Nail polishes contain a variety of chemicals that can impact the health of the nail salon workers and the environment. New legislation introduced by Supervisor David Chiu aims to recognize nail salons that choose safer nail polishes, such as those that do not contain the “toxic trio” chemicals – toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate. For more information about the toxic trio and efforts to green nail polishes in California, visit CAHealthyNailSalons.org
Take a peek inside the cosmetics industry with the “Story of Cosmetics”
Category: News
DOE and EPA Release 2011 Annual Fuel Economy Guide
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) today released the 2011 Fuel Economy Guide, providing consumers with information about estimated mileage and fuel costs for model year 2011 vehicles. Choosing the most fuel efficient vehicle in a class will save consumers money and reduce carbon pollution.
“Increasing fuel efficiency is important for our environment, our economy and our health – and it helps families save money at the pump,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. “This guide will help consumers make the right choice for the environment and for their wallets when buying a car.”
New! Off-the-Shelf Employee Education Kit
Many of your tenants and employees are already taking steps to be greener at home by choosing energy-efficient lighting, appliances, and heating and cooling systems. But what about going green…at work? Did you know that the average office building wastes 30 percent of the energy it consumes? It’s easy for employees to help eliminate that waste once they know which easy steps to take.
To help our partners educate and activate employees, tenants, and others, EPA has launched an off-the-shelf package of materials for HR professionals who want to encourage employees to save energy while helping their organization’s bottom line. Use this downloadable toolkit to hold and promote a brown bag session to educate employees about energy use, its impact on the environment, and what they can do to help. We provide a complete PowerPoint presentation (with speaker notes) that you can customize, editable flyers to hang around the building to advertise your session, and an email invitation template.
We’ve made it easy to incorporate energy education into your organization’s training program; start engaging those around you to follow your lead and “bring their green to work!” Check out our full energy education toolkit!
Green your Holiday Season with ENERGY STAR
Whether you are staying home or traveling, there are many ways to save energy and keep more money in your pocket for last minute gifts. By shopping at stores and staying in hotels that have earned the ENERGY STAR label, you can add to these savings.
Through ENERGY STAR, EPA works with nearly 150 retail companies to help them manage energy use, lower utility bills, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ENERGY STAR partners, including JCPenney, Verizon Wireless, Staples, and Target, have more than 900 ENERGY STAR labeled stores in 48 states, making it easy to shop green from coast-to-coast. Choosing ENERGY STAR qualified products as gifts also helps protect the environment. If you’re looking to give someone special a computer this year, look for one that has earned the ENERGY STAR—these models use up to 65 percent less energy than conventional models.
Traveling green this winter is another great way to contribute to the fight against climate change. Before booking, make sure your hotel is ENERGY STAR labeled. Holiday travelers can also bring their green on the road as a hotel guest. Simple actions can add up to big energy and cost savings: turn off the lights and TV when leaving the hotel room, adjust the thermostat to an energy-saving setting so it doesn’t heat or cool the room while empty, unplug electronics such as cell phones chargers and laptops when not in use, open curtains to take advantage of daylight when possible, and re-use linens to save both water and energy.
The EPA wishes you a safe holiday season and hopes you will remember to save energy wherever possible to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions this winter.
Find stores that have earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR: http://www.energystar.gov/LabeledStores
Find hotels that have earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR: http://www.energystar.gov/buildinglist
New Report Offers Strategies for Smart Growth in Rural Communities
The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has released a new report, “Putting Smart Growth to Work in Rural Communities,” which focuses on how to adapt smart growth strategies to rural communities. Funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Sustainable Communities, the report focuses on smart growth strategies that can help guide growth in rural areas while protecting natural and working lands and preserving the rural character of existing communities.
The strategies are based around three central goals:
1. Support the rural landscape by creating an economic climate that enhances the viability of working lands and conserves natural lands;
2. Help existing places to thrive by taking care of assets and investments such as downtowns, Main Streets, existing infrastructure, and places valued by the community; and
3. Create great new places by building vibrant, enduring neighborhoods and communities that people, especially young people, don’t want to leave.
The report uses case studies from around the country to illustrate how local governments, states, and non-profits have successfully implemented smart growth strategies to support rural lands, revitalize existing communities, and create great new places for residents and visitors.
To download the full report or learn how to order a hard copy, visit: http://www.icma.org/ruralsmartgrowth.
New National Model Energy Code Will Boost Energy Efficiency of Home, Commercial Building Construction by Historic 30% Levels
Energy-Consuming Public Benefits as Governmental Officials
Substantially Improve International Energy Conservation Code
CHARLOTTE, NC, November 1, 2010 – “The votes that will have the most profound impact on national energy and environmental policy this year were not held in Washington or a state capital, but by governmental officials assembled by the International Code Council (ICC) in Charlotte, N.C.,” said William Fay, Executive Director of the broad-based Energy Efficient Codes Coalition (EECC).
The ICC votes to improve the efficiency of the next edition of America’s model energy code governing home and commercial building construction, additions and renovations will most likely achieve the 30% boost sought by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of State Energy Officials, governors, lawmakers and EECC.
“This 30% increase in building efficiency, coming just days before the elections, is a winning outcome for all Americans,” said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy. “It’s clear by their overwhelming votes that building officials across the U.S. recognize that we can lock in significant energy savings for generations to come by making efficiency improvements at construction or renovation, when they’re cheapest and easiest.”
“Reducing wasted energy from the nation’s largest single user – homes and commercial buildings, which consume nearly half our energy – was the byword of the nearly 500 state and local government representatives who spent five days of rigorous hearings to evaluate and pass judgment on hundreds of proposals to improve (or weaken) the International Energy Conservation Code’s (IECC) residential and commercial chapters,” Fay added. “We congratulate the ICC for the tremendous efforts of its members to finish this code and achieve substantial energy efficiency.”
An Integrated, “Whole Building” Approach to Improving Efficiency in Homes and Commercial Building Construction. Comprehensive proposals offered by the U.S. Department of Energy, working with many other stakeholders, addressed all aspects of residential and commercial building construction, laying a strong foundation for residential efficiency gains and leading commercial building efficiency improvements. To meet the 30% goal in the residential code, voting delegates added a number of improvements to DOE’s foundation from EECC’s comprehensive package, “The 30% Solution 2012,” and other stakeholder proposals. The resulting residential improvements will:
• Ensure that new homes are better sealed to reduce heating and cooling losses;
• Improve the efficiency of windows and skylights;
• Increase insulation in ceilings, walls and foundations;
• Reduce wasted energy from leaky heating and cooling ducts;
• Improve hot-water distribution systems to reduce wasted energy and water in piping; and
• Boost lighting efficiency.
Commercial Gains Should Match Residential: Officials adopted the joint DOE/New Buildings Institute/ American Institute of Architects package for commercial buildings which, along with many of the features cited above, includes continuous air barriers; daylighting controls; increasing the number of climate zones where economizers are required; and a choice of three paths for designers and developers to increase efficiency: using renewable energy or installing more efficient HVAC equipment or installing more efficient lighting systems. It also requires the “commissioning” of new buildings, integrally linking efficiency building designs with lifelong building performance by applying a systematic approach to building quality assurance that monitors, identifies and makes corrections when energy savings aren’t living up to expectations. A number of additional IECC improvements supported by EECC and other stakeholders were adopted on top of the commercial package.
Rejecting Proposals That Weaken Efficiency
Government voting representatives also rejected several proposals to weaken the IECC. Key among them were proposals to reinstate a provision of the 2009 IECC that eliminated “tradeoffs,” under which builders installed less efficient insulation and windows in exchange for more efficient heating & cooling (HVAC) equipment that would have been installed anyway. “Efficiency shouldn’t be an either/or proposition,” Fay said. “We need to both improve building envelopes and install high-efficiency HVAC systems. It makes no sense to ‘trade away’ the long-lasting energy savings from tighter buildings.”
The delegates also voted almost unanimously to adopt a proposal offered by Virginia code officials to replace the weaker provisions of the energy chapter of the International Residential Code with a reference requiring that all residential buildings comply with the IECC. As a result, the IECC will be the sole source for energy efficiency provisions for both residential and commercial buildings.
While All Americans Will Share the Energy Security and Environmental Benefits of More Efficient Buildings, Home/Building Owners and Occupants Top List of Beneficiaries
By reducing monthly energy bills, efficiency improvements generate positive cash flow that rapidly recoups the cost of these measures (efficient buildings are also more comfortable for their occupants). Because of long building lives and the higher cost of retrofits, many of the efficiency improvements made today will benefit current and future home and building owners for generations to come.
The efficiency improvements adopted by the ICC incorporate readily available technologies. As one homebuilder testified, a 30 percent boost in new home efficiency is now a modest target, with a growing number of green builders across the nation delivering new homes well beyond that threshold. Because the inability to pay utility bills is the second leading cause of foreclosures and evictions, currently at record highs, low-income housing advocates argue that the efficiency improvements will make it more likely that low-income families will be able to afford to keep their homes. Finally, a study by U.S. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that an average home that’s 30 percent more energy-efficient returns $511 a year in energy savings to homeowners after taking into account the small mortgage payment increase needed to pay for the efficiency improvements.
From the national economic perspective, efficient buildings will demonstrably reduce U.S. energy consumption, which will help stabilize energy costs to businesses and manufacturers, defer the need for new power plant construction and, by reducing energy demand, improve national energy security.
“The ‘winners’ run the gamut from homeowners to businesses operating in areas of the country with high energy costs and insufficient energy supplies to manufacturers to cities trying to reduce their carbon footprint to a nation struggling to reduce energy imports,” Fay added.
What’s Next
State Adoption & Code Compliance. “The next goal will be for states and localities to adopt the 2012 IECC so that all new homebuyers and commercial building owners can begin to benefit from improved efficiency,” Fay added. “And because states have committed to the federal government to demonstrate 90% compliance with the IECC by 2017, we want to work to support collaboration at all levels of government to ensure adequate training and other support for the code officials who must meet this ambitious compliance target.”
Future Improvements in America’s Model Code. “A number of energy-saving proposals offered by the EECC and other stakeholders received majority support but not the 2/3 majority needed for adoption,” Fay observed. “While this is unfortunate, we know that the governmental officials present in Charlotte used their best judgment to guide their vote on the 2012 code. But because states and local jurisdictions are free to consider these energy-saving improvements individually, EECC will work with them, while refining the proposals for inclusion in the ICC’s next round of hearings to develop the 2015 IECC.”
About EECC
The Energy Efficient Codes Coalition is a unique, broad-based alliance of longstanding energy efficiency advocates – from government, national energy efficiency groups, regional energy efficiency alliances, environmental groups, utilities, affordable housing advocates, architecture, academia/think tanks, energy consumers and businesses, and labor. Together, the coalition authored “The 30% Solution 2012” a comprehensive code change proposal that employs existing, “state-of-the-shelf” technologies to boost energy efficiency in the 2012 residential model energy code by up to 35% over the 2006 IECC baseline efficiency levels. The coalition also opposes proposals that either weaken energy efficiency or include industry- or product-specific special exemptions. The EECC is housed at the Alliance to Save Energy (a founding member). For more information, visit www.thirtypercentsolution.org.
About the Alliance to Save Energy
The Alliance to Save Energy is a coalition of prominent business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders who promote the efficient and clean use of energy worldwide to benefit consumers, the environment, economy, and national security.
AMA series on Food Systems, Health & Agriculture Policy
The next webinar in the AMA webinar series on Food Systems, Health and Agriculture Policy, entitled Organic Foods, Pesticides and Sustainable Food Production, will be hosted this Thursday, November 4, 2010, at 5:00pm Eastern. If you’d like to read more about the series or to encourage your colleagues to join, get more information here.
To join the November 4, 2010 webinar, dial (888) 233-8847 enter the participant code 28494970 (#). At the same time, click here and enter the information requested, including participant code: 28494970.
If you have missed any of the previous webinars, you can view the recorded sessions or download individual presentations online. To download, visit the webinar page and click on one of the Past Trainings on the right.
New ACEEE Report Ranks States by Energy Efficiency
On October 13, 2010, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released its fourth annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard report, which ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia according to their overall energy efficiency.
Among the major state advances highlighted in the scorecard are:
- a near-doubling of state energy efficiency budgets from 2007 spending levels;
- the adoption or active consideration by more than half the states of Energy Efficiency Resource Standards that establish long-term, fixed efficiency savings targets;
- a one-year doubling of the number of states that have either adopted or have made significant progress toward adopting the latest energy-saving building codes for homes and commercial properties.
California leads the nation in its level of investment in energy efficiency across all sectors of its economy; other states in the top 10 include Massachusetts, Oregon, New York, Vermont, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Maine. The four states that showed the most improvement in their rankings in 2010 are Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Alaska.
The 2010 scorecard and supporting materials are available at