The Environment Writer

Take one part social programming, one part environmental responsibility and one part corporate profit, mix into one programmatic title and serve up Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), one of the most important concepts for competitiveness in today’s business climate. Each of these elements, also known by the catchy phrases “people, planet, profit” or “triple bottom line,” dramatically enhance the ability of the others to components to perform. Maintaining a CSR program, therefore, that focuses on integration of these components can have a sum benefit much greater than a focus on any one part alone.

Social Programming

If customers and employees are treated as mutually beneficial partners in a business relationship, profitability becomes much more sustainable over the long-term. Healthy, satisfied customers are loyal customers that will continue to return to the business. A safe, healthy and environmentally friendly workplace causes employees to take fewer sick days and stay with the company longer, allowing fewer work delays, decreased turnover and lowered training costs. By organizing and participating in social charity work, a business enhances reputation, name recognition, and essential public relations value.

Environmental Responsibility

Corporate environmental sensitivity ensures the health and safety of customers, employees, and it also maintains a sustainable supply of natural resources. Reducing toxins and petrochemicals may not only lower manufacturing costs but also reduce risk management and employee insurance costs. Increasing energy, water and material use efficiency in terms of water, energy and material se directly impacts the environmental footprint of a business. A improved environmental footprint alone has great marketing value, but it also allows for a reliable supply of resources or expanded operations based on the same resource flow. Ecological restoration projects can have significant marketable offset value and sometimes even can provide useful ecosystem services to business operations.

Corporate Profit

Ensuring social equity and environmental integrity have a direct impact on bottom line profits. Efficiency measures, resource use reduction, employee health and safety and CSR marketing initiatives can significantly reduce costs and improve brand value. Long-term business stability is sustained by preserving customer and supply chain viability through natural resource protection, customer loyalty and positive brand management opportunities. In turn, a more profitable business is able to spend more capital on social and environmental programs, which again cycles back into profitability.

The inseparable nature of CSR components creates positive and integrated feedback mechanisms that sustain global business, environment and society. A systemized approach to people, planet and profit is one of the most important tools that a business can use to succeed today.

To learn more about what an integrated Corporate Social Responsibility program that promotes operations efficiency and marketing for your business, visit The Green Den Consultancy or contact Daniel McDonell.

Picture: Cornell Sustainability Hub

To observe World Water Day, I am publishing a short white paper I wrote on greywater and wastewater (blackwater) recycling geared toward the Chicago, Illinois area. Currently, water recycling is hindered in most places by cumbersome or non-existent state and municipal regulations. As water becomes a scarcer and more expensive resource, the practical efficiency of water recycling, both greywater and wastewater is being explored and implemented at high levels of technology.

Greywater Reuse

Definition and Overview

Greywater (also spelled as graywater) is wastewater from showers, bathtubs, sinks, washing machines, and dishwashers. Greywater is generally the wastewater from a household that does not flow out of a toilet (sewage/blackwater).

Greywater accounts for about 60%-80% of the outflow produced in homes. It contains little or no pathogens and 90% less nitrogen than wastewater (toilet water). Because of this, it does not require the same treatment process.

Greywater reuse is currently utilized mostly on small residential scale, with the outflow primarily going to landscaping irrigation.

Recycling Methods

Greywater plumbing must be designated and separated from blackwater plumbing. It is currently used either for irrigation and landscaping, which is fairly simple and inexpensive, or for flushing toilets, which requires greater expense, sterilization equipment and testing. The same technology currently used to create flushing water (see Mercy Homes Chicago) could be used to make drinkable water, but no sites have been permitted for turning it into drinking water in the Chicago area.

Systems require a duplicate and separate set of pipes for greywater to be differentiated from wastewater.

Precautions for non-potable recycling include minimizing storage time to prevent contamination. As human contact should also be eliminated with systems that do not sterilize the water, under-soil drainage is the preferred method to eliminate pooling and maximize natural bacteria breakdown by the soil.

Household greywater recycling diagram (homeevol.com)

Benefits

Greywater pipe separation is a relatively easy low cost when planned into a new smaller-scale residential construction. Cost and space savings can even be gained by reducing the wastewater treatment system, especially for septic systems.

Other Potential Benefits:

1. Reduces the amount of potable, fresh water used by households.
2. Reduces the flow of wastewater entering sewer or septic systems.
3. Minimizes the amount of harmful chemicals used by homeowners.
4. Supports plant growth without using expensive potable water.
5. Helps recharge groundwater when applied outdoors.
6. Raises public awareness of natural water cycles.
7. Saves money on water bills.

Challenges:

Separate greywater piping systems are exponentially more expensive as a building becomes larger than one story or if it is a retrofit of an existing unit.

Municipal and state codes are a hindrance to greywater reuse. In Chicago, special permitting by the Dept of Public Health has allowed (as of 2010) only two buildings to reuse greywater for toilet flushing. Illinois Plumbing Code, Illinois Private Sewage Licensing Act and Code currently prohibit discharging of greywater to ground surface and/or for irrigation. (See below for best policy examples elsewhere in the United States.)

Although cleaner than wastewater, greywater reuse systems can carry contaminants or become a pathogenic hazard, insect breeding sites, or odor nuisance if not carefully executed. Receiving areas should be monitored for impacts, and best practices should be followed and research and testing on benefits and risks should be pursued.

Resources:

• Greywater Recycling from Brac System

• Oasis Design Greywater Information Central

• McHenry County Groundwater Protection Program – Section 5 Wastewater

Best Chicago Area Examples:

• Yannell Net Zero Energy House: LEED Platinum zero net energy home that collects used washing machine water to flush toilets in the home. Chlorine, microfiltration and UV light are means of disinfection.

• Margot and Harold Schiff Residences, 1244 N. Clybourn, Chicago, IL (Mercy Housing Lakefront): Affrordale housing that recycles greywater to flush toilets in a 96 unit residential building, with added rainwater collections system. UV light disinfection primary means of treatment.

Best Practice Guidelines and Polices:

National standards: Green Building Standards Guide by the National Association of Home Builders was recently updated to include greywater reuse as option where permitted.

State policy models: Two different policy approaches noted, “design standards model” vs. “performance standards model.” Design standards tend to reduce demand of projects because of strict design guidelines, but produce results much closer to estimates. Performance standards policy models encourage innovation in cost and performance, increasing demand, but a measurable system of oversight and monitoring must be in place because the outcomes are not as predictable.

• California Guidebook – Design standards model, also part of the State Plumbing Code making it uniformly legal to install greywater reuse systems.

• Arizona – Performance standards model, statewide adoption of greywater for outdoor irrigation. Also a Greywater Conservation Tax Credit for residential incentivization.

• Massachusetts – Allows permitting for new construction for greywater flushing use.

Wastewater Reuse

Definition and Overview

Wastewater, also known as blackwater, is toilet waste. Wastewater recycling is typically considered on a much larger scale than greywater reuse due to the higher risk of contamination and mishandling on a small scale. There are four potential uses for reused wastewater, ranked in infrastructural difficulty of processing.

1. Turf irrigation
2. Industrial
3. Agricultural irrigation
4. Drinking water

The theory behind most current wastewater reuse is to apply recycled wastewater to lower value uses (ie turf irrigation) that would otherwise utilize high value potable water applications. However, there are some highly advanced systems, the largest of which is in Orange County, CA, which do use reclaimed wastewater for municipal drinking water (see below).

Recycling Methods

Wastewater can be reclaimed by centralized wastewater treatment plants, decentralized smaller scale plants, or by satellite plants that can be located upstream from the central plant to intercept certain amounts of wastewater before entering the sewer system or by tapping into trunk sewers.

The simplest uses such as turf irrigation (gold courses, cemeteries) and industrial uses (drillbit cooling, concrete cutting, ground stabilization) do not have as stringent water quality needs and can be treated much the same as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) current secondary standards, which is not disinfected.

Agricultural uses require somewhat more stringent standards due the concern of foodborne illnesses, but this use is currently permitted under Illinois law. It is not clear what standards would be needed, but a higher level of secondary standards than above would by most reports be preferred.

In the most difficult method to create drinking water, such as the case in Orange County, California, wastewater is sent through filters, UV light sterilization, reverse osmosis and diluting basins before being injected into the groundwater for further dilution and filtration. The process takes two to three months before the water reaches the tap.

Benefits and Challenges

Although many obvious water conservation benefits are the similar to greywater reuse, benefits of wastewater recycling are realized best on large scale processes, both in terms of centralized treatment and large scale agricultural, industrial or public use.

One of the greatest reported challenges to reusing wastewater is the psychological deterrence by the public of using reclaimed wastewater. Therefore, the most immediate potential benefits would be the lower-value use, such as the turf irrigation or industrial uses.

To get to drinkable standards requires a large upfront investment, although the cost may be considered reasonable relative to alternatives in some situations. The Orange County project cost $481 million to build, but the alternatives included desalination (up to four times the cost) in addition to the cost of new waste piping facilities to be built into the Pacific Ocean.

The McHenry County Groundwater Action Plan estimated that pumping recycled wastewater for golf course irrigation in the Village of Addison would cost the golf courses $0.92/1000 gallons, and $1.75 for other irrigation and industrial uses. This is a major incentive as current water rates for the study area were $4.05/1000 gallons.

Other challenges include concerns over chloride, nutrients and pharmaceutical products in the wastewater, which would require further treatment and/or monitoring for various applications.

Best Examples and Resources

• McHenry County Groundwater Protection Program – Section 5 Wastewater

• Village of Algonquin: Contractor Handbook – Use of Treated Effluent as a Non-Potable Water Source• Orange County Water District’s Groundwater Replenishment System

• GE’s Advanced Water Reuse and Recycling

Defining ‘sustainability’ is one of the toughest yet most important challenges of the modern environmental movement. The concept of critical natural capital (CNC) forms an important basis for its definition of sustainability by giving a baseline above which sustainable practices can be determined. CNC can be described as a point of degradation in an ecosystem past which it can no longer support its biodiversity or species populations. The concept originates from the idea that there is a certain minimal amount of natural capital necessary for ecosystems to continue to function and provide services for its inhabitants. Below that point, even human-made capital, such as technological substitutions, cannot replace the loss of welfare-sustaining ecosystem services. Natural capital is comprised of the environmental resources and services that can be used for life and factors of production. In our case, we are particularly concerned with an ecosystem’s ability to support an adequate standard of living for humans which includes drinking water, food, shelter, a moderate climate and resources for production.

The concept of critical natural capital lies in the strong sustainability argument that natural capital (natural resources and ecosystem services) and human-made capital (technology and intellect) are not fully substitutable. (Jansson, et al. 1994, p. 5) Although there may be some degree of substitutability, the possibilities are limited and tend to become more and more costly with increasing degradation of natural capital.

An example of the limits of substitution is arsenic pollution in local drinking water as a result of metal smelting. The clean drinking water would be considered natural capital to the local population. As the pollution levels increase, so does the total cost of treating the water to make it safe, called the total abatement cost. Filtering the water would be considered a technological substitute of human-made capital for natural capital, as would importing clean water. When, at the point that the pollution reduces the natural capital (water quality) below the point of CNC because of the high cost or unavailability of substitutions, the population must relocate or face health consequences of this pollution. The dire consequences of pollution scenarios like this are apparent on a global level where the only possible outcome is a reduction in human welfare.

Critical natural capital is a reflection of the limits of technological and natural substitutability, and it can be defined as the point at which there are no potential substitutes for the prevailing natural capital, which in human terms is the point at when people have no other choice but to move or suffer in the above arsenic scenario.

Although there are uncertainties in predicting ecosystem reactions to pollution and degradation, environmental science and ecology give insight into the levels of natural capital that are critical to sustaining life and economy for different ecosystems and populations. Knowledge of this CNC can help us to create definite levels of sustainability that lie far above this dangerous level of degradation.

To apply a practical example, take croplands which have historically supported a reasonably stable agrarian economy society. If they begin to lose fertility and become desert or saline through overuse, farmers can apply fertilizers, crop rotation or erosion control (technological substitutions) to produce the same yields as before degradation. Because of ecosystem resiliency, there may be a stable level above the CNC that allows for these substitutions without further natural capital degradation. This level can be considered a sustainable economy. If however, degradation continues further than the technological substitutes can make up for, an unsustainable economy is created. As the unsustainable economy progresses, eventually there is too little viable farmland left for technology or other human-made capital to create a reasonable substitution, and the point of critical natural capital has been passed. If the society does not migrate it will face hunger and starvation.

In order to create a sustainable economy we must combine our best understanding of efficient economic practice with sound scientific knowledge of ecological systems and ecosystem services to determine the critical amounts of natural capital that allow us to live, produce and consume at high standards of living. Sustainability can best be defined as a stable level of substitution between human and natural capital where the ecosystem integrity remains above the level of critical natural capital. As we seek to gain greater understanding of sustainable development and environmentally sound economics, ecological and environmental sciences must synergize with economic theories to determine important indicators, like critical levels of natural capital, to achieve concrete measures of true sustainable development.