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I N · T H I S · I S S U E
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FLANIGAN'S ECO-LOGIC
Giving Back to Mass Transit
This special issue of EcoMotion Network News has been prepared
for my fellow Metrolink commuters. On Thursday, December
21, EcoMotion will give every rider of Metrolink Train
#609 a gift of a 23-watt compact fluorescent light bulb.
The gift is a symbol of EcoMotion’s guiding principle
of the power of the increment. Every bulb we distribute
will save $50 over its life, and may well spur far greater
actions. Consider the CFL as a first step. What will you
do next? That’s the spirit of the Commuter Challenge!
Every afternoon I ride Metrolink with about 350 other
commuters. While we are diverse no doubt, we are also
brethren, dedicated to lowering stress, getting the heck
out of our cars, saving money, and alleviating some of
the world’s environmental ills to boot. We are bonded.
We share a common finding, that mass transit is much more
than getting from point A to point B: It is getting there
with integrity, and getting to know other people and points
of view along the way.
Each year, Americans buy nearly two billion incandescent
lamps. These last about 750 hours and cost as little as
25 cents. Each year, Americans buy about a hundred million
CFLs, representing a 5% market share despite their superior
traits. From a life- cycle standpoint, CFLs are a dynamite
investment! Thanks to many utility programs, you can buy
them for as little as $1-2, about $10 a year for five
years. Without question, a combination of lack of awareness
coupled with their first-cost hurdle, continues to stymie
the market, as it does the market for many sound energy
efficiency investments.
For several years, EcoMotion has been working in California
communities, promoting responsible energy use for the
sake of our economy and environment. What we continue
to find, is that about half of Californians have yet to
try a CFL. If you were in this camp, now you won’t be!
If you already have CFLs, please find someone who doesn’t,
and “turn them on!”
It is our New Year's hope that this small gesture will
leverage greater actions. Take the first step and begin
to save while being responsible to your community and
the globe. Then reinvest the savings, and leverage greater
and greater savings and environmental benefit. You’ll
be glad you did.
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Christmas Tree Lights
 Christmas
tree lights come in large (standard C7), minis, and now
LED (light emitting diode) varieties. Standard C7s use
4 watts per light, minis use 0.4 watts, and LEDs use 0.04
watts. Assuming your 500-bulb tree is lit five hours a
day for 30 days, you can spend as much as $45 or as little
as 45 cents!
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Editor's Note: This Special Edition was written
for Metrolink Commuters on train #609, but we wanted to
share it with all of our members.
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CFL Fun Facts |
The CFL in your hand will save you over $50.
CFLs use 75% less energy than incandescent light bulbs.
CFLs last 8-10 times as long as incandescent light bulbs.
If every American household changed one bulb to a CFL,
the combined effort would save 5.6 billion kilowatt-hours
of electricity per year worth $526 million.
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CFL Do's
and Don'ts
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• To speed up your savings, install the CFL in an application
with a high “duty factor.” Look for lights that are on
a minimum of 3-4 hours a day.
• Don’t make it a priority
to install CFLs in closets where they are seldom used.
While you will be helping to make a difference, by selecting
a higher-use application, you speed up the savings.
• Some CFLs are dimmable. The sample we are giving you is
not. Do not install this CFL in a dimmable application.
• Some CFLs are designed for recessed cans (flush ceiling
fixtures). EcoMotion has found that conventional (spiral)
CFLs fail more often in these applications than other
applications such as reading lamps, globe fixtures, and
wall sconces.
• Don’t dispose of “spent” CFLs in the trash.
In California and many other states, CFLs must be disposed
of as hazardous waste given their small amounts of mercury
which spreads the phosphors evenly inside the tubes.
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CFLs: The Basics |
Lighting consumes 40% of the nation’s electricity, and
about 10-15% of the average American’s home electricity
use. Take the time to count how many lights you have in
your house. Wal-Mart suggests that every American home
has 30 light sockets that are CFL compatible. Do you?
While you’re doing your survey, keep a focus on which
lights you use the most.
The compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) is not an extraordinary
technology. Fluorescent lamps – that use an electrical
arc to excite phosphors within an evacuated glass tube
– have been around since 1980. In terms of light output
– measured as “efficacy” and lumens per watt – they require
25% of the electricity to produce the same amount of light
as the incandescent lamp. Seventy-five percent savings!
The 23-watt CFL in your hand produces about the equivalent
of 90 watts of incandescent light, so it will do a great
job of replacing a 75-watt lamp (It will seem very bright!)
and may be adequate for sockets where you have a 100-watt
incandescent bulb. Over its 8,000-hour life, it will cut
your power requirement for the same level of light by
67 watts * 8,000 hours = 536,000 watt hours (or 536 kWh),
saving you $50 – 80 depending on your community and electric
utility. (If you replace a 75 watt lamp with the 23-watt
CFL, you’ll save about $62.40 in the Southern California
Edison service territory.)
Since CFLs last so long, you also avoid replacing about
ten incandescent lamps (avoiding production, transportation,
and disposal costs), not to mention avoiding their purchase.
All in all, $50 is a very conservative estimate of the
savings you now hold in your hand. And that’s not to mention
the environmental benefits, as every kilowatt-hour saved
in California also results in savings of 1.34 pounds of
carbon dioxide. So as soon as you take the lamp home and
screw it in, you’ll begin a process of avoiding the release
of 718 pounds of CO2, generated with about five wheel-barrels
full of coal, combusted and released into the atmosphere.
Imagine the cumulative effect if we all did this!
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Wal-Mart’s 100 Million CFL Campaign
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In November, Wal-Mart Stores announced its ambitious campaign
to sell 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs at
its Wal-Mart and Sam's Club locations by the end of 2007.
If achieved, Wal-Mart conservatively projects that this
goal has the potential to save its customers $3 billion
in electricity costs over the life of the CFLs. "We have
a fundamental belief that all families should have access
to affordable, sustainable goods, and compact fluorescent
light bulbs are a great way for our customers to save
money," said Wal-Mart Vice President of Sustainability,
Andy Ruben. Wal-Mart believes that the average home has
more than 30 CFL-compatible sockets.
Wal-Mart and Sam's Club’s CFL plan includes interactive
displays at 100 select stores beginning January 2007 to
help customers choose which CFLs best fit their needs.
An online savings calculator is currently available on
http://www. Samsclub.com.
Educational displays will allow customers to compare qualities
and styles, and demonstrate the potential savings associated
with each type of CFL. Wal-Mart will give CFLs increased
shelf space with prominent displays in the lighting aisles
as well as displays in “unexpected places” around its
stores. Marketing promotions in print publications and
on Wal-Mart TV and radio will give customers tips for
transitioning to an energy-efficient home. The company
will also promote “sales associate” education through
Wal-Mart's internal newsletter, and will run a competition
to encourage associates to generate CFL sales.
Wal-Mart realizes that its CFL goal is a, “lofty aspiration”
but is focused on the potential dollar and environmental
savings. The company is intent on the campaign’s success,
“comparable to taking 700,000 cars off the road or powering
450,000 single-family homes."
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Ecological Footprints |
In 1992 a Canadian ecologist coined the term “ecological
footprint,” a metaphor to depict the amount of land and
water required to sustain a human’s life in terms of resources
required and its ability to absorb wastes. “Footprinting”
is now widely used as an indicator of environmental sustainability,
extrapolating an individual’s footprint to determine how
many planets – or planet hectares – would be required
if every Earth citizen required your level of resource
requirements for energy, food, water, building materials,
and other consumables – from cradle to grave.
http://ecofoot.org
If every Earth citizen required the resources of the average
American, we’d need 9.5 planets. Take the ecological footprint
quiz to get a sense of your impact. It takes only five
minutes, presents some startling perspective, and steers
you towards next steps. (Mine was 6.2 planets. Yikes!)
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The Eco-Royal Watch
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The Prince of Wales has launched a new green project called
“Costing the Earth - Accounting for Sustainability.” Prince
Charles will work to convince big businesses to assess
the environmental impact of their products through new
accounting measures. The Prince claims that the UK is
running up the "biggest global credit card debt in history,
consuming the resources of our planet at such a rate that
we are, in effect, living off credit and living on borrowed
time.” His project will develop a range of accounting
principles to help organizations measure sustainability,
include it as part of their decision- making processes,
and report their performance more consistently.
Prince Charles will begin by labeling his line of organic
food products -- called Duchy Originals -- with details
of greenhouse gases emitted in their production and distribution.
On a personal level, he is determined to reduce his carbon
footprint further. He has pledged to commute to London
from his country house by scheduled trains and will no
longer use private jets and helicopters. He will be using
Jaguar cars adapted to run on bio-diesel and has asked
staff in London to travel by bicycle wherever possible.
(The Queen has already gone green at Windsor Castle with
a plan to use hydroelectric power.) Prince Charles launched
Costing The Earth — The Accounting For Sustainability
project at a St. James Palace forum attended by politicians
and business and faith leaders.
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Special Thanks!
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The Commuter Challenge has been made possible thanks to
our great partners: True Media Foundation is dedicated
to using the power of the media to spur social responsibility.
SunPark Electronics — headed up by our dear friends
Meynardo Velasco (shown above) and Jim Chao -- graciously
donated the CFLs.
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