Lawyers Push for Energy Conservation

David White Jr. doesn't fit the mold of an environmentalist.

An attorney and partner in the Boston firm of Breakstone, White and Gluck, White is more comfortable in a suit and tie than tie-dye.

Before joining the Massachusetts bar, however, White was a student at the University of Vermont, where he received a degree in environmental studies. After graduation, he spent three years working as an environmental advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Now the president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, White is putting his environmental pedigree to use, leading the industry group in a push to encourage lawyers to be more environmentally friendly.

Called the Lawyers Eco Challenge, the program urges lawyers to sign an "environmental pledge" to take steps to implement a set of green guidelines drafted by the association.

"It's not a whimsy, it's a real concern," White said this week, of promoting "green lawyers." "The why of it is we all have a duty to fight global warming and protecting environmental resources, and one way we can definitely do that is by reducing our energy usage."

Taking even simple steps to reduce energy usage, like turning off lights or installing motion-activated lights in law offices, turning off computers and other electronics, reducing paper use and increasing recycling, White said, can have dramatic impacts.

Read more about green guidelines

"What we've done in my office is...we took out all incandescent bulbs and replaced them with compact fluorescents," White said. "We put the common areas on motion sensors, and we've just adopted good habits about turning off equipment that's not being used."

Those few steps, he said, combined with a plan to replace traditional fluorescent bulbs with the super-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs should cut the firm's energy use by as much as 25 percent.

"I'm pretty confident most firms around the state can do the same thing," he said. "We want to be an example for other businesses around the state. If lawyers can do it, accountants can do it, and insurance people can do it."

White's sentiment already seems to be catching on.

Barely a day after the Eco Challenge campaign was unveiled this week, more than two dozens lawyers and law firms had signed the online pledge. By week's end, more than 30 had signed up.

"My desire to go green started with my daughter" Rachel, said Alan Klevan, of the Wellesley firm Klevan and Klevan. "She's in middle school, and over the past several months she's become very environmentally conscious."

Spurred by his daughter and his work with the MBA's Law Practice Management Section, Klevan uses technology like document scanners to cut back on the amount of paper his office uses.

"I personally believe I'm 50 to 60 percent there," he said, of his goal of a paperless office.

"Lawyers have been so focused on their practice of law and doing right by their clients, they're not understanding the idea that there's other means out there to represent their clients as efficiently, if not better."

Even for lawyers who already consider themselves "green," the guidelines have been eye-opening.

"I've gotten all kinds of new ideas from this group," Sudbury attorney Susan Crane, who served on the MBA task force which helped draw up the guidelines, said this week.

"I've done a whole lot, but I could always do more, and I think we all could," she added. "A lot of lawyers focus on the environment and energy - this seemed like something we should be doing so our clients can model our behavior, and send a message out there that we're all trying.

"Lawyers need to be doing this. We can't just be taking on causes for others and forget what we're doing ourselves."

"For us, it was something that made a lot of sense, because it makes a good statement," said Tim Borchers, senior partner at Borchers, Ware and Guglielmo, which has offices in Medway and Franklin. "Every profession ought to have some kind of commitment to cutting back on the use of resources."

Like Klevan, Borchers is exploring the notion of the paperless office, and said the firm may purchase equipment and software to help cut back on paper usage.

"In our business, paper is king," he said. "We do a lot of printing. One thing we're actually studying right now is the impact of printing on both sides of the paper."

The firm has also urged employees to turn computer monitors off at night, switches to energy saving light bulbs and is upgrading its office to use programmable thermostats.

The idea of the challenge, though, isn't to mandate lawyers or law firms follow the MBA's strict rules on environmental awareness.

"It's more about planning," said Nancy Reiner, who co-chaired the task force. "The idea is just to get people and lawyers and law firms thinking about it.

"When you have a can, don't just throw it in the garbage. If we all, if a lot of firms do work to save energy, then it will have an impact."

"It's very exciting," said Philip Warburg, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, the MBA's partner in the Eco Challenge, of the commitment from lawyers and law firms. "I think that we are encouraging leaders in the Massachusetts professional community to walk the walk about climate change and other environmental practices they can show leadership on.

"It's a process of both thinking differently, and acting differently. We're not asking people to somehow reduce their efficiency on the job, or cutting into their profit margin. It's simply saying here are responsible choices you can make that can help us address a problem we can no longer afford to ignore."

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Here comes the Sun

Yarmouth, Mass. - Peter White of Yarmouth is proof that one man can make a difference.

Sixty photovoltaic panels are being installed on the roof of Yarmouth Town Hall this month after White led a grassroots effort to bring the first renewable energy system to a town building on the Cape.

“It’s a small step in the right direction,” said White, adding that Yarmouth is fortunate to have leaders at the town level who are well informed and see the value of solar power.

Through White’s efforts an article was placed on Yarmouth’s Town Meeting warrant last year to appropriate $50,000 toward installation of the photovoltaic modules.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative matched the town’s funds through the MTC’s small renewables initiative grant.

White says additional grant money is available through MTC for other businesses and municipalities willing to go green.

“Every town is building new municipal buildings with no solar designs. So we are trying to get the leaders on Cape Cod to move toward solar energy,” he said.

White warns towns that paying for energy isn’t going to get cheaper. “If [town officials] don’t do anything with a 7 percent increase a year in the energy bills for towns and schools, it will double over the next 10 years and triple in 15.”

Installation of Yarmouth’s solar panels began last week and will be completed before the end of the month. SolarWrights, a Rhode Island-based renewable energy provider with offices in Orleans, was awarded the installation project.

The company says the system will offset around 13,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year from the town’s electrical bills. The company estimates that with current prices of 20 cents per kwh, that will equal $2,600 in annual savings.

In addition, the solar panels will eliminate 20,620 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year along with reducing the production of nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxide – measures that are equivalent to planting three acres of trees.

Meanwhile, White hasn’t stopped his efforts to bring renewable energy systems to the Cape. “We’re working with Liz Argo [of SolarWrights] and some other town energy committees. We hope to have three or four other towns with warrant articles this year,” White said.

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Beware Electronics “Recyclers” that Don’t Recycle

7 January 2008 (Seattle, San Francisco) – In the wake of the Christmas electronic gadget buying season, with many of us buying new flat screen TVs, cell phones and computers now faced with disposing of the old ones, the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Electronics TakeBack Coalition (ETBC) today cautioned consumers not to be fooled by the majority of businesses nationwide calling themselves electronics recyclers who in fact don’t do any recycling at all, but instead ship your old equipment to developing countries.

The Recycling Lie

“We may think we’re doing the right thing by giving our old electronics to a ‘recycler’ or a free collection event,” said Sarah Westervelt, BAN’s e-Stewardship Program Director. “But most of those businesses calling themselves recyclers are little more than international waste distributors. They take your old equipment for free, or pocket your recycling fee, and then simply load it into a sea-going container, and ship it to China, India or Nigeria.”

Once on foreign shores your old computer or TV becomes part of a cyber-age horror story. In China, woman and children breathe in the toxic solder vapors as they cook circuit boards, dioxins are produced when wires are burned, and micro-chips are washed in strong acid baths and flushed into the rivers as primitive metals extraction techniques take their toll on the local environment and the health of thousands of migrant farmers. In Nigeria the imported techno-trash that is not repairable is dumped and burned in swamps. BAN revealed these sad truths as early as 2002 in their film and report “Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia” and again in another report and film entitled “The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa," in 2005.

Unfortunately, according to BAN and ETBC, this ugly waste trade continues unabated from the United States because the government refuses to ratify the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment – international accords prohibiting trade in hazardous waste to developing countries, and has otherwise expressed little interest in controlling its toxic waste exports as long as they are claimed to be destined for recycling or re-use. As such, US e-waste exports are in contravention of international law, but not US law, and thus US “recyclers” are able to claim they abide by all environmental laws and are even "EPA approved".

Doing the Right Thing: The e-Stewards Initiative

To help distinguish between these unscrupulous exporters and the responsible recyclers and refurbishers, BAN and ETBC created the e-Stewards Initiative – a program identifying North America’s most responsible e-Waste recyclers that have agreed to adhere to strict criteria created by the non-profit environmental groups. The criteria require that no hazardous electronics equipment or parts (as defined internationally) will be exported to developing countries or be processed by captive prison labor, and that none of it will end up in landfills or incinerators. These responsible recyclers can be found at: www.ban.org/pledge1.html or www.computertakeback.com/responsible_recycling/index.cfm.

Consumers are urged to avoid recyclers not on this list including free e-waste collection events that do not state that they only use e-Stewards recyclers.

“We strongly urge all consumers to avoid all but those recyclers that have qualified as e-Stewards. If your local recycler has not qualified for the program, ask them to do so. Otherwise while trying to do the right thing with recycling, you can unwittingly become a player in a global digital dumping game, and end up poisoning those in developing countries,” said Barbara Kyle, National Coordinator of ETBC.

For more information contact:

Sarah Westervelt at BAN in Seattle: 1.206.652.5555, or swestervelt@ban.org.Barbara Kyle at ETBC in San Francisco: 1.415.206.9595, or bkyle@etakeback.org.

Expert Provides Insight Into Cellulosic Research

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — “Biomass technology really is in its infancy,” said Tom Richard, director of the Penn State Biomass Energy Center.But its future may hold a lot of promise. At least that’s what scientists who attended the CrossOver 2007 conference at Penn State this week are hoping.

The two-day conference, held Tuesday and Wednesday, was an event designed to highlight research into bioenergy.

This year’s theme, “Bioenergy: From Fields To Wheels,” focused on emerging technologies that could turn a variety of things — pond scum, grasses and plant bacteria among them — into vital sources of energy for the future.

With energy consumption projected to increase dramatically over the next few years and oil prices continuing to be high, most experts believe alternative energy sources will be vital in the next 10 years.

Tom Foust of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Denver, Colo., keynote speaker on Tuesday, believes that alternative energy sources will make big strides in the future.

But they will never replace oil and gasoline for good, he believes. At least it doesn’t look that way now.

According to Foust, a study commissioned in 2005 called “the billion ton study,” claimed the U.S. has enough resources to sustainably produce about 1.3 billion tons of biomass per year.

Foust said the 1.3 billion tons would equal about 1.9 billion barrels of oil — or about 30 percent of the 6.4 billion barrels of oil consumed in the country today.Making it economical and sustainable will be key.

Right now, ethanol, backed by large government subsidies and lots of support, is one of the biggest alternative fuels being produced, largely by corn.

The vast supply of corn in the Midwest coupled by the government’s desire for quick results, is what Foust said is driving the corn ethanol movement.

But many experts, Foust included, believe corn ethanol is not sustainable enough to replace large amounts of gasoline and oil.

He believes cellulosic ethanol, which is derived from plants and grasses, is the wave of the future. “If we are going to produce biofuels, we need to move into cellulosic,” he said.

Making it competitive for companies to produce is not easy. Not to mention that the technology is still only in the development stage and is probably years away.

The cost of producing cellulosic ethanol right now is more than $2.50 a gallon, according to Foust. Feedstock costs and low yields contribute to most of the expense, he said. Add on additional taxes and surcharges and Foust said it would bump the retail price to between $3.50 and $4 per gallon, compared to gasoline which ranges anywhere from $2 to $3 per gallon, depending on oil prices and demand.

And when the fuel is produced, how will it get to consumers? Even though there are now 1,000 E-85 (fuel made from 85 percent ethanol) stations in the country, more than a 10-fold increase from 2002 when there were only 85, the number still pales in comparison to the amount of gasoline stations in existence.

Flex fuel vehicles, cars that are able to operate on E-85, are only now being made available.

For ethanol to become truly competitive with fossil fuels, Foust estimated production costs would have to be reduced to about $1.31 a gallon to get it down to $2.50 at retail.

But it’s a big task, he said, considering the efficiency of cellulosic ethanol production would have to be vastly improved to reduce feedstock costs and to meet the government’s goal of 2012 to get cellulosic ethanol to a point where it is competitive. “The potential is there,” he said, but he added,

“I think there is too much focus on ethanol.

”In Europe, biodiesel research is getting serious attention, with a proposal to eventually run 70 to 80 percent of the European car and truck fleet on biodiesel.

Foust said there is also work being done here that looks at gasification technology, with a similar goal of getting production costs to $1.31 a gallon by 2012. Gasification is a process in which certain carbon-based products such as coal, petroleum and biomass are converted into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, creating something called “syngas” which can be used as a fuel. But the technology is also still in its beginning stages.

In the end, some still believe ethanol may prove to be the best alternative to quenching the country’s thirst for fuel.“The political forces that control the funds are looking for five to 10 year solutions. And that money now is going into ethanol,” Foust said.

And it could be a boon for farmers. “It’s going to provide them another cash crop. Another alternative that will help them stay in business.”

CHRIS TORRESS