By David Pendered

MARTA is expanding its sustainability program and on Friday received proposals from seven companies vying for a contract to recommend and implement steps the transit system can take to further reduce its usage of water and electricity.

One way to think of MARTA’s plan is as a full physical examination of an athlete conducted at the start of a sports season.

Everything that can be measured is to be measured. Once that baseline is determined, MARTA will begin implementing specific recommendations to improve performance across all of its facilities.

The product MARTA is seeking is called an investment grade audit. An IGA is a sweeping reform program that the federal Department of Energy defines as a three-step process:

“A detailed account of energy and water use;

“Cost/savings analysis of potential energy and water savings opportunities;

“Project proposal of bundled measures, with a financing plan as well as implementation and savings verification plans.”

MARTA has high expectations of the IGA, according to the scope of work outlined in the request for proposals.

Expectations includes incentives – MARTA wants to identify and secure all energy, water, demand, operational savings and renewable utility incentives to each market sector, meaning plumbing, electricity and so forth.

They include a list of facilities – size, upgrades made within the past three years, operating logs and maintenance reports.

They even include a, “summary of value beyond energy costs.” This means, “employee retention and recruiting benefits, employee productivity benefits, etc.” The RFP states that this portion of the report must be at least qualitative, but that, “quantitative would be best.”

MARTA states in the RFP that it is, “concerned about the quality of the environment.” The 2009 initial baseline resulted in a number of sustainability programs that include: