Bentley Going Green: Fact or Fiction?

Once upon a summer ago, Bentley colleagues were surveyed on their commuting and recycling habits. Lately, there have been whispers, "What's Bentley doing about going green?" I'll tell you...

Let me begin with what I have been up to for the past year. I just returned to Bentley after a two month hiatus. I used to be an Intern, but Intern no longer. After my long hold out, I am now a Temp. The benefits flow like water and with my new salary I should be a millionaire by 2100, as long as I don't spend any of the money. A MILLIONAIRE! And with the dollars performance as of late, things are looking up for me.

Alright, a bit more serious now.

I spent months completing Bentley's carbon footprint inventory. I documented CO2 emissions for all of Bentley's buildings worldwide (over 120). I calculated every single Bentley colleague's CO2 emissions both from corporate travel and colleague commuting to work (Ahh yes, the survey last summer!). There are over 2,000 of you, so yes, it took quite some time. By the way, the average Bentley colleague used over 7 MTCO2e (Metric Tons of CO2 emissions) in 2006. And by the looks of things 2007 could be even higher.

7 MTCO2e? What does this even mean? For one, this is how much the average person from Spain emits, not just at work, but 24/7, 365 days a year. In fact, the average MTCO2e per capita worldwide is only 4.5. 7 MTCO2e is the equivalent of running over 70 refrigerators a year. Ok ok, who cares about refrigerators... How about this, it's like driving three and half cars annually all by your lonesome. That's over 650 gallons of gasoline!

(In case you were wondering a wave of hunger just hit me as I was typing, so because of this, I am going to talk about food.)

Cheeseburgers... oh so delicious and oh so carbon emitting? Science says so. A myriad of factors are necessary to make a cheese burger; from growing the feed for the dairy and beef cattle, to growing the produce, to storing and transporting the components, and finally for cooking them all. The average American eats 3 burgers a week - 150 burgers a year. How many cheeseburgers is equivalent to 7MTCO2e? 2,400 cheeseburgers. Good thing we are working instead of only eating burgers.

(I just lost my appetite thinking about eating 2,400 cheeseburgers, rather, 700 pounds of ground beef!)

Back to reality.

One thing is certain: mankind may only produce a limited amount of greenhouse gases if we want to keep our atmosphere in check and curb the threat of global warming. If we were to divide the total amount of sustainable emissions and allocate equal portions (i.e. equal emissions rights) to everyone on Earth, we would each currently be able to generate only 3 MTCO2e a year. Woops!

So why is Bentley tracking all of this and what are we going to do about it?

Well, you have all seen the new and improved Bentley logo with slogan, ‘Sustaining Infrastructure'. This change didn't happen overnight nor is it a coincidence that the logo is both green and containing the word ‘sustaining'. A lot of work has gone into determining Bentley's carbon footprint, which is the first step in making real, lifelong, carbon reductions. The carbon footprint must be calculated every year so we can track specific CO2 emission trends for reductions.

Implementation of traceable carbon reducing strategies will be coming soon. It is for this purpose that Bentley colleague, Amy Mussen, is in the control seat. With the title, Corporate Environmental Officer, Amy will be spear heading the implementation strategies. I guess I will try and help her out as well.

Reducing our carbon footprint both as a company and as individuals can have significant cost savings. Bentley wishes to be on the cutting edge and a forerunner when it comes to positive change. We are preparing not only for a future requiring corporate carbon footprints, but for a more livable greener future.

I want to switch gears and ask for your thoughts and suggestions.

I will provide a few examples of ways to reduce our carbon footprint to get those cogs working in that brain of yours:

Carpooling - By carpooling just twice a week, an individual can reduce their carbon footprint by almost 1 MTCO2e per year.

Recycling - Recycling reduces waste in landfills and decreases carbon dioxide and methane production. It also takes less energy to recycle a product than it does to manufacture new materials.

Lights - Using energy efficient CFL light bulbs in buildings not only decreases overall carbon output, but they are cost savers too. The initial investment for a CFL light bulb is maybe $2 while the savings over the five-year lifespan of the bulb can range from $30-50, plus you don't have to change them every few months. Imagine if motion sensors were added on top of all this to keep from lighting an empty room?

What are your thoughts?

The more discussion we have, the more solutions we can come up with to reduce both Bentley's carbon footprint and our own as well.

I look forward to a brighter and ‘greener' future.

-Jason Walter
The Temp!