Agenda- 04-20-2018 12-2 - Information Item - Orange County Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility Goal Update

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management projects that fit the needs of several County departments. Participating in a joint project with AMS and other departments to formalize and modernize a records management and retention program driven by the Space Study Workgroup charge. • Energy efficient computer fleet: Continued replacement of older less-efficient machines with Energy Star or equivalent desktop computers and laptops for County staff. • Virtualization: Continued virtualization and hyper-convergence efforts will soon allow the County to reduce the number of physical servers it uses by nearly 50%. This practice decreases energy use and increases the storage space available in County buildings. Planning and Inspections- • SolSmart Silver Award: Planning and Inspections staff provided critical technical guidance in the completion of Orange County’s application to the SolSmart program, in collaboration with the Sustainability Program. SolSmart is a national recognition and technical support program to help governments lower the costs for businesses and residents to build solar energy systems. The Sustainability Program joined sustainability staff from Chapel Hill and Carrboro in a successful application for 6 months of no-cost, full-time, “SolSmart” technical assistance from the NC Clean Energy Technology Center. This broad collaboration resulted in reduced barriers to solar development in Orange County and a silver-level designation in the 2017 SolSmart Communities program. • Telemeet: Various departments, especially the planning department, are conferencing in to meetings in other counties instead of driving, resulting in less pollution, decreased costs and more productive staff time. This ‘telemeet’ is still taking shape since features will need to be added on both ends to include web-sharing and video and other interactive tools. • Land Management Central Permitting Software (LMCPS): This advanced software is being developed to manage Building, Planning, Erosion Control, Environmental Health, Fire Marshall and Solid Waste permitting and inspection. Once established, it will decrease paper (electronic records), allow more interaction via the internet and phone thereby decreasing office traffic and parking limitations, and create a better GIS interface to make field inspections more efficient with time and travel costs. • Greene Tract Environmental and Cultural Analysis: Orange County worked with Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the Rogers Road community environmental and cultural experts to analyze the value of the Greene Tract for preservation of flora, fauna, streams and wetlands and corridors. Solid Waste Management: • Waste Reduction Performance: For FY 16-17 Orange County once again achieved an overall 62% waste reduction rate, meaning that the waste landfilled per capita was 0.52 tons per person last year compared to 1.36 tons/capita per person in base year 1991. o This was the 4th best in NC and the other counties are smaller and more rural. o This surpassed for the fourth year in a row, our goal set in 1997 of 61% reduction in waste per person landfilled. • Completion and opening of renovated Waste and Recycling Center on Eubanks Road: The improved center opened in April 2018. The new site is fully paved, using compactors and two-tiered loading for large and bulky materials to facilitate more efficient and safer operations. New recycling services at the site include food scraps, cooking oil, textiles and plastic bags. The Hazardous Household Waste collection point was integrated into the site and hours increased from 44 to 59 commensurate with 6