Fire station eco audit

Fire Station Sustainability ReportBy: Juan, Lotte, and Zain

IMTG 8625Environment, Business Strategy, and Sustainability

Professor Bruce Paton

Why focus on fire stations?

Business Case

Size and scalable opportunity

Over 30,000 Fire stations in the U.S.

Whitespace. “Green” changes low priority

Fire Stations in Monterey

4 fire stations

Serving 30,000 - 70,000 people

Controlled by the City of Monterey Government

No current environmental initiatives

Start with pilot program.

How Do Fire Stations Operate?

All risk department

Each Firefighter is an EMT

1 engine for medical calls / 2 for fires

16 calls a day on average

What areas they are coveringAll calls from 91170 % of calls- public assistance callsThey go instead of the ambulance as ambulance service is private, hence: costly16 calls per dayThey bring their 'toolbox' everywhere, in case there's a fire somewhere else

What's in Monterey's Fire Stations?

Staff of 16

1 Rescue Truck

7 pumping engines1 Hazardous Materials Trailer1 Fire boat

1 100' Quint Aerial tractor-drawn Tiller Truck *

1 Rescue truck

1 Hazardous Materials trailer

- 1 Command vehicle,

- 4 Staff vehicles

- 1 Air Compressor Trailer

- Fire Boat moored at the breakwater.

* All trucks are diesel, give 8 miles per gallon. Hold 500 gallons of water. Renewed every 10 years. Cost about $500,000 1 Type 3 Wildland Unit

- 1 Urban Search & Rescue Trailer with equipment

Upstream

Trucks

Equipment (cheaper equipment is not green)

Foam

Chemicals

Water

This is the upstream/supplies. We're going to focus on the production/providing of the service. (which happens at the same time)

Midstream & Environmental Impacts

Air emissions from the truck (5600 annual calls)

Average of 10 mile radius

Spills

Water usage

Noise

As we are talking about a service, we invented a new term: midstream. A service is produced when it is consumed, so it is hard to divide the two (production/downstream).

The impact-Air emissions (the use of diesel)Spills from the toxic chemicals- the foam they use for killing the firesWaterNoise- seriously, is it really necessary with that much noise?

Initial Steps• Limit the fire truck trips

• Recycling pick-up program for fire stations

o Traditional

o Chemical and toxic equipment

• Mixture of water and a non-toxic, non-polluting foam concentrate

Use a smaller car for the housecalls, best case scenario: a hybrid/el carRecycling as much as possible, also the cars- where do the cars go when they are terminated?The new mix of water and non-toxic foam is more efficient than water onlyThe non-toxic, non-polluting foam can replace the traditional foam completelyNo usage of CO2

Next Steps

• Change and house call staff vehicles

• Purchase of low sulfur diesel engines

• Remove underground tanks

• Leed certified building

• Change staff and house call vehicles to zero emission vehicles.• Lower emissions through purchase of low sulfur diesel engines for new trucks.• Removal of underground gasoline and diesel tanks to reduce likelihood of soil

contamination.• Leed certified buildings- a package: water, lightning, power Internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party

verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies intended to improve performance in metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

Barriers of Implementation

Bureaucracy

Must follow federal guideline

Under the control of the city

Limited budget

1) Budget cuts

2) Hiring freeze

3) Lay offs

4) Hard to justify front-loaded expenses

How To Make This Happen?

• Partnering with other stakeholders, i.e.

o U.S. Green Building Council, use conferences

• Small wins

• Part of bigger initiative- Eco city

• Use tourist city advantage

Cannery Row.

ORGANIZATION

Cost Structure

Trends

Revenue capacity

Debt capacity

Demographics

Branding Opportunity

Thank You

Q & A