VERIFONE: VIRTUAL OPERATIONS, HEALTHY BUILDINGS
VeriFone Inc. cofounder William R. Pape has encouraged his company to operate virtually, replacing the physical trappings of a brick-and-mortar business with computers, networks, and software applications. "Though most of our company's operations are virtual," writes Pape, "we still have manufacturing plants and office buildings. In them, and in many home offices, our employees are being exposed to pollutants that can damage their health and seriously reduce their effectiveness." The Redwood City, California-based [maker of electronic payment systems and software] has made healthy workplaces a top priority since the early 1990s. "And while this program is the rare instance in which our tools have been largely low-tech, I believe it has done more to boost productivity than all the bandwidth in the world," writes Pape, who was VeriFone's first chief information officer. VeriFone's first big push into environmentally sound construction came in 1992, when Croxton Collaborative designed an 80,000-square-foot shell housing a warehouse, light manufacturing, and offices for the company's Costa Mesa, California site. Eighteen months after VeriFone started using the building, "the absentee rate for employees working in the new facility was 40% lower than for those performing the same jobs in an older VeriFone building next door," Pape writes, "and productivity was up more than 5%. Workers in the new building proclaimed the demise of end- of-the-day headaches and end-of-the-week sluggishness. They loved the natural light and said the air was so fresh they felt as if they were working in a forest... Those results were enough to sell senior management," he continues. "Every VeriFone facility built since 1992 has replicated the Costa Mesa experiment; we have retrofitted many of our older facilities as well." For a full breakdown of the financial costs and benefits of healthy buildings, visit <http://www.inc.com/issue/tech298>. Email William R. Pape at <will_p@verifone.com>. - Inc., Tech 1998 No 2, p 25, by William R. Pape.

RECYCLING NYLON CARPET
Each year Americans send 3 to 4 billion pounds of nylon carpet to landfills. A team from Carnegie Mellon University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration has studied the technical and economic feasibility of recycling some of this discarded plastic. Their study investigates the costs of collecting the carpet and 1) shredding it for use as daily landfill cover or as a strengthening component of concrete, 2) shearing or chemically processing it for reuse as recycled nylon or as pure nylon feedstock, or 3) making it into a new type of plastic. They conclude that with current technology, regulations, and markets, only the recycling of carpet from commercial settings using shearing or chemical processing is economical and only under very narrow circumstances. Several insights emerge from the study, not only about recycling carpet but about recycling postconsumer goods more generally. High collection costs can dominate the economics of recycling but, given time and incentives, are reducible. Trying to recycle products not designed for recycling is difficult - making carpet of a single material and using an easily-removed adhesive would ease recycling. And, recycling should produce an existing material, if possible, because new materials face marketing challenges. For more information, email Lester Lave <lester.lave@andrew.cmu.edu>. - Journal of Industrial Ecology (The MIT Press), Vol 2 No 1, p 117, by Lester Lave, Noellette Conway-Schempf, James Harvey, Deanna Hart, Timothy Bee, and Christopher MacCracken.

KENDALL WRIGHT HAS AN ECO-ATTITUDE
Changing the look of their clients' spaces isn't enough for Toronto interior designers Heather Kendall and Jennifer Wright. They also want to change their clients' attitudes, their suppliers' practices, the entire planet - one small, low-budget, environmentally conscious project at a time. Believing that companies will supply more environmentally responsible products when demand for them increases, Kendall and Wright are doing their part to speed the process along. For Harmony Whole Foods Market, they tried to find a supplier of plastic shopping baskets that takes back used ones and recycles them. No such luck. But they did find a manufacturer willing to start such a program. That company got the job. This 5,600-square-foot shopping center for health foods and holistic healing is Kendall and Wright's greenest work. It opened earlier this year in Orangeville, Ontario. The partners founded Kendall Wright Interior Design three years ago, starting out with small residential and office projects. Environmental issues already interested Kendall and Wright when they met as students at the International Academy of Design in Toronto. Before studying interior design, Wright spent four years in Whistler, British Columbia where wasteful construction in the booming resort community bothered her. "People were using three times as much drywall as they needed," says Wright. Kendall Wright recently received its first high-profile commission - designing a new office for the World Wildlife Fund in a midtown Toronto tower. For more information, call Kendall Wright Interior Design, 416 966 0404, or email <jennwright@usa.net>. - The (Toronto) Globe and Mail, 27 Jun 98, p C16, by Pamela Young.

CANADA GREENS NATIONAL MASTER SPECIFICATION
Public Works and Government Services Canada is greening its National Master Specification, a construction document aimed at helping specification writers choose appropriate materials, systems, and procedures. The NMS Secretariat has already looked at about 100 of its 650 sections, adding environmentally responsible choices as part of a regular review and update process. It intends to review all sections by 2001 but anticipates an ongoing effort as technologies advance. The NMS greening process addresses ozone depleting substances, hazardous and toxic materials, asbestos abatement, contaminated sites, construction waste management and disposal, water conservation, deconstruction, PCBs, and wastewater management. The NMS attempts to give specifiers as much information as possible, enabling them to make the correct decision for each project. Yet not all environmental evaluation criteria are equal, said Canadian construction industry manufacturers and trade associations that participated in the NMS Environmental Update Forum last fall. They suggested the NMS should include a tool to help specifiers weigh the criteria. For more information, email NMS Engineering Coordinator Thomas Dunbar <dunbart@pwgsc.gc.ca>. - Advanced Buildings Newsletter, May 98, p 6, by Thomas Dunbar.

GREENING FEDERAL FACILITIES
The US Federal Energy Management Program is helping to transfer the energy and environmental technologies used in The Greening of the White House project to all Federal buildings - a commitment that works to fulfill an Executive Order to reduce Federal energy consumption 30 percent by 2005. FEMP has compiled a nuts-and-bolts resource guide called Greening Federal Facilities to increase energy and resource efficiency, cut waste, and improve the performance of Federal buildings and facilities. It highlights improvements that have quick paybacks and make economic sense; increase productivity, comfort, and health; increase innovative financing and partnering opportunities; promote interagency cooperation; and work within the ongoing operations and procedures of facilities management staff. For more information, visit <http://www.eren.doe.gov/femp/greenfed>. - Buildings, Jun 98, p 56.

More on FUEL CELL TO POWER TEST HOUSE item in GreenClips.98 [For more information on Plug Power, fuel cells, and the Latham test, visit <http://www.plugpower.com/>.]

Correction to THE GREEN PAGES item in GreenClips.98 The correct email address for the Green Pages is <greenpgs@idt.net>.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

GreenClips is free of charge thanks to these sponsors -

INTERFACE, INC.
http://www.ifsia.com

WSU ENERGY PROGRAM
http://www.energy.wsu.edu Providing objective research, information and solutions. Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program in Olympia, Washington. To subscribe to GreenClips and/or other mailing lists related to energy and the environment, go to <http://listserv.energy.wsu.edu/guest/RemoteAvailableLists>.