As we get close to Christmas, we are thrilled to be able to offer our gift to our community, state, country and world - and the bears. We are working hard with our companies to make the changes needed to help stop climate change. We are so pleased to announce some of our newest pledges.
Norton Healthcare System has agreed to adjust thermostats on their 1,077,345 square feet of non-hospital offices, which include their administrative offices and dozens of system-owned physician offices. They are also going to pledge to check tire pressure on their company vehicles and to drive 55 mph. In addition, they are now recycling 240 thirty-gallon containers of cardboard per week, and they are in the process of replacing their 29,110 incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. This makes their total pledge - to date - 4,606,303 lbs. of CO2 saved per year. I am also working with their IT supervisor on how to turn their computers off at night, and to put their computers on sleep mode when not in use during the day. Many of their computers are used 24 hours per day, but they are going to look into making a new policy to turn off the ones that can be turned off at night. Some of their computers need to be accessed remotely, so they will be looking into whether this will work if the computers are on sleep mode. If they are able to put the computers on sleep mode and turn off their computers at night, this pledge could be as high as 2,560,000 lbs (6400 computers X 400 lbs.) We are not going to add this into our total because we will not know how many comuters will be pledged until after the New Year.
Our next pledge that we want to announce is for the State of Kentucky Department of Corrections. We have been working with their Director of IT, Craig Thatcher. He is pledging to program their 3000 computers to go on sleep mode when not in use. 3000 computers X 200 lbs. = 600,000 lbs. of CO2 saved per year. Even more exciting is that Craig wants us to make a presentation in early 2010 to the Commonweath Technology Council, a group of the head of all Kentucky State IT offices, to consider making this a policy state-wide in all state offices. We are not sure how many computers this will include, but the number should be huge. This is an exciting development that is sure to save millions of pounds of CO2.
We also want to announce the pledge of a national chain of stores called Hot Topic. They are pledging to turn off their 836 computers at night, which will save 334,000 lbs. of CO2 per year. One caveat with Hot Topic is that they do not want to be listed on our website. We will be listing them as "anonymous."
And last, we want to tell you about a pledge by a nationwide group called Scottrade. They are pledging to adjust their thermostats on their 440 offices which adds up to 704,000 square feet of office space. This wills ave 556,160 lbs. of CO2 per year. In addition, they are pledging to turn off their 3500 computers at night, which saves 700,000 lbs., making their total pledge 1,256,160 lbs.
And so, our Christmas gift to the bears and the world is our total pledges to date of 11,694,364 lbs. of CO2 saved per year. We are still waiting for numbers from 3 of our largest pledgers: Yum! Brands, UPS, and Maker's Mark.
We also want to announce the two presentations that we will be giving next week. On Sunday, Dec. 27th we will be giving a talk to the public at Bernheim Forest, and on Tuesday, Dec. 29th we will be giving a presentation to the public at the Falls of the Ohio State Park. The one at the Falls of the Ohio will be a fundraiser for PBI. We hope to be able to include numbers and pictures from at least one of these events in our report.
With the talks in Copenhagen in our minds, and with our hope for the bears in our hearts, we want to wish everyone a merry Christmas. We will be giving a last update on our project, hopefully with more pledges, next week. Happy holidays!
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