Just noticed that priorities are changing and rationality returning to the environmental front. Now that the president with 19th century vision is gone, the country can return to concern about the health of the environment. I saw a TV ad last night with Ford Motor Co. advertising the F-150 pick-up in an electric version. We must all act responsibly and individually decide what we can do to contribute and in the aggregate make a large positive impact. CI Works hosts companies focused on energy efficiency and savings, renewable energy generation, and sustainability focused behaviors regarding waste and reuse. But, we all must act individually to achieve the needed results.
CI Works is a ‘real estate as a service’ business where we focus on the functional strengths of buildings and make those accessible to the greatest number of tenant companies. We also cater to the specific needs of early stage companies to identify flexible lease terms that work for them and encourage collaboration across businesses. Our environmental contribution is making the real estate we own as energy efficient as possible, generate PV electricity from our roof, and by installing EV charging stations in the parking lot to expand the charging infrastructure availability to promote the use of electric vehicles.
The picture above shows one of our tenants – Natalie Hildt-Treat from C-10 Research and Education – charging her EV at CI Works, the first charge ever at CI Works, and free $$$.
The Charging stations install was completed by All-Pro Electric. All-Pro approached CI Works about adding EV charging stations, where they would do all of the work – starting with grant applications with Mass DEP, incentives applications through National Grid, through the successful installation and on-line networking required to become part of the EV charging station grid network. They have been a great partner, thorough, reliable, and very knowledgeable in a complex state / utility landscape.
We intend to offer free charging to tenant businesses and their employees as both a benefit and also our way of educating people about EV’s and the future of transportation. We’ll also offer discounted rates for charging to tenant visitors and customers. We want to differentiate our building from others related to environmental awareness....not bad for a 100 year old building. Finally, the charging stations will be available to community residents and visitors in need of charging while here in Amesbury.
Rooftop – next comes solarizing our rooftop in conjunction with the state of Mass – Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program to actually power the building. More to come…