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6090920-9271000MINUTESOregon Sustainability BoardMeeting Date:Friday, June 12, 2020Time:9am – 3:30pm Location: Wildwood Mahonia/Zoom Meeting ID: 654 719 5941 Password: 2EzjVi Attendees: Guest presenters: Adam Helvey, Jordan Palmeri, Jonathan Rivin, Blake Shelide, Kaci Radcliffe, ITEMDISCUSSIONJune 12, 2020Discussion items and presentationsCall to Order, approval of minutes – John Miller, chairJohn called the meeting to order at 9:10am and introductions were made. Rex moved to approve the minutes and Lori seconded. Minutes were approved. DAS Sustainable Procurement Program (SPP)Presented by : Adam Helvey (DAS-PS), Jordan Palmeri, and Jonthan Rivin (DEQ)*Adam Helvey shared the DAS-SPP objectives and plans. Adam was pulled into Emergency Service due to COVID-19, so some things have been pushed back to other quarters. Objective 1: The policy has been revisited and updated to more accurately reflect current times. The implementation will most likely take over a year, but the draft has been updated so that it will be a smooth transition. Objective 2: These meetings had to be moved to quarterly, due to limitations from COVID-19, but they will be moving forward and ensuring that departments are fulfilling their goals in reference to sustainability. There will be meetings with suppliers to train and request specific sustainable products. They will also make sure to include local and small businesses in these discussions. Objective 3: This is a new executive order and it is in progress. It is a good opportunity for DAS and DEQ to work on zero emissions. Jordan and Jonathan will be identifying strategic product standards and will be working with DAS to meet and complete this objective. Objective 4: Implementing this executive order in the first quarter has also been pushed back due to COVID-19. Drafts and links to resources and tools will be inserted into the Oregon Procurement Manual. Objective 5: Deals with tracking and reporting using data and metrics (to be determined with guidance from the SPP Advisory Committee). This is in progress and the Oregon Buys program will help with this. These systems will be created over the next months, and should be fully implemented in a year. This system will be able to track all the spending, not just big purchases, but also small purchases for a more accurate accounting of spending. Objective 6: This is the crux of the work plan to inject sustainability into price agreements. This helps to put a stopgap to help evaluate and analyze purchases and see if they take sustainability into account for each purchase. This is in process for now and quarterly objectives are testing the system. Objective 7: This revolves around training. A class has already been created and has been implemented over the past year. It’s not perfect yet, but it is in process. There will be revisions and additions to make improvements. Adam would like to capture a class and share it with the SPP Advisory Committee to get their input on how to make the class better. One of the additional components to the SPP is outreach into the community. This work will be continued by Adam, Jordan, Jonathan, Dave, and perhaps other staff as they come on in the future. Questions: Rex – How do you see people following through on this plan, especially in respect to training? Adam: Since these are driven by Executive Order, there is a lot of “must” language that will make this more enforceable. It is adding a step to the purchasing process that makes people stop and think about making this a sustainable purchase. It’s really training people to make this a habit of thinking of sustainability. This will also include ways to make the companies who are on price agreements to show the sustainable options for purchases through SPOTS cards as well. So, individuals as well as departments and companies are all thinking of sustainability. John had questions about the implementation, of these procurement standards. Jordan and Jonathan will address them. Lori is really impressed with how well thought out this plan is, and asked about rolling it out across the state. Adam answered that, that is the goal, but obviously every county and city can’t implement it at the same level as the state. However, we need to make our program the best it can be before sharing it, not just within our state, but also other states (perfect our program before teaching it to others). It is a very exciting thing. Mark – Lane County does not have anything like the SPP, and would like to know if there was a way to simplify this or give the “top 10 things you need to do to make things more sustainable” to share with counties to get them started in that direction. Adam responded that that is the goal, and will share as soon as possible.*Jordan Palmeri presented the Low-Carbon Concrete Project Update. This project actually started with the OSB and the Environmental Footprinting project back in 2014. It started with business case studies by interviewing companies that do track environmental footprinting of their products, and for those who don’t, asked why they weren’t. It was a way to see how the state can help support companies to create more sustainable materials. Food Footprinting profiles was the next step and they were able to make a lot of progress in this area. Now they’re working on concrete. There are Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) which are like a nutrition fact label to show how each mix impacts the environment. This way people can make an informed decision about which kind of mix they would prefer to use due to the environmental impact it makes. For ready mix, there is one standard label, but the goal is to reduce the environmental impact through this labeling process. The only thing you can’t compare is different materials. Concrete and wood products would have different impacts. This program has been successful, and they would like to have more EPD’s from the Medford/Ashland area. There have been at least 8 companies who have followed through with this. There has been a reimbursement plan ($2,500/plant), but really it’s the market and consumers that drive the companies to create EPDs and not the reimbursements. An example of how EPDs are being used is the Treasury building that is being drafted right now. It is a collaboration between public and private companies and one of the first things Jordan has been looking at with the engineers is how the materials impact the environment, not only in the building itself, but also in how that material is made and make sure they’re using the lowest carbon impact possible. One thing that is coming from this is that some of the substitute materials that are replacing concrete are also less expensive, so that there is a cost savings as well as less impact on the environment. There have also been learning moments for manufacturers to where they can see how they can remain competitive in the market. The Concrete Procurement Policy that was created for the City of Portland has really moved companies who were “dragging their feet” for creating EPDs, to create them. California “Buy Clean” project has helped to guide this effort. John would like to see this presentation put on the website. *Jonathan Rivin shared about Supply Chain Analysis by DEQ which is the actual spending that has an environmental impact, purchases = consumption. Another teammate is doing the actual analysis. The analysis comes from the money actually spent by DAS and compared to data acquired by national databases. He is doing a case study on how spending creates greenhouse gasses and other environmental impacts. The slides he shared are just drafts for now and ways to look at the information they are gathering to quickly find places to make environmental impact improvements. He also shared how HFC is impacting the environment. He is working with a national stakeholder workgroup sponsored by the SPLC to create procurement guidelines around HFCs. He is also looking at professional services because they have a huge impact on the supply chain in relation to emissions. Alameda County did a spend/impact analysis that shows how professional services negatively impact the environment. Business sustainability is becoming more important in procurement. They can be used as evaluation criteria for procurement. They have completed sustainability questions in RFP. It was not used in evaluation criteria, but rather used to rank businesses, for information for purchasers. They were mostly small and medium size businesses. Now they are refining the sustainability questions through surveys and following up with contract awardees. Rex – What is “professional services”? Someone sitting at a computer shouldn’t have a large impact on the environment? Jonathan – This is in reference to the people who run laboratories, repair people, people who use computers, transportation, etc. It is what it costs the business to run its operations. John would also like to look at water impacts in the future as we move forward with materials and supply chain.ODE Biennial Energy ReportPresented by: Blake Shelide, Kaci Radcliffe, ODOEKaci started with a slide show presentation which she will share with the OSB after the meeting. ODOE has updated their strategic plan to include more sustainability goals even though their focus is energy. Biennial Energy Report (BER) was updated in 2018 since the previous iteration was mostly from the 70’s. It refers to statutes, topics and recommendations. The ODOE has published the BER on their website. Chapter 1: Energy by the numbers looks at the data from energy resources and consumption, production and generations, trends and end-use sectors, and understanding energy bills and state expenditures. Chapter 2: Overview of literature and strategies for deep decarbonization, considerations in policy design, overview of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation options and opportunities across Oregon. Chapter 3: Renewable energy – Understanding the growth of renewable energy capacity in Oregon, review policies, growing demand and reductions in cost, challenges and opportunities as Oregon integrates more variable renewable electricity onto the grid, and a case study on solar energy. Chapter 4: Transportation – focus on fuels used and emissions from vehicles. Chapter 5: Resiliency – Discusses how Oregon is working to prepare for extreme or disrupting events, focus on community energy resilience, and includes how energy resilience factors into climate change. The guidebook is published on the website. Chapter 6: Energy efficiency – Discusses energy efficiency as a cornerstone of Oregon energy policy, explains policies that promote energy efficiencies and looks at how Oregon can make improvements. Chapter 7: Protecting Consumers – Explores energy burden, consumer protection and equity. Discusses the effects of and uncertainties from a rapidly changing energy sector, notes increasing interest and need for securing more outcomes that are equitable for all Oregonians. There is a lot of room for growth at ODOE in this particular chapter. Chapter 8: Recommendations – Data gaps, addressing equity and energy burden, planning for the future, assessing the need for state engagement and investment. They are currently working on the 2020 BER. Rex asked about the energy burden for certain communities. Kaci was also very surprised about the disparity and it is a focus that they will be working to improve this. This was preliminary data. Mark asked about She is working with the Department of Community Services and getting more in-depth data taking into consideration with demographics and transportation costs.<Amy took a break from 11:06am – 11:21am>2020 BER Framework: Energy by the numbers, Energy resources and technologies, Energy 101/Key Questions, Policy briefings, History and policy landscapeData collection and drafting – are there any data sets or visuals that would be useful to the OSB? John – as a business owner who uses solar panels, how can he and other business owners do more. Perhaps policy changes, and if that, who will take control of that? Rex – A chart where it shows how cost effective solar and other renewable resources are so that businesses can’t use the excuse that it’s too expensive to invest in. Mark – Lane county has a hard time implementing solar due to budget constraints, so can the state be a resource to help with this? >I missed the question due to office phones and tried to capture the essence of it from the answer< Kaci – there is a new staff member who will be looking into cash incentives to get businesses to invest in solar. For Energy 101/Key Questions and Policy Briefings, are there any questions? Lori – Is there any data about how COVID has affected energy? Kaci – there hasn’t been an absence of activity, but rather a shift of activity and data is limited as information on COVID changes frequently. They will be looking for more data to delve into this question. For history and policy landscape, they are looking for people to provide a more in-depth history for Energy in Oregon. They will also be expanding the website to include more information about all of these topics. If you have any other comments or questions there is an online form on the ODOE website that Kaci will see and be able to respond to, if the board thinks of anything else they’d like to know. Rex – I would be interested in seeing a list of outreach organizations focused on peoples of color that ODOE works with. Reaching out to disenfranchised people in the community (homeless, immigrants, people of color), should be another group we look to helping. Kaci will get the information to OSB offline. It is something that is imperative that they will be working on moving forward, especially in the current climate.Blake shared about their work with the most recent EO 20-04, working with codes and the building codes in relation to energy codes. It gives directives to reduce energy emissions by 60% by 2030. There is a meeting next week to start the conversation and look at the metrics to achieve that goal. A more recent EO there were directives in relation to appliances, which include showers, toilets, and others. They will be drafting rules to make appliances more energy efficient and then see about legislation to make them more permanent. The standards apply to any product purchased by the general public, and they will be rolled out by 2022. California is a trendsetter for the west coast due to their resources, so they are using their information to create standards here in Oregon.Transportation RoadmapPresented by: Rex Burkholder, OSBThere are two letters: the one John sent to the ODOT director and the ODOT director’s response. They have a new director and two new offices to help with sustainable transportation in Oregon. One is a Climate Office, which will be leading the efforts to implement the Statewide Transportation Strategy. They are currently identifying ongoing opportunities to address climate change. There is another office that directly focuses on the Portland area in relation to road construction. Brenden Finn is the contact person. ODOT has a huge task ahead of them when it comes to climate change and sustainability. Rex opened it up to questions. Dave asked if Rex had joined the conference call that introduced the Climate Office group. Rex couldn’t attend. Dave commented that there wasn’t really any agenda, but rather it was a question and answer session. There were a lot of people and a lot of great questions were asked of the Climate Office. John would like to look at the recording of the meeting, if there is one. Dave and/or John will reach out and see if that is available. It has been difficult to meet with the OTC and OSB and making meetings happen; however, it could be due to COVID and other, more pressing, issues due to the impact of COVID. Lori commented that it could be that in times of crisis, there is an opportunity for great change. Rex will be reaching out to see if he can get a direct connection to Orlando and see if there is a way to work with ODOT; to see if there’s a way OSB can help ODOT with sustainability. Dave will help in any way he can.<Amy lunch 12:15 – 1:15>Recap of Climate Equity WorkshopsPresented by: Lisa Gaines, David Gremmels, OSBUpdates from Governor’s officesPresented by: Kristen Sheeran, Director, Carbon Policy OfficeExamined the revised proposal to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in agency operations sent to Kristen in May by Dave and John. Many the revisions revolve around removing money from the proposal and addressed COVID concerns. Kristen reviewed the original (sent in April) and revised proposal (sent in May). The EO does three things:1 – establish new scientifically based GHG goals.2 – directions to state agencies to achieve the GHG goals.3 – create broader directives to more state agencies specifically named in the EO and not named in the EOPrioritizing marginalized populations and communities, with problems brought to the environmental justice task force. Agencies address the directives differently and their reports are online. The Carbon Policy Office are reviewing the reports and is helping agencies to narrow down the scope and sequence of their plans so that they are specific and attainable goals. She sees the OSB’s proposal as a guideline and help to all the agencies meet their goals for their sustainability plans. With the help of the OSB and these guidelines, agencies could start seeing sustainability as a cost saving as well as environmental savings. Reducing carbon emissions save agencies money over the course of time. What do we want this to look like after COVID and moving forward?Discussion:John stated that he appreciates Kristen’s acknowledgement of the OSB’s work over the years. He also mentioned how much he appreciates Dave and the work he does not just for DAS, but also the OSB, and the state in general. Dave added that he also works as a liaison between agencies and the OSB, as well as being a resource to the agencies as they write their plans. Mark expressed the importance of the agency and director support. Has HR taken a look at equitability and sustainability being addressed during annual reviews in order to engage agency and department managers in sustainability goals? Offering an accountability piece to help get sustainability closer to the top of importance for agencies and departments? Kristen: There is a lot of alignment between the governor’s EO and meeting Governor Brown’s goals in regards to sustainability. Lori stated that OSB wants to be a useful tool and she appreciates the guidelines of how to help agencies meet GHG goals. Kristen: The OSB is an important tool for agencies. John: We should proceed and get some metrics and data to Kristen as it gets aggregated. Work will be done offline with Kristen, Dave, and John. DAS was suggested as a place to start. Other considerations would be departments that have plans already in place. John is really encouraged by Kristen’s response to the OSB proposal.DHS-OHA Sustainability Efforts and OpportunitiesPresented by: Glen Bason, Manager, DHSGlen got pulled away on an emergency, so will need to reschedule.Open Discussion: Sustainability and COVID: opportunities and challengesPresented by Dave Wortman, DASThere is a group called the Public Sector Sustainability Group and they had their quarterly meeting last week. They discussed how COVID <audio cuts out>. In DAS, there has been a reduction in fleet mileage, savings in energy consumption in buildings. There has been discussion about space utilization. DAS has worked on keeping people closer to keep down on energy costs, but now due to COVID the real estate department has to re-evaluate space because of distancing issues. Something about telecommuting <audio cut out>. It has brought a new discussion to how the COVID crisis could be ways to be more sustainable.*Serena has seen some very positive things about this crisis as communities have opened spaces dedicated to pedestrians, businesses can do with less space. On the other hand, single use items are more safe and prevalent, but it reverses the reduce, reuse, and recycle momentum we had.*Lori was impressed at how quickly we were able to move on the COVID crisis, but it has brought in difficulties.*Rory noted that there is so much to unpack with the whole COVID crisis. His company has been remote since March 15th. It hasn’t impacted meetings, but it has affected on-site visits. It’s been a delicate balancing act. While it has improved some things, but it has also been a strain. On a larger scale, determining where to make investments to have a more sustainable impact rather than returning to “the way it was” as we restart and rebuild the economy.*John added that at the state level will big buildings be necessary if more people work from home? Can those buildings be used for something else? What will the future look like? How can we add equity to our own plans? How do we see around the corner of this crisis? How do we help others see around the corner? *Dave shared that due to the COVID crisis, agencies (particularly within DAS) are looking at smaller spaces as people can telecommute. The Department of Justice was going to build a new building, and since so many people can telecommute, they reduced the size of the building by a large percentage because they realized they don’t need as much space as they thought before the outbreak.*Serena noted that many businesses are just hanging on by a thread which makes sustainability practices not a top priority, but that there are other businesses that are doing okay and keep sustainability as an important topic.*Mark reminded the group that from a local government perspective, there will be a push to reopen because they rely on the tax dollars for mental health support and other social service support. The poor population that have been losing their jobs and needing support from city, county and state offices, which may or may not have the funds to reopen social services. If we are going to talk about equity, we need to keep our impoverished/migrant population in mind. *John agreed and that we need to move forward with that in mind, but that we need to keep moving forward. There has been a lot of good work that has been done, and we don’t want to lose momentum.Recap of actions, next steps, and adjournDiscussion about programs and agencies that have been hit hard by COVID closures. Many programs haven’t been able to continue due to lack of employees and lack of funding. Some agencies, even though they have been cut back, are still making sustainability a priority.Meeting was adjourned at 2:50pm Next Meeting:September 10 – 11, 2020 9:00am – 3:30pmLocation TBD or ZoomSummary of Board/DAS Action ItemsJohn and/or Dave will reach out to the ODOT communications team to see about getting a recording of the Q&A session with the ODOT Climate Change group.Rex will reach out to Orlando to see about making better connections with ODOT.John and Dave reach out to Kristen and Amira offline and review plans to roll out the proposal. Perhaps work together to draft a letter to come from Kristen’s office to the agency and department heads so that they will be more motivated to follow through with the proposal? A lot of agencies have been decimated by COVID and budget cuts, so work on agencies that haven’t been hit as hard.Dave to send condolences to Amira as she lost her grandmother to COVID-19. (E-card? Regular card? Have Dave write a kind message and write the names of all the board members on it.)Dave will revise the presentation schedule as some agencies need more time to work their plans due to COVID closures and budget cuts due to COVID. ................
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