Conserving Energy in Our Buildings
Following the advice of energy experts who conducted audits at 30 Mass Audubon locations, we have significantly reduced energy consumption in Mass Audubon buildings, many of which were built more than 50 years ago. We have cut our use of electricity and of natural gas, propane, and heating oil by:
- Increasing or replacing building insulation and sealing air leaks in almost all of our 150 heated buildings. As a result, we have reduced annual consumption of heating oil by 19,000 gallons per year, or 35 percent of the 2003 baseline consumption.
- Upgrading old, inefficient heating systems in many buildings.
- Replacing all refrigerators and freezers manufactured prior to 1995 with Energy Star approved models.
- Replaced incandescent light bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. Subsequently, replacing 2900 CFL bulbs with even more efficient light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs and also replacing fluorescent tube lighting with LED tubes.
- Replacing air conditioners and dehumidifiers at 13 sites with Energy Star approved models.
- Replacing more than 200 desktop and laptop computers with EPEAT Gold-rated equipment.
- Replacing all less-efficient computer monitors with LCD and LED monitors and installing energy-saving surge protectors for all desktop computers.
- Reducing the number of servers and increasing the energy efficiency of our remaining servers.