(Greg Bland is the director of Travois Environmental Services.)
At Travois, practicing a green way of living is important to us. We have a mission to leave as little carbon footprint on our planet as possible. We also promote green practices to our clients and are currently pursing financing options for environmental projects in Indian Country.
Earth Day is Monday, April 22 and what better time is there then now to give a solar array update? But first – some history. The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970 and was a peaceful protest held across the United States in favor of environmental reform. Earth Day participation has grown over time and has been used as a powerful stage to address environmental issues around the world. Today, Earth Day is recognized in 192 countries and celebrated by over one billion people every year. To learn more and to find Earth Day events near you, click here.
Travois has been working in various ways to minimize our environmental impact. Just more than a year ago, we completed construction on a 75Kw solar array on the roof of our headquarters in Kansas City. After a full year of sunlight and some really cool, (some may say nerdy) monitoring tools, we have been able to calculate how much electricity we have been producing. We were anticipating to produce approximately 90,000 kW hours of electricity during a 12 month period. Good news for us – we produced much more than that! In the last 12 months, we produced 107,000 kW hours of electricity. This is not only great for our electricity bills, it is great for the environment too. For instance, in the last two months, our solar array has offset more than 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, a leading compound in greenhouse gas.
We are very hopeful that other companies across the country, and world, also make the move to greener practices and take advantage of the great technology available to improve the environment we live in.
Happy Earth Day!