July 6, 2010

This past quarter has been very interesting and very productive.  We’ve been running quite a bit of plastic and I am pleased to say that we produced our first live job.  The learning curve is big and we need to buy some equipment for testing, but we feel like we’re going to be a force to reckon with.  The fact that we have a rotary stamping press is huge and will be a great advantage in plastic packaging.

On the green front, UPB has been awarded a grant from the American Recovery Act and we will be adding another 28kWh to our solar array. This will make our system 38kWh, making us a real player in the renewable energy field.

Our lighting and compressed air project is complete and its official: the air system alone is 107,000kWh of savings.  That powers 12 average sized homes.  Overall, we saw an 18% drop in our power bill at the Finishing Building last month alone.

Paperboard is tight and we have been scrambling to keep up. Thus far, we have not disappointed a customer, but it’s been tough.  Good relationships with our suppliers have once again paid off. 

UPB has passed two major audits for food safety and we feel like our house is really in order.  These audits have been a positive learning experience and we feel like we run one of the cleanest packaging shops in the country.

So now it’s game time, as we head into our busy season. The next few months are going to be about running wide open and installing solar panels!

May 2, 2010

To celebrate Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary, UPB has purchased 1,806,000 kWh of certified American wind power through Renewable Choice Energy.  This is the right thing to do for us and this first purchase is a commitment for the next two years.  As we begin building our new Printing building, the wind power will count toward our LEED certification as well. All those kilowatts translate to enough power to run 96 average sized homes for two years - this is a substantial amount of power!  To put it in perspective, our solar array will generate about 15,000 kWh of power this year and we thought that was big!  
UPB is committed to a 33%reduction of our environmental footprint by 2017 and this is just another step in that direction.

Happy Earth Day!
From Team UPB

“Click image for more information on Earth Day 2010”

Febuary 23, 2010

UPB and Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) are doing a lighting and compressed air project together.  We are in the process of putting in 233 new T-8 light fixtures replacing the current T-12’s  This will result in a 20% savings on each fixture as T-8’s are 32 watts and T-12’s are 40 watts.  T-8’s are also 4% brighter.  We are also re-plumbing all of our air to be more efficient and run in a loop at lower pressure with much bigger storage tank.  RMP estimated that UPB will save approximately 275,000 kWh of electricity per year.  Rocky Mountain power states the ROI on these projects is 7 years.  This project will be complete in the first quarter of 2010 and should cut our carbon footprint significantly.     
We take our goal of reducing our carbon footprint 33% by 2017 very seriously and this is just one more step we are doing to accomplish this.

November 11, 2009

Some companies have gone out and bought "green power" and for that we applaud them, but here at UPB we are used to thinking outside the box. So we thought, "Why let Rockey Mountain Power have all the fun? Let's make our own power!" so we did. Behold the rooftop of the future. On the west side of the building we are harvesting sunlight to light the building with our new GPS solar tracking skylights. On the East side of the building we have just finished installing the first phase of our solar farm: a 10kw system that will generate 5% of the power for the building it sits on top of. Over the next five years we want to grow the system to 50kw's or 50,000 watts