By Don Albinger, VP of Renewable Energy, Johnson Controls

How many dead cell phones are you still the proud owner of? I know I’ve got at least three. Guess how many there are in America right now. About 500 million. That’s a half-billion lying around in desk drawers and utility room cabinets in our homes and offices. Think they’re worthless? Not hardly. Actually, they represent a gold mine.

Those cell phones contain an estimated 17 million pounds of copper, 374,000 pounds of silver and 38,000 pounds of gold. You’d have to mine two tons of earth to get a half ounce of gold – so think how much dirt you’d need to move to produce 38,000 pounds. And now think about how much energy we could save in mining, transporting and refining precious metals if we just recycled a bunch of useless cell phones.

Imagine that you are holding a handful of coal in your hand that contains 100 units of energy. If you burn that coal to generate electricity and then push that electricity through transmission lines to your building, you can use it to run electric motors that pump hot water throughout your facility to keep it warm.

Out of that handful of coal you started with, how many units of energy do you think actually end up in your building as heat? The answer is not much: only 10 out of the original 100 units of energy. The rest – 90% – is lost along the way.

That’s a lot of lost energy, right? But think about it this way: what if we reverse the process? Instead of thinking about how much energy we’re losing, what if we think about how much energy we could be saving? If you save ten units of energy by making your building more energy efficient, you avoid burning ten times the amount of coal that would have been necessary to generate that electricity. Save a little energy just by turning off the lights in your conference rooms and running your building more efficiently, and you save ten times as much on the generation of that electricity. Little things can make a big impact.

You know those power strips underneath your desk that the power supplies to your computer, monitor, printer and other electronics are all plugged into? Did you know that they continue burning electricity even when the devices are turned off? Each power strip uses from 20 to 40 watts of electricity – let’s call it 30 watts on average. If just a million people started turning off those power strips before they leave the office, electric companies could avoid burning 1,255 rail cars of coal.

If you have two of those converter boxes for your cable television in your house – you know, the ones that are always on – they’re consuming about as much electricity as your refrigerator. That’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While you’re sleeping. While you’re at work. While you’re on vacation. If one million people unplugged their cables boxes for eight hours while they’re in bed, we’d save 87.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

On Earth Day last week, I was privileged to be one of the speakers at a conference on Wisconsin’s energy future. A bevy of distinguished representatives from government agencies, universities and private industry spoke about topics that included federal and state energy policies, renewable energy resources, green jobs, transportation issues and climate change.

It was a reminder that we’re grappling with big issues requiring big ideas and big investments of resources. But it’s also good to remember that some of the solutions can be pretty simple.

Efficiency now. It’s never been more important.

By Paul von Paumgartten, Johnson Controls

If I’ve learned anything from playing golf – and based on my handicap, I know the guys in my foursome are wondering what I could possibly be talking about at this point – it’s this: my game is a work in progress. Always has been. Always will be.

I’ve played for more years than I’d like to admit, and still there are days when I can’t hit the driver to save my life. Or if my driver’s working, I can’t chip. Or if I’m playing okay around the greens, I can’t putt. You get the picture.

Here’s what I love about golf, though: every year I learn something new from one of my buddies, correct a bad habit, try out a new club. Slowly, but surely, my game is getting better.

That’s how I feel about LEED v3. I’ve been involved with LEED from the beginning. Like you, I’ve seen all the changes. And I know there’s going to be some belly-aching about “change for the sake of change” this time around, too.

But I think that while LEED v3 definitely makes some significant modifications in the certification process, very soon we will be looking back and thinking, “Man, am I glad we did that!” Here’s why.

First, LEED v3 sets the stage for a much more orderly revision process going forward. From now on, updates to the standards will be more similar to building codes – meaning they’ll be scheduled every couple years and based on changes in the market that make them necessary. LEED v3 takes the randomness out of future updates.

Second, LEED online is faster and easier to use than ever before. It vastly improves communications between project teams and certifiers. If you’re managing more than one project at a time, it makes life much easier. Credit assignments are made to team members by name, not roles, eliminating those annoying, “That was on my list?” responses. And an improved timeline shows what’s been accomplished and what’s left to be done – including target dates – making staying on track easier. There are other big improvements in how the tool supports the certification process that you’ll have to experience. But, trust me, you’re going to love them. A lot.

Finally, LEED v3 will mean more improvement in the social, environmental and financial performance of buildings. Just like with golf – or any pursuit, for that matter – if you’re not in it to get better, you’re not in it at all. Besides, I talk with very few building owners and facilities managers who – now that they have their plaque on the wall – aren’t interested in continuously improving the energy efficiency of their buildings. Having tasted the cost reductions, improved working environments, positive public image and all the other benefits that come with a LEED certified building, they want more. And that is as it should be.

From where I’m sitting LEED v3 – like my new and improved golf swing – is progress. If you have a different perspective – or any tips on curing a chronic slice off the tee – let me know?

By Ron Stimac, Johnson Controls

It’s coming. A little too slowly for some. But it’s definitely coming.

In a few short weeks, the hour that every school kid in the nation fervently prays for will finally arrive. The moment when school bells ring one last time and the curtain drops on the 2008-2009 academic year. Another nine months of multiplication tables, book reports, essay questions and cafeteria food draws to a close – and a long, lazy summer of swimming pools, sandlot baseball and sleepovers begins.

In at least one city in America, the start of this summer break also marks the end of a truly remarkable year – a year in which local school officials took another bold step into a cleaner, brighter and more sustainable future for every kid in a classroom and every taxpayer in the district. That city is Wyandotte, Michigan.

Located in metro Detroit, Wyandotte Public Schools does the best it can to serve about 4,700 students on a budget that is, to put it politely, “constrained.” As I’m sure you’ve noticed, things have been tough in Detroit and pretty much all of Michigan for awhile now. That’s why what schools officials are doing in Wyandotte is so smart.

For more than a decade, Johnson Controls has worked with Wyandotte Public Schools to help make the high school, middle school and six elementary schools more energy efficient and more comfortable for kids, teachers and staff.

We’ve replaced old boilers, lighting fixtures that contained PCBs, and leaky doors and windows with new high-efficiency ones. As a result of the improvements, all 11 Wyandotte school buildings have earned ENERGY STAR® certification, making the district the first in the entire state to accomplish that.

Performance contracts have been used to fund all of the improvements, meaning the upgrades pay for themselves with the money they save on utility bills and operations – more than $6.9 million over 15 years.

But it’s the latest project that may have the biggest impact on the school system, the kids and the community. In 2008, we installed solar photovoltaic (or PV) panels on the roof of Wilson Middle School. We worked with the municipal utility in Wyandotte and the State of Michigan to get grants that paid about half the cost of the solar system.

The 10 kilowatt system will convert the free rays of the sun into electricity to help power the school. But more important is the impact the panels are having on students – particularly the kids in the 8th grade class who have taken ownership of the solar system. They have an entire curriculum about solar energy and a website that tracks the amount of energy the panels are producing. (Check out videos about the system.)

These students are learning about the impact their energy use is having on the environment, how to use less through energy efficiency, and how renewable sources like the sun can meet the energy needs of the future.

You know why that’s important? Because these kids are someday going to be the adults who solve our energy and climate problems. And it’s our responsibility – our solemn duty – to prepare them today to be the energy engineers and the solar technicians and the smart energy consumers of tomorrow.

When the school bells ring again next fall, that’s what they’ll be doing in Wyandotte. Don’t you wonder why every school in America won’t be doing the same?

Efficiency now. It’s never been more important.

By Iain Campbell, Vice President and General Manager, Johnson Controls, Inc.

Towering above the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street in Manhattan is without question America’s most famous skyscraper: the Empire State Building.

At a few inches over 1,453 feet, it was the world’s tallest man-made structure for 23 years. It has 6,500 windows, 73 elevators and 1,860 heart-pounding, breath-stealing steps from the street to the 102nd floor.

Existing commercial buildings like the Empire State Building consume some 18 percent of the energy used in the United States and account for about the same percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. Many buildings have made progress in reducing their energy usage and environmental impact – the Empire State Building included. But the initiative announced on April 6th at this historic structure is dramatically different and proof positive that even old buildings can learn new tricks.

The “Empire State Building Leadership in American Progress in Sustainability” project promises to make the world’s most famous office building a world leader in energy efficiency and sustainability. And at Johnson Controls, we’re pleased to be collaborating on the project with the Empire State Building Company, Jones Lang LaSalle and two of the world’s leading organizations focused on sustainability: Rocky Mountain Institute and Clinton Climate Initiative.

Together, we’re developing a $20 million sustainability project to complete upgrades to the Empire State Building that will include:

• Refurbishing windows to make them substantially more energy efficient
• Improving the insulation behind existing radiators to reflect more heat into the office space
• Installing a new state-of-the-art energy management and control system
• Rebuilding or replacing HVAC equipment with new high-efficiency models
• Providing tenants with a web-based  tool to help them track and manage their individual energy usage

When we’re all done, we’ll have reduced energy usage in the building by 38 percent, energy costs by $4.4 million per year, and greenhouse gas emissions by 105,000 metric tons over a period of fifteen years.  Most importantly, the project team has collaborated to develop an innovative approach to retrofitting multi-tenant commercial office buildings that will be a model for the industry.

The project will be good for the owners because it will make the building more valuable, more marketable and more cost effective.

It will be good for tenants because their operating costs will be lower, their environments more comfortable and their employees more productive.

It will be good for the world, because our approach (tools and documentation available at www.esbsustainability.com) can be used over and over again to lower the energy usage and environmental impact of commercial office buildings around the globe. 

For nearly eighty years, the Empire State Building has stood as a towering landmark to American ingenuity. Soon it will also become a symbol of energy efficiency and sustainability for the entire world.

Efficiency now. It’s never been more important.