Dear Friend,

Pledge to green your place of work.
16 green office tips to get you started.
Meet the 2009 Climate Corps team.
I have the best job in the world placing young and idealistic business students with companies who are looking for new ways to make their operations more efficient and save energy.

We call it Climate Corps. Each student undergoes intensive training and then spends 10 weeks analyzing efficiency investments for their corporate host companies.

Everybody wins. The students gain valuable knowledge that could never come from a textbook, and the companies get money-saving investment plans for greening their operations.

This is the second of three profiles from among this year’s Climate Corps success stories:

MEET CARIN GIGA

AGE: 28

HOMETOWN: Northern Virginia

PERSONAL HEROES: “I have had a number of mentors that have really encouraged me along the way to think about what I really want to do and pursue exactly that…[without them] I don’t t think I would have ended up where I am today.”

SCHOOL: Rice University

INTERNSHIP: Houston Rockets and their home in the Toyota Center of Houston, Texas

CAREER AMBITION: “I am not entirely sure where my path will lead from here. I am sincerely interested in corporate social responsibility and finding ways to support sustainable growth”

The Powerful Combo of Experience and Passion
Carin Giga, an MBA student with a passion for architecture and the environment, found a way to blend her MBA experience and her passions in her role as Climate Corps intern for the Houston Rockets and the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.

Giga: “I have been really interested in the concept of green building design and the new technologies that are coming to the market place regarding alternative energy and energy efficiency…I really needed to get some real world, hands-on experience in green building or energy efficiency or sustainability, and the Climate Corps program really is unrivalled in the way that they put MBA students, most of us having no prior engineering or architectural background, in those real world situations that companies have – with real obstacles, real problems they are trying to solve, and real dollars to spend on projects that they have to allocate wisely.”

With the full support and enthusiasm of the Toyota Center staff and management, Giga set out to help the building in its LEED certification application process by identifying low cost, no cost, and capital investment opportunities for greater energy efficiency.

Giga: “HVAC…Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning…that was my primary target because that was the greatest consumer of electricity. I also focused my efforts on the exterior windows of the building and the opportunity to reduce solar heat gain, lighting systems throughout the building, the use of office equipment – particularly in the corporate administration…so in diving into those few areas we came up with six project opportunities that were fully analyzed both in terms of financial impact and climate impact.”

One of Giga’s major successes was the continuation of a project to install occupancy sensors in all offices, restrooms, conference rooms and stairwells in order to minimize unnecessary lighting.

Giga: “Together, all of these occupancy sensor projects will save 54,637 kWh annually. At Toyota Center’s current electricity rate, that equates to $4,025 in cost savings each year.”

Giga has also proposed a retrofitting of the air handling system in the Toyota Center’s arena bowl that, when completed, will save nearly $30,000 and 428,000 kWh annually. But, it wasn’t just the Toyota Center that benefited this summer.

Giga: “This experience is better than any classroom case study we could have ever worked on…this internship gives me the ability to think about energy efficiency in whatever I am doing, and the ability to work with colleagues and clients while perhaps feeling confident in talking to them about these issues. This is definitely something I will be able to apply for many years.”

What’s more, Giga found her fellow Climate Corps interns to be invaluable resources and a whole lot of fun to interact with.

Giga: “I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve collaborated and sought advice from other interns over the course of my internship. We have all been so committed to knowledge sharing and collaboration that we will walk away with a really close network of other people who are interested in the same ideas.”

Now it’s your turn.

Every year through its Climate Corps Program, EDF sends eager students to work inside corporate America to help find practical and workable ways to bring about a clean energy revolution.

We hope you’ll be inspired by their stories, and we hope you’ll turn your inspiration into action.

We ask you to take a simple pledge, to explore ways to green up your own workplace.

And we’ll help with 16 concrete practical tips.

Through your actions, you’ll join the 2009 Climate Corps interns in transforming our economy and saving the planet one practical step at a time.

Sincerely,
Millie Chu Baird
Project Manager
 
 Environmental Defense Fund
1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20009
1-800-684-3322