Sustain DCSD
December 2015
Incentive Program 2015-2016
The 2015-2016 Sustainability Incentive Program is now available! This year, we are offering incentives to address:
1. Energy Reduction
2. Waste Diversion
3. Transportation
Please register your school here.
See additional details at: https://sites.google.com/a/dcsdk12.org/sustainability-and-energy-management/incentive-program.
Join the Sustainability Team as an Energy Analyst!
Energy Analyst - 00014838
Description
As part of the Operations Team, works toward reducing financial impact of energy use through utility management and resource conservation. Works in collaboration with other departments and communicates analyses on a regular basis to key stakeholders. Works alongside the Sustainability Coordinator to engage the DCSD community in sustainability practices to enhance the educational environment and safety of students. Develops and promotes good community relations among various district and community clientele.
- Develop and implement a holistic, strategic, financial and operational approach to resource management by improving energy efficiency, reduction of energy consumption, and water conservation.
- Achieve results through collaboration with Operations departments including but not limited to Planning and Construction, Maintenance, Controls, Grounds, and Custodial.
- Develop a continuously improving energy management plan that will coincide with the developing sustainability plan for the district.
Utility Monitoring:
- Make suggestions for utility data software and other energy monitoring equipment to Identify areas for improvement through use of the monitoring equipment
- Review all utility bills
- Manage metering and monitoring equipment and systems
Resource Conservation:
- Develop and implement strategies to reduce utility costs for Douglas County School District buildings around the following areas:
- Peak-shaving and demand-limiting strategies
- Equipment cleaning schedules
- Building Automation Systems in cooperation with HVAC to achieve energy reduction goals and optimum utilization
- Irrigation Monitoring System to identify areas for reduction
- Monitor and report financial analysis of conservation efforts
- Engage students, staff and administration in the promotion of resource conservation
Energy Efficiency:
- Participate in planning and design related to energy efficiency improvements as a key stakeholder for major capital efforts
- Work with Planning and Construction team to identify and implement appropriate energy efficiency measures of projects within budget and schedule parameters.
Energy Procurement:
- Assess and evaluate energy procurement options and strategies
- Identify innovative approaches to energy procurement that consider buying and/or selling power, sourcing renewable power and other approaches
- Develop agreements, contracts, or similar commitment documents as necessary
- Report on brokers negotiations for transport gas rates as necessary
Regulatory Assistance:
- Serve as a point of contact and monitor progress for our Energy Performance Contract (EPC). Report on the measurement and verification quarterly to key stakeholders.
- Conduct Net Present Value and Return on Investment reports
- Identify potential grant, rebate or other regulatory assistance programs that can be used to facilitate energy equipment upgrades that align with Douglas County School Districts energy initiatives
- Provide calculations for incentive program to inform schools of their energy consumption
Collaboration:
- Conduct meetings, perform training activities and encourage student and staff participation in utility-related improvements
- Collaborate with other departments and stakeholders to build a culture with common goals
- Establish relationships with surrounding school districts and other educational institutions
- Prepare reports as requested to communicate successes and challenges to resource management
Enterprise:
- Develop strategies for creating energy-related revenue generating enterprises that benefit the financial stewardship of the District.
- Perform all other duties as assigned or requested by the Sustainability Manager, Director of Operations, Chief Operating Officer in furtherance of organizational mission.
Website: dcsdk12.org/careers
Repreve Recycling Challenge!
A National elementary Repreve ® + Marvel Universe LIVE! recycling challenge is taking place in the Denver Metro area January 8 to January 22. Schools will participate in a 2 week recycling challenge, collecting as many plastic bottles as possible.
REGISTER YOUR SCHOOL IN THE REPREVE RECYCLING CHALLENGE BEGINNING DECEMBER 11! Show your students how they can make a difference by recycling.
- Raise funds for your school through the sale of branded T-Shirts
- Learn how cool products are made out of recycled materials through Scholastic ® published curriculum
- Win tickets to Marvel Universe LIVE! performances and Repreve-based apparel for students at the winning schools
Don’t let your school miss out on the fun! Register at http://rally.repreve.com/challenges/denver beginning December 11. Registration closes December 18.
Online registration and bottle tracking allows for easy sign-up, school participation, and real-time display of competition standings. Automated delivery of campaign materials to each school makes program awareness and promotion seamless.
If you have any questions about the program, please email ashley@shiftnow.com.
13 Tips for a Sustainable Holiday Season
1) Give a gift that will help a child be curious about the natural world: a zoo membership, an ant/butterfly farm, science kits, a kite, a tree you plant together, live plant kits, or the garden game.
2) Skip material gifts all together! Give an experience: performance/event tickets, a camping trip, cooking classes, a hot air balloon ride. Give a service: provided by you or a local business: a baby-sitting gift certificate, a massage, a dinner out, hire a chef in, dance lessons.
3) Give gifts you make yourself For adults, these often have more meaning (and a smaller environmental impact than mass-marketed products):
- Cook or bake a gift
- Write a poem or story about the person
- Glaze some pottery
4) Give socially conscious gifts! Shop fair trade:
- Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store
- Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade Online Store
- Grounds for Change Fair Trade Coffee, Tea & Chocolate
- Fair World Gallery
5) Put your money to work helping others and the planet. Instead of buying a physical gift:
- Adopt a gorilla, giraffe or elephant in a loved one's name
- Adopt a whale, wolf or polar bear
- Give a flock of chicks, a pig or llama to families living in subsistence communities
- Adopt-an-acre of a rainforest
6) See if you can find or create holiday decorations that are made from natural materials, will last from year-to-year and provide a unique holiday feel (unlike the cookie-cutter decorations found in stores).
7) Stuff stockings with nuts and fruit instead of plastic do-dads. Most of them end up in the wastebasket before Christmas day is over and last hundreds of years in a landfill.
Did you know that Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year's holiday season? That amounts to 25 million tons of garbage!
8 ) Wrap your gifts with newspaper (Sunday comics are great!), cloth that can be reused or wrapping paper made with recycled content. Save and re-use ribbon from year to year. Check out Lyziwraps reusable gift wrap!
If every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet!
If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.
9) Use holiday lights in moderation. If you are buying new lights, buy LED lights that use one tenth as much energy as conventional holiday lights and last much longer. If you enjoy holiday lights, turn them off during daylight hours and after most people in your neighborhood are in for the night. This can be done easiest with timers that can be found at your local hardware store.
A study by the Florida Solar Energy Center found that average household energy use for lighting increases 130 kwhs during the thirty-day holiday season following Thanksgiving. That's the same amount of energy that would be consumed if every household in America left an electric oven on 350 degrees for 2.5 days!
10) Buy energy efficient appliances and electronics, if those are on a wish list. Look for the ENERGY STAR label!
11) Send e-greetings Instead of sending cards through the mail. You can find great e-greetings. If you must mail cards, try to keep your card list to a minimum. Send postcards instead of envelopes to save paper or buy holiday cards that are made from recycled paper. Recycle the holiday cards you receive or make gift tags out of them for next year.
The 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill in a football field 10 feet high. That doesn't even include birthday cards!
12) Donate unwanted gifts or items replaced by new gifts. Should you receive any unwanted gifts or if you are replacing old possessions with new ones then consider taking them to a charity shop, instead of throwing them away.
13) Share these sustainable holiday tips with your family and friends! They can be a great conversation starter.
This article was taken from articles by AASHE and Drury University Communications. http://www.aashe.org/blog/13-tips-sustainable-holiday-season
Tool Library!
We maintain a few tools that you can “check out” to facilitate your sustainability initiatives.
- Light Meters: These are used as you conduct your energy audit to discover whether the rooms in your school are maintaining appropriate lighting levels.
- E-Meters: For students to measure how much energy individual appliances are using.
- Scales: For use during waste audits, you can check one out to help weigh each waste stream.
Just email us at sustainability@dcsdk12.org to check out a tool!
Collaboration Station
Ever wondered what other schools are doing? Check out the Sustainability Program. Share your own story and get ideas from others!
- Open Discussions
- Elementary Schools, High Schools, and Middle Schools - You will find your school name in each of these files. These are meant for you to share photos (make sure you have media releases from all students!), success stories, data, project outlines, anything you want us and other schools to know about your programs.
- Sustainability Updates
If you aren't able to access it, just email us and we will invite you to the folder.
Sustainability at Douglas County School District
Email: sustainability@dcsdk12.org
Website: www.dcsdk12.org/sustainability
Location: 3002 State Highway 83, Franktown, CO 80116, United States
Phone: 720-663-1206
Facebook: facebook.com/sustainDCSDK12
Twitter: @sustainDCSD
LeeAnn Westfall
- Waste Management questions and concerns
- Incentive Program
- Facilities and operations
- Eco-Schools USA
- U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools
Courtney Kuntz
Courtney is a service-learning and green schools advocate. Call her for things such as:
- School presentations on recycling, composting, energy, etc.
- Consulting for your sustainability project or course
- Red Apple Recycling, Crayola ColorCycle, TerraCycle
- Grants and fundraising opportunities
TBD
- Develop and implement a holistic, strategic, financial and operational approach to resource management by improving energy efficiency, reduction of energy consumption, and water conservation.
- Achieve results through collaboration with Operations departments including but not limited to Planning and Construction, Maintenance, Controls, Grounds, and Custodial.
- Develop a continuously improving energy management plan that will coincide with the developing sustainability plan for the district.
Apply at www.dcsdk12.org/careers and search Energy Analyst-00014938.