Houston Organizations
Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau
As of Jan. 1, 2007, all GHCVB publications—the Houston Official Visitors Guide, Houston Meeting Planners Guide, Houston Fact Finder and Houston Membership Directory—will be printed on recycled paper. All GHCVB business cards and postcards are also printed on recycled paper. The GHCVB is one of the first convention and visitors bureaus in the country to print on environmentally-friendly paper.
It takes 15-17 mature (30-year growth) trees to make one ton of paper. Using 10 percent "post consumer" waste, which is the requirement for publications to be considered recycled, two trees per ton will be saved. In addition to the GHCVB's major publications (listed below), all promotional postcards, business cards and day-to-day paper used is recycled.
Publication details:
- Houston Official Visitors Guide
Published quarterly
36 tons of paper per quarter
Saves 144 trees per year - Houston Meeting Planners Guide
Published annually
10 tons of paper per year
Saves 20 trees per year - Houston Fact Finder
Published annually
3.45 tons of paper per year
Saves 6.9 trees per year - Houston Membership Directory
Published twice a year
½ ton of paper per issue
Saves 2 trees per year
Houston Downtown Management District
- Urban Design & Planning projects to maximize use of public transit
- Extensive streetscape improvements to facilitate pedestrian use of the city, helping to minimize automobile trips and reduce congestion
- A downtown circulator system currently in development will employ vehicles running on sustainable alternative fuel
- The District's Green Walls initiative will create numerous wall cover plantings to screen blank walls and parking garages in downtown, improving aesthetic value, air quality and reducing heat island effect.
City of Houston Public Works and Engineering
As an incentive to encourage Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating SystemTM certification, the Planning & Development Services Code Enforcement Plan Review Section will begin offering Quick Start service to any project which has registered for LEED certification regardless of construction cost.
Currently, the Quick Start plan review option is available only to projects that have submitted complete plans and have an estimated construction cost of $1M or more. By opting to pay an additional fee of 65% of the permit cost, the final plan review is completed in a face to face conference-like meeting with the reviewers, designers and owners present. The Quick Start program has been a popular option as it generally eliminates at least one plan resubmittal.
For the review participants will need to submit:
- A Quick Start Application
- The project registration receipt from the US Green Building Council (USGBC)
- The checklist of points the building is designed to achieve
- The required Quick Start fee (65% of building permit)
- Retro-fit lighting installed to be more energy efficient
- All new HVAC system, also to be more energy efficient
