bright greenin an Emerald CityAs the world braces for climate change, local businesses are finding new ways to keep our region strong, vibrant, and resilient

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The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce wishes to thank the following members for contributing their time, energy, and stories:

Alaska AirlinesAmazonThe Boeing CompanyMicrosoftThe Nature ConservancyNBBJNucorPuget Sound EnergyStarbucks Coffee CompanyTouchstoneUniversity of WashingtonVirginia MasonWeyerhaeuser

Photo Credits: Alaska Airlines (pp 5, 17, 19); Amazon (pp 5, 13, 22, 23); The Boeing Company (pp 15, 17, 20); The Nature Conservancy (p 3); NBBJ, Sean Airhart, and Timothy Hursley (pp 6, 7); Nucor (pp 12, 13, 14); Puget Sound Energy and Scott Harder (pp 18, 19); Starbucks Coffee Company (pp 8, 10); University of Washington (pp 4, 11, 13, 15); Virginia Mason (p 16); and Weyerhaeuser (p 9).

Prepared with assistance from Cascadia Consulting Group, Inc.September 2016

Acknowledgments

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Contents

Introduction

Field-testing solutionsSaving energy with neighborsEfficient landings

1. Innovation

Driving down energy useScaling up sustainabilityTall timbers

2. Design

Shipping containers to coffee shopsDowned to durableBridges to buildings

3. Reuse

Closing the water loop Harvesting the rainStrengthening permeable pavement

4. Resilience

Sizing up scrapsFuel-efficient planesBetter materials

5. Efficiency

Bigger, better batteriesEnergizing the market Using new biofuels

6. Renewables

Closing down coalBigger business, smaller footprintCharging for carbonBringing nature to work

7. New Pathways

Closing Remarks

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IntroductionNature is at the heart of our region’s economic prosperity, attracting a global workforce and providing the natural resources we need to thrive. Our changing climate, coupled with population growth and increasing use of natural resources, is impacting our iconic forests, rivers, marine

waters, and communities. We have an urgent need to develop new solutions that will shape how our economy and community grow and prosper.

The people of Seattle are known for tackling and solving some of the world’s biggest problems, and we are well-positioned to lead the way on climate change and other environmental challenges. As this report highlights, many of our city’s businesses can serve as models, demonstrating ways to reduce pollution through cutting-edge technologies and pragmatic innovation.

The companies in this report have shown that reducing pollution and advancing clean energy are wins for the planet and also for a business’s bottom line. Through their creativity and ingenuity, these companies inspire a broader commitment among the business community to reduce climate pollution across the region, the nation, and the world.

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At The Nature Conservancy, the challenge of climate change is driving how and where we work, from our spectacular Puget Sound, to our mountain forests, to our growing urban environment. As we strive to enhance the well-being of people and nature, and to promote a market-based approach to a low-carbon future, the business community must be a core partner in getting big things done now.

In the face of this challenge, I hope you will find this report as inspiring as I do. It is a clear demonstration of how business leadership in our city can show the way toward a prosperous, equitable, and resilient future.

Michael Stevens Washington State Director

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I n n o v a t i o n

The University of Washington’s Campus Sustainability Fund supports about a dozen innovative projects on and around the UW Seattle grounds each year. Students contribute to the fund through a green fee that raised over $400,000 in 2015–2016, and students operate the program to select and finance projects.

Highlights of projects completed and underway include:

• Expanding a farm on campus to provide sustainably grown local food to UW dining halls and cafeterias.

• Recycling clean water from UW labs to water greenhouse plants and reduce water consumption.

• Studying how to make floating wetlands that take in carbon and improve wildlife habitat in Union Bay.

• Installing bicycle repair stations that enable students, employees, and visitors on bikes to fill their tires and perform basic repairs quickly.

• Transforming a blank concrete building wall into a “green wall” demonstration of biodiversity, edible food, and water harvesting, while reducing building demand for heating and cooling.

The UW’s campus is a living laboratory where students and faculty are testing solutions to climate change every day.

Field-testing solutions

Universities are living laboratories where we can research and test

solutions to the grand challenges caused by climate change.

Students let us know they really want the University to be a leader in sustainability, and

we take their advocacy seriously.

Ruth Johnston, Ph.D.Associate Vice President

UW Sustainability

1InnovationHaving an impact through creative experimentation

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I n n o v a t i o n

potential expansion to future Amazon projects

high-e�ciency chillers

heat recovery chillers

cooler water

excess heatneighboring data center

HEAT RECOVERY DISTRICT ENERGYIn late 2015, a groundbreaking new district energy system started pumping at the Amazon campus in Denny Triangle. Amazon is capturing waste heat generated by another company’s data center across the street and bringing it through underground water pipes to heat over 3 million square feet of office and meeting space. This system is nearly four times more efficient than traditional heating methods, and it also allows the neighboring data center to cut back on power for cooling its own building. By reducing use of its cooling towers, the data center building has saved an average of more than 100,000 gallons of water per month.

Efficient landings

Saving energy with neighbors

Alaska Airlines and Boeing have been pioneers in developing shorter, more precise routes for incoming aircraft at Sea-Tac International Airport. Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approaches use satellite-based rather than ground-based navigation to identify more direct flight paths. Additional equipment allows planes that are preparing to land on parallel runways at Sea-Tac to have less separation between them in the air, thereby using airspace more efficiently.

Every flight that lands at Sea-Tac using these new “Greener Skies” approaches conserves an average of 87 gallons of fuel, and saves passengers 9 minutes of flying time. The greenhouse gas emissions reduced with each of these flights are about what would be used in driving a car all the way from Seattle to Minneapolis.

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D e s i g n

Driving down energy use

2DesignBlending beauty with energy consciousness

While most electrical substations tend to serve only as industrial infrastructure and

be located in unpopulated stretches of cityscapes, this substation, located in

downtown Seattle, will have gathering spaces and interactive displays to teach

visitors about renewable and carbon-free energy innovation.

2016: Seattle City Light Denny Substation

The way that we get people to live in cities that are more sustainable is

to make those cities something that they can love, something

that can delight them.

That’s what we try to do when we build our buildings: make the city delightful. We think

about how the building interfaces with the street in a way that is interesting and human-scaled and

feels nice to walk along. If we can do this and others can do this, neighborhoods will be

much more walkable and sustainable.

A-P HurdPresident

Touchstone

New buildings are an opportunity for great leaps forward in making the Puget Sound region sustainable—the way they are built and use energy matters because they will be here for decades to come. Architects at NBBJ measure the energy use intensity of everything they design and actively apply design elements that reduce energy use. NBBJ brings this approach to all of its work—along with thinking about aesthetics and intended use of the space—and tracks progress across the company.

“The expectation that we have of ourselves—and we tell our clients this—is that we are going to push to increase energy efficiency and keep driving down energy use intensity every single year. That used to be a risky thing to say to our clients; fortunately that is not true today. Energy efficiency makes too much sense,” says Scott Wyatt, a partner at NBBJ.

Energy savings relative to a median comparable building:

100 percent (tenant space net-zero energy).

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D e s i g n

2011: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Headquarters

A one-million-gallon underground tank stores rainwater runoff. After it is cleaned and filtered, the water is used in reflecting pools, irrigation systems, and toilets—reducing potable water use by nearly 80 percent.

Green space, including green roofs, covers 40 percent of the site.

A 60-foot-deep, 750,000-gallon thermal

energy storage tank minimizes energy used to

cool the buildings by storing chilled water at night for

recirculation during the day.

High-performance glazing conserves

energy while letting in daylight and views.

Energy savings relative to a median comparable

building: 40 percent.

Water for irrigation reduced by 56 percent by using native landscaping, efficient drip irrigation, and a weather controller that determines when watering is needed.

An exterior tinted glass “skin” allows more natural daylight into the building,

reducing the energy needed for lighting.

First LEED Gold high-rise office building in Bellevue.

Energy savings relative to a median comparable

building: 55 percent.

2009: City Center II Plaza, Bellevue

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D e s i g n

Scaling up sustainabilityBeginning in 2007, Starbucks worked with the U.S. Green Building Council to pilot and expand opportunities for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for retail businesses—including those in leased spaces. The company now has 900 LEED-certified stores in 20 countries, more than any other retailer. Here in Seattle, Starbucks has its first Roastery, which is certified at the Platinum level. Transforming a former auto showroom, Starbucks installed low-flow water fixtures, added windows to let in more natural light, and reduced energy for heating and cooling by adding demand control ventilation that adjusts based on the number of people visiting the Roastery.

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D e s i g n

Tall timbersA traditional building material is rising to new heights in the form of tall wood buildings. These new buildings use large wood panels, beams and columns—commonly called mass timber—as structural components. Wood is a renewable resource that stores carbon and, when used for construction, reduces greenhouse gas emissions relative to other traditional building materials.

Weyerhaeuser, a company that owns more than 13 million acres of timberlands in the U.S., is working as part of a coalition to promote the use of tall wood buildings in Washington state using locally grown, sustainably harvested timber. Led by

Forterra, the coalition is expanding knowledge about engineered timber products and addressing barriers to their use.

Seattle’s Bullitt Center uses heavy timber structural framing made from smaller wood planks and is the first mass timber commercial building constructed in the city in nearly a century. Seattle is currently evaluating whether to allow future tall wood buildings to reach higher than six stories. Mass timber is rising, and these innovative tall wood buildings are expected to grow in our cities of the future.

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R e u s e

Shipping containers usually end up in scrap yards after about 20 years of use on the seas, rails, and roads. Starbucks is taking some of these old containers and diverting them from the waste stream to become building blocks for new modern coffee shop designs. The first one in the country was built in Tukwila, and one soon followed in

Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood in 2014. The Tukwila store harvests rainwater from the roofs to water plants in the surrounding gardens; those plants are carefully selected for needing less water than typical landscaping plants, so they will also be better able to withstand changes in precipitation as the climate changes.

3ReusePursuing resource transformation to reduce waste and emissions

Shipping containers to coffee shops

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R e u s e

Downed to durableOn the University of Washington campus, as elsewhere in the city, trees sometimes fall or need to be cut, often due to disease, storms, construction projects, or because they pose a hazard to people and buildings. In the past, UW would compost those trees.

Today, through a new wood salvage program, most of these trees are cut into lumber and reused on campus to make benches, tables, and other furniture. The trees do not enter the waste stream,

and this practice saves trees elsewhere by reducing the amount of new lumber that needs to be brought in. With more complicated pieces of wood, UW collaborates with Urban Hardwoods to turn them into something unique. Students involved with the UW chapter of Engineers Without Borders are working on a solar kiln to dry the wood before milling. UW also plants a new tree for every tree cut down during construction projects.

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R e u s e

Bridges to buildingsSeattle is growing quickly; for the last three years, it has been among the five fastest-growing cities in the country. That growth means more construction—and a demand for materials like steel. Nucor, Washington state’s only steel mill, makes rebar that is being used to hold up new buildings and bridges around the city. Most of this steel is made from locally recycled scrap.

As Seattle buildings are torn down and new ones go up, Nucor is an integral part of that cycle. During the renovation of UW Husky Stadium, for instance, Nucor took old rebar from the stadium and provided new steel to use in the remodel. Having Nucor nearby means fewer emissions from transporting old steel away and bringing new steel to the region.

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R e u s e

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R e s i l i e n c e

Steel production happens at a very high temperature—approximately 3,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Water used to cool equipment and prevent overheating or failure is a critical part of the steel-making process. The Nucor steel plant in West Seattle has a closed-loop water system. The facility recycles all of its process waters, and the only water regularly discharged from the plant is through evaporation. This system greatly reduces the amount of freshwater brought in from other sources.

4ResiliencePreparing for drought and other changes

Closing the water loop

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R e s i l i e n c e

Harvesting the rain

Strengthening permeable pavement

Mercer Court, a set of three large residence halls at the University of Washington, is home to about 1,300 students, along with a remarkable new water conservation system. All 24 laundry machines in the complex run primarily with rainwater collected in a 125,000-gallon cistern, making it the largest rainwater capture laundry system in the country. In a month, students in Mercer Court use about 24,000 gallons of water to wash their laundry. Before the cistern was installed in 2013, this water came from city water supplies. Since rainwater has almost no mineral content, students can use less detergent. When droughts occur—likely more often in the future as the climate changes—a full cistern will help the dormitories wash five months of laundry without having to draw on scarce city water.

Climate change is bringing more of our region’s annual precipitation in heavy rainfall events. Permeable pavement is an intervention that can help the city adapt to those impacts. It allows rainwater to seep through, which in turn reduces runoff and allows the soil to filter out pollutants.

Boeing is collaborating with the Washington Stormwater Center and Washington State University to research and develop stronger permeable pavement by repurposing excess composite material from aircraft production.

Strengthening permeable pavement would allow it to last longer and be used more widely—on major roads and highways, not just parking lots and side streets. The testing is being done as part of a larger collaboration with the Washington Stormwater Center, WSU, and the Nature Conservancy on improving Puget Sound’s water quality. Early research results look promising.

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E f f i c i e n c y

5EfficiencyUsing our resources wisely

Wasted food is gaining increased attention, for social, economic, and environmental reasons—including its links to climate change. More than 30 percent of food goes uneaten, and significant unnecessary emissions come from producing and transporting food that is never eaten. And while composting can turn some food waste into useful material, uneaten food in the waste stream still generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Virginia Mason’s Seattle Hospital and Medical Center achieved a 60 percent reduction in

waste from food prep by applying “lean” efficiency principles in their kitchen. As cooks prepare the food, they put food scraps into clear plastic bins where the scraps can be seen, measured, and tracked. With 1.2 million meals served per year, the hospital was able to prevent 14 tons of food waste with the program—saving food and money, while keeping methane out of the atmosphere. The facility also composted over 190 tons of food waste and paper products in 2015, enough to fill about eight shipping containers.

Sizing up scraps

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E f f i c i e n c y

Making airplanes more fuel-efficient is one way to reduce emissions and help to mitigate climate change. Boeing is partnering with other aerospace companies and airlines to test new technologies on planes to boost efficiency. Since the ecoDemonstrator program began, partners have tested over 50 technologies. The ecoDemonstrator 737 validated performance of the 737 MAX Advanced Technology Winglet, which improves fuel efficiency by up to 1.8 percent and is more efficient than any other wingtip device in the single-aisle aircraft market. Boeing’s new generations of aircraft are expected to be at least 15 percent more fuel-efficient than the airplanes they replace.

In 2015, the ecoDemonstrator program also tested new coatings to keep insects from sticking to the front of the plane, which reduces drag and increases fuel efficiency. Collaborating with NASA, the program found that new wing coatings could repel 40 percent of the bugs. This year, Boeing is working on new paint types and methods to further reduce drag and keep planes cleaner, meaning less water will be needed for washing.

Passengers on Alaska Airlines flights enjoy about 250,000 beers each year. Recognizing that any reduction in weight leads to greater fuel efficiency, the airline asked Alaskan Brewing Company to switch those in-flight beers from bottles to cans. As a result, in a year, the fleet can carry the same amount of beer while weighing 100,000 fewer pounds and burning 1,000 fewer gallons of fuel.

For those passengers more in need of caffeine, the airline also serves 37,000 cups of coffee every day. Starting this year, composting in-flight coffee grounds became standard practice on all Alaska flights.

By switching all of the paper hygiene products on its flights—toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues—to recycled paper a couple of years ago, Alaska was able to save 665 tons of trees and $80,000 per year. The company is also taking steps to change to more sustainable food and beverage containers; for example, the cheese tray is now made from recycled wheat straw.

Better materials

Fuel-efficient planes

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R e n e w a b l e s

5RenewablesCreating incentives and building a market

Improved energy storage can help support the integration of more renewable energy into our region’s electricity supply. Puget Sound Energy recently built a large battery system at a substation near the small town of Glacier in northwest Washington and put it into operation this summer. The system is equivalent to 1.7 million AA batteries—enough to power 150 homes for one day.

Located on the road to Mount Baker, Glacier sits in the woods at the edge of the power grid, making it hard to service quickly during winter storm outages. This battery system helps build resilience by supplying local customers with energy while the service provider resolves any outages. It can also provide extra power when needed, such as on particularly cold days.

The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will analyze information as this system is tested, so that PSE and other utilities can plan for more battery storage systems.

Bigger, better batteries

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R e n e w a b l e s

Energizing the marketWind farms are supplying more and more energy, and local businesses are helping to stimulate this growth. By buying renewable energy directly and through renewable energy certificates (RECs), Microsoft has been powered by 100 percent renewable energy since 2014. The company signed two 20-year agreements to purchase the output of two large wind projects, for a total of 285 megawatts of wind energy. Microsoft recently purchased more than 3.2 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy in a 12-month period. Microsoft is also exploring opportunities to support new renewable energy projects near its data centers and facilities.

Using new biofuelsOn June 7 of this year, two Alaska Airlines flights out of Seattle became the first commercial flights to use a new biofuel—the first approved for airplanes since 2011. Passengers were surprised when they reached the boarding area to learn that they would be on one of these exciting new flights.

This new biofuel is made from corn. The corn is grown using state-of-the-art farming technology that increases the number of plants grown per acre and uses less water, fertilizers, and pesticides than typical corn production. The sugar portion of the corn is extracted and converted to isobutanol, a type of alcohol. The remaining protein portion of the corn is used as animal feed. This fuel is a renewable resource, and the production process generates less than half of the greenhouse gas emissions of petroleum jet fuel.

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N e w P a t h w a y s

We are proving that you can reduce emissions while growing business.

While our commercial aircraft deliveries

increased from 2007 to 2015, greenhouse gas emissions from our Washington state operations

went down 15 percent. On a larger scale Boeing is intensely focused on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by millions of tons through the production and use of advanced

technology aircraft, sustainable aviation biofuels and more efficient flight operations. The industry and The Boeing Company have

committed to achieving carbon-neutral growth in air transport by 2020 and then to halve emissions by 2050 from a 2005 baseline.

Steve ShestagEnvironment DirectorThe Boeing Company

7New PathwaysPursuing greener growth

PSE is preparing for the closure of two coal-fired generation units at the Colstrip Generating Station in Montana and moving toward a cleaner energy portfolio for customers in the Puget Sound region. These plants are the oldest at Colstrip, which is the nation’s 15th largest producer of greenhouse gases given its size. Under a recent proposed legal settlement, the two units will be shuttered by July 1, 2022.

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Closing down coal

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N e w P a t h w a y s

Microsoft’s business divisions pay for carbon emissions associated with their energy use and air travel. Those funds are then dedicated to improving the company’s energy efficiency, buying renewable energy, recycling electronic waste, and funding community projects that reduce and offset carbon emissions.

One recent initiative was to buy the first validated and certified carbon offsets in Washington state, protecting 520 acres of old-growth forest in the Nisqually watershed. This forest sequesters carbon and provides important habitat for owls, murrelets, and Chinook salmon.

Charging for carbon

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N e w P a t h w a y s

Amazon’s new 3-block development, known as Rufus 2.0, was designed by NBBJ. The design includes three high-rise towers that reduce energy use by having natural ventilation from operable windows all the way up to the top. At 37 and 38 stories, the new towers will be the tallest office skyscrapers in the Pacific Northwest with this rare feature.

One of the blocks has a set of innovative spheres that will be filled with a lush assortment of over 25,000 trees and plants representing more than 300 different species. These plantings are blended with workspaces where employees can meet, work, and think in a more relaxed setting. Plants are being gathered from botanical gardens and universities like the UW, which see the spheres as another place where threatened or endangered plants can be preserved and thrive. The selected plants are native to middle montane climate zones, which means that

they can thrive at normal office temperatures during the day. After hours, the system accommodates their nighttime needs by bringing the temperature down to 55 degrees and raising the humidity. Some of the trees will reach up to 65 feet tall. The largest sphere, 130 feet in diameter, will also have a 6,000-square-foot green living wall.

The structures have four layers of clear glass designed to maximize intake of the daylight spectrum that supports photosynthesis, while a transparent high-tech coating reduces heat gain and conserves energy. The project uses recycled rebar from Nucor and waste heat from a neighboring data center.

At the greenhouses that hold the growing plant collection for the spheres, Amazon is also providing free temporary housing for most of UW’s collection of rare plants, which need a home until the new UW Life Sciences Building opens in 2018.

Bringing nature to work

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I n t r o d u c t i o n

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The Seattle metropolitan region is exceptional: we’re home to an enviable natural environment, along with companies that lead the world in sustainable business practices that help build healthy, thriving communities. This report demonstrates how our region’s companies and organizations fuse their values and their ingenuity to offset the impacts of climate change.

Climate change represents a significant risk to our future. Our region’s businesses recognize this risk and are responding by investing in new and innovative ideas that will lead the way for change across industry sectors. From Amazon’s inventive system to capture and reuse heat from neighboring companies, to the successful efforts of Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator Program to improve aircraft efficiency, and Nucor’s work to recycle scrap metal for new construction projects, companies are taking risks and making decisions that are more environmentally responsible and often more efficient and profitable.

We must do more to protect our environment, and the business community is a natural and active partner in this effort. The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is the largest and most diverse business association in the region, representing 2,200 member companies, and we know that a forward-thinking private sector is essential to successfully facing the challenges of a changing climate.

The stories featured in this report represent just a sampling of the great work already underway in the private sector to offset the impacts of climate change—businesses large and small from around the region are developing products and services that will lead the way for others around the world. I hope this report has given you a sense of the seriousness and urgency with which our regional companies and organizations are approaching this challenge head on. I invite you to join us in our efforts to ensure our region remains an incredible place to live and do business.

Yours truly,

Maud Daudon President & CEO

Concluding Remarks

www.seattlechamber.com