INDUSTRIAL

The Northwest Food Processors Association (NWFPA) held its yearly Executive Business Summit in May where it partnered with NEEA and the US Department of Energy (DOE) to facilitate discussions about the value of collaboration in addressing energy, technology, productivity, and other topics related to sustainability. Among the many issues discussed were the types of resources the food processing industry would require from partnering organizations to support them in achieving their goals and objectives.

According to NWFPA President Dave Zepponi, “NWFPA members have a long history of collaborating both inside and outside of the food processing industry for the benefit of the membership. Our partnership with NEEA has led a number of members to manage their energy use through Continuous Energy Improvement (CEI) and the Green Energy Management System (GEMS) pilot. We’re looking forward to taking energy efficiency to the next level with NEEA by adding DOE and other partners to an industry-wide strategy.”

COMMERCIAL

NEEA's BetterBricks commercial initiative continues to have significant impact promoting energy efficient business practices within the healthcare industry. Recent success with regional hospitals continues to exemplify the momentum of energy management within the healthcare sector. This success can be seen with organizations such as PeaceHealth, the fourth largest provider in the region with five hospitals in Oregon and Washington, that adopted a regional Strategic Energy Management Plan (SEMP) in late 2006. The plan includes a system-wide energy efficient purchasing policy, benchmarking all of their facilities and improving O&M practices. In collaboration with local utilities and the Bonneville Power Administration, this work has also helped to identify more capital upgrade projects. In the past year PeaceHealth saved over 2% of energy use throughout their system’s facilities. BetterBricks market specialists also continue to work with Providence to implement its SEMP. Providence was recently selected as the national ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for 2007, validating all the efforts it’s making toward energy efficiency.

BetterBricks is active in the office real estate market, continuing to promote sustained energy efficient practices. Work continues with the BOMA chapters in Seattle, Portland, Boise and Spokane on their educational agendas and a High Performance Portfolio Framework document has been developed to serve as a guide to improving energy efficiency in all aspects of real estate management.

BetterBricks is gearing up for this year’s 2008 BetterBrick awards. BetterBricks will start accepting nominations in the second week of June for leaders in high performance buildings in the area. This year’s awards will be handed out Oct. 10 for the Oregon/Southwest Washington area, Oct. 17 in Puget Sound and Oct. 22 in Idaho. For more information on the BetterBricks nominations and awards, visit the BetterBricks website.

BetterBricks encourages Northwest businesses to improve their energy-related business practices, resulting in energy efficient, high performance building design, construction and operations.

RESIDENTIAL

NEEA’s residential senior manager, Stephanie Fleming (featured in our last issue), spent the months of April and May traveling through the Northwest on what she describes as a mission to meet everyone on (residential sector’s) expert committee.

As the new head of NEEA’s residential initiative, Fleming is holding these meetings to connect with each of the 16 members of the committee to assess their goals, challenges and NEEA’s role in helping them meet their regional energy efficiency objectives.

“Overall I’m hearing people have very challenging energy efficiency goals in the future and see a role with NEEA in helping them get there,” Fleming said.

The impact of NEEA and its partners’ residential energy efficiency initiatives can be seen with the growing momentum of energy efficiency programs within the market, a trend recently highlighted in a study released by GreenWorks Realty. Their findings showed that environmentally certified homes in the Seattle area sold for 4.8% more and stayed on the market for 24% less time than comparable homes.