Each graduate agrees to 24 total hours of assistance on future Trees Atlanta or tree related projects and is expected to lead at least one project in the field. Class size is limited.  Saturdays, Aug. 7 to Sept. 25 (no class Sept. 4) from  9 a.m. to noon.  Light breakfast is provided.  To apply, please contact Susan Pierce, susan@treesatlanta.org, (404) 681-4896, $65 per student.

By Ken Edelstein
MyGreenATL.com

It sounds too good to be true: A way to pay for home energy improvements that requires no upfront payments from homeowners and no payments at all by local taxpayers. And though you’d fund your project with a loan, you wouldn’t be saddled with loan payments if you sold the house and moved out.

With a new state law in place to allowing such Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, city leaders already “are working to engage a consultant” to set up PACE in Atlanta, says Mandy Schmitt Mahoney, the city’s sustainability chief.

In most states where they’ve been implemented, PACE loans are paid back, as the name implies, through special assessments on real estate taxes for the properties that have gotten the improvements. In Georgia, clean energy advocates admit, local PACE programs may need to be tweaked to operate consistently with the state’s constitution. Still, they’re optimistic that PACE will be a big step forward for a state that has otherwise had a poor record on support for alternatives to conventional power.

“It will be unique tool for communities to encourage clean energy projects,” says Ben Taube, executive director of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance.

PACE originated in none other than the greenie haven of Berkeley, Calif. But the idea is market-oriented at its core. As chief of staff to the mayor there, Cisco DeVries was puzzling in 2007 over ways to help homeowners pay for solar panels and other clean energy projects. It was part of a drive to reduce the Bay Area city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent.

The problem: Property owners often don’t invest in long-term energy improvements, because they’re unlikely to recoup the full value of the improvements when they sell the property. If an owner took out a conventional loan — say, to add solar panels or insulation — she’d have to continue payments even after she sold the property. Meanwhile, the new owner would enjoy lower energy bills.

So DeVries came up with a nifty solution: A city issues bonds. Homeowners apply for loans funded by those bonds. The loans must be used to invest in efficiency or clean energy projects. And each property owner pays back the loan over 15 or 20 years (with interest, of course) through a special assessment tacked onto his or her property tax bill.

Georgia’s constitution only allows development authorities to issue bonds for local government purposes. So, HB 1388 had to be written give development authorities, rather than cities or counties, the power to issue PACE bonds. The development authorities could then work with the cities to set up PACE programs.

Taube acknowledges that the setup creates the potential for complications. “Obviously,” he says, “there’s gotta be a coordination between the cities and the counties.”

It’s not clear, for example, that PACE participants in Georgia will be able to attach their payments to property taxes. But Taube and Jason Rooks, the environmental lobbyist who engineered the bill’s passage, insist that there are likely to be creative solutions.

“The collection mechanism (whether through the tax assessor’s office or the water department) is not really that big of deal because there are various avenues for a governmental entity to collect payment,” Rooks wrote in an email. “But … the property tax assessment model whereby the local government makes a loan with the power of collection of a property tax had constitutional/legal/political hurdles which we could not overcome this (legislative) session.”

Whatever the questions, Georgia’s PACE legislation incorporates a wide range of projects. While PACE in some other states is limited to energy efficiency or clean energy improvements, Georgia cities could include energy efficiency, water conservation and “energy from renewable resources” in their own PACE programs. And the programs may apply to both homes and commercial buildings.

“This is tool for local communities to pay for improvements through an infrastructure that they haven’t had before,” Taube says. Taube’s energy-efficiency advocacy group even received a $20 million federal stimulus grant last month, part of which can be used to help Atlanta, Decatur and a handful of other cities set up their PACE programs.

All that’s not to say that Georgia has suddenly become a clean energy Mecca. The state Public Service Commission still allows Georgia Power to a fraction of what utilities in other states pay for excess solar energy that’s sent back to power grid by property owners – a big disincentive for solar investment. And the amount of money for clean energy tax incentives was so piddly this year that it ran out in April.

Taube stresses, however, that there are still federal tax incentives for property owners to invest in clean energy and efficiency projects. And Mahoney hopes Atlanta will be well on its way toward developing its own PACE program by summer.

Among other projects, Atlanta environmental journalist Ken Edelstein publishes My Green ATL, an environmental news site.

By Laura Turner Seydel

This past month, legislation was passed in California banning pharmacy, grocery, liquor and convenience stores throughout the state from giving out plastic shopping bags. This is great news when statistics show that each year an estimated 500 billion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.

While countries around the world have already made similar bans on plastic, California becomes the first U.S. state to demand action be taken to reduce the amount of toxic plastic that ends up in landfills, urban rivers and oceans.  The impact of these plastics in our oceans has taken form in plastic garbage patches, some the size of Texas, which pose serious threat to our wildlife and ecosystem (learn more at www.5gyres.org).

Californians will see this new plastic bag ban in full effect come January 2012, but here in Georgia it’s hard to tell when we’ll see such an initiative.   However, we don’t need a statewide ban to personally commit to reducing plastic in our everyday lives. Beyond plastic shopping bags, our landfills are burdened with billions of tons of additional plastic waste that we can easily replace with eco-friendly alternatives.

Each year, about 3 million tons of plastic are used in bottled water packaging, 80 percent of which end up in landfills. Commit yourself to using BPA-free, reusable water bottles instead of disposable plastic bottles that leach chemicals and do not breakdown in a landfill. CuteSip (www.CuteSip.com) bottles are a great stainless steel option for kids (and adults!) and leave no negative impact upon our planet or our health.

When dining out, think twice about accepting a straw for your drink.  Consider McDonalds who serves nearly 47 million customers each day, most of whom use a plastic straw. Or the billions of plastic coffee stirrers used each morning. While perfectly recyclable (see the list of recyclable plastic items issued by Waste Management at www.wm.com), most of these end up in a landfill to become a toxic burden to our planet. Many restaurants, like Ted’s Montana Grill, have eliminated plastic straws in favor of recycled paper alternatives that do the trick in a very green way.

Also you can do little things like refusing plastic clothing bags at the dry cleaners, disposing of cigarette butts in ashtrays versus simply tossing them out the window, purchasing biodegradable garbage bag or leaving behind plastic utensils when taking to-go food orders home. When you must use plastic, make sure you reuse or recycle it!  Recycling efforts, making plastic from plastic instead of making it from raw materials, not only saves 88 percent of energy in the production cycle, but also minimizes our use of our planet’s precious resources and greatly lifts the burden upon our landfills.

For more green living tips, visit www.lauraseydel.com.

The groundbreaking ATLANTA: Beyond Bricks & Sticks engages and educates viewers with real time information and interactive touch screens to explain just what it means to be “green.” Curation of the exhibition includes a broad spectrum of buildings reflective of the metro area’s commercial and residential projects along with large-scale developments that incorporate environmental features.

All of the exhibit’s projects either meet the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system or the Southeast’s EarthCraft House certification program. The exhibit has been thoughtfully designed with sustainable materials to fit the theme while allowing for the challenges of traveling to the various settings.

The exhibit will be traveling throughout the rest of 2010 and 2011, including Sept. 6 through December at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center.

For more information, visit www.museumofdesign.org.

By Jenn Ballentine

Given the huge impact the economic downturn has had on the hospitality industry, one would think that hotels and inns across Atlanta would be looking for ways to cut costs and scaling back unnecessary spending where possible. Yet a number of hotels have recently made significant investments in their properties, adding green features and implementing green practices such as recycling and linen reuse programs.

Here’s a closer look at Atlanta’s green hotels.

The Emory Conference Center Hotel

The Emory Conference Center Hotel (ECCH) attained Ledership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification in March of 2010 for its new five-story addition completed in 2009. It’s currently the only hotel in Atlanta to be LEED certified.

The addition connects to the existing building by a bridge and includes 127 new guest rooms, 6,000 square feet of additional meeting space, a six-lane bowling alley with retro décor that includes a full bar and game room, and a parking garage. The added guest rooms and meeting space will result in ECCH offering a total of 325 guest rooms with six suites and 32,000 square feet of meeting space. The ECCH addition is the 13th building to achieve LEED certification at Emory University.

When Emory University determined that ECCH needed additional space, they decided to continue their efforts to build green and installed a number of green features such as the use of low VOC paints and carpets and green cleaning products, single stream recycling and food digesting where all leftover food is recycled and turned into graywater for use in maintaining the landscaping. Additionally, the waste oils from the Center’s kitchen are taken to a recycling center and turned into bio-diesel fuel, which is used to operate the Cliff buses, Emory’s free campus shuttles.

These efforts have led to the following reductions in energy and water use and costs with a 50 percent reduction in irrigation for landscaping, 31 percent reduction in water usage and 18 percent reduction in over all energy consumption.

According to John Hill, Director of Sales and Marketing at ECCH, Emory has always been on the front edge of the green movement and the ECCH has been implementing green practices such as recycling, using low VOC paints and installing Energy Star appliances and low flush toilets for several years now.

While going green required an increased financial investment, it has benefited the Conference Center in a number of ways. According to Hill, the Center “has been able to do more business with organizations that share the same view,” he said.

ECCH is a member of the Green Hotels Association and as mentioned, is one of two hotels in Atlanta to be certified by Green Seal, Inc. The hotel is located at 1615 Clifton Road across from Emory and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For more information or to make reservations, visit www.emoryconferencecenter.com.

Hotel Palomar Atlanta Midtown

Hotel Palomar, a Kimpton Hotel located on West Peachtree Street between 6th and 7th streets, believes that luxury and sustainability go hand in hand. According to the hotel’s General Manager Mark Fischer, the Kimpton Hotel company based in San Francisco, has been on the forefront of the “earth care” movement for many years now.

“We believe in protecting our community and giving back to the community. We took our time in developing the green practices we wanted to embrace because we know we have guests who want to participate in the green movement,” he said.

Some of the eco-friendly features that Hotel Palomar offers include in-room recycling bins, towel and linen reuse program, which helps to reduce water and energy use, efficient lighting fixtures that reduce energy consumption throughout the hotel, low- flow toilets, showers and faucets, paperless check in and much more.

Additionally, each department in the hotel has a Green Team and a leader who is responsible for ensuring that his or her department is instituting green practices. Hotel Palomar recently received the Green Seal certification for its efforts. For more information or to make reservations, visit www.hotelpalomar-atlantamidtown.com.

Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia

Like the Hotel Palomar, the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia equates sustainability with comfort and beauty. Nestled in a lush setting minutes away from the hustle and bustle of Perimter Mall and the surrounding businesses, the Crowne Plaza offers guests an environmentally-friendly and serene oasis in the middle of the city.

Sustainable features include green meeting rooms, a linen reuse program, low-flow showerheads and sink faucets in all guestrooms, energy efficient lighting in public spaces throughout the hotel and biodegradable cleaning chemicals. The hotel also donates partially used guestroom amenities, discarded linen and furniture to local charity organizations.

Because the Crowne Plaza is better known outside the United States, the hotel sought green certification through Green Globe, the premier international brand for sustainable travel, tourism and related green businesses. An affiliate member of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, Green Globe employs a certification process that verifies achievements against international sustainability standards.

For Craig Hillyard, the General Manager of The Crowne Plaza, the certification process was intense. “It’s more than just conservation and recycling. They expect you to involve the community and it requires a lot of good will. We have been working on green initiatives for a long time and we have staff that are passionate about going green so we had a solid basis in place,” he said.

Following the lead of their management company, Crestline Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza has been employing practices such as recycling and composting, energy and water conservation and environmentally friendly purchasing policies that proactively impact the hotel, its’ guests and the community since last year. For more information or reservations, visit www.cpravinia.com.

Stonehurst Place

Built in 1896 and listed on the National Historic Register, the former Hinman House was extensively renovated and restored in 2008 and became the Stonehurst Place, a bed and breakfast located in the heart of Midtown. This historic preservation, which used EarthCraft House standards (like those of LEED) employs a number of sustainable features in a highly personal and unique setting.

Some of the features include separately zoned heating and air conditioning, solar panels for heating and hot water usage, low-flow toilets and faucets, greywater for landscape irrigation, eco-friendly cleaning and laundry products, in-room recycling and much more.

These eco-friendly features have led to significant reductions in operating costs, according to owner and interior designer Barb Shadomy, who said the decision to “go green” was made “not by analyzing costs and return on investment, but by deciding it was the way we wanted to live and the environment we wanted to provide for guests.”

Stonehurst was recently awarded the “Most Green Conscious of 2010” by Lanier’s Bed and Breakfast, one of the largest international bed and breakfast innkeeper organizations and travel guides. The Stonehurst Place Bed & Breakfast is located at 923 Piedmont Avenue. For more information or to make a reservation, visit www.stonehurstplace.com.

Other Atlanta-area hotels that have or are currently beginning to implement green initiatives include the W Hotel at Perimeter, the Sheraton Downtown Atlanta and the Ellis Hotel on Peachtree. In August of 2010, the Atlanta Airport Marriot Gateway, a LEED-certified hotel is expected to open. For more information on green hotels, visit www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com.

Compost can be used to help create better soils, reduce erosion, keep moisture in the soil, filter polluted water running off of streets and parking lots, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and it can help reestablish natural biological systems.

When food and yard “waste” are diverted to make compost instead of going to local landfills it extends the life of a landfill and it reduces greenhouse gases.

By composting your grass and food waste, you can create a great resource for your yard or garden. Composters can be bought at local hardware stores and make it easy to get started. They can also be built pretty inexpensively.

For active composting, it is important to make sure there is the right mix of carbon (leaves), nitrogen (food waste and grass), water and aeration. The more your turn your compost, the quicker it will decompose and the quicker it can be used.

With all of the benefits, compost is sort of the environmental miracle drug! To learn more about composting and how it can help “Get Plastic Out of Your Diet” check out www.GreenPlate.org.

– Polly Sattler

GreenBusiness WORKS has announced the sustainability rankings of 280 publicly-held companies throughout the Southeast, indexed on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and policies by Boston-based KLD Research & Analytics, Inc. Ten Atlanta companies made the list: Coca-Cola Enterprises, Earthlink, Global Payments, IntercontinentalExchange, Interface Global, InterNAP Network Services Corporation, MedAssets, RPC, Suntrust Banks and UPS. The full Rankings can be found at www.SoutheasternCorporateSustainabilityRankings.net.

Jamestown and Cousins Properties are celebrating 999 Peachtree’s certification as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) Silver building. 999 Peachtree truly distinguished itself as a sustainable leader in Midtown Atlanta when it received the prestigious certification, joining the small class of only 500 buildings in the U.S. to earn the designation.

To support environmental projects across the country, Roswell-based Kimberly-Clark Professional has launched the Green Patrol, a program that brings employees and other volunteers to communities throughout the United States to help plant trees, aid in cleanup and recycling projects and other environmental efforts. The effort was launched on Earth Day events in Atlanta and Philadelphia. In Atlanta, more than 60 Kimberly-Clark employees, as well as groups from the Boys and Girls Club and a local high school volunteered to clean up the Proctor Creek, one of the most environmentally impaired creeks in metro Atlanta. The effort was undertaken as part of EarthShare of Georgia’s Corporate Green Day Challenge. Kimberly-Clark Professional is one of the largest manufacturers of washroom products in the world. www.kcpreducetoday.com/us

By Laura Turner Seydel

Summer is here and now is the perfect time to get out and experience all of Atlanta’s amazing outdoor adventures. It’s so easy for our kids to get stuck inside in front of the TV, but thanks to our many attractions and wonderful landscape there are plenty of activities to make them forget all about the video games.

Our Chattahoochee River is a great spot to beat the heat this summer. Each summer the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (UCR) hosts the River Discovery Series, a series of five paddle trips totaling 37 miles. Each paddle trip is lead by a National Park Service Ranger who educates the paddlers on the river and its environment. It’s easy to fall in love with our river, so for those who become inspired to protect it, UCR has many Paddle Cleanup volunteer opportunities.  Paddle the river and clean it up – a great way to enjoy the day and give back to our community. www.chattahoochee.org.

Zoo Atlanta has many activities perfect for families to discover and learn about our planet’s many animal species.  Their Mommy and Me classes cater to 2-3 year old children while their Keeper For The Day invites teenagers and adults to work alongside with the zoo keepers and the animals. Fun for the entire family, Zoo Atlanta’s Night Crawler series gives families the exciting adventure of going behind the scenes to experience what happens at night! www.zooatlanta.org.

For those wanting to learn about our underwater friends, the Georgia Aquarium invites 5 to 11 year olds to participate in their H2O Summer Camp. This week long camp (running through August 6) provides campers the unique experience to explore the aquatic realm through animal encounters, behind-the-scenes tours and opportunities to meet the husbandry teams. www.georgiaaquarium.org.

So this summer encourage your children to get outside and join them in exploring the outdoors and rediscovering just how awesome nature can be.

For more earth-friendly living tips, visit: www.lauraseydel.com.