I recently had the opportunity to speak with Greg Lee, the Chief Financial Officer of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Livestrong, about the design and buildout of the new Livestrong world headquarters in Austin, Texas. Livestrong is in the process of converting a 30,000 square-foot, 1950′s-era industrial building into a modern, green, collaborative workspace for their foundation’s efforts to combat cancer. You may have seen some video clips of Lance Armstrong touring the new facility yesterday here on EdgeHopper. In this interview, Greg gives us a more detailed look at all of the sustainable design elements of the new building and discusses the long-term financial savings they will provide. He also delves into the collaborative nature of the space and the teams at the foundation. I was going to turn the interview into a blog post, but Greg provided so much great information in such a passionate way that I wanted to have you hear it from Greg himself. To that end, this blog post is also about introducing the first edition of the new EdgeHopper podcast series. As I do more interviews in the future, I’ll try to include them as podcasts here on EdgeHopper and through iTunes as well. Hmmm…launching a new venture on Friday the 13th, gutsy eh? Anyway, I hope you enjoy this first interview with a fantastic person from an amazing organization.

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At the Lance Armstrong Foundation, we fight for the more than 28 million people around the world living with cancer today. There can be – and should be – life after cancer for more people. That’s why we kick in at the moment of diagnosis, giving people the resources and support they need to fight cancer head-on. We find innovative ways to raise awareness, fund research and end the stigma about cancer that many survivors face. We connect people and communities to drive social change, and we call for state, national and world leaders to help fight this disease. Anyone, anywhere can join our fight against cancer. Join us at LIVESTRONG.org.

About the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Campaign

Lance made the decision to return to cycling because he thrives on competition. For his Foundation, the competition is the global threat of cancer. Cancer is poised to become the world’s leading cause of death by 2012. The Global Cancer Campaign is a worldwide initiative uniting everyone from survivors like Lance to world leaders and policymakers who must commit to the effort to avoid a public health catastrophe. To put it simply, we’re going to build a global movement against cancer, and we’re going to win.

We were very fortunate to have Matt and Penelope Gilliland give us a tour of New Belgium’s office space and brewing operation.  The office spaces at New Belgium contain so many materials that are either recycled, re-used, re-purposed, or made from renewable resources that it’s almost overwhelming.  Here are just some of the green office solutions we got to see:

• Desks made from former bowling alley floors and Fed-Ex shipping tubes
• Conference tables made from recycled keg caps
• Marmoleum tables from Forbo
• Sound dampening wall and ceiling panels made of dried compressed grasses
• Recycled carpeting from Flor
• Bamboo flooring
• Chairs and stools made of re-purposed bicycle components
• White boards made from recycled fiberglass
• Recycled sheet metal and magnet bulletin boards

Aside from the office materials, the brewing process is incredibly green as well.  They have truly gone beyond just recycling and are actively closing the loop on waste in their operation.  New Belgium has its own onsite process water treatment facility. This allows them to clean the water used for brewing and other purposes throughout the facility.  In a series of ponds, bacteria feed on the organic waste in the process water and clean it.  A byproduct of this process is the production of methane. New Belgium captures this methane and pipes it back into their building where it fires a combined heat and power engine that produces both electrical and thermal energy. This powers about 10-15% of the brewery and closes the waste loop by turning a potential wastestream into a useful commodity.

In addition to the methane power they generate, New Belgium buys 100% of the rest of it’s electric power from Fort Collins Utilities as wind power.  They actively work to reduce their power consumption by using plenty of windows, skylights, and sun tubes for natural lighting.  When lighting is needed, it appeared that they had motion sensors on many of their lights to turn them on automatically only when needed.  To reduce their power load for cooling their beers, they use large induction fans to pull in the cool Ft. Collins air in the winter.

All in all, we were absolutely impressed and amazed at the effort New Belgium has made to become a leader in sustainable business practices.  I can write a ton more here about their sustainable practices and how well New Belgium treats their employees (free bikes after a year, a trip to Belgium after 5 years!!!) but I’ll try to keep this relatively short.  We didn’t get a chance to speak with their IT folks about what they’re doing to reduce their impact, but I plan to follow up in the future to see if we can get any ideas on that front as well.  And yes, we had a great time…and drank some beer at the end!  Here are a few shots of the team checking out the brewery.

Mike Juniper, Vish, Jeff Germain, me, and Dave Bouwman in the brewhouse

Dave nearly took this cask of beer home with him!!!

Talking sustainable industry (and beer) with Matt Gilliland of New Belgium (second from left)

Matt Gilliland demos the cool touch screen process controller.  From this single panel, any aspect of the brewing, fermentation, delivery, and storage can be controlled.  Talk about the killer app…and the killer job.  We were all a bit jealous of Matt!!!

The obligatory beer tasting with Mike, Matt, and Dave.  The barstools are made from old bicycle rims and assorted bicycle parts.

We tried to recycle everything we possibly could from this mountain of packaging.  To our dismay, we discovered that our local recycling center doesn’t recycle styrofoam so we’re trying to find someplace to take it (if you’re from Northern Colorado and have suggestions, please pass them along).  But, we did recycle all of our cardboard, paper, and plastics.  It would be even nicer if we didn’t have to recycle at all, because as William McDounough and Michael Braungart point out in their book Cradle to Cradle, recycling is slow motion waste.  But for now, we feel that at least we’re not adding to another landfill pile.

And yes, we’ve been making sure we turn off our machines every day.  And since we’re working from my home right now, we’re employing my 1-1/2 year old son to to turn off all of our monitors every night.  You can’t get them started too young these days!

I wholeheartedly agree with Ryan’s stance on Green IT and believe that if all of us in the IT world, from the smallest one man shop to the largest of the uber corporations pitch in, we can make a difference and begin to reverse to devastating effects of global warming.  Our five person development team  will be designing a new office space here in Fort Collins, Colorado in the coming weeks and we plan to use as many green resources as we possibly can.  However, it doesn’t take a complete office redesign to begin reducing your team’s carbon footprint.  For ideas on what you can do to start engaging in sustainable and restorative IT practices, check out Ryan’s blog and resources at his Greening of the Software and High Tech Industry hive in Agile Commons.  I’ve said it before, I’m a true believer that we can do anything if we put our minds to it, so please join the new industrial revolution and help do your part to reduce waste in the IT industry.

Here are some resources to check out to get you on your way to green IT practices:

Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins

Cradle to Cradle by William McDounough and Michael Braungart