When the Legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2007 last month, it put the state on track for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to 1990 levels, or lower.
But state agencies had already been put on notice a year earlier that they should start developing policies and procedures to reduce their energy consumption, recycle their wastes, and install or implement technologies that go easy on non-renewable resources.
The Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism details their progress in a report, titled “Lead by Example,” delivered to the 2007 Legislature. While it may provide a baseline for assessing future progress, the report overall does little to inspire confidence that state agencies are paying much more than lip service to concepts such as recycling and energy conservation.
Three agencies simply ignored the legislative mandate (in Act 96 of the 2006 Legislature) to report on efforts to conserve: they are the Department of Transportation Highways Division, the Hawai`i Housing Finance and Development Corporation, and the Department of Defense. Other agencies – the Department of Human Services and the Hawai`i Public Housing Authority – submitted incomplete information. The state court system and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are not included, since they are not part of the executive branch.
Among state agencies, the largest energy consumers are, in descending order, the University of Hawai`i system (with the Manoa campus accounting for more than 71 percent of the 156,000 megawatt hours consumed); the Department of Education (146,000 MWh); the DOT Airports Division (130,000 MWh); and the Department of Accounting and General Services (about 49,000 MWh). Because DAGS is the manager for many state office buildings, its electricity consumption figures include the usage for other agencies, too, such as the departments of Budget and Finance, Taxation, and Human Resources Development, as well as most DBEDT offices.
Overall, electricity used by state agencies (excluding the ones that did not report) rose by half a percent in fiscal year 2006 as compared to FY 2005 (July 1 through June 30 constitutes a fiscal year in Hawai`i).
Despite the relatively small increase in electricity consumed (from 630,000 MWh in 2005 to 633,000 MWh in 2006), the state’s electric bills jumped 19.2 percent (from $92.3 million in FY 05 to $110 million in FY 06), which the report attributes to the “escalating cost of oil.”
The figures reflect energy-saving technologies installed at state facilities over the last decade, the report states. Under utility-sponsored demand-side management programs, state agencies have received some $3.6 million in rebates from the Hawaiian Electric Co. and its subsidiaries. “The benefits of the HECO-supported rebates include … 50,000 MWh of energy savings each year,” the report states. “Cumulatively, since 1996, 301,823 MWh have been saved at state facilities. The efficiency measures avoided the importation of 93,800 barrels of oil and the emission of 48,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and saved enough power to energize 41,000 households for one year.”
Relying on HECO figures on electricity usage in typical office buildings, the “Lead by Example” report notes that 43 percent of the electricity consumed goes for “space conditioning” (operating air conditioning systems and ventilation fans). The next-highest use is lighting, which accounts for 27 percent. Then come “plug-ins” (computers, other office machinery and equipment), at 17 percent. Water heating accounts for less than 1 percent in office buildings, and miscellaneous use accounts for the remaining 12 percent.
The report stresses the energy savings achievable through “green” building techniques in new and retrofitted buildings. The state has set a goal of having new buildings qualify for certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. The Public Housing Corporation has committed to putting “cool roofs” (with insulation) on its housing stock, and many state agencies have already retrofitted their offices with low-energy compact fluorescent or LED lights.
By and large, though, the agencies’ commitment to attaining LEED certification is tempered as they invoke the escape clause in the covering legislation – “to the extent possible.” Just what this clause means is the subject of agonized discussion in the various agency responses to the DBEDT questionnaire on which the report is based.
DAGS, for example, says it has three projects underway that it hopes will achieve LEED Silver rating. “While Act 96 … mandates LEED Silver or Two Green Globes rating system, it also allows for something less by stating ‘to the extent possible.’ This statement in the law is hard to define.” The “general strategy” of DAGS’ Public Works Division “in defining and applying ‘to the extent possible’” involves at least five steps, the report states. First is to look at what “we do already, thus having no impact on operation/function and cost.” Second is to look for practices “that we may not have normally done, but can do without negative impact to cost and negative impact to operation/function of the facility.”
The third step is to “look for and possibly implement sustainable design practices … that are not very costly.” Fourth, “look for and possibly implement requirements that we may not currently do and will impact costs and improve operation/function of the facility.” Fifth: “and so forth…” [sic].
The Department of Public Safety used the very same language, and the very same steps, in its effort to fathom the meaning of that cryptic phrase, “to the extent possible.”
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands didn’t even try to figure it out. It reported that it merely encourages its staff and divisions to employ energy-saving techniques in designing buildings for its lands.
Recycling
The mandate to conserve resources extends beyond electricity and includes exhortations to recycle, purchase products with recycled content, conserve water, and improve fleet-wide fuel efficiency standards.
Comparing a survey conducted in 2004 to one in 2006 showed some improvement in one area: purchase of recycled paper. In 2004, 112 state agencies spent $750,000 on “recycled content products,” almost all paper, the “Lead by Example” report found. This resulted “in the environmental savings of 523 trees, 741,360 gallons of water, 359,714 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and 160,796 pounds of greenhouse gas/CO2 emissions.” In 2006, total state agency spending on “environmentally preferable products” increased to $2.6 million. “Environmental benefits are being calculated,” the report states.
When it comes to recycling, however, the news is grim – and confusing. DAGS reported that “due to the termination of the recycling contract that was entered into by the Department of Health,” DAGS is in the process of soliciting bids from recyclers. Yet the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs reported that its blue bins for recycled paper were “picked up weekly by Island Recycling, contracted through DAGS.” The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands simply encourages its employees to recycle and its Land Development Division to employ waste-management programs in its development contracts.
The Department of Education recycling programs are still in the planning stages, the report states.
The Airports Division of the Department of Transportation said that it was continuing to recycle white office paper in Honolulu, “even after the state recycling program was ended.” But, as anyone traveling through Hawai`i’s airports knows, recycling in the terminals simply doesn’t exist.
Other airports across the country have aggressive recycling programs in passenger terminals, with bins for segregating paper, plastic, and aluminum. In Hawai`i, however, the DOT reports that “glass, newspaper, plastic and aluminum recycling is made difficult by security regulations at airport locations. Currently there is no program in place at our airports.” Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the DOT, was asked to comment on the special hardships Hawai`i faces in airport recycling. He had not returned calls by press time.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 17, Number 12 June 2007
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