Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA – Hayley Farr – 2011

Goals 

Hayley Jean Farr spent her summer as an EDF Climate Corps fellow at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), headquartered in Boston. In 2011, BCBSMA established three corporate sustainability goals: to identify energy efficiency opportunities in its office buildings, to increase BCBSMA’s recycling rate and to decrease its paper use. 

Solutions

During her fellowship, Farr tracked baseline metrics and evaluated progress toward BCBSMA’s corporate goals and developed implementation plans, business cases and recommendations for each goal. Specifically, Farr analyzed the results of lighting audits conducted at BCBSMA’s LEED certified facilities, and identified immediate opportunities to eliminate or replace inefficient, decorative MR-16 halogen light bulbs with light emitting diodes (LEDs). 

Farr also supported the transition of BCBSMA’s sustainability program, green@blue, from a grass-roots initiative to a strategic component of the newly formed Corporate Citizenship division. She proposed a vision and framework for the program based on internal discussions and competitor benchmarking, presented recommendations on internal sustainability barriers and developed an on-boarding guide for BCBSMA’s new Environmental Impact Manager.

Potential Impact

When implemented, Farr’s recommendations could reduce BCBSMA’s energy use by over 290,000 kilowatt hours per year, saving nearly $30,000 in operations and maintenance costs and 147 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually. BCBSMA plans to implement this project in phases over the next year, by utilizing in-house staff.