mms3539's blog

The last tour of the class and unfortunately I am sick and out of work and school. So I won’t get to see the presentation in person but I am equipped with the internet so this should be interesting.
I began with Texas Instruments. In case you live under a rock and you’ve missed everything from the mid 70’s till now I’ll fill you in. TI is a very successful manufacture of computer parts, accessories, and electronics and semi-conductors. In March of 2009TI announced that its newest building in the Philippines was the first LEED certified building in that country. Its facility in Richardson Texas was the first LEED Gold cert fabrication facility in the world. (http://focus.ti.com/pr/docs/preldetail.tsp?sectionId=594&prelId=c09017)
TI began the Richardson plant in 2003 with help from Gov. Rick Perry agreed to award $50M to UTD to provided research and engineers for TI. Later in 2010 President Obama and his administration announced that TI was one of the many winners of a $2.3 billion dollar tax credit which is an incentive for clean energy. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/greenliving/stories/010809dnmettitaxcredit.5bb8d270.html
Today Ti continues its standard of green by recycling, conserving water, providing products that are better for the environment, and by initiation of innovative programs such as their employee trip reduction which helps keep hundreds of cars off the road everyday

wikipedia.com

The main purpose of Frito lay is to produce snacks and drinks for consumers the world over. This is a pretty big task to have but they still find time to be environmentally and socially responsible. In the early 80’s Frito lay moved their headquarters to Plano, north of Dallas, and they adopted a green mentality early on using organic materials and processes to maintain their facility. http://www.snacks.com/good_fun_fritolay/2009/05/this-week-i-talked-to-george-guck-who-leads-the-frito-lay-headquarters-facitlity-in-plano-texas-about-his-teams-efforts-to.html
In October of 2009 they were awarded leed gold certification because if its efforts tin energy reduction, water conservation and recycling such as:
• Installing solar panels on the roof to help heat water;
• Replacing chillers and air handlers with high-efficiency units;
• Composting all landscaping waste;
• Replacing lawn grasses with low-water varieties for water conservation;
• Implementing new light switches, which turn off hall lights when the sun is shining;
• Recycling paper and kitchen waste from the cafeteria- more than 70% of waste are diverted from the landfill
• Installing hands-free sinks and paper towel machines in all restrooms to help reduce water and paper waste
But most important is the company’s commitment to employee education. They host an annual eco fair for vendors to advise employees what they can do to be green and provide them information and services that they can take home and share with their communities. Also, important is their commitment to continued environmentally sound decisions such as their switch to sprinter trucks and vans that reduces emissions and improves the mpg

http://www.fritolay.com/about-us/press-release-20091021.html

So it’s 8am on a Saturday morning and after a long week of work I’m on my way to Dallas to go on a site tour with my class. Now to most people this may not be the way to spend an afternoon, but since I’m a nerd I must admit it really was fun. Jackson Murphy gave us the grand tour of his facility an office building that incorporates green practices in the development of their sites and also their day to day routines. Jackson explained that ensuring a healthy work space helps to ensure healthier workers and studies such as that performed by Carnegie Mellon show that green building workers are more productive. Therefore, it would be advantageous for companies to practices green standards.
The office space is beneficial to their employees as is outside lounge area. Since Hewitt Zollars shares a common space with a residential multi-family building they can offer their employee additional resources such as a gym, showers and bike racks, covered parking, and a pretty cool lounge area.

Next on the list was the Audubon. I have lived in Dallas/Fort Worth all my life and I have never heard of the Audubon. According to our tour guide Zeshan Segal the Audubon was created as a result of a lawsuit. The citizens in the surrounding area got together to file a class action lawsuit against the city and with good reason. Once a notorious illegal dump, the Dallas Audubon is now a lush 120 acre education center and nature exhibit along the Trinity River. Being a company that has a focus on nature they of course have a vested interested in green building and design including a green roof (really its grass!) and animal friendly designs which is why the window are position in such a way to minimize the injuries of our feathered friends. We were able to go on a hike on one of their trails up to the river and see what good can come from a space that was once covered with trash and pollution.

http://www.nctcog.org/envir/features/2008/aug/

Water conservation is a main component of sustainability and is one of the tents to LEED certification. Tonight, my class had a guest speaker Steve Chaney who gave an awesome presentation on the environment, green practices, and water conservation. As a new homeowner and someone who is concerned with both the environment and my pocketbook I was extremely interested. I decided to take the notes from his presentation and apply them to my own home.
The very first step was in the timing of watering the yard. I knew that I had a sprinkler system but, since I just closed on 12-29-10, I had no idea where the system was even located. I was able to find the main system in the garage, and to my surprise it was off. In the Texas or other states where the winters are mild, you do still need to water your lawn. Even though your grass goes dormant (turns brown) it still has a root system underground. Your lawn is still alive and still has certain water requirements however it does not need as much water in the winter. Therefore I decided to turn the system on for twice a week at 6 pm for 15 minutes. This may not provide the 1 inch of water needed to penetrate the soil but I will need to monitor and adjust the system as needed.
Next I evaluated the type of grass and vegetation that the builder put down and after getting out in the cold on my hands and knees, asking the neighbors, and looking online I still have no idea other than cheap and dead. Therefore, I’ve decided to go with a native grass such as buffalo grass. Grass and plants native to Texas are more drought resistant and will use less water to stay alive and healthy. It is also a sight cheaper than the St Augustine grass that I was to originally place down.
Lastly Steve recommended that I use the following site to aid me in the decision of plants and shrubs: http://www.txsmartscape.com/NorthCentralTX/main.asp. The website provides: design tools, care and maintenance, and a plant selector tool to help identify the type of plants that will help to conserve the most water. From this I found the Louisiana iris which is pretty and serves a purpose.

www.2011tmgaconference.org/speakers/schaney.jpg

http://www.txsmartscape.com/plant_search/getdata_single.asp

Today, or tonight rather, my sustainability class had two site visits. The first was a tour of an educational institution, TCC downtown campus, and the second site was a residential home. While I found both tours to be extremely informative it was a bit lacking in the depth of knowledge concerning the conservation of energy, water, waste in building, and recyclable materials. The second tour was of the personal home of Heather Ferrier, in which she did a retrofit of a 1920’s home. Of the two site tours this is the one interested me most.
The concept of using an old home and remodeling/rehabbing/ retrofitting the design is to me the very essence of sustainability, because the site and the materials are already pre-existing and that reduces the footprint on the environment. It is so common for people to view older homes as something that is obsolete and unlivable when in fact just the opposite is true. To my surprise the home was in excellent condition and obviously was design to last.
The builders of the 20’s and 30’s may not have had as much knowledge of sustainability or the environment, but they did take pride in their craftsmanship and the design of the project. Today’s construction we see a lot of smaller “cookie-cutter” homes that were build overnight with low cost materials and not much concern for the people who will need to live there or the neighborhood that will need to support the community a few decades down the road. This was simply not the case in the past. Builders made homes that could be purchased, used by a family and passed down from one generation to the next. They included features that were thoughtful l, such as ironing boards in the kitchen, cubby holders for the home phone, and so on. Somewhere down the road, my guess in the 80’s or 90’s when the housing boom began we started making cheap ugly homes, and the waste that was left over as a result is what is fueling the USGBC and homeowners to demand that LEED practices be used for residential properties.
In my view we can benefit by taking the sustainable practices of the older homes and combining them with the best practices of today and make a product that is both the highest quality and also environmentally friendly .


www.remodelinglovell.com

The discussion came about in our sustainability course of green transportation, actually this discussion came up quite a few times, and it got me to thinking about Fort Worth’s transportation system. True we do have The T and the TRE whose main purpose is to link downtown Fort Worth with downtown Dallas and the DFW airport. Therefore if a commuter on one side of Fort Worth wanted to get to the other side of Fort Worth they could, Monday-Friday, travel East to West stopping at 1 of 5 stations and from there walk to the nearest bust station.
This of course this does not leave a lot of room for commuters to choose public transportation over their individual cars. This of course got me thinking about other large cities that do support green transportation. I began to think of West coast cities such as Seattle and San Francisco then I recalled one of our guest speakers challenge to consider New York City as a Mecca for sustainability. Indeed New York City has plenty of public transportation such as: the subway, buses, ferries, taxis, and it is a pedestrian and cyclist friendly city.
The transportation system of New York City is a cooperation of complex systems of infrastructure which is available 7 days a week. This allows NYC commuters to easily travel from one side of town to another. Public transportation is so ingrained into the lives of NYC commuters that if you were to ask two New Yorkers how to get to 28th street you would probably get 2 separate answers of train numbers, connects, and bus schedules. The sidewalks are wide enough to accommodate the many pedestrians and the city is well endowed with bicycle lanes. Even the bridges have pedestrian and bike lanes. So, and as much as I hate to admit, New York has the right idea on public transportation. In order for us to reduce our footprint on the environment DFW commuters need to demand better and more available public transportation and walk-able communities.

The first site tour of my new sustainability course was very interesting.  As a MSRE student I have been to many real estate tours however, this was the first time that the subject of the Real estate tours was someones personal home.  We were very fortunate to meet the homeowners, Mr. and Mrs Dela Pena, and Heather Ferrier of Ferrier custom homes. Together the three of them explained to us that green real estate development was not just limited to commercial real estate and the homes of the filthy rich, but to people such as Mr. and Mrs. Dela Pena who state that their reasons were more ethical than anything else.

Sustainability is about energy efficiency and responsibility in using and wasting resources. The choice to live in a sustainable home is personal no matter what the aesthetic preference of the individual decisions can be made to reduce energy consumption and conserve natural resources. When most people think of an eco-design home they envision a very modern design home nestled among the trees, and while the Dela Pena home is contemporary and sustainable not every home that is sustainable will need to fit this design. The Dela Pena home is a 3 bedroom 1750 sqft home with exposed flooring, a gas fireplace, ductless mini split air control units and many other features that are environmentally friendly. however, one could opt for cork flooring which is good for the environment but looks more natural than polish or stain concrete.

In the end if you choose to live in an environmentally friendly home you are not going to be forced into a space aged designed home that will be impossible or uncomfortable to live in.

photos of sustainable designs

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