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Properly managing the materials and chemicals used in our daily operations is a high priority. Effective procurement management can result in environmental benefits, such as reduced wastes and toxicity, as well as financial benefits. We have developed procurement procedures and tools that help maximize these benefits. In addition, we have programs in place that allow us to reuse materials within the company.
Environmentally Preferred Procurement
Our EHS policy confirms our corporate support for green procurement, including sections on use of safe products and services, sustainable use of natural resources, stewardship of natural resources and pollution prevention. Our internal corporate procurement procedures further defines this policy:The purchase of all products, including chemicals and hazardous materials, will only be made after consideration of the products' total life cycle. Prior to procurement, materials must be evaluated for environmental attributes such as recycled content, toxicity and disposal options. Employees making procurement decisions share in this responsibility in order to minimize adverse environmental impacts and future liability.
Investment Recovery
APS also has a very successful Investment Recovery department that manages surplus materials. The first objective is to re-deploy useful material within the company. For materials that can not be re-deployed, Investment Recovery may sell, recycle or donate materials. Disposal is the last option. In 2007, Investment Recovery recorded $6.9 million of total recovered dollars (up from $4.4 million in 2006) from recovered materials, and an additional $400,384 of avoided costs (e.g. avoided landfill costs on recycled materials), up from $361,368 in 2006.
In 2007, more than 12.1 million pounds of materials were recycled through Investment Recovery’s programs, up from 11.4 million pounds recycled in 2006.
Chemical Management
All hazardous materials that are used by the company are required to be reviewed by a Chemical Review Team prior to purchase in order to help ensure the use of materials with lower environmental and safety impacts. The teams review new products and compare them to existing products to see which provides the greatest overall benefit to the company. These teams also provide ongoing reviews of current products to evaluate for “greener” alternatives.
All chemical products are assigned a "EHS Rating" based on the Chemical Abstract Numbers (CAS) of the ingredients in the product and the products National Fire Protection Associaton (NFPA) rating. This allows us to quickly evaluate and compare the potential risks and hazards of the products we use, and to make better informed decisions regarding the approval of new products.
Through this process, APS has been able to reduce the number of chemical products across our system by about 50 percent over the past 10 years, and to also reduce the potential risk of the chemical products we use by substituting products with a lower potential for health or environmental impacts.
MSDS
All chemical products used at APS are included in an electronic Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) system which is available to any employee across the company. APS facilities may use only those products approved for use and which are coded on this system. The electronic MSDS system provides other benefits to our EHS efforts since it allows us to quickly identify the specific chemical ingredients contained in the products at our facilities, while highlighting the risk profile of specific products. The MSDS system also allows users to print labels for secondary containers, and improves our ability to identify hazardous materials, in order to ensure such materials are properly stored and handled.
PCB Management
For a number of years, APS has had an aggressive PCB management program in place to manage PCB and PCB contaminated equipment. APS has been successful in reducing the use of PCBs in electrical equipment by targeting suspected equipment based on manufacturer name and serial numbers. The PCB status of our electrical equipment is tracked in an electronic database, which is readily available across the company, including to our field operations via computers in their trucks.
Our company has long been a leader in energy efficiency and energy conservation, and many of our facility energy management efforts have been described in our past EHS Annual Reports. We continued our efforts with positive results in 2007. Facility energy management is also being added to our sustainability metrics and starting next year we will begin reporting actual energy use numbers for our internal facilities.
Our facilities implement a variety of energy-efficiency measures including:
- Operating air conditioning systems with energy-efficiency software that manages duty-cycling and set-backs
- Replacing out-dated air conditioning with high-efficiency equipment
- Writing all new construction specifications with energy efficiency in mind
- Requiring energy-efficient Energy Star computers whenever new computer equipment is needed
More than 97 percent of our facility space is equipped with energy-efficient fixtures. We estimate energy savings of more than 13 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year from the use of energy-efficient products.
In 2003, our corporate headquarters in downtown Phoenix was converted to the Northwind Cooling system which uses an industrial grade, ice-based chiller that manufactures three million pounds of ice each night when utility loads and rates are lowest. The conversion to Northwind eliminated the on-site requirement need for cooling towers and their associated air-conditioning chillers, resulting in a significant reduction in water consumption in the cooling towers, and the elimination of CFC refrigerant R-11 from the chillers.
We are currently developing a voluntary internal metric for energy conservation.
APS is a registered member of the U.S. Green Building Council and has committed to a goal of incorporating Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) principles in our building design and maintenance. LEED principles encourage “design and construction practices that significantly reduce or eliminate the negative impact of buildings on the environment and occupants in five broad areas: sustainable site planning, safeguarding water and water efficiency, energy efficiency and renewable energy, conservation of materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.”
The LEED rating system ensures buildings meet a minimum set of criteria in each of five categories, contributing to a sustainable environment, ensuring a healthy and safe workplace and reducing operational costs.
APS is taking an active role in LEED in order to ensure the sustainability of our own facilities, and to allow us to generate interest for the program as well as educate our customers who may be interested in participating in the LEED program.
APS has three registered LEED projects: the Wickenburg and Flagstaff Service Centers and the new Ocotillo Service Center, and has a voluntary commitment to build all new facilities in compliance with LEED standards.
APS has 2,209 company-owned vehicles, which are managed by the APS Transportation Services department. These vehicles are used to operate and maintain our electric generation, transmission and distribution facilities, business offices and other operations which are located throughout the state of Arizona.
We have been able to significantly increase our fleet fuel efficiency over the past several years, improving from an average of 4.9 miles per gallon in 2001 to an average just over 9 miles per gallon in 2007.
APS is also evaluating the use of hybrid line trucks and will purchase hybrid cars for future fleet use in order to futher improve mile per gallon.
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