UnCommon Sense guides “Going Green”

By Nancy McClure - Points West

In a very real sense, a museum is all about sustainability. In celebrating the spirit of the American West, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center weaves together the stories of the western experience and shares them with its local and world-wide audience. The tapestry of the West, with its rich history, diverse cultural heritage, and fascinating natural environment, comes alive through the Center’s interpretation of the objects it exhibits.

Preserving the objects that make up our artifact collection and tell these stories is the foundation of what the Center does. We plan to be here for the enjoyment and education of future generations. As Facilities Supervisor Paul Brock says, “We’re not just doing this for our grandchildren; we’re doing it for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

Making sense of UnCommon Sense

So it only makes sense that the Center embraces the broader goals of “sustainability” that encompass the preservation and conservation of the environment around us, around the community of Cody of which we are a part, and around the Greater Yellowstone region and the West. Public Relations Director Lee Haines sums it up this way: “It’s about being responsible stewards of what we have around us and not just the artifacts we’re preserving inside.”

It was the Yellowstone Business Partnership (YBP) that invited the Center to join UnCommon Sense, its sustainability leadership program. As YBP notes, “the program equips businesses to make desired changes in their operations and empowers them to become sustainability leaders in their communities.” Although Historical Center staff already worked toward making operations as efficient as possible, particularly with its environmental control system under the management of Operating Engineer Phil Anthony, they considered the program and assessed its possible benefits.

“There were certainly things we could learn about how to operate more efficiently and reinforce doing the right things,” Haines explains. “As much as anything, the program is about thinking differently. It offers the opportunity to think more broadly, or about something you hadn’t considered before.” Executive Director Bruce Eldredge actively supported involvement, and the Center joined UnCommon Sense in April 2008.

UnCommon Sense groups several businesses together in a class led by an advisor who facilitates education and peer support throughout the two years of the program. Team members attend four group workshops and also hold monthly teleconferences. While participating businesses have included outdoor education providers and public schools, many are resorts, building industry firms, landscapers, and restaurants; the Center is the first museum to participate.

Classes progress through eight modules that include discussion of relevant topics, examples of best practices, and often a tour of a facility to see sustainability principles in action. Modules include: Leading the Way, which helps the business organize its own sustainability program; Waste-Stream Management; Responsible Purchasing; Social and Community Investment; Energy Efficiency; Water Efficiency; Transportation; and Business Response to Climate Change.

With leadership from the Center’s representatives at UnCommon Sense—Brock, Haines, and Dr. Charles Preston, senior curator of natural history—the Center’s “green team” is a group of enthusiastic volunteers who care about sustainability and so work their participation into their schedules. About 25 percent of the staff is actively involved. Haines says, “One of the things that makes this work is that there are people here who are very passionate about these issues.”

“Diving in” to the program

In launching the green program, Brock, Haines, and Preston first surveyed the staff on their interest in sustainability concerns and extended an open invitation to all who wanted to join the team. Brock organized visits to the Park County landfill and the Cody Recycling Center to raise awareness of how waste is managed and establish a working relationship with the city recycling staff. But the first real test for anyone interested? A “dumpster dive” to assess the Center’s waste stream.

In early July 2008, the new green team sorted through fifteen randomly-selected bags of trash, approximately one-third of a single day’s volume during the height of the busy season. The team wanted to see what staff and visitors were throwing away, and how much of it could have been recycled or otherwise diverted from the waste stream. Two-and-a-half months later, in mid-September, after initiating a recycling program for plastic bottles, aluminum cans, office paper, magazines, and newspapers (and continuing cardboard recycling, already in place), the team repeated the exercise.

The results? In July, only about 46 percent of the trash was truly garbage and included a large number of plastic trash bags; 30 percent consisted of items that could have been recycled (paper, plastic bottles, aluminum, magazines, newspaper, and cardboard); and 24 percent was deemed “missed opportunity”—items that could be replaced with reusable or biodegradable products. These included disposable coffee cups from break rooms and service ware from the café.

By September, the percentage of actual trash in the garbage bins had increased to 82 percent and only 2 percent was missed opportunity (Styrofoam plates and non-biodegradable cups). The presence of recyclable items in the trash was greatly reduced: the number of plastic bottles went from 26 to 4; aluminum cans from 25 to 1. Overall, the Center’s efforts met the set goal of reducing divertible waste by at least half (from approximately 56 percent of total volume to less than 16 percent).

Going green means thinking green

The voluntary nature of the Center’s green program, particularly in recycling, has been one of the program’s strengths. Haines notes, “We didn’t want to add a burden to a particular group of employees.” Rather than expecting the Center’s custodial staff to add recycling duties to their workload, those staff members who are interested—across departments—organize into teams that handle the transfer of recyclables to exterior bins and ultimately the recycling center. Currently, five teams rotate on a month-by-month schedule. And a theme has emerged: “It’s nobody’s job but everybody’s responsibility.”

Although participating on the green team is voluntary, embarking on a green program offers the opportunity to raise awareness staff-wide, to begin to shift perceptions, and to change the culture of the entire institution. To a certain extent, the impetus for a recycling program came not just from UnCommon Sense, but from visitors as well. Accustomed to recycling in their home communities, many visitors began to ask where they could recycle their plastic bottles and cans, and the green team helped provide an answer.

Following the strategy of UnCommon Sense, staff across the institution broadened their thinking beyond recycling to other areas of the operation. Because much of the missed opportunity discovered in the first dumpster dive included disposable containers and dishes from food service areas, Food and Beverage Manager Nick Morrison replaced Styrofoam, plastic, and paper used in the café with reusable plastic cups, china dishes, and silverware.

Although this move involved some up-front purchasing cost and increased dishwashing volume, Morrison says that, overall, it had a positive impact on the bottom line by eliminating the continual expense of replenishing the disposable supplies. The additional dishwashing uses more soap and water, but, as Morrison notes, both are inexpensive and so have little effect from a cost standpoint.

To encourage green behavior in visitors, the café added a surcharge to products packaged in disposable containers like plastic bottles and “to go” cups. With signage in place to explain the surcharge in a positive way, inviting customers to join our efforts to reduce the use of disposable products by 50 percent, Morrison observes, “I don’t think I’ve heard one negative comment about the surcharge.” Most customers buy fountain soft drinks (sold in the café’s stock of reusable cups) rather than bottled ones.

Going green isn’t always cheap

Because responsible action in sustainability often involves balancing competing factors like cost, UnCommon Sense addresses economic aspects as well as “green” ones. In making choices that involve cost, Brock explains, “There are economic decisions that go into it, and you don’t always come down on the side of green. It depends on how it affects your business.”

A perfect example of this balancing act is found in the Center’s landscaped sculpture gardens. In summer 2009, Grounds Supervisor Kyle Bales switched from chemical fertilizer to a natural, microbe-based fertilizer from local company Bio-Alternatives in three sculpture gardens. The gardens look the same—green and vibrant—but the organic fertilizer builds up root systems better than standard, chemical fertilizer, making the grass healthier.

The healthier plants are more efficient at absorbing and retaining water, reducing water use in the gardens by 30 percent. Thus the Center saves water by using the environmentally-friendly fertilizer and sets a good example in sustainability. The cost of the organic fertilizer, though, is twice that of the chemical fertilizer used previously, nor does using less water lower the water bill because it is a set monthly charge. Bales plans to continue using the new fertilizer in the three gardens, but the added expense currently prevents the Center from expanding its use to the rest of the grounds.

Water is an important issue inside the building as well. Maintaining stable temperature and humidity levels is essential in museum management and necessary for the preservation of the collection. Of the roughly five million gallons of treated water used per year, about half goes toward humidification. Such large water usage surprised the Center’s UnCommon Sense classmates, but is one of the business factors that must be taken into account in the sustainability program. As Haines puts it, “What, in fact, we are sustaining here is our collection, and it requires that much water.”

In water efficiency, then, the Center must look to ways of lessening the impact without compromising our commitment to the preservation of the collection. In the future, as environmental control systems are upgraded or replaced, new equipment will reduce the amount of waste water generated during humidification. Improvements to heating and cooling equipment will also increase the energy efficiency of the building. While significant work on these systems has so far been cost-prohibitive, the Center has received a grant to fund several projects in 2010.

Prepared and submitted by Grants Coordinator Lynn Pitet and Anthony, the $592,500 SEP-ARRA (State Energy Program-American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) grant will help the Center complete projects set forth in a mechanical systems master plan drawn up several years ago, as well as address issues identified in a recent energy audit conducted by CTA Architects and Engineers of Billings, Montana. The six projects will not only improve energy efficiency throughout the building, but also decrease utility costs.

The journey has just begun

Moving forward, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center will continue to grow its green program. In addition to the energy conservation projects the grant will fund, construction projects now have sustainability built into their designs. The 2009 reinstallation of the Whitney Gallery of Western Art used LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) products. Brock plans to make the renovation of the Buffalo Bill Museum, slated for 2012, a LEED project as well. As the project’s manager, Brock will become certified as a LEED Green Associate, who demonstrates knowledge of green design, construction, and operations.

New sustainability purchasing guidelines at the Center call for evaluation and comparison of products based on price, quality, performance, and environmental impact. Environmentally-preferable products will be purchased when their cost and performance are in keeping with sound business practices, but such a transition takes some time. Custodial Supervisor Danny Reid explains: “Once we have exhausted our existing cleaning chemicals, they will be replaced with green seal certified products.”

Some challenges remain and mirror the broader issues of sustainability in the West. Interpretive Specialist and Natural Science Educator Emily Buckles is leading the discussion of transportation challenges and working with the green team to come up with innovative ways to change behavior. Through a staff survey, Buckles learned that, currently, 95 percent of those who responded drive to work alone and most round trips are less than five miles.

“I think the challenge with us in the West is that we have unlimited space and free parking,” says Buckles. “There’s not a huge incentive to not drive.” To change that, the green team is considering incentives to encourage carpooling and alternative transportation. Ideas include rewarding people for walking or bicycling to work through the Center’s wellness program, and setting up periodic challenge weeks to promote and track carpooling.

The Center graduates from the UnCommon Sense program in April 2010 with the tools to continue and enhance the green program already established, and to become sustainability leaders in the community. The green team will take it from there. “The volunteer core staff has to maintain momentum,” Brock says. “When you look at the energy level that gets applied to this program, I have no doubt they will.”

Looking ahead, Brock and Haines are optimistic about the health and long-term viability of the green program at the Center—about “sustaining sustainability.” As Brock says, “It has become routine,” meaning that keeping each plastic bottle out of the trash, emptying recycling containers when they are full, planning environmentally sustainable construction projects—in short, “thinking green”—is now part of the culture of the institution and permeates all that we do.

SIDEBARS:

The SEP-ARRA Grant

The $592,500 in stimulus money awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a result of legislation that appropriated funds for the U.S. Department of Energy to distribute through formula-based State Energy Program grants. The Center’s grant will fund six energy conservation projects:

• Replacing air handling systems that currently use steam humidification with new ones using atomization.
• Converting steam heating systems to hot water in seven existing air handlers.
• Installing variable-speed drives on single-zone air handling systems to reduce airflow rates and energy usage to match demand.
• Replacing less efficient lamps with longer-lasting LED equivalents.
• Sealing an insulation gap between the top of a particular exterior wall and the roof.
• Insulating and waterproofing a now-bypassed ventilation cupola.

Taking out the trash

When thinking green, one small change can have a positive ripple effect. Before the Center formally embarked on its sustainability program, custodial staff routinely removed trash from each office every night. A byproduct of this service? Tens of thousands of plastic trash bags sent to the landfill. Adding these often near-empty bags to full bags from public areas of the building, the Center tossed over 50,000 trash bags a year.

The change? Shifting responsibility for their own office trash to each staff member. Custodians no longer empty trash from staff areas; individuals now carry their own trash to the exterior dumpsters when the bag is full. The result? A tenth as many plastic trash bags go to the landfill. Yes, the Center cut that 50,000 figure down to around 5,000 as a result.

The ripple effect? Fewer trash bags. Lower custodial supply cost. More time for custodians to concentrate on public areas. Lower labor costs. Increased awareness by individual staff members as to what they throw away. Incentive to separate recyclable items from trash. Increased personal responsibility on the part of staff members for their impact on the earth. In short, a green program success!

 
The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is committed to superior stewardship of its grounds, its facility, and its collections—all for the enjoyment of its visitors, now and in the future.

 
Facilities Manager Paul Brock gives instructions for the Center’s first “dumpster dive.”

Operating Engineer Phil Anthony is pictured with boilers that will take on the load of heating older parts of the Historical Center, areas where inefficient and outdated equipment will be scrapped.