department chair, where he or she will attend the Enviance User Conference April 16-18, 2012 and participate in a panel titled, “What Tomorrow’s Environmental Leaders Need to Know.”

In addition, the top two students who submitted the most compelling video or essay during the competition will win netbooks. There are also multiple opportunities for schools to be featured in publications throughout the tournament.

Judges for this year’s tournament include Velislava Ivanova , global sustainability director at CH2M HILL, Nick Johnson, managing consultant at Trinity Consultants, Don Cuffel, manager of environmental engineering at Valero/California, and our very own CEO, Larry Goldenhersh.

For more information on the tournament and how to get involved please visit our website.

Environmental March Madness Tournament: Does Your School’s Program Have What It Takes?

If you think your alma mater has a great environmental studies program, we want to hear from you!

Enviance has teamed with Environmental Leader to host a March Madness tournament to identify the best undergraduate program for environmental studies and sustainability across the country.

In order to participate, department heads must share their program’s marketing materials and fill out a submission form for background/information on their school’s environmental programs by February 20, 2012. If selected by our panel of industry experts, your university could make our “Sustainable 16” list.

After being selected for the “Sustainable 16”, students and faculty will have until March 9, 2012 to submit short video testimonials, and/or a short 300-word essay, explaining why their school’s program deserves to be crowned the top in the nation.

The 2012 National Champion, announced April 2, 2012 will be awarded:

• A $5,000 cash donation to the university’s environmental & sustainability department.
• An all-expense paid trip to San Diego, CA for the department chair, where he or she will attend the Enviance User Conference April 16-18, 2012 and participate in a panel titled, “What Tomorrow’s Environmental Leaders Need to Know.”

In addition, the top two students who submitted the most compelling video or essay during the competition will win netbooks. There are also multiple opportunities for schools to be featured in publications throughout the tournament.

Judges for this year’s tournament include Velislava Ivanova , global sustainability director at CH2M HILL, Nick Johnson, managing consultant at Trinity Consultants, Don Cuffel, manager of environmental engineering at Valero/California, and our very own CEO, Larry Goldenhersh.

For more information on the tournament and how to get involved please visit our website.

The 5th Annual State of Green Business Live Webcast

Enviance is proud to sponsor GreenBiz’s State of Green Business live webcast. This year’s webcast takes a closer look at the findings from the fifth annual edition of GreenBiz’s State of Green Business report which measures the environmental impacts of the emerging green economy.

Join GreenBiz’s Executive Editor, Joel Makower, and VP and Senior Analyst, Joe Davies, as they discuss how companies are improving their environmental performance in spite of the many challenges that have come as a result of the recession. Together Joel and Joe will assess the economy from an environmental perspective, and highlight key trends in corporate culture in regard to the environment.

Register today and watch the webinar!

 

The results are in! Find out what Enviance’s third annual EUEC survey revealed

It was great to see those of you who were able to make it out to the EUEC conference in Phoenix this week. As you may have noticed, we conducted an environmental survey addressing controversial topics ranging from readiness to report carbon emissions to reactions about cap and trade regulation.

This year, 237 attendees participated in our third annual EUEC survey. This morning, we released the results – here are just a couple highlights:

• This year’s survey showed that more than three-fifths of respondents now believe the imposition of a carbon tax will affect their business.
• Surprisingly, there was a substantial 17 percent increase from last year in the number of companies that have no system in place for tracking and reporting greenhouse gas emissions.
• While water management was an issue that 48 percent of respondents said was a concern for their organization (similar to carbon emissions), approximately 40 percent responded that they don’t measure or report on water at all.

Check out all of the results from the 2012 EUEC survey here!

Enviance returns to EUEC with (Kindle) Fire!

It’s that time of the year again! Today, we head back to Phoenix, AZ to kick things off at the Energy, Utility & Environment Conference, January 30 through February 1—and we’ve got a ton of exciting things going on!

Super Bowl XLVI is right around the corner! So stop by our booth #616 at the exhibitor’s hall and tell us who you think will take home the Vince Lombardi trophy this year. If you guess correctly, you’ll be entered to win an Amazon Kindle Fire.

Four different Enviance executives will be featured at the conference discussing a variety of critical environmental and sustainability topics. Make sure you don’t miss their presentations:

• Greg Gasperecz, Enviance VP of EH&S, will present “Enduring the Environmental Legislative Roller Coaster,” in the Climate Policy & Energy Sustainability track on Monday, January 30, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in room #222C.
• Lawrence Goldenhersh, Enviance CEO, will present “The New Era and Impact of Envirofinance,” in the Planning & GHG Reporting track on Monday, January 30, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in room #225A.
• Graeme Dykes, Enviance Sales Manager, will present “The Changing Paradigm of Sustainable Business,” in the Compliance Technologies & Strategies track on Monday, January 30, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in room #229A.
• Graeme Dykes will also present “Cloud Based Compliance: The New Age of Business Performance”, in the EHS & Risk Management track on Tuesday, January 31, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in room #229A.

See you all in Phoenix – and good luck in the contest!

Take a sneak peek at the Enviance 2012 E-Book

Over the last few years, Enviance has helped innovative companies around the world reach their environmental compliance goals while saving them time, money and resources in the process. To capture some of these case studies, and show how these companies were able to achieve success and gain confidence in their compliance reports, we compiled our 2012 E-Book featuring clients such as American Electric Power, Boral, Fujifilm and many more.

Find out how companies like Tucson Electric Power and Valero were able to address their complex environmental regulatory requirements while saving time and money with the Enviance system.

Preview our 2012 E-Book here!

3 Questions with... Jennifer Woofter, Strategic Sustainability Consulting

It’s time for another installation of our 3 Questions series, where we ask industry experts about their organization’s environmental programs, perspectives on environmental policy, and how they reduce their own environmental footprint.

This week we interviewed Jennifer Woofter, founder and president of Strategic Sustainability Consulting (SSC). She’s been doing sustainability strategy consulting for seven years, and before that had a career in socially responsible investing (SRI). Jennifer has a master’s degree in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden.

Q: Are we doing enough to encourage the use of renewable energy through subsidies and incentives?

A: I would like to see a stronger emphasis on feed-in tariffs, and stronger net metering options for small-scale producers. However, I think one of the most powerful things that we could do is to reduce subsidization of fossil fuels. By artificially suppressing the cost of oil and gas (and all the industries that rely on fossil fuels), we are perpetuating the idea that fuel should be cheap.

Q: In your opinion, which industry sector has the greatest opportunity to impact the future of sustainable business?

A: Currently, I think that retail has the biggest role to play—simply because of their huge supply chain impacts. When a large retailer implements vendor sustainability standards, that action ripples out to impact hundreds, thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of other businesses. It’s an awesome sustainability echo chamber.

I’ve also come to realize that business—not government—is the real change-agent for sustainability. My opinion is that protesting in the streets about government policy is a waste of time. I’d rather work from within the system, where I can accomplish something more than holding a sign and chanting.

Q: What do you think the determining factor is in a consumer’s decision to buy green?

A: I think that it is ridiculous to try and categorize consumers into different levels of “green”. People will prioritize environmental aspects depending on the product category (e.g. food vs. automobiles), their current situation (e.g. financial stability, birth of a new baby, etc.), and their receptiveness to advertising.

The real message that I think green marketers need to understand is that “green” has to be icing on the cake. Their products have to meet the quality, price, service, sexiness and durability of a non-green product. Most people are not (and should not be) making a purchasing decision solely on the “green” factor.

Have a question for Jennifer? Feel free to leave one in the comment section below or on Twitter @jenniferwoofter!

 

EPA’s new site identifies biggest GHG emitters

Have you ever wondered what happens to all of the data collected as a result of the EPA’s Green House Gas (GHG) Mandatory Reporting Rule (MRR)?

It looks the EPA has put it to good use to help us get a better idea of where emissions are coming from—they’ve launched a new website that allows you to enter a location and see the top GHG emitters in your area. For the first time, the EPA is sharing data on the amount of CO2 and other pollutants emitted from over 6,700 utilities, factories and refineries in the U.S.

To find out what’s going on in your city, and see how it compares to others, visit the EPA site to get started. We were surprised by some of our results, will you be too?

 

Will we be breathing easier in 2012? EPA releases new air pollution regulations

As you may have seen, the U.S. EPA signed a rule on December 16, 2011 to reduce air pollution from power plants. Many are against the new directives, while others are applauding the EPA’s initiative to drastically reduce harmful emissions from industrial emitters. Regardless of your position, it is imperative that we all learn more about the new ruling and its effects on many industries.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the new rule:

The U.S. EPA signed a rule to reduce mercury and air toxics emissions from power plants, and also signed revisions to the new source performance standards (NSPS) for fossil-fuel-fired EGUs. This NSPS revises the standards that new coal- and oil-fired power plants must meet for particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule (MATS) applies to Emission Generating Units (EGUs) larger than 25 megawatts (MW) that burn coal or oil for the purpose of generating electricity for sale and distribution through the national electric grid to the public.  These include investor-owned units, as well as units owned by the Federal government, municipalities and cooperatives that provide electricity for commercial, industrial and residential uses.  The EPA estimates that there are approximately 1,400 units affected by this action – approximately 1,100 existing coal-fired units and 300 oil fired units at about 600 power plants.

The final MATS identifies two subcategories of coal-fired EGUs, four subcategories of oil- fired EGUs, and a subcategory for units that combust gasified coal or solid oil (integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) units) based on the design, utilization and/or location of the various types of boilers at different power plants. The rule includes emission standards and/or other requirements for each subcategory.

For all existing and new coal-fired EGUs, the rule establishes numerical emission limits for mercury, PM (a surrogate for toxic non-mercury metals), and HCl (a surrogate for all toxic acid gases).  For existing and new oil-fired EGUs, the standards establish numerical emission limits for PM (a surrogate for all toxic metals), HCl, and HF.  EGUs may also show compliance with the HCl and HF limits by limiting the moisture content of their oil.

The rule establishes alternative numeric emission standards, including SO2 (as an alternate to HCl), individual non-mercury metal air toxics (as an alternate to PM), and total non-mercury metal air toxics (as an alternate to PM) for certain subcategories of power plants.  The standards set work practices, instead of numerical limits, to limit emissions of organic air toxics, including dioxin/furan, from existing and new coal- and oil-fired power plants. Because dioxins and furans form as a result of inefficient combustion, the work practice standards require an annual performance test program for each unit that includes inspection, adjustment, and/or maintenance and repairs to ensure optimal combustion.  The standards also set work practices for limited-use oil-fired EGUs in the continental U.S.

Hopefully this overview clarifies some of the EPA’s new emissions regulations. Have an opinion on the new rule? Feel free to comment below!