Tour of Devens

DEVENS ECO-EFFICIENCY CENTER

Helping area businesses and organizations reduce their environmental impacts and operating costs through education, collaboration and technical assistance.

Q Tour of Devens

Tour of Devens

Devens, a former Military base is being redeveloped as an eco-industrial park with the guiding principle of sustainability and a triple-bottom line approach to development—economy, ecology and community. Below is a snapshot of some of the businesses, industries, non-profits and governmental organizations and future planning projects at Devens and how they are or will contribute to the sustainability movement. Devens is envisioned to become a self sustaining community for the future where residents can live work and play in a safe, healthy and well planned accessible community.

1 Devens Common:

· Hotel donates use of Conference Center kitchen facilities to local charity making cookies for troops abroad.

· Roof run-off from all buildings goes into cistern for reuse for irrigation.

· All services within ½ mile of all residents in Devens.

· Hilton Garden composting & recycling program diverts 52% of waste.

2 Laddawn:

· Existing building reuse (Former Army Library).

· Biodegradable plastic bag manufacturing company.

· Employee wellness program (health club memberships & bicycle sharing program).

3 Transitions:

· Social Equity - 13 unit home for battered women with children

· LEED for Homes Gold Certification (Sustainable building design and construction)

· Reduced parking footprint

· Walking distance to local services.

10 Devens Eco-Efficiency Center:

· Facilitates the “Great Exchange” - waste reduction programs for local firms.

· 50 tons of material diverted each year.

· Educational programs, technical assistance and Networking forums.

· EcoStar environmental branding and achievement program—triple bottom-line tool for Devens and surrounding area businesses.

8 Devens Dept. of Public Works:

· Free recycling for business & residents(3 tons/month)

· Negotiated recycling contract for all businesses

· Shared equipment & vehicle maintenance for Fire, Police, Municipality, neighboring towns

· State of the art wash water recycling unit

· On EcoStar Steering committee.

9 Devens Recycling:

· Recycling wood, gypsum, asphalt, concrete

· Material exchange and reuse (chipping wood waste for biomass energy)

· Co-location and by-product exchange opportunities

· Combined heat and power generation

· Multi-Modal access.

5 Francis W. Parker Charter School:

· Reuse of existing building and purchase of “used” building (embodied energy).

· Students developed a “green team”- recycled paper donations, anti-idling campaign.

· Community garden growing local produce for school cafeteria and Loaves and Fishes food pantry.

Shriver Job Corps

· US Department of Labor job training program – social equity.

12 Parker Hannifin—Nichols Aircraft Division:

· Manufacturer of aircraft components

· Incoming product packaging reuse program—bubble wrap and egg tray exchange with local businesses.

11 Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry:

· Food pantry offering food, clothing and necessities to those in need.

· Partners with local businesses to do food drives that benefit hundreds of local families in need.

· Reuses large plastic bags that originally protected incoming inventory of a local business.

· Low-Impact Landscaping—no mow zones.

· Composts food scraps to local pig farm.

16 Devens Open Space:

· 2600 acres incl. Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge, floodplain of the Nashua River

· 500 acres of active recreation fields

· 70 acre Mirror Lake features swimming and fishing

· Recreational Trail system – form of green infrastructure – connecting people, nature and development.

· Environmental Restoration.

22 Citizens Energy—3MW Solar Farm:

· 28 ac. Ground-mounted solar photovoltaic panel array providing renewable energy to Devens waste water treatment plant.

· Site layout avoiding sensitive environmental resources.

· Preservation/expansion of permanently protected lands (additional 128 ac.).

20 US Fish and Wildlife Visitors Center:

· Reused building materials.

· Green roofs.

· Recreation trail connections into Devens network.

· Universally accessible river access

· Low-Impact Development drainage design.

· Pervious pavement.

21 Eglomisé Designs:

· Zero Waste Firm.

· Donations of all reusable materials to businesses and non-profits.

· Toxic Use Reduction (lead).

· Adaptive building reuse.

· Repurpose packing materials from other companies.

17 Bristol-Myers Squibb:

· Corporate Sustainability – triple bottom-line.

· On-campus bike share and EV charging stations.

· Parking up instead of out (env. footprint reduction).

· Adopted endangered species, trail maintenance.

· BMS - shared space during construction.

· CoreNet Magazine - 2006 #1 economic development deal in the world.

· Process water recycling & re-use.

· LEED Gold& Silver green buildings.

18 Apex Properties:

· Adaptive re-use (green building)

· LID (biofiltation landscape islands, grass-lined swales, rain gardens (planning), phased parking.)

· Connecting into Devens Trail system

· Mt Wachusetts Community College BioPharma Job Training program (adjacent to BioPharma cluster in Devens)

· Investigating geothermal

19 American Superconductor:

· Electrical systems & power modules for wind turbines

· Highly efficient underground transmission wires able to carry 574 MW of power within a 4’wide ROW (versus 200-foot above-ground transmission line)

· Energy Efficiency projects

14 Magnemotion:

· Magnetic levitation systems development— trains float over a guideway using basic principles of magnets to replace the old steel wheel and track trains

· Alternative transportation mode - non-fossil fuel-based

· Magnetic field created by the electrified coils in the guideway walls & the track combine to propel train down the track.

From: Railway Technical Research Institute

4 Sustainable Housing Project:

· 8—Zero-Net Energy and Positive Energy Single Family Homes (super-insulated, renewable energy, efficient HVAC, passive solar) with LID and reduced development footprint.

· Affordable workforce housing.

· Model for future housing.

· 12-unit multi family sustainable housing demonstration project across the street.