GreenTown Joplin made its public debut at this week's Expo sponsored by the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. We shared booth space with Suzanne's Natural Foods; owner Suzanne Nelson is Co-Chair of the GreenTown Joplin committee. Staffing the booth and walking the floor of the Convention Center made it possible for us to visit with hundreds of people during the two-day event. It was very poignant and emotional to connect with folks 8 months after the tornado. We also encountered much optimism about the city's comeback.

The theme of this year's Expo was Remember.Rebuild.Rejoice. and many businesses incorporated this sentiment into their booth displays. GreenTown representatives distributed our new brochure (which summarizes the info on the Joplin website) to a lot of people and introduced the organization and its mission as we went from booth to booth. Our aim is to reach as many people as possible with information about sustainable rebuilding resources and options.

Traveling to Joplin from Greensburg for the Expo were Sarah Thyparambil and Barbara Summers, AmeriCorps interns who are working for Greensburg GreenTown for a year, and Catherine Hart, who is managing the GreenTown Joplin project. Joplin Committee Co-Chair Andrew Whitehead was on hand for both days of the Expo, and with his local connections he was able to get the word out to many interested people.

We are planning educational events for the spring and will keep readers here and on the GreenTown Joplin website posted as details are set.

Photo courtesy of apartmenttherapy.com

A common misconception is that renters have little control over the environmental impacts of their homes. The truth is that renters can influence many aspects of their housing. Check out the following tips to reduce your bills and have a healthier and more comfortable indoor environment in your rental.

• Lighting
  • Replace light bulbs with compact fluorescents (CFLs), which can save three-quarters of the electricity used by incandescent light bulbs. Replacing your five most frequently used light fixtures or the bulbs in them with Energy Star qualified lights can save more than $65 a year in energy costs.
• Appliances
  • If you own some of the appliances in your rental (e.g., washing machine, refrigerator), consider a high-efficiency Energy Star labeled model when they need replacing.
  • Reduce phantom loads by unplugging any battery chargers or power adapters when not in use. Use a power strip as a central “turn off” point when you are done using equipment.
• Reduce Air Leaks
  • Add caulk or weatherstripping to seal air leaks around doors and windows, and use storm windows if available.
• Heating and Cooling
  • Set your thermostat comfortably low in the winter and comfortably high in the summer. Also, set the temperature back for the periods when everyone is sleeping or no one is home.
  • Request that your landlord turn down the temperature of the water heater to the warm setting (120°F).
  • Utilize natural ventilation and fans as much as possible. If you are considering buying a room air conditioner, make sure it is Energy Star qualified and that it fits snuggly in your window to reduce air leaks.
• Reduce Water Use
  • Wash your laundry with cold water whenever possible. Heating the water accounts for about 90 percent of the energy your machine uses to wash clothes. To save water, try to wash full loads or, if you must wash a partial load, reduce the level of water appropriately.
  • Install low flow showerheads and faucet fixtures.

There are many steps renters can take to green their home, but some decisions are ultimately up to the landlord or management company. Encourage your landlord to help you make a change for the better!

Check out the following websites for more tips on how to make your rental eco-friendly:

Energy Star’s Top Ten Tips for Renters

The EPA’s Renters Checklist

Apartment Therapy’s Great Home Ideas and Tips for Renters



Regular readers of this website know that we have been working with a group of sustainability-minded folks in Joplin since the end of last summer. We've convened a committee that meets monthly, which is hard at work implementing projects to help that community realize its sustainable potential.

Toward that end, we are delighted to share the new GreenTown Joplin website with you. No matter where you live, you'll find resources aplenty related to green building, energy savings, healthful living, and much more.

GreenTown Joplin is also "going public" in a big way this coming week through having a presence at the Expo sponsored by the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. This year's theme is Remember. Rebuild. Rejoice.  Greensburg GreenTown staff members will be on hand, alongside Joplin committee representatives, to introduce the new organization and offer resources to residents and business owners. It has long been a GreenTown goal to share what we have learned in Greensburg with other communities who are recovering from disaster. We are grateful and humbled to see this vision start to come to fruition in Joplin.

Exciting news! Our friends at NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab, a program of the U.S. Department of Energy) are wrapping up a study measuring the energy efficiency of 13 of the most high profile buildings in Greensburg. Soon we’ll have the full report to share, but the results are so exciting that we wanted give you a sneak peek.

Here are a couple of items we can present now:

• Greensburg’s buildings are performing even better than the average LEED certified projects in the country.

• The energy savings calculated from just these 13 buildings included in the study exceeds $200,000 per year, compared to conventional buildings of the same size and usage.

Nearly a quarter of a million dollars are being recycled back into the community annually. Given the economic multiplier effect, it has been calculated that every dollar that is spent locally circulates in the community seven times. The money that is NOT paid out for utilities is staying here at home, increasing our prosperity.

For those who have been supporting the Green Initiative all along, this supports the assertion that a little more money spent on the front end yields great savings to the community, annually and perpetually. It is wonderful to have a study to document this so clearly. NREL’s study validates the great efforts taken by local leadership and residents and business owners who were early champions of the sustainability vision.

This report will boost credibility of the community’s efforts and give us even more documentation to share with those coming to Greensburg to learn about sustainability, and about the wisdom of having launched the Green Initiative.

Stay tuned for the full report!

Image courtesy of Inhabitat.com

We thought we would start off the new year on a positive note with a blog series entitled Living Green Around the Globe. The articles will highlight sustainable communities around the world and what has made them successful. The first community we have chosen to highlight is the completely energy self-sufficient Samso Island.

Samso Island is located nine miles off mainland Denmark and has a population of approximately 4,000 people. In 1997, Samso won a national contest sponsored by the Danish Energy Agency to select the off-shore island with the best plan to become 100 percent energy-sustainable within a 10-year time frame. The island has gone from being 100 percent reliant on petroleum and coal in 1997 to being energy self-sufficient, utilizing only renewable sources, in 2003. The island is powered by 11 on-shore and 10 off-shore wind turbines. The turbines are either privately or cooperatively owned by Samso residents, or by the municipal government. The turbines make enough energy to meet the community's electricity demands, supply the island's entire public transportation system, and have a surplus to sell to other regions of Denmark.

It's not that the Samso residents have given up their cars and other usual modes of transport. The three ferries that connect the island with the mainland, for example, consume large sums of petroleum every day. But Samso sells more clean energy to the continent than it purchases in fossil fuels. Some farmers have adapted their tractors and other vehicles to consume ethanol or other fuels distilled from locally grown plants.

Samso also has four generators that run on the combustion of hay, which is abundant on the island. The generators are especially efficient because they produce both heat and electricity. Many homes have installed solar panels, geothermal heating, and boilers fuelled with biomass to eliminate carbon emissions. Some dairy farmers have gone as far as to connect a heat transfer mechanism to their collection tanks to prevent the warmth from the milk from dissipating into the air, and harnessing it instead to help heat their homes.

The residents of Samso who were initially hesitant to embrace the renewable energy and eco-friendly trend, have embraced the lifestyle and the positive changes that it has brought their community. They have found that it has boosted their local economy; in fact one in ten residents own a share in a wind turbine. Samso has become an eco-tourism hotspot and the Samso Energy Academy serves as a visitor and educational center for the many tourists. For more information on Samso and its sustainability initiatives please check out this article by Scientific American.

Readers may find it significant that a resident of Samso Island traveled all the way to Greensburg not long after the tornado in 2007 to offer support, share information about their projects, and check out the local Green Initiative.

photo credit: walmartgreenroom.com

Last week, Walmart rolled out a new blog, The Green Room, with its stated mission "Together, we will create a more sustainable world to help people live better." It is commendable that they are taking big steps to raise people's awareness about sustainability and move in this direction as a corporation.

One of their first blog entries is "The Resilience of Joplin", a Q&A with Mike Moore, a Joplin native who is President of Walmart Central. It is a moving account of the May 22 storm and its aftermath. What is noteworthy is the company's commitment to rebuild the store that was destroyed by the tornado in such an sustainable fashion. Here is an outtake from the interview:

Q:  What’s the most compelling and environmentally friendly feature in the Joplin store?

A: We captured and recycled as much metal, wood, floor and ceiling tiles, concrete, asphalt and other materials, as possible. We crushed more than 17,000 tons of building and site concrete into aggregate and reused it as aggregate base under the slab, footings, pavement and in the utility trenches.

We also demolished in place the irrigation system and re-installed drip irrigation and smart controllers. We reutilized 60 percent of the existing storm lines, 80 percent of the sanitary sewer lines, and 60 percent of the existing water lines.

We are also the first store in Missouri to have energy-efficient LED lighting in the parking lot. The store itself includes energy-efficient technology so that we can reduce energy and water consumption and minimize waste. Our skylights harvest daylight and reduce the amount of energy required to light the store by as much as 75 percent daily. Our LED lighting operates 70 percent more efficiently than fluorescent lighting.

Our new store also has a recycling program with organic composting and will promote sustainable product purchases.

It is commendable that the company took the time and effort to recycle and re-use so much material that had been damaged by the tornado. After such an overwhelming life-changing event, it can seem easier to just clear away the rubble and begin anew.

Walmart invites you to be a part of the sustainability conversation at The Green Room.

Image courtesy of LeaveDebtBehind.com

Winter can mean expensive gas and energy bills, but that does not need to be the case. By following the simple tips below, you can reduce your energy use and better manage your heating bills. These tips will improve your home's comfort and save energy and money while doing the right thing for the environment.

• Install a programmable thermostat and set it to lower the temperature at night and whenever the house is unoccupied. Lowering your thermostat by 10 degrees at night can reduce your heating bill by 10 to 20 percent.
  • Lowering the thermostat by just one degree Fahrenheit can reduce energy use by 3 percent.
• Make sure you are properly maintaining your furnace and heating system. Older furnaces and those that are poorly maintained may run less efficiently, waste energy and cost you more money.
  • This includes inspecting your filters monthly. Clean or replace them if there is significant dust build-up.  
  • If your furnace has a built-in humidifier, use it. The extra humidity will make the air feel warmer, especially in dryer climates.
• Install do-it-yourself plastic-film storm windows. This is a low-cost way to make windows more energy efficient.  They are available at most local hardware stores.
• Keep blinds, shades and draperies open during the day to allow sunlight in to warm your home or business (and close them at night for insulation purposes).
• Use foam or plastic gaskets to insulate drafty electrical outlets along exterior walls.
• Check weather stripping, caulking and seals around doors and windows. Several small holes or cracks throughout your home can allow as much warm air to escape as one open window.
• Make sure the water heater is set no higher than 125 degrees and insulate your hot water pipes. By keeping the water in these pipes warm, the water heater will not be required to do as much work.
• Do not use a traditional fireplace for supplemental heating. A fireplace sucks heated air out of your home to fuel the fire and exhausts it through the chimney, and then your furnace has to turn on to replace that warm air.
  • Remember to make sure your fireplace damper is closed and properly sealed.

Check out the following websites for more tips on reducing your energy bill this winter:

Energy Star Tips to Fight the Frost

Winter Energy Saving Tips

Top Ten Tips to Cut Winter Energy Costs

Tips For Saving Money This Winter On Your Heating Bill



Thanks to all who've visited our website this past year. 2011 was a big year for GreenTown, full of transitions and projects and visitors. Rather than run a recap of the year's activities and media coverage, we thought we'd focus on the practical side of things and post links to stories from last year designed to help make day-to-day living more affordable and healthful.

Conserving water outdoors

Money-saving tips in and around the home

Sites featuring green tips

Eco-conscious shopping

Home upgrades

Local food sources

A primer on sunscreens

For those of you who haven't yet visited the Resources section of our website, we invite you to check it out! There is a plethora of information on energy efficiency, organizations devoted to sustainability, green building products, renewable energy, and much more. Readers who live in Kansas may be interested in our Kansas resources page.

This year we will continue to bring to your attention stories about our work related to sustainability in Greensburg and Joplin. Thank you for your ongoing interest and support. Wishing you all the best in 2012!

image credit: newessentialgreenliving.com

Let's take a tip from nature and just spend some time being. You don't have to do anything fancy or call it anything special. Just sit for a few moments and be. Let things be as they are. Ahhh.

The holiday season is unusually busy for many folks. And as beautiful as it might be to connect with family and cook and bake and give gifts, we can't keep up that intensity forever. The body likes to let down and decompress - just like nature. Nature isn't working hard all the time. There is a season for rest and fallowness. This is the body's version of sustainability.

If you need convincing, you can find lots of scientific medical evidence about the importance of slowing down and de-stressing.

Take a moment. Just sit. Just be. That's it.

Photo Courtesy of GLMV

On December 7, the Public Works Facility became Greensburg’s tenth LEED certified project. The building was awarded LEED Gold, the second highest certification offered. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and is an internationally-recognized green building certification process developed over a decade ago by the U.S. Green Building Council. The facility, which has be operational for almost two years, was designed by GLMV Architecture and built by Compton Construction. This design and construction team has worked on several other public buildings in Greensburg, including the Kiowa County Commons building and the City of Greensburg SunChips Business Incubator.

The Public Works Facility is made up of two maintenance bays, a crane bay, a mechanics’ bay, a wash bay and an administrative area. The building is constructed of insulated precast concrete panels for energy efficiency and durability. At first glance, the building may not look any different than your average structure, but in fact it has numerous innovative green features. The facility utilizes 24 ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling, as well as radiant heat flooring. A ground source heat pump uses deep wells to utilize the constant temperature of the earth to heat or cool the building. A 1.5 kW photovoltaic panel supplies a portion of the power to the building. The thin film panels are unique compared to many of those utilized in other buildings in town in that they are completely integrated into the roof system.

The Grey Water System for the Washing Bay. Photo Credit Greensburg GreenTown. Natural lighting is prevalent throughout the building with south facing windows, solar shading, and a multitude of sky lights. Lighting is supplemented by motion sensors in the bays and hallways. The facility utilizes many water efficient features including low-flow toilets, waterless urinals, and a grey water system for the wash bay. The waste water from washing vehicles is collected and recycled to wash other vehicles. The facility also incorporates a building control system that not only monitors the temperature, but allows for heat or air conditioning to automatically turn on a half-hour before opening and off a half-hour before closing. The building will remain warm without the heat on for the last 30 minutes and significantly reduces energy usage in the off hours.

Check out our Links to Green Resources page to learn more about many of the green features in the Greensburg Public Works Facility.