Everybody is talking about going green these days. Unfortunately, not everybody has the right intentions in mind when they try to sell you products they say are 'green.' Remember years ago when salesman would try and sell snake oil to those who were afflicted with arthritis? All the arthritic patients had to do was rub the snake oil on their skin and they would be relieved of your pain. It didn't work and since then, anyone who tried to sell a medical remedy that didn't work was nicknamed a 'snake oil salesman' for their shady ways. Even in the green industry, there are 'snake oil' businesses that try to sell products that aren't truly green.

I had a chance to talk to Mark Yushak, an instructor with the 32BJ 1,000 Green Supers program, who also teaches at Middlesex College in Edison, New Jersey, about greenwashing and what supers should know about it.

What is greenwashing?
There are numerous definitions of greenwashing, but the best way to define it is when a company promotes a product as 'natural' or 'green' that is misleading or say they are green when they aren't exactly green. They are misleading the consumer. Take Poland Spring for example, who says they use less plastic in their bottles, but plastic isn't environmentally sound at all. Why are we bottling water? So it's not quite 'green' although they want you to believe it is. In the automotive industry, there are two major car manufacturers who say they can't manufacture a car that gets 40mpg or better. Those same manufacturers are selling cars in Europe that get 40mpg or better. And what about SC Johnson? They talk about how they use methane to power one plant and wind power to power another plant, but they are selling products that have ammonia in them.

It sounds complicated.
It is very complicated, but supers should know their cleaning and building materials. We have sustainable lumber and the home centers are promoting sustainable lumber, but not FSC lumber. What about paint that is said to be low VOC? What they don't tell you is the tint you add to it isn't low VOC and most people don't use white paint in their whole house.

How do supers make the right decisions about their products?
They need to be educated and we need to keep educating them to look outside what they typically do. They are used to the old ways of doing things, but they need to think about new ways and change their mindset. They also need to learn how to read labels. Here are some resources they can use to learn more about greenwashing:

Extra Resources
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/02/03/03greenwire-ftc-moves-may-signal-start-of-greenwashing-cra-90834.html?pagewanted=1

http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2007/11/the-six-sins-of.html

http://www.greenwashingindex.com/

http://www.nrdc.org/search.asp?cof=FORID:10&ie=UTF-8&q=greenwashing&sa.x=16&sa.y=9&cx=001024953138106184952:levppyfplwy&hq=-inurl:https&t=iframe

We try to bring you some of the informative articles on green building, green living and the green industry so you can keep on top of what's going on. Check out these articles.

U.S. Green Revolution Knocks, but Few Answer in South Bronx (New York Times)
Politicians and environmentalists paint pretty pictures of a U.S. green-energy future with shiny electric cars, gleaming solar panels and whirring wind turbines. But the future starts on a gritty South Bronx street where Jose Pichardo is going house-to-house in suffocating heat and humidity to make a pitch for energy efficiency. For more on this article, click here.

Green Business Forecast Shows Strong Growth Ahead (Green Biz News)
Hiring continues to increase and company environmental budgets are growing. For more on this article, click here.

10 Things to Know About Life Cycle Assessments (Green Biz)
Life cycle assessment (LCA) has come a long way in the past few years, evolving from a niche activity carried out by academics and a few forward-thinking businesses to a mainstream practice talked about publicly by Fortune 500 companies. For more on this article, click here.

6 Ways You're Wasting Water Right Now: Experts discuss simple ways that consumers can conserve water and save money (US News and World Report)
Click here for the article and share it with your residents!

Green Building Materials $406B by 2015 (Concrete Construction)
The world's market for green building materials is expected to reach $406 billion by 2015, according to a new report entitled "Green Building Materials: A Global Strategic Business Report." For more on this article, click here.

Meet Sean D. Wade, the resident manager of The Future Condominium, located at 200 E 32 St., at the corner of Third Ave. When anyone else says "let's start at the top" it usually means they are going to give you some sort of list, but when a resident manager says it and he's talking about his building, he means 'let's go to the roof.' When I met with Sean, he decided the best viewpoint he could give about turning his building into a more energy-efficient one was to start on the roof.

Once Sean and I were done admiring, he explained the use of a white roof, which reduces the heat on the top of the roof and is a much better insulating system than other types of roofs. (We wrote about white roofs in a previous post -- http://1000supers.blogspot.com/2010/06/cooling-down-those-hot-roofs.html.)

We walked around the hallways and the common areas of the building and he showed me how he changed the T-12 lights to T-8 lights and how, by September, he's looking to upgrade the lighting in the elevators. "Changing the bulbs has reduced the energy output by about 60 percent," he says.

It's obvious Sean enjoys and knows what he's doing. When he was 16 years old, he was working as a handyman on Fifth Avenue and a few years later, he joined the Marine Corps. "When I returned, I wanted to go into law enforcement but, understandably, my wife said no more guns, so I went back to working in a building." He was employed at a building on the Upper East Side, but when his son was born he and his wife needed a bigger place. In 2005, he was hired by The Future Condominium, which was constructed in 1993 with a very cool looking aluminum facade and 165 apartments.

He's been with 32 BJ since and has taken many courses and training seminars. "There's no reason not to take these courses since they are free and available," says Wade. "They can only help not hurt." He does recognize though that even though his management company has been extremely willing to work with him on implementing these green changes, there's a general distrust by other building owners, homeowners and managing agents on the green industry. "They look at them like the snake oil salesman who says, 'I'll save you x amount of money, but give no guarantees.' Do your homework on what you're learning about and see how it saves money."

Next week, Sean will explain more detail about the building's ventilation system, which includes a brand new front door that's being added to prevent air from escaping out of the building.

Thanks Sean!

Norm Bagi is the resident manager of 880 Fifth Avenue, on the upper east side of New York City and he has been a member of 32BJ since 1996.

"The courses are good and they have a good teaching system, but not enough people take advantage of them. People get complacent and don't want to move up, but there is room to move up."

Currently, his handyman is taking courses and Bagi says he tries to learn something new every day.

Initially, when the 1000supers program started, Bagi was told by his management firm of Brown Harris Stevens that he had to go. "I was apprehensive because this building has 1947 construction and there's not a lot more to do around here that we aren't already doing," he says. "But I learned a lot about the electrical system that I didn't already know. I haven't really looked at the light bulb in years and this really broadened my perceptions about how I could save money and energy."

Right now, Bagi is working on the building's garage renovation which includes light fixtures that will dim the light to half the energy its using. It didn't take long for management to see the benefits of purchasing such fixtures.

"I just showed them on paper how it will be paid for in 1-1/2 years," he says. "But this isn't just about saving money, it's about conserving energy too."

Bagi's interest in conserving dates back to when his father was a superintendent in the Bronx, New York. "I saw how much waste there was with my dad. In the summer, you could hang meat in the living room because the air conditioning was so cold. In the winter, the windows would be open because the boiler was turned up all the way and the rooms were too hot. Conservation wasn't on the mindset of anyone back then. Around 1996, I took a course where we wasted refrigerant every week. Later they instituted laws that mandated the recovering of waste and we couldn't dump the refrigerant. This conserving energy has been a slow and and steady progression for me."

He says that supers need to understand that efficiency is paramount to energy conservation. "Changing filters, reducing how hard the machine is working all helps," he says.

"For example, in the old days, the doorman had control of the heating (the steam was manual) so if someone complained the valve was opened fully at 100 percent," he says. "We changed the valve to 50% for the entire building, but it's modulated and goes up in increments. The valve we have now opens 10% then 20%; and gradually goes up instead of zooming right up to 100% where there's too much steam."

After awhile of doing this, Bagi explains he had a figurative knock on the door when Con Ed poked around to find out why the building wasn't using as much steam and spending as much money. "They wanted to see that we didn't tap into the system," he says.

Of course he didn't, but it shows how these changes are taking effect, having an effect and gaining notice.

Bagi's already been a master plumber and knows, hands on, what it takes to keep a building together and what supers need to know. He supervises 32 employees, including 17 front employees, such as doormen, hall captains and elevator operators, three porters, six service elbow operators, two package room attendants, two handymen, one assistant manager and 150 units. He's been in this position for five years. "The most important thing you can do for a super is educate them on their system, but even if you have the exact same system as the building next door, it could need adjustment," he says.

Through 32BJ, he's completed many courses and achieved certification in the fire safety director course, green course, achieved his machine operators license for refrigeration.

Norm is now interested in teaching others what he's spent years learning and experiencing. He remembers when several years back he was asked to be principal for a day. "We created a hall plant maintenance program for fourth graders," he says "and we had fun doing it. When we started the program, most of the kids wanted to be dancers, doctors, rock stars, but after our course 75% of them wanted to be boiler mechanics because kids love it when you fire up the boiler. It's fun to teach."

(The garage remodel started in June and should be completed in October, 2010. We'll check back with Norm when it's completed, so check back!)

Congratulations to Marat Olfir, the superintendent at 601 Surf Ave in Brooklyn, who is one of the first 32BJ members to receive a Green Diploma from the Thomas Shortman Training Program. We caught up with him and asked him a few questions about his experience.

Why did you decide to take courses at 32BJ?
The main reason is to advance myself and achieve record energy savings for the building. I took many courses, earned several diplomas and obtain dozens of certificates. As of now I am not afraid of any difficult task with my equipment. I gained troubleshooting tips from the network of people working in the same industry.

What was the most interesting aspect of these courses to you?
I believe it was communication with people and field trips. Studying books is one thing, but when you actually see it, it opens another world of understanding and troubleshooting. I always wanted to study the building science and implementing knowledge for the practical savings.

Do you plan on implementing what you learned in your building?
I implemented many ideas in my building and the most economical, I believe, are insulating steam and condensate return pipes, upgrading light bulbs and steam trap maintenance.

What plans do you have to implement these green changes in your building?
I have several ongoing projects: upgrading staircase T12 fixtures to T5, insulating 4-inch steam valves and eliminating stack effect on the roof via staircase door replacements. Also, as a Building Performance Institute analysis student, I always back up my proposed projects with calculations, so either a board member or a manager can easily decide if any of the projects worth initial investment.

How will you start to make those changes? I usually prefer obtaining at least three proposals and if a task could be done with in-house labor I do not hesitate to perform that test and show the board or a manager how much money was saved by utilizing in-house labor and showing the calculated cost of savings.

What advice do you have for other supers who are members of 32BJ who haven't taken these courses yet?
Green buildings classes, courses and seminaries are very important and should not be missed to achieve savings for your building, share your results with other supers and obtain tips on some hard to find solution answers.

Thanks and congratulations!

On Earth Day 2007, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg released PlaNYC, a comprehensive sustainability plan for the City's future. New York has set the goal of reducing its citywide carbon emissions by 30% below 2005 levels. As part of this plan, four pieces of legislation were passed in December with special requirements for commercial and residential buildings to follow in order to comply with this plan. One of the four pieces is a new energy code that was adopted and is effective July 1, 2010.

On July 1, 2010, the New York City Energy Conservation Code (NYCECC) becomes effective. The NYCECC is more stringent than the state energy code and applies to all new building and alteration projects filed on or after July 1, 2010.

I spoke with Adam Freed, AICP, Acting Director, Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and he explained to me that the main idea behind adopting this piece of the legislation is that it closes a loophole previously found in the old energy code. "In the old energy code, if a building replaced less than half of something, say windows, it wasn't required to upgrade them. So, if a building replaced 8 of 20 windows, they wouldn't be required to upgrade them."

However, Freed points out that with the new energy code, it eliminates this loophole, so when a super or resident manager replaces anything in the building, it now must be upgraded.

What if a building doesn't have enough money set aside for the upgrade? "There isn't much of an increase in price to upgrade with what's on the market today," says Freed. For more information on the entire Energy Code for PlaNYC, visit here.

Building operator & 32BJ member John Sarich of New York City's William Beaver House has developed a plan to institute energy efficient O&M in his building, which will save an estimated $30,000 every year for a total investment of around $30,000. The last we wrote about John, we had discussed the upgrades in the lighting of the building's fitness center. After seeing the money-saving success he had there, John moved on to upgrading the lighting in the garage and adding motion sensors in the common areas. First a little background on the project:

How many total lighting fixtures there are in the garage?
136 fixtures
How many watts does each of those fixtures use?
Two 32 watt bulbs per fixture (T-8s)
On how many of those fixtures did you install a motion sensor?
We installed 128 fixtures working off eight sensors.
The lights were on 24/hr before the motion sensor, correct?
Yes and now more than half are probably off 22 hours per day.
At a cost of only $880, John has implemented changes that will save the building $11,362 per year.

In the stairwells, John installed motion sensors on 25watt T8 fluorescent lights. Before he did this, 94 lights were on 24 hours per day. After, 47 lights are now on 24 hours per day for security reasons, but 47 lights are only on one hour per day. The cost: $1875. The savings each year: $4595.

The last few days in New York City have been a little cooler, but the heat and humidity are bound to kick up again. What tips can you give your residents to help make them cooler?

Open the windows. On a nice breezy day, create cross breeze by opening up the windows and letting the fresh air in. If nighttime is especially cool, keep the windows open and then close them in the morning when the temperature goes up.

Once you close the windows, close the drapes too so the sun doesn't come in and heat up the apartment.

If your building allows it, install heat reflecting window films (various major companies make these films). They are applied over the windows and block out the suns rays, which keep the apartment cooler.

If you can have an air conditioner in your apartment, choose one that is ENERGY STAR rated. If every room air conditioner sold were ENERGY STAR qualified, it would prevent 800 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually, equivalent to the emissions of more than 66,000 cars. ENERGY STAR qualified room air conditioners use at least 10% less energy than conventional models. If your central air conditioning unit is more than 12 years old, replacing it with a model that has earned EPA's Energy Star could cut your cooling costs by 30 percent.

If budget is an issue, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Energy Star program offers low to no-cost energy-efficient cooling tips to beat the heat. Some no-cost options include programming your thermostat (if you have one in your unit) and set it a few degrees higher (such as 78 degrees) when no one is home, so your system isn't cooling an empty house. With proper use, programmable thermostats can save you about $180 a year in energy costs. Run ceiling fans to create a cool breeze. If you raise your thermostat by only two degrees and use your fan, you can lower cooling costs by up to 14 percent. Believe it or not, Energy Star lighting uses less energy and produces 75 percent less heat than incandescent lighting, so switch out your light bulbs and cool down your unit. If your central air conditioning unit is more than 12 years old, replacing it with a model that has earned EPA's Energy Star could cut your cooling costs by 30 percent.
More information about keeping cool and comfortable while saving money this season: http://www.energystar.gov

Turn off or don't use appliances that generate heat. For example, don't use the oven during the summer. Instead, add cold foods to your menus or use the stove top to make quicker meals. Turn off the television or the computer when you're not using it.

Feel free to print these tips and pass them around to your residents. What else are you doing to keep your residents cool?