Largest ‘green’ resort village in North America announced by Vail Resorts

March 5. BROOMFIELD—Vail Resorts announced what it calls “the most ambitious green development project in the North American resort industry” on Monday, March 5.

CEO Rob Katz said the $1 billion project, which is slated to begin selling properties in 2009, will transform the West Lionshead site into a multi-resort village of residences, a hotel, offices, retail shops and restaurants, mountain operations facilities, a public parking garage, a new gondola and related skier portal and a public park.

Named Ever Vail, the concept includes one million square feet on 9.5 acres.

Ever Vail has applied to be part of the U.S. Green Building Council’s pilot LEED for Neighborhood Development program. Vail Resorts plans to develop 100 percent of the project’s buildings to meet LEED criteria.

Read more about this proposed project in the next GreenMag E-News.

Tour of Gold LEED Certified ATLAS building on CU Boulder campus

Moe Tabrizi, Assistant Director of Engineering & Campus Energy Conservation Officer at the University of Colorado at Boulder led a tour of the ATLAS building, Colorado's first LEED Gold-certified public building.

Completed in August 2006, ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning & Society) was more than 60% funded by a self-imposed student tax. One of the conditions of the student funding was that the building be "as green and sustainable as possible." Tabrizi committed to at least Silver certification—the project far surpassed that goal.

The building features CO2 sensors; hi-efficiency, double-pane windows; and water-free urinals. Sandstone mined from within 500 miles (Kansas) brought LEED points, and the red clay roof, consistent with campus architecture design, was mixed with 20% ash to meet gain additional LEED points.

Air-tight doors with airlocks, occupancy sensors to monitor lighting, super T8 and T5 lights, low VOC paint and carpets, and "certified wood" all create an environment not only "green," but healthy, pleasant to be in and aesthically innovative.

View the ATLAS website at www.colorado.edu/atlas. Visit greenmagonline.com for upcoming information regarding this and other LEED certified projects in the Rocky Mountain region.

Agents of Change

Campuses have an imperative to be "agents of change," said Pam Shockley-Zalabak, Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, at Thursday's Rocky Mountain Sustainability Summit held in Boulder, Colorado. Colleges and universities have the challenge "to lead and to create leadership," she said, a theme repeated throughout the day at workshops and seminars.

Highlights included practical solutions to laying out sustainability goals that can be met, to providing incentives for pursuing sustainability research and best practices, and to forming cross-disciplinary collaborations to define and meet these goals.

Presentations included the "triple bottom line" approach to cost accounting (economic, ecological and social valuation), a hands-on workshop on how to capitalize the conservative values in your community into sustainability resources, building the institutional capacity necessary for water sustainability and more.

Participants from the Rocky Mountain region and beyond (Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, Nebraska, Utah, Tennessee, Arkansas, Washington, California, Florida, and, of course, Colorado) to share challenges and solutions to sustainability issues on the campus and within communities.

Campus Climate Challenge

Thanh-Thanh, with the University of Colorado Environmental Center, gives free T-shirts to students for AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, www.aashe.org) during the Rocky Mountain Sustainability Summit at CU in Boulder. The T-shirts promote the Campus Climate Challenge, a project of more than 30 leading youth organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Challenge unites young people to organize on college campuses and high schools to win 100% Clean Energy policies at their schools (climatechallenge.org).

CU Boulder Announcement of Carbon-Neutral Commitment

University of Colorado at Boulder Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson today announced his signing of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (PCC). CU Boulder joins 79 other American College and University Presidents in signing this historic document.

"We realize that meeting the PCC goal of climate neutrality—zero net greenhouse gas emissions will require major improvements in the technology necessary to reduce the carbon emissions associated with coal-based electrical production in the Rocky Mountain region," Peterson said.

"But we are working on the premise that, with support from the state and federal government and a growing national and global commitment to alternative energy, these improvements in technology will come sooner rather than later, making what we do today all the more important and far-sighted."

Peterson announced plans to earmark $250,000 annually for projects aimed at reducing campus energy use. Additionally, the Chancellor announced the formation of the Chancellor's Committee on Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CCEES), a working group to be led by CU Boulder Vice Chancellor for Administration Paul Tabolt. Tabolt is charged with setting sustainability goals for the campus and advising the university on all environmental matters.

This group also marks a new sustainability partnership with the city of Boulder. Noting that "CU's and Boulder's fortunes are tied together in moving toward sustainability and the use of renewable energy," Peterson requested that Boulder Mayor Mark Ruzzin appoint a city representative to serve as a permanent member of the committee.

Throughout the day, the addition of other universities and colleges joining the PCC have been announced, bringing the current total to 86.

Moving from the Stone Age to the Sustainability Age

We are still firmly implanted in the Stone Age, says Arizona State University President Michael Crow, a participant in a plenary panel at today’s Rocky Mountain Sustainability Summit at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Summit has drawn about 400 participants who are interested in “forging sustainability solutions at colleges and universities.” Many universities are stuck in the Stone Age because they are slow to change, selfish and egotistical, says Crow. And one of the big reasons our culture is stuck in the Stone Age is that universities haven’t been changing.

“At Arizona State University we have been rethinking our own design. We are creating a new set of design aspirations,” Crow says. Of vital importance in that restructuring process is “leveraging place.”

Crow says his university is “committed to place in every possible way. We have a duty to be responsible for facilitating social reformation.” That process includes being a responsible knowledge entrepreneur, facilitating use-inspired scholarship by making problem-solving equally important to academic research, fusing sustainability with all academic disciplines.

Crow says it’s important to lead by example. Just two examples he cited: at ASU all new buildings since 2002 have been LEED-certified and the university has bought transit passes for all university staff and students.

At other universities, parking fees have been increased to encourage using transit alternatives, all new vehicles purchased must use new environment-friendly fuels, and computer manufacturers are asked to package lots of machines together to cut down on plastics consumption.

Other panelists agreed with Crow that moving from the Stone Age to the Sustainability Age will take leadership on campus, from students, facility and staff…more on that later.

Out On the Cutting Edge: Nanotechnology & Sustainability, How Will They Co-exist?

What is nanotechnology and why should anyone interested in sustainability be interested in it? Some answers to these questions were provided at a business breakfast in Denver recently.

Although the speakers focused on the budding nanotech businesses in Colorado, every state in the country is wanting to jump on the nanotech bandwagon.

Debbie Woodward, of the Nanotechnology Alliance, Nanotechnology in Colorado (www.coloradonanotechnology.org), defined nanotechnology as “an enabling technology.” It is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular level. So it enables us to construct items from the bottom up, which could “mean better built, longer-lasting, cleaner, safer and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general,” according to the Center for Responsible Nanotech.

All this from a technology based on something that is way too tiny to see because it’s 75,000 times smaller than a human hair.

Among the most promising possibilities for nanotech products (picked by Albuquerque Journal writer John Fleck):

-- Superstrong, lightweight materials made of carbon nanofibers for things like bicycle frames or aircraft that are far lighter than can be made today with aluminum or composite materials such as traditional carbon fibers.

-- Computer circuits based on nanotechnology, using the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes or other types of nanowires, enabling dramatically smaller and therefore more powerful microelectronic devices.

-- Drug delivery, with nanoparticles that slip drugs into living cells -- as a way, for example, to target chemotherapy drugs at tumors.

-- Filters to turn brackish water clean by running it through nanoscale channels so tiny that only water molecules can make it through.

-- Better catalysts in oil refineries and other chemical processing operations.

-- Better photoelectric panels to turn sunlight into electricity.

Currently, there are about 1,200 companies working with nanotechnology in 34 nations. In Colorado, the average size of one of these companies is 14 people, so the ability to share the prohibitively expensive research facilities, especially those funded by the federal government, is essential. New Mexico also has some first-class research facilities and is listed as one of the “Leader States” in the Colorado Nanotechnology Roadmap 2006 produced by Gary Horvath and the folks at the Leeds Business School at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming are listed as “Peer States” in the publication. It estimates that New Mexico will invest $14 million in nanotech economic development between 2002 and 2008. Utah’s investment for the same time period is estimated at $76.6 million; Arizona’s at $35 million; Colorado’s at $50,000.

In 2000 the U.S. government established the National Nanotechnology Initiative and is now putting about $1 billion a year into nanotech. The Initiative says the technology is in the “pre-competitive” stage, meaning it’s in the research stage of finding ways to turn scientists’ innovations and ideas into products.

Nanotech’s advocates predict that within seven years nanotech will turn into a $2.5 trillion global market. “This is a global race,” said Woodward.

A big question for those involved in nanotechnology is how the states of the Rocky Mountain West can work together to benefit all. Sharing of facilities, workforce training, and education were several areas mentioned at the Denver meeting.

And, who’s regulating this new industry? Currently there is no international regulation, no federal statutes. According to Christa Lee Rock, a law clerk with Patton Boggs, LLP, some of the existing regulations of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) are possibly applicable to nanotechnology, and the problem with creating new regulations and guidance is that “the technology to develop nanotech is evolving faster than instruments to assess exposure to air and water. In the meantime,” she said, “nanotech is booming.”

She urges nanotech companies to use safe practices, to identify and eliminate liability-creating conduct, even in the infant industry, because preemptive compliance allows companies to “participate in the shaping of regulation by demonstrating to agencies what is feasible and what is impracticable.” She says it also lowers insurance premiums and demonstrates good-faith compliance ahead of time.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) predicts, “My own judgment is that the nanotechnology revolution has the potential to change America on a scale equal to, if not greater than, the computer revolution.”

Will those changes affect every one of us? You bet. Will they affect sustainability issues for the world? You bet. Could we eventually rebuild the lost ozone? Maybe.