Organizations are finding it easy to green their facilities through the procurement of environmental products. These products include Renewable Energy Certificates, Green Power and Emissions Allowances and Credits.
Three Easy Ways to be Green
- Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) represent the environmental, social or other positive attributes of power generated by renewable resources like sun, wind, moving water, geothermal, or other natural sources. For example, RECs represent the reduced emissions of renewable generation compared with those of conventional generation. RECs are purchased separately from, and in addition to, your conventional commodity energy supply. 1 MWh of power generated from renewable resources = 1 REC.
- Green Power is conventionally-produced energy bundled with RECs. Green power can be purchased from power suppliers as a single premium product.
- Emissions Allowances and Credits can be purchased to offset your facility’s carbon footprint or reach other environmental goals such as acid rain or smog mitigation. Emissions Allowances represent rights to emit carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) or other pollutants. Emissions Credits represent reductions in these emissions relative to an established baseline. Examples are carbon credits, SO2 allowances and NOx allowances.
Benefits of Environmental Stewardship
Buying green can help an organization meet environmental, financial, and stakeholder relations objectives by:
- Demonstrating civic leadership, generating positive publicity, improving employee morale, differentiating products, services and brands, and attracting new customers and employees.
- Providing a hedge against risks posed by electricity price instability, fuel supply disruptions and environmental regulation.
Confidence and Reliability
Servant Energy ensures your organization’s goals and objectives are matched to the correct green product. We can facilitate the purchase of the correct certified product and arrange for third-party verification of purchases which meet specific market standards
Despite advances in pollution controls over the last 30 years, conventional power generation is still the nation’s single largest source of industrial air pollution. By buying green power instead of conventional power, customers can reduce the environmental impact caused by their use of electricity and fossil fuel.
For example, every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of renewable power avoids emissions of nearly 2 lbs of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming. An average house can use up to 1,000 kWh of electricity per month, and buying 100% green power could remove over 20,000 lbs of CO2 per year, according to the EPA. That’s the equivalent of taking nearly 2 cars off the road per year, or planting 239 trees. Since nearly 80% of greenhouse gas emissions are from carbon dioxide created by burning fossil fuels, every bit of green power bought means you’re helping to reduce the effects of global climate change.
Buying green power also reduces harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. Conventional power generation accounts for 66% of the nation’s sulfur dioxide emissions, which causes acid rain and respiratory illnesses. About 25% of nitrogen oxide emissions come from electricity generation.
Buying green energy is also good for the economy and helps the U.S. become less dependent on foreign energy sources. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists has estimated that if 10% of the nation’s supply was from renewable electricity, a net of 91,000 new jobs would be created. A 10% green power share would also create economic development of $41.5 billion in new capital investment, $5.7 billion in income to farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners, and $2.8 billion in new local tax revenues, while reducing global warming pollution equal to taking up to 32 million cars off the road, plus less haze, smog, acid rain, mercury contamination, and water use.