Environmental Leader

A sixty percent reduction in energy use in buildings is possible, but is a daunting task. To achieve it would require an aggressive, comprehensive set of policies, market mechanisms – and, perhaps just as important, a change in worldview among business managers. This will be no easy task – especially with a growing and increasingly urban population. Here are the University of Vermont’s Institute for Global Sustainability (http://learn.uvm.edu/igs/), we seek to educate students and citizens to serve as leaders in the transition to a sustainable world. Courses focused on ecological economics, for example, address the public policy issues inherent in the achievement of projects, such as a reducing a countrys energy use. And offerings in the field of collaborative management (http://learn.uvm.edu/igs/collaborative_management) are designed to help leaders involved in the public-private partnerships and cross-sector collaborations necessary to achieve the type of goal described in this article.

Noah Pollock | April 28th, 2009

This study underscores the opportunity to make energy efficiency and renewables work together. Through performance contracting, energy efficiency improvements cut utility costs and the savings can fund the high initial costs of renewables such as wind, solar or biomass. In addition to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, this approach helps stabilize an organization’s energy supply, works as a hedge against energy price fluctuations, improves the organization’s public image, produces more comfortable and productive indoor environments and helps create green jobs for the local economy.

Paul von Paumgartten | May 4th, 2009