While the push is on to green buildings, the RSC Equipment Rental firm has devised a new service to help reduce the environmental impact of a key component of construction: It tracks the emissions of every diesel unit that rolls out of its lots around the country.

"It's a novel approach, but a powerful one," said Kevin Groman, senior vice president and head of sustainability at RSC. "It's been a major undertaking. The impetus, as is always the case, was customer driven."

About 18 months ago, the firm got wind of a client who had been measuring the emissions on each piece of equipment that the client had rented from the company. The process wasn't automated and the client was pretty much doing the calculations one at time, by hand, according to Groman.

"It was an arduous process," he told GreenerBuildings.com in a telephone interview. "But clearly, it was a need our customers had, and so we jumped all over it."

The challenge was to develop an extremely precise method of accounting for greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions of the diesel powered equipment that the firm rents out. With a network of more than 500 locations, RSC's fleet size is about $2.5 billion and 88 percent is diesel powered.

"We spent the last year and a half developing formulae for each particular piece of equipment," Groman recalled.
 
Variables taken into account include engine specs, fuel consumption, load and horse power, among other things. The formula, the data collection method and the framework for calculation were independently verified by the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, which aided in development, Groman said.

So now, "each time a piece of equipment comes off a rent, the calculation (of the emissions footprint) is made ... and it is included on invoices automatically, so customers have the data and can use it to manage their environmental footprint," Groman said. They don't pay extra for the calculation; it's part of the service that comes from renting equipment from RSC.

"In effect, it's a road map for the customers," said Groman. "It's one thing (for a company) to measure emissions. But it's quite another to do so in a way that can help customers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."

RSC conducted its pilot for the service in three states. Then in October — the same week President Barack Obama signed his executive order on the federal sustainability initiative — RSC launched its program nationwide, becoming the first in its industry to do so.

"Climate change is here," Groman said. "The regulations are here. The time to do this is now. People who focus on sustainability are really going to have a competitive advantage. I think it's the wave of the future."

So far the program has been well-received.

"Customers are very pleased," Groman said. "I've heard they think we're way ahead of the curve -- and that they'd like to see other vendors do this."


Images courtesy of RSC.