January 2015 - Parks & Recreation - 52

NRPA Update

NRPA Takes Top Honors in Green Business Challenge
By Ted Mattingly

RPA's collective efforts during the past year were recognized at the annual Loudoun Dulles Green Business Challenge awards gala held October 29. The fifth-annual challenge saw 77 businesses from Loudoun
County and the Dulles area of northern Virginia participate, with 29
companies achieving the Platinum level. Of these, NRPA was selected as the winner of the Commercial Business Category over three other finalists.
The Green Business Challenge is a
friendly points-based competition and
certification process that challenges and
encourages businesses to implement
more efficient and sustainable practices.
Participation also demonstrates leadership, an eye toward improving the
bottom line, creating a healthier work
environment for employees and minimizing the environmental impact organizations have on their communities.
This was the second year for NRPA's participation, with the association
achieving Gold in 2013, and the staff
really put in the extra effort to make the
cut for the top level. A dedicated Green
Team led the charge, which resulted
very favorably once all of the improvements were added up.
The Challenge focuses on five specific categories: Education and Outreach,
Energy, Water, Waste and Transportation. Here are some highlights.

Ted Mattingly, NRPA's director of facility
services, accepts NRPA's hard-earned
award for excellence in green operations.

50 Parks & Recreation

Energy: NRPA's facilities team
upgraded the HVAC control system, added LED lighting, optimized
building operating parameters, confirmed the proper electrical schedule
with the utility company and added
timers to building exhaust fans.
Education and Outreach: The entire staff continues to educate communities through our focus on Conservation, Health and Wellness, and
Social Equity, and the association also
sponsors the NRPA Green School,
which graduated our second cohort
this past February. We have successfully completed five Parks Build Community campaigns demonstrating the
transformative value of parks and recreation on the health and vitality of
communities across America. We also
conducted in-house Lunch and Learns
and had speakers come in and talk
with staff about various sustainable
practices we could implement both at
work and home. Our favorite activity
was our Earth Week program, which
included a carpooling day, two wastefree lunches and seminars, planting
more than 25 trees on our site and
helping a local nature preserve with
annual clean-up and maintenance.
Water: NRPA implemented a
green cleaning program by ceasing
the use of all bleach-based products
and installing a chemical dispensing
system to accurately mix chemicals
and reduce the amount of water used.

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We installed automatic flush heads
in our accessible bathroom stalls and
conducted another water audit to
identify opportunities for conservation and ensure proper maintenance.
Waste: NRPA staff volunteered
to give up our office trash cans to
encourage more focus on recycling
office waste. This encouraged staff
to get up and move to several central
waste containers, reduced the number of trash bags used and cut back on
labor to empty the waste as well. We
conducted a waste-stream analysis
and met with the Loudoun County
Office of General Services to review
local regulations and ordinances to
ensure we were in compliance.
Transportation: We completed
the NURIDE transportation survey,
hosted a Loudoun County Transportation Department presentation on
commuting options, eliminated our
company fleet vehicle and hosted
monthly staff meetings with a green
lunch to reduce by 120 the number of
trips staff take for each event.
Additionally, NRPA initiated an app
in Charlotte for the 2014 annual conference with great success and did not
print our large onsite program. We also
implemented electronic membership renewals on the website, stopped using a
paper grant application system and automated NRPA store order processing.
The hard work and fun in achieving this goal was well worth the effort, and we are extremely proud of
this great achievement. We look forward to continuing our sustainable
efforts and competing in the 2015
Green Business Challenge.
Ted Mattingly is NRPA's Director of Facility
Services (tmattingly@nrpa.org).

January 2015 - Parks & Recreation

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