Wgerlich's Blog

Strategic Environmental Mgmt – Individual Project

wgerlich — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:55:58 +0000

In this same class with Professor Mark Starik, we are also responsible for doing an individual project. I choose to work with Doug Spengel in the GWU Facilities Dept on a portion of the Climate Action Plan (CAP) for GWU. I have an interest in learning more about greening building envelopes, so Doug asked me to look into replacing windows and/or adding window films to reduce solar heat gain. I will be looking at 9 specific GW buildings and helping him to find out what it would cost GW if they choose one of these options, what it would take to do it, and how much carbon emissions would be saved. I don’t know the first thing about this topic (ha, ha), so it will be challenging and fun to do the research and attempt to quantify the savings. GW has alot of work to do in order to complete the CAP by the end of May 2010, so I knew they could use as much help from students as they could. The University plans on going carbon neutral at some point in the future, so this plan will help them determine what areas of operation emitt the most carbon and what their options are to reduce those emissions.

Community Gardens Networking Day 2/4/10

wgerlich — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:38:15 +0000

Readout from this networking day to come……………..

Strategic Environmental Mgmt – group project

wgerlich — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:38:06 +0000

This semester I am taking Strategic Environmental Mgmt class with Professor Mark Starik. The class is about how businesses can create comprehensive stategies for environmental sustainability.

I am on a team with three other students and for our group project we will be working with the Professor’s wife, Margery to help her quatify her company’s GHG footprint. She works for the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) in the Environemental Health and Services group. The company is undertaking a Sustainability Initiative in 2010 and our team is going to help in the following ways:

- Perform a baseline assessment of BNA’s GHG impacts at the HQ building in Arlington, VA by collecting data from the project leads within the companies various departments i.e. HR, Finance, Sales, etc.

- We will then use GHGTrack which is a SAS software to quantify the GHG impacts. We will look at: energy use, waste profile, recycling profile, paper use, and car/travel impacts.

- Present findings to BNA’s executive management, and make recommendations for how the company can reduce their overall GHG impact.

I am really interested in learning to use the SAS software and I think that this overall experience will provide valuable analysis for BNA and valuable experience that I can take with me after this class is over.

Starting a CSR Job Fair at GWU

wgerlich — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:45:59 +0000

Last semester, I took a Global CSR class with Prof. Jennifer Griffin. This was my first introduction to CSR and I feel in love with it academically. During my 9 years of work experience in the private sector, I have always felt like something was missing…working for a large corporation was beginning to feel unsatisfying to me and I craved for a greater sense of purpose in my place of work. While taking this CSR class, I soon realized that what I was looking for was to work for a company that practiced CSR and encompassed it a part of their core business mission.

One of my fellow classmates, Scott Sellers approached me last week about wanting to work with Prof. Griffin in setting up an annual job fair at GWU for CSR jobs. I think this would be a great value add for the University and for the students, so I plan to work with him over the course of the spring semester to see if we can set this up. More to follow…..

My main area of interest within CSR is environmental issues. In the book, Greening Your Business”, by Daniel Sitarz, he states that “Every environmental problem that we face today as a society has its root cause in a conscious business decision.” Creating a sustainable and greener business can have a huge positive impact on our shared environment. First and foremost, a business had to be successful, but it can be green as well. I truly belive this and hope that in my next job, I can help a company get past the short-sighted business decisions of increasing profits to be sustainable, but to see the many other benefits to being a green business by being sustainable environmentally and socially.

Get a free green roof

wgerlich — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:08:34 +0000

Last week I spoke to the instructor at my yoga studio about the grant that DC Greenworks has in parntership with the Office of the Deputy Major for Planning and Economic Development, called “greeNEr”. The grasnt is part of a neighborhood improvement fund to help revitalize H Street in NE, DC. The yoga business owner expressed interest in getting a green roof on her building so I setup a meeting with her and I to meet with Ty Voyles from DC Greenworks. Luckily, the current biulding owner had a green roof in mind when he updated it in 2006, so the roof’s membrane is in good shape, which will save him money to build a green roof. We are now working with the building owner and the yoga business owner to write-up a proposal. I am really excited that I was able to help make this connection for DC Greenworks. They have this grant which can be used for up to 11 green roofs and they have until April to get them all contracted. I hope to help them fulfil this goal through my volunteer services.

Community Forklift – Reduce/Reuse/Recycle

wgerlich — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:05:47 +0000

On Weds. December 16, 2009 I volunteered at Community Forklift (CF) in Hyattsville, MD. CF is like a Goodwill store for building materials. This non-profit organization aims to liftup communities, reduce construction industry waste, promote environmentally-friendly building, and develop career opportunities. They receive donations of surplus, salvaged, and green building material then resell it very cheap. Donators avoid dumping fees and receive a tax deduction. I worked for about 3 hours, getting my initial training, and doing odds and ends. The workforce there is super friendly and truly believe in what the organization is doing, which is very inspriring. I plan to volunteer there many more times over the course of this certificate program. I have an interest in green building so I thought that this would be a good place to work and learn about how building materials can be resused and how the deconstruction is actually done (rather than demolition). While working there I will spend a lot of time doing community outreach so that more and more people learn about the organization and how they can be involved.

Invasive plant removal @ Rock Creek Park

wgerlich — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:45:31 +0000

This volunteer activity was a partnership between The Hispanic MBA Student Association and GWU’s Net Impact Chapter. Approx. 14 of us met in Rock Creek Park in Washginton, DC and helped DC Parks and Recreation Services pull english ivy off of the park trees. The ivy grows up the trees, weighs it down, and destroys the trees’ bark, so they need to pull this ivy off as much as they can. This ivy is invasive and has spread all across the park. We had to cut the ivy at its root and then pull it off the tree bark. Once the root is cut, the ivy will die up the tree, but we tried to remove as much as we could. The ivy was then bagged up and disposed off by Park Services. This was a fun opportunity to learn about the invasive plant, to meet new people in the MBA program and to get some fresh air.

ACORE Renewable Energy Conference

wgerlich — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:51:27 +0000

On Friday, November 20, 2009, I volunteered at the Pahse II Renewable Energy in America: National Policy Furm, hosted by ACORE. This was an exciting event for me; not only was it my first time in one of the House of Rep buildings, but I also learned a lot about the current state of renewable energy policy internationaly. I was in charge of timing the speakers and ensuring that they spoke only for their time allocated. I got to sit in the best seat at the conference and got to interact with some of the main speakers. Senator Bingaman and Congressman Ed Markey were two of the speakers and it was a great pleasure to hear them speak. The topics of the conference were around how frame national policy, global issues and U.S. competitiveness, and financing. I was amazed when Sen. Bingaman stated that it has been estimated that we need $30-50 billion each year in renewable energy in order to help curb global warming, but we have only spent as much as $18 billion a year so far. Congressman Ed Markey predicts that the electric energy industry is going to consolidate similar to how the telecom industry did. The biggest challenge that was talked about all day was around the need for financing. Executives from several large banks were there and stated that national policy is critical before financing becomes an attractive investment for many banks. This fact was highlighted by Herman SHeer, member of the German Bundestag when he said that there are 3x the amount of greem job in Germany when it is 4x smaller than the U.S. I think we can learn a thing or two for Germany. Also on a global scale, the U.S. should partner with countries in order to maximize efficiencies like with China who excels in manufacturing and the U.S. who excels in finance services. The Ambassador of Demark, His Excellancy Friis Arne Peterson was also in attendence and told us that the Denmark is an energy contributor not a consumer. I thought this was absoltely amazing. Although they have oil reserves, the country has acomplished more than any other country has when it comes to environmental sustainabily in general. In summary, the U.S. has to stop being reactive when it comes to renewable energy or alternative forms of energy, rather it needs to be proactive. I can’t wait to volunteer at the next ACORE event in February.

dc greenworks project

wgerlich — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:06:47 +0000

Last week, I reached out to Sara Loveland from DC Greenworks, a non-profit that does green roofs in DC, to see if they could use my help on any projects. She was glad to have my help and said that I could assist on their big initiative to “green” the H-Street Cooridor. I met with Sara and another employee, Ashley, to talk about the specifics of what they would like me to do. As it’s shaping up now, they would like my help reaching out to business and property owners along H-Street and asking them to fillout a survey regarding their property and the opportunities to make it greener. They have not had much luck so far in collecting the data as many businesses are either sceptical in trying to green their property or more worried about the state of their business in this poor economic time. I will review the survey and make any recommendations for changes and help them develop metrics for the data collected. Sara and Ashley will help educate me about green roofs, and the costs and benefits of having one so that I have the tools I need to speak to the business and property owners. The goal for me is to setup time with the community members and help them to fill out the survey. The data provided by this survey will help DC Greenworks to gage the educational level of the people along H-Street in greening their property, and their level of interest in doing so. This can lead to future business for DC Greenworks and the opportunity the educate more people in this area. I am looking forward to helping DC Greenworks to collect this data from the surveys as well as to help further educate the community on how to green their properties.

Tree Planting Nov. 14, 2009

wgerlich — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:33:23 +0000

On Sat. Nov. 14, 2009 I voluntered with Casey Trees to plant trees in Marvin Gaye Park in N.E., DC. This was the second phase in creating a useable space in this new part of the park. Earlier this year, Casey Trees built a path along the perimeter of the park, and on Sat. we planted 19 trees, mostly river berch, and a bunch of rasberry bushes. There was a great turnout at this event, aside from the drizzling rain. I would estimate that approx. 100 people showed up. There were kids from a Junior DC Police program, The Earth Conservation Core, DC Parks and Recreation, Howard Univ., Univ. of Maryland, GWU, and a few others. I met a bunch of great people and it was a lot of fun working together in a team to plant trees. This part of the park is going to really flourish now and can provide a great space for the community to come together, enjoy the atmosphere, and hang out.