Green Initiatives

The Press Club launched its latest initiative on October 1, 2007 with an agreement to purchase renewable energy credits matching 100% of electrical use. In an agreement with Good Energy, LP, and Sterling Planet, the club has purchased Green-e certified wind-generated energy to meet 100% of its annual electrical demand.

The club will purchase annually 1,200,000 kWh of clean, emissions-free wind energy, avoiding 5,428,800 pounds of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere over the course of the 39 month contract. This commitment, in terms of percentage of annual demand and in terms of raw volume, earns the club membership in EPA's Green Power Leadership Club.

Click here for the press release. (PDF Format)

Click here to view a webcast of the announcement.

This is the latest, and most significant, initiative on the part of the club.

The longest-running initiative is the use of locally-grown organic produce, which we have used to the fullest extent possible for over 12 years. We purchase through the Tuscarora Organic Cooperative, which works with farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This has two environmental benefits. The first is local sourcing, which reduces the carbon load of moving the goods from point of origin to point of use. The second is that organic farming eliminates the negative impact of chemical runoff that pollutes the Chesapeake Bay.

Most of the club's facility was retrofit in 2004 to increase its lighting efficiency. We traded out 60 watt incandescent bulbs for 20 watt compact fluorescent and dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs and traded out 20 year-old magnetic ballasts with efficiency of less than 70% and 40 watt linear fluorescent bulbs for electronic ballasts with 90% efficiency and T8 - 28 watt fluorescent bulbs. All done with a net increase in the amount of light available.

We needed to replace the badly damaged Holeman Lounge oak parquet floor in 2005 and chose to replace it with bamboo. Bamboo has not only a beautiful grain, but is essentially a weed, and therefore an endlessly renewable resource. We also would have had to refinish the floor 3 or 4 times in the interim if it was an oak floor but we have not had to refinish it since it was installed.

Dyson AirBlade hand dryers were installed in August to reduce our dependence on approximately 250,000 paper towels each year and to reduce the environmental impacts of use the raw material and the output of solid waste.