15 minute read
The Reformers
BE THE CHANGE To make an impact on climate change, we all have to decide that “business as usual” is no longer acceptable, and that every decision we make impacts the world at large. We asked some of our Downtown leaders to weigh in.
Dr. Laura L. Forese
MD, MPH Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, NewYork-Presbyterian At NewYork-Presbyterian, we are committed to adopting sustainable practices across our hospitals to create a healthier environment for our patients, their families, our staff, and the diverse and vibrant communities we serve in Lower Manhattan and the Greater New York area. In 2009, NewYork-Presbyterian established NYPgreen to advance our commitment to environmental sustainability. The program was designed to empower all levels of the organization, from frontline staff to leadership, to promote sustainable operations across the enterprise. Its scope is vast and encompasses everything from energy conservation to recycling.
Small steps can make a big difference. One of the most effective things an individual can do to reduce their carbon footprint is to eat more plant-based meals in lieu of meat products. NewYork-Presbyterian has implemented a Meatless Monday campaign, and we are adding more plant-based options to our menus, which are better for both human and environmental health. Our focus on sustainable food made me more conscious at home, too, and my family now practices Meatless Mondays. In 2018, NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital launched an on-demand, room service food model for patients. Not only did this improve the patient dining experience, it helped reduce the hospital’s food waste by more than 30%. And we transitioned to paper straws in our cafeterias and give drink discounts to people who bring their own cups. Together, these small changes can have an impact.
When leaders consider the future of their organizations, both sustainability and resilience must be part of the conversation. For example, we built sustainability into the design of the NewYork-Presbyterian David H. Koch Center. Its green roof can retain up to six inches of storm water and helps to cool the building. The building’s skin and high-efficiency mechanical systems are designed to decrease energy use by 19 percent and water usage by 30 percent. The resilient design enables the building to continue delivering care to patients during an extreme weather event or disruption to the city’s power. We’re proud that this ambulatory care center recently achieved LEED Gold certification by the US Green Building Council and is the first project in New York City to earn certification under the LEED Healthcare rating system. SaulScherl
President, Tri-State Region, Howard Hughes Corporation/Seaport District The opportunity to steward the newest chapter of the Seaport, New York’s original commercial port, is a privilege and I feel fortunate to be immersed in our city’s history. With this stewardship comes the responsibility of evaluating the best ways—and the challenge of implementing best practices—to position this historic port and neighborhood, including its anchor, the South Street Seaport Museum, for a resilient future.
HHC is currently preparing for next year’s reopening of the 1907 Tin Building. It is a story not only of historic preservation and reconstruction, but one of sustainability and resiliency in the face of challenges that time has unleashed upon this storied port—from the decaying age-old wooden piers, to buildings damaged by fires, to the epic floodwaters of Hurricane Sandy.
Before HHC could even begin recreating the Tin Building and the extensive process of salvaging, cataloging and storing its historic elements, we had to address the very foundation on which the building sits and ensure that it would remain viable for future generations to come.
We began with a complete reconstruction of the Tin Building pier, located immediately west of Pier 17, a complex process which included the demolition of the deteriorated pier structures and the building of new concrete and steel piles under the currents of the East River. Only then could the reconstruction of the Tin Building itself take place, which involved its relocation 32 feet to the east and six feet above its original location to higher ground—now one foot above the FEMA 100-year floodplain. The relocation eastward allowed us to enhance the building’s relationship to the river’s edge, its view corridors and its accessibility. It also enabled us to preserve the historic metal canopy as originally intended—a key element of the building’s gracious arrival sequence, which was subsequently obstructed by the construction of the FDR Drive.
I have indelible childhood memories of spending afternoons exploring the Seaport neighborhood, and venturing onto Pier 17, into the South Street Seaport Museum, and even into the wholesale fish market of the old Tin Building. I take to heart this extraordinary opportunity we have to ensure this unique and vital cornerstone of our city will be here for the generations ahead to experience and enjoy.
Catherine McVay Hughes
Ceres President’s Council Sustainability is on everyone’s mind, at businesses big and small, in our private lives, and at almost all levels of government. This is a welcome change and lays the foundation for concerted action. There is no doubt that this level of commitment and concern will lead to action at even the highest levels of government. For me making conscious choices includes buying and eating locally sourced food in season whether cooking at home or eating out. Some clothing designers are innovating in exciting ways with low-waste and even zero waste manufacturing.
Since large investors have the longest time horizons, they are our best hope to transform corporate sustainability policies. The world
leader in helping investors press for these policies is a Boston-based nonprofit called Ceres whose network controls around $35 trillion of assets. The more companies that work with Ceres, the more likely that corporate best practices with sustainability will spread. Tyler Hollinger
Owner, Highlife Productions From the fish dishes we provide, to our ZERO plastic use, Aquarius Sustainable Seafood Festival is by definition sustainable. One of the best things to come around in a while for event purposes is CUPZERO. This company changes the game when you think of large scale plastic cup usage. Change starts with awareness. Raising awareness among people and educating them about, for example, sustainable seafood is the start. Just look at where we are at right now with straws. All it took was one viral video of turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose for people to vocally change their ‘straw habits.’ The city didn’t do this. The state legislature didn’t. It was educating the public. MikeSpindler
Former CEO of Fulton Fish Market, Founder of FultonFishMarket.com Can protein products feed the expected growth in population sustainably, while reducing the impact on natural resources? And can we produce protein that does all this in a tasty, easy to prep way?
Luckily, with seafood, we can answer this multifaceted problem with a resounding YES. Hundreds of independent research papers document how responsibly, sustainably harvested seafood can meet the protein needs of a growing global population, and support expanded consumption by current inhabitants. This expanded dependency dramatically and positively impacts planet health by responsibly moving sustenance dependency off land.
At FultonFishMarket.com, every product offered is responsibly and sustainably harvested. Most of America’s seafood is imported from thousands of miles away, and has been frozen, at least once. Our product often comes from the waters off our coast (the most highly regulated fisheries in the world), so instead of traveling on average 5,000 miles from water to plate, our fish travels about 500 miles per serving. Finally, most of our materials, from the gel packs (water) to the insulated liner (spun cotton), has been developed by us to get the seafood to your door as fresh as when it came out of the water, and then the packaging can go right into the compost bin. Rory McCreesh
Founder, Duce Construction We don’t supply fast fashion, we construct quality products that are meant to withstand the test of time. The bulk of our business is renovation, restoring and breathing new life into old buildings. To do this, we use post-consumer products whenever available. We buy best quality tools and equipment for an extended use life. Our HVAC systems and lighting fixtures are high-efficiency. We spend a lot of time educating ourselves on energy efficiencies and technologies. And we repurpose demolition materials and appliances.
Internally, we utilize a program called Procore. It is a key tool in our company that acts as an umbrella for all our construction needs from bidding, document management, daily logs, drawing management, budgeting and more. It’s a cutting-edge cloud-based technology to synchronize all of our staff’s mobile devices with all project documentation, drawings, and specifications. This significantly reduces our carbon footprint by eliminating the need to print paper copies, and then reprinting them every time a revision is issued. THE REFORMERS | HUMANS MarlenePoynder
General Manager, Conrad New York Downtown at Conrad Hotels and Resorts We are dedicated to creating a sustainable experience for our Conrad New York Downtown guests, starting with impactful programs locally and beyond. We have a growing mix of initiatives that reduce waste, including recycling soaps and empty toiletry containers through Clean the World; using LED lights throughout the building; recycling Nespresso pods; fitting motion sensorcontrolled lighting and HVAC systems in our guest rooms; and installing water dispensers that track the amount of water bottles saved and more. We have also established a collaboration with the Rethink Program, an organization that repurposes excess food to create nutritious and delicious meals for underserved New York City residents. From eliminating plastic straws to recycling soap, we are committed to making changes that will have a positive ripple effect on our planet. Personally, I do not use single use plastic water bottles or coffee cups; I do not utilize plastic straws; I take a reusable shopping bag when I grocery shop; among many other things.
Our guests have come to appreciate our vision of sustainable luxury, and we are always looking to expand on our existing green initiatives. We recently joined forces with Rocean, the leading supplier of sustainable smart water solutions. Through this new partnership, we will soon offer Rocean Zero smart filtration devices inside each of the our 463 suites, eliminating single-use plastic water bottles. Conrad New York Downtown was designed and built solely using strategies that aim to preserve precious resources, and the addition of the Rocean system further strengthens Hilton’s commitment to reduce its environmental impact by 50% in 2030 by offering plastic-free solutions for our guests.
Larry Silverstein Chairman, Silverstein Properties As part of our response to 9/11, we at Silverstein Properties pledged to conserve New York’s most precious resources, including water and energy. We pledged to create a healthy, enjoyable and productive environment for the people who work here. And we pledged to safeguard the health of the people who live, work, visit and go to school in Lower Manhattan. 7 World Trade Center was the first LEED-certified office building in the city, and one of the healthiest places to work in the country. With that building, we raised the bar for green construction: Every other building at the new World Trade Center is sustainably designed, energy efficient and a healthy and productive place to work. We also created new parks and green spaces, which are a terrific amenity for our tenants, local residents and visitors to Downtown.
Arno Adkins HUMANS | THE REFORMERS
Project Manager, One South First In our studio, we address sustainability holistically to make buildings better for the planet and for people through high-performance and biophilic design strategies.
We can all learn to use less, buy goods that are durable and can be upcycled, and we can make a huge impact on the planet by demanding that our products be free of harmful chemicals, not just the finished products but along the entire supply chain.
We believe we can make a global impact and make our buildings more sustainable and healthy by addressing building supply chains to eliminate toxins, reduce impacts on ecosystems, and ensure that people and their communities are fairly compensated and protected. JessicaLappin
President, Downtown Alliance As a lifelong New Yorker, I have a deep appreciation for this city’s natural geography. New York City’s waterways have made it a prosperous center of trade for centuries, and have only added to its unique beauty. I also recognize that it’s our generation’s duty to face head-on the current climate crisis and future impact of rising sea levels — and at the Downtown Alliance we’re doing just that. On the largest scale, we advocate for a fully-funded, comprehensive resiliency plan that can protect our shores. We additionally push to inspire more sustainable daily habits within our neighborhood that can really make a difference. The most robust effort in this vein has been to divert as much trash as possible from the landfills — this helps ensure that we’re reusing materials where possible and reducing the environmental and health impact of landfill emissions. To date, we’ve collected almost 1,500 tons of public recycling (that’s as much as 500 Elephants, 111 NYC buses or if we could magically convert it into gold, $55B dollars), we host regular e-waste, textile and shredding events, and this April we are embarking on the country’s first mobile-operated public compost bins. In partnership with the NYC Department of Sanitation and with support from Brookfield Properties, we’re bringing 11 compost bins to Lower Manhattan as a pilot program for the city. This will provide a convenient way for people to divert anything that grows from landfills, which currently accounts for one third of all waste produced by New York City. This will be an educational process for the neighborhood that could even expand if it’s successful. Together, we can have a real, positive impact on our city and planet.
Alejandro Agag “Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.” —Greta Thunberg, at the U.N. Climate Action Summit, 2019
Chairman, Formula E Holdings, Ltd. There is the big picture and the small picture in sustainability. The big picture is to promote electric mobility. Formula E is a platform to make electric cars more attractive to a mass audience as they’ll see electric racing and it will bring people closer to electric cars and make it more appealing. It’s a laboratory for technology. In Formula E, technologies for electric cars are improved, batteries are developed to go faster for longer and this technology can then trickle down to road cars and make them again more attractive for the mass market. That’s the big picture. The small picture is of course tackling the footprint of our championship. Where possible we minimize our carbon footprint, we off-set our emissions, we optimize our logistics and take measures to make our events as sustainable as possible.
Recycling at home, adding solar panels and of course using an electric car in my day-to-day life—there are many choices we can make, that if we add them up, an entire population will create a big change. I think that’s a result of people becoming more conscious and more aware of climate change, and that’s really important. We are now aware of what is going on and what is at stake, and that has a big influence on our personal decisions.
Formula E needs to provoke and needs to invite other companies to follow the journey towards climate action. Everyone should be welcoming this. It’s of course very important to raise awareness but that alone is not enough. We need specific changes and there are many companies in various domains that are leading those and that’s how Formula E can incentivize other companies to follow the journey.
John Oppermann
Executive Director, Earth Day Initiative Earth Day has always reflected the environmental challenges of the day. Over the last fifty years, the conversation surrounding Earth Day has reflected the topics of environmental concern of the time and offered solutions directed at those concerns. As we find ourselves at the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the conversation is absolutely oriented toward climate action and building the global momentum we need to solve the looming climate crisis.
We find that people are really clamoring for ways to take action in their own lives to make a positive impact on the environment. We’ve provided a series of easy action items people can commit to for Earth Day 50 on our website at earthdayinitiative.org. One of the primary actions we tell people to take is to switch to renewable energy, wherever they live. Many people don’t know that they can join a local solar project in their area whereby they lease a portion of solar panels from a local solar facility and then they get paid for the electricity generated by their portion of solar panels. The amount you get paid will often be higher than the lease payment so you make money from joining the project. You can join even if you live in an apartment building or rent because there is no need to install solar panels on your own home. This model, known as community solar, helps bring renewable energy to your community and saves you money. It’s a win-win for everyone.
There are different ways to divide up the responsibility of various sectors of our economy to global climate change. You can splice it up to say the transportation industry contributes X percent and the building industry contributes Y percent. But often what our total emissions equation all goes back to is that we get our electricity from fossil fuels. If we were to switch over at a mass scale to electric vehicles, it would do a lot to bring down emissions, but to have an even bigger impact, that electricity should be coming from renewable energy.
New York City could make great strides toward reducing its carbon footprint if it were to move even further toward being a public transitoriented and car-free city. If we could invest substantially to improve and expand our public transit options and discourage use of singlepassenger vehicles, we would make the city more sustainable and more livable for New Yorkers. In the age of climate change, New York City faces great challenges with the potential for rising sea levels, extreme weather, and stresses on our basic infrastructure. An unfortunate fact is that we not only need to take steps to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions but we also need to make massive efforts to adapt to the new reality of climate change. DT
