The Movement Builds

Green is good. It's a mindset that has permeated almost every part of life. New efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle in stores, homes, and offices have many of us feeling like we're saving the polar ice caps one reusable shopping bag at a time. But greening the AV industry is progressing slower and with more difficulty than some would like to see.

"Green AV is struggling to be recognized, especially by the U.S. Green Building Council," says Tony Warner, principal at RTKL Associates, a global design firm in Baltimore, Md., which has 150 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design accredited professionals (LEED-AP) on staff. USGBC is a nonprofit organization of 15,000 member groups committed to advancing sustainable building practices in commercial and residential projects. And the LEED Green Building Rating System is the tool by which it helps measure success.

Today, a small but growing group of advocates in and around the AV industry is working on its own set of benchmarks to help define green as it applies to and is affected by audiovisual systems. But inconsistent data from manufacturers and a lack of test information for large swaths of AV-related products, among other things, are hampering the effort.

"Right now, LEED is the way you keep score so it dominates the discussion," says Scott Walker, president and founding principal of Waveguide Consulting in Decatur, Ga. "The design process on a LEED project follows a checklist, and AV is simply not on it."

Integral to Green Building

Which isn't to say that AV isn't part of the process itself. It's impossible to argue that AV hasn't become integral to organizations' communication infrastructure and therefore a major component of the building industry.

Executives at industry associations–such as InfoComm, the National Systems Contractor Association, and BISCI, the association for the information transport systems industry–have widely acknowledged that the success of the AV industry increasingly depends on its ability to contribute to and partner with members of the building industry. That includes green building.

Walker was the first Certified Technology Specialist in Design (CTS-D) to attain LEED-AP certification. He and several others have begun organizing a task force within InfoComm to collect knowledge and best practices about sustainable AV design, create education programs, and advocate for recognition of AV's role within the building trade. The challenge: Walker and others are effectively starting from square one.

"Within LEED, there is no specific category for building technologies such as AV, IT, low voltage, security, digital signage, etc.," Walker says. Moreover, defining green AV is a tricky endeavor. Is it an energy-efficient product? A sustainable business process? All of the above?

Walker recently had a client ask for the greenest AV system possible, but he found answering the client a challenge–and this from an AV professional accredited in green practices. "What can you compare it to?" he says. "The industry is already struggling to conform on specifications for things like power consumption. It's similar to the ANSI lumens discussion years ago." In other words, which audiovisual systems are really "green," and what makes them so?

Still, fitful starts and a lack of existing standards are not stopping pockets of AV professionals from building their own momentum behind an environmental effort that few deny is important to the future of their specialty.

Getting in the Game

Craig Janssen, a principal with AV consulting firm Acoustic Dimensions in Dallas, noticed a rapid culture shift a few years ago. People went from not giving a second thought to the health of the planet to caring a great deal. It was then that he formed a strategy to embrace LEED as a harbinger of fundamental change in the design world.

"Green AV is a small part of a much larger discussion," Janssen says. "We are consuming and burning more than we produce, and the majority of energy use is by buildings. But what if we didn't? Would it create new industries, new jobs, or a healthier economy?"

At the time, LEED-AP presented the most logical umbrella of accreditation for creating a common vocabulary among AV professionals, architects, and clients. "It is the one qualification that is unified across all industries. You don't have to be an architect or a consultant to qualify; anyone can study to become a LEED-AP," Janssen explains.

In an ambitious move, Janssen encouraged every full-time employee in his office to participate, including reception, marketing, and engineering employees. Training, study resources, time off from work to study, and online prep courses were paid for by the company, to the tune of between $50,000 and $80,000, he estimates.

"I didn't dictate that everyone had to do it," Janssen says. "I didn't give them books and make them go off and study. Instead, we tried it as a team. It reflects on the group culture. We're in this together." By the end of February, almost 90 percent of the Dallas staff had earned their LEED-AP accreditation.

A Seat at the Table

From Janssen's perspective, the LEED process champions whole-system design thinking. All parties have a seat at the table from the get-go, a concept that challenges traditional design world approaches. And LEED recognizes that designs are interactive and must occur concurrently.

"I'm not just changing the lighting in a room because that affects the heat load and power draw, which affects the engineers on the project and ultimately space planning," he says. "As LEED moves forward, it will teach people that if the team doesn't succeed then the project will fail."

Walker calls this seat at the table his "panic meets opportunity" moment. He could let the opportunity pass him by or do what was necessary. And it's what prompted him to become LEED accredited.

"Four to five years ago, most projects were starting to talk LEED. It was like a different language to me," Walker says. "I realized that this could go one of two ways. They will either buy fewer AV products because I don't speak their language, or this is the opportunity for AV to extend its reach and really enter the discussion."

So far, though, advocates haven't had any luck getting named AV credits inserted into the rating system. Why? "There is no precedent for AV to get an innovation credit on a project," Walker explains. "In 10 years, no one has ever gotten a point for AV. Innovation credits are awarded under the same categories over and over again because these certain categories have become a sure thing. The idea of AV as an innovation credit is usually nixed early in the process."

In LEED, buildings earn points in a variety of specific categories. The Innovation in Design category is meant as a catchall for solutions that don't fit anywhere else but clearly demonstrate an impact on the project's sustainability.

Walker's mission, therefore, is to establish a precedent with his own office, which is targeting LEED-Gold certification for Commercial Interiors. Last fall, Waveguide moved to new leased space situated within a few hundred yards of public transportation. Walker chose to keep many of the current walls intact to reduce waste, and he used low-VOC (volatile organic compound) carpet and paint. He also plans to ask for Innovation in Design credits for two dedicated video-conferencing rooms, use of rich media, exemplary acoustical performance, and intelligent lighting.

His strategy is to create a precedent for formally recognizing AV in green design, which will hopefully encourage future LEED projects to consider AV systems for Innovation in Design credits.

Best Practices

Documenting such initiatives will be important, because for AV professionals who want to go green, finding a guide to best practices is near-impossible. Currently, there is no uniform, agreed-upon standard for how to engineer, specify, or use sustainable AV products and solutions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers guidelines for green meetings (and even goes so far as to advise not to put inedible garnish on a plate), but AV systems, whether for presentations or entertainment, are not even mentioned in their guidance.

This point is not lost to Midori Connolly, CEO and owner of Pulse Staging and Events in San Diego. Three years ago, when Connolly founded Pulse, she decided that she wanted to comply with all necessary requirements for green meetings. After searching for guidelines on green AV, she was shocked to find a lack of information. So she researched and compiled a list of best practices her company would live by, a task that took nine months to complete. And she enjoyed it.

"Green AV is in one of the most exciting stages because it is open to input from all parties. We are in a growth stage of discovery and collaboration," she says. (Connolly joins Pro AV this month with a new bi-monthly column, Sustainable AV.)

Connolly's guidelines–available on Pulse's Web site (www.pulsestaging.com)–include simple steps that don't necessarily add cost to an event, such as collecting and recycling batteries, turning off projectors at the end of the event day instead of putting them in standby mode, and preventing trucks from idling at the loading bay. "It's about evaluating each step of your event [or project] to determine its environmental impact," she explains.

On her wish list are the ability to have real-time energy consumption metering at events, LED instruments with functionality of traditional stage lighting (i.e., focusable), and manufacturers that have a cradle-to-cradle product life cycle. 

"If you can't do it or buy it today, do it tomorrow. No one is expecting that you can revamp your inventory overnight," Connolly adds. "But make it a part of your written, long-term plan so that clients understand your commitment."

The Future of Green AV

Ultimately, Connolly sees green AV as more than just a power consumption issue. "It's about communicating to manufacturers that we need standards and benchmarks," she explains. "The transparency of a manufacturer is important. Are they ISO 14001-certified? Do they have a take-back program and practice responsible e-waste recycling?"

With InfoComm and others putting resources behind green initiatives and education, many pros expect this year to be something of a coming out party for green AV, even as the movement finds its footing.

"A grassroots effort is what's needed," says RTKL's Warner. "We need an educational effort about LEED and green AV. As an industry, we need to work on benchmarking and gathering data, like documenting the carbon reduction from videoconferencing technology."

It could be that AV never rises to explicit status in LEED ratings. The newest ratings will be out next month–still no AV. "But we can still make an impact on elements like lighting systems and the cooling of equipment. Our industry can become more educated about real-world power cycles and emitted heat," Janssen says.

"We have to have a LEED mentality whether we are recognized or not," Walker says. "We have to show them what we did when we were on the outside of the ratings system looking in."

In order to reach some type of tipping point, Walker adds, the industry as a whole needs organization and leadership.

Because even in challenging times for the building industry, sustainable construction is here to stay, whether AV gets involved or not. Walker says he has yet to see a project forgo LEED certification because of the economy.

"If anything, the cycle is getting faster," Walker says. "A client will tighten their belt on finishes and even on AV before they give up the LEED certificate on the wall." AV

Linda Seid Frembes is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Pro AV.

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Brian Huff, CTS-D, a supervisory consultant for Acentech in Cambridge, Mass., recently read Thomas Friedman's book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" and was inspired to turn an environmentalist's eye toward his industry.

"When you look at AV from an environmental perspective, there is nothing green about AV and, at the rate we're going, there may never be," he says. "A typical AV product is made from non-recycled materials, spends its life consuming electricity from coal-fired power plants, and ultimately ends up in a landfill. What is green AV? There is no such thing because it doesn't currently exist; it's like saying there is an environmentally-friendly internal combustion engine."

All is not lost, though. Huff says the No. 1 thing companies can do is change the way they operate. "It's hard to get people on-board, but you can make changes that are painless, that saves the company money, and cut CO2 emissions," he says. "But it needs a champion high up within the company, preferably the CEO or president."

For his part, Huff wrote a white paper "Greening the AV Industry-- An Introduction" that includes steps an AV firm can take right away to inject green into its designs and its business.

Reduce

• Provide all systems documentation in electronic form, including drawings, to reduce or eliminate paper waste.
• Specify projectors with an eco-mode, and set them up that way.
• Where control systems are used, force eco-mode as the default power up setting, with a password-protected override needed to change the projector to full brightness.
• Use motion detectors on all digital signage displays to reduce power consumption.
• Configure full power-down sequencing to all equipment that can be turned completely off when not in use, including external power supplies.
• Give preference to Energy Star-rated products
• Review all system designs to reduce unnecessary waste and parts such as rack side panels, blanks, vents, etc.
• Use AV manufacturers and suppliers that have adopted LEED-friendly business practices or have a formal environmental stewardship program.

Reuse

• Use remanufactured lamps for replacements and spare stock.
• Attempt to reuse items such as equipment racks and other Owner Furnished Equipment (OFE) that will not create reliability or increased power consumption issues.
• Specify high-recycled content AV millwork.

Recycle

• Favor manufacturers who have partnered with the EPA in its Plug-In to eCycling program.
• Responsibly recycle all packing materials and AV-related site refuse.