How Low Can We Go?

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I’m a numbers person. Here’s one that grabbed my attention and some headlines recently.

Zero.

We broke ground on a new library in Alpine that will be our first zero net energy building. That means it will generate all the energy it needs on-site, using solar power in this case.

Zero came to mind again while cleaning out the fridge one day and thinking about another stat I saw recently. Between the farm and the time we clean off our plates, America wastes 40 percent of its food. Forty percent! What if we could bring that down to zero?

Or trash. America is doing a lot more recycling, but on average, about 900 pounds of stuff per person winds up in landfills each year. What if we could cut that to zero?   

Source: National Resources Defense CouncilIn a few weeks, we’re holding an Earth Day Fair in the big green space we created around the CAC: the Waterfront Park. Watch InSite for more details, but it’s a chance to rally around the cause of reducing waste and protecting the environment, while picking up a few ideas on what else we might do.

 

The one-day fair is great, but it’s also just a part of how we do things at the County now. We’ve made Sustainable Environments one of our four strategic initiatives. Those initiatives guide everything we do.

So what does sustainable mean? In short, it’s all about wise management of our resources. It’s like our budget. We spend money – $5 billion a year. But we’re smart about how we spend it. We avoid waste. We plan, so we don’t run out in the future.

It’s the same with our environment. People need places to live and work. And our county population will keep growing. But we need to be smart about it. Sustainability is taking care of the natural environment so everyone who lives or visits here now and in the future has the resources they’ll need and can continue to enjoy the outdoors.

One way we’ve made watching our resources a priority is by adding an Energy and Sustainability manager to our General Services Department. They oversee anything the County builds.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Many of you reading this right now are sitting in buildings designed to be environmentally friendly. They have features that save energy, water and building materials. It’s already our policy that all our new buildings be LEED certified, meeting conservation standards from the U.S. Green Building Council.

We also go back and make improvements to our existing property. Just a couple recent examples: we put in water-efficient equipment at jails and parks, and at some parks we added synthetic turf on ball fields.

These projects are one-half of our Strategic Energy Plan. The other half is working with the community and other government agencies on conservation. When it comes to protecting the environment, we really are all in this together.

And we’re part of the community. The last few years, we’ve encouraged employees to take part in the annual Coastal Cleanup Day. It’s not a County event, but many of you pitched in because we all care about clean beaches and inland waterways.

We can all help in many small ways every day that add up to big differences. Those blue recycling bins scattered around our workplaces have collected literally tons of material and kept it out of landfills. Everyone should know how to print double-sided, and that’s of course after considering whether something needs to be printed at all.

I could go on and on about things we’re doing here at the County to conserve. But your time is a precious resource, and I don’t want to take too much of it! Your excellent work helps make San Diego County a wonderful place – and sustainability means we’re all working to make sure it stays that way.

Happy Earth Day!