By Margie Palmer | SDUN Reporter

The Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, in collaboration with San Diego Gas and Electric held its third annual sustainability workshop on Jan. 27.

Held at the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA), the forum drew a crowd of approximately 100 community members and business owners, all aspiring to learn more about the principals and practices of sustainability.

San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria was the first to address the forum’s attendees, speaking to the cost savings achieved within the park through energy retrofits.

“We have significantly reduced energy consumption and are on target to save millions of dollars in reduced costs to Balboa Park institutions,” Gloria said. “Over the past three years, energy saving projects account for almost 5.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity and 91,000 therms of natural gas saved annually. This means savings of close to $800,000 and a reduction of 3,882 metric tons of emissions from our air.”

The San Diego Museum of Art alone, he said, saved more than 65,000 kilowatt hours and $65,000 in 2010. Gloria hopes Balboa Park will become a national model for sustainability by the park’s centennial in 2015.

Balboa Park Director of Environmental Sustainability Rory Ruppert said that discussions as to how to increase sustainability efforts within the park are ongoing.

“When we first began discussions on planning and program implementation we began getting a lot of calls from individual staff members asking how they could get involved, or saying that ‘this is what I do at home’, and for me this was an early trigger to me that this was a grass roots movement,” Rupert said. “Since that time facility managers and Chief Financial Officer throughout the park continue to meet to discuss sustainability goals through 2015. It’s a path we are all going to take together.”

At current, two buildings within the park; the San Diego Natural History Museum and the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, have been certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED Silver certification is granted to buildings which meet certain strategies in improving energy savings, water savings, and carbon dioxide emissions reductions.

The park is currently pursuing LEED Silver certification for the World Beat Cultural Center.

Gloria said that the green movement seen within the park is about bringing it into balance with the resources it consumes and the ones it generates.

“All of these things are important because coming into our centennial the goal is to leave the park better than we found it,” he said. “It is our responsibility to preserve and protect this incredible Park now, so that it continues to function as an iconic landmark.”