Georgia Natural Gas (GNG), Georgia’s leading natural gas provider, and Georgia Aquarium today announced that the Aquarium is the first organization to take advantage of Greener Life® for Business, a new service from GNG that purchases carbon offsets on behalf of GNG’s commercial customers to make emissions from their natural gas use carbon neutral.

Greener Life for Business demonstrates how GNG can play an important role in helping commercial and industrial customers offset emissions while still maintaining day-to-day operations. Through the program, businesses can reduce their emissions footprint significantly without the complications associated with building new infrastructure or replacing appliances.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Georgia Aquarium, enabling them to continue relying on natural gas for their operations while also making strides toward their environmental goals,” said Mike Braswell, GNG president and CEO. “GNG is proud to offer this program to support the work of local businesses and contribute to reduced emissions with the use of natural gas.”

Georgia Aquarium is always looking for innovative ways to reduce our environmental impact. Our partnership with Georgia Natural Gas and the Greener Life for Business program provides us the opportunity to reduce our emissions and promote a cleaner, healthier planet.

“GNG’s Greener Life for Business program is the latest initiative from the Southern Company Gas family that supports our mission to fuel a cleaner future,” said David Weaver, senior vice president of external strategy and environmental affairs at Southern Company Gas. “Many commercial and industrial processes rely on the unique, high-heat properties that natural gas provides. It’s often not easy – nor affordable – for these businesses to find alternatives. Our goal is to support the continued use of clean, safe, reliable and affordable natural gas across multiple industries while helping businesses both large and small reduce their environmental footprint.”

The Greener Life program also makes it easy for consumers to reduce their emissions footprint at an affordable rate of only $4.99/month. For a limited time, residential customers who sign up for Greener Life will receive their first six months free.

For all those participating, GNG uses Environmental Protection Agency standards to calculate the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from customers’ use of natural gas. GNG then purchases and retires carbon offsets to balance the impact of those customers’ emissions.

GNG has purchased carbon offsets from the Wolf Creek Landfill Project in Georgia and the Doe Mountain Forest Improvement Project in Tennessee. Each quarter, GNG will retire enough carbon offsets on behalf of residential and commercial participants to completely offset the greenhouse gases released by their natural gas use the prior quarter.

Residential consumers looking to lessen their environmental impact can visit gng.com/greenerlife.

Additional information on Greener Life for Business can be found at gng.com/business/green.

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About Georgia Natural Gas

Georgia Natural Gas is part of SouthStar Energy Services. SouthStar is owned by Southern Company Gas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO). SouthStar also operates as Ohio Natural Gas, Florida Natural Gas, Maryland Energy, Pennsylvania Energy, Grand Rapids Energy (in Michigan), and in other parts of the Southeast as SouthStar Energy Services. SouthStar’s subsidiaries in Illinois operate as Illinois Energy and Illinois Energy Solutions.

About Southern Company Gas

Southern Company Gas is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE:SO), America’s premier energy company. Southern Company Gas serves approximately 4.3 million natural gas customers through its regulated distribution companies in four states with approximately 666,000 retail customers through its companies that market natural gas. Other businesses include investments in interstate pipelines and ownership and operation of natural gas storage facilities. For more information, visit southerncompanygas.com.

Since its opening in 2005, Georgia Aquarium has prioritized being a unique educational experience for both guests and students alike. The dedication and focus of these efforts have been recognized as Georgia Aquarium becomes the first aquarium to be a Cognia Certified STEM Provider.

Many of the students and guests that visit Georgia Aquarium may never see the ocean in their lifetime. It is deeply engrained in the Aquarium’s mission to bring the ocean to those who have never seen a shoreline. This is done through engaging and educational interactions and exhibits with thousands of animals from all over the world including the Arctic, the Indo-Pacific, and even freshwater Georgia streams.

As the largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere topping 11 million gallons of water, Georgia Aquarium has the incredible opportunity to provide hands-on and up-close animal encounters that serve as learning experiences.

“When a student can get close to an animal and see their eyes, or scales, or watch it swim, it creates a powerful emotional connection. Those connections help students retain and understand the information they are learning in that moment,” said Dr. Brian Davis, president and CEO of Georgia Aquarium. “Through our engaging educational programs, we work to create those life-long bonds to inspire respect for our ocean and a willingness to protect it,” said Davis.

Georgia Aquarium offers a variety of educational programming, field trips, teacher resources, and hands-on learning for students of all ages. The education loop within the Aquarium was recently redesigned to demonstrate STEM learning in each of the classrooms for our school groups that learn on-site. The education department leads two camps each year with STEM themes. One of these camps gives seventh grade girls the opportunity to learn STEM and STEAM alongside researchers and educators. They explore the science of marine biology, engineering behind research tools, and even put their STEM skills to the test by working together to build things like remote operated vehicles.

We are prepared to continue our educational outreach and learning to students and guests of all ages to teach them about STEM. As a Cognia Certified STEM Provider, this helps validate the science, technology, engineering, and math we have been teaching in our non-traditional classroom for the last 15 years and we are excited to continue that important work.

Educational outreach even extends to the front of our galleries for families and educators. The gallery guides include field guides, providing information on our extraordinary animals and STEM careers within Georgia Aquarium. The goal is to emphasize the many career paths and courses of study students could pursue in aquatic sciences including, marine biology, microbiology, psychology, and even behavioral science.

“As a former middle school and high school science teacher I understand the value of hands-on and visual learning of STEM and STEAM related fields and I carry that experience with me into my current role at Georgia Aquarium,” said Davis. “To complement that, my former role as director of a STEM-based high school and my work in Cobb County schools has helped clearly provide a foundation for immersing students in learning. Now, those experiences coincide with my current role at the Aquarium and the Aquarium’s truly immersive exploration of STEM related fields.”

Over the course of the last several months, the Aquarium has worked to create and provide new virtual educational offerings in accordance with STEM for educators and students completing at-home learning. In addition to online lesson plans and field guides, the nonprofit now offers virtual field trips, virtual tours, and even virtual animal encounters to show students what STEM careers and fields of study await them at a place like Georgia Aquarium.

“We recognize that learning is changing, and we can provide important STEM education through virtual and visual learning,” said Davis.

During Georgia Aquarium’s closure earlier this year in the effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Aquarium debuted online education videos that address STEM careers, topics, aquatic and natural science. Led by the education department and expert researchers and aquarists, these videos provide educators and parents the ability to showcase these topics without leaving their home or classrooms. All of the Aquarium’s at-home learning assets are available free of charge and at anytime through the website.

“We are prepared to continue our educational outreach and learning to students and guests of all ages to teach them about STEM. As a Cognia Certified STEM Provider, this helps validate the science, technology, engineering, and math we have been teaching in our non-traditional classroom for the last 15 years and we are excited to continue that important work,” concluded Davis.

Georgia Aquarium, named the first aquarium to earn Certified Autism Center™ (CAC) designation in 2018, has extended their efforts to welcome all visitors, including those with sensory needs.

The CAC designation, granted by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES), must be renewed every two years to ensure staff are current on training and best practices. In addition to training additional staff members through IBCCES, the Aquarium will host Sensory Friendly hours from 8-10 a.m. on the last Sunday of every month. During this time, the Aquarium will allow guests to navigate exhibits within an altered setting for optimal guest experience. During this special entry, all audio and visual screens will be turned off and lighting lowered. Guests can also take advantage of the Aquarium’s sensory bags and social story to assist guests during their visit at any time during the day or year.

“Georgia Aquarium is dedicated to providing our guests with an exceptional experience that allows them to connect with the wonders of the aquatic world. We are thrilled to be leading the zoo and aquarium industry through our commitment to making our facility friendly for families with children on the spectrum. We are happy to have received reaccreditation and look forward to applying this training in a way that will allow us to continue to provide the best possible experience for all of our guests with the ultimate goal of inspiring awareness and preservation of our ocean and aquatic animals worldwide,” said Anthony Rivera, Vice President of Guest Experience and Hospitality at Georgia Aquarium.

For more than 20 years, IBCCES has been the industry leader in autism certification for healthcare, education and corporate professionals around the globe. IBCCES recognized that many families with children who have special needs have limited options. In response to this need, IBCCES created training and certification programs specifically for the hospitality and attractions industry. IBCCES is the only credentialing organization providing this type of certification, which includes evidence-based information as well as the perspectives of individuals with autism, alongside other tools and resources such as onsite reviews and customized recommendations to ensure the program is a long-term commitment and has a lasting impact.

Georgia Aquarium is dedicated to providing our guests with an exceptional experience that allows them to connect with the wonders of the aquatic world. We are thrilled to be leading the zoo and aquarium industry through our commitment to making our facility friendly for families with children on the spectrum.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with Georgia Aquarium to serve ALL guests, including those with autism and sensory needs who are currently underserved but are such an important part of our community,” said Myron Pincomb, IBCCES Board Chairman.

IBCCES also created AutismTravel.com, a free online resource for parents that lists certified destinations and connects families to other resources and each other. Each destination listed on the site has met Certified Autism Center™ (CAC) requirements.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Paige Hale, Senior Manager of Communications at Georgia Aquarium
media@georgiaaquarium.org

Meredith Tekin, President of IBCCES
904.508.0135 // 904.434.1534
meredith@ibcces.org

PITTSBURGH—March 22, 2019—Evoqua Water Technologies (NYSE: AQUA), an industry leader in mission critical water treatment solutions, today named Georgia Aquarium the recipient of the Evoqua Water Sustainability Award for 2019. The award recognizes excellence in water stewardship, including companies using new or existing technologies in innovative, sustainable ways and companies that have made significant strides in water reduction.

Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere, is committed to working on behalf of all marine life through education, preservation, exceptional animal care and research across the globe. With hundreds of exhibits and tens of thousands of animals across seven major galleries, Georgia Aquarium must maintain life support system (LSS) processes that ensure the water is clean and healthy. The LSS systems consist of a combination of sand filtration, protein skimming and ozone disinfection. On top of this, the LSS team at Georgia Aquarium has developed a process of denitrification using fiberglass-reinforced plastic vessels, custom-built by Evoqua’s Neptune Benson, that house beneficial bacteria.

This process reduces nitrates that form in the aquarium’s 6.3-million-gallon Ocean Voyager exhibit. A recent study showed that the types of bacteria in the denitrification vessels are nearly identical to those found in applicable natural marine settings.

“Preserving water—the world’s most valuable resource—is at the heart of everything we do at Evoqua,” said Ron Keating, Evoqua CEO. “Each year, we’re excited to honor an organization that prizes sustainability as much as we do. Georgia Aquarium’s extraordinary LSS processes have made it a water savings hero, and we’re proud to be part of its efforts to enrich life through smart water use.”

We are honored to be selected by Evoqua for this significant award that recognizes the hard work and dedication that goes into sustaining Georgia Aquarium’s Life Support Systems daily

The award will be presented to Georgia Aquarium at an event in April, timed around Earth Day.

For the second year, Evoqua employees nominated companies from among its 38,000-customer base for their sustainability efforts to treat, re-use, and conserve water. Other companies shortlisted for the award included Johnson & Johnson and Phillips66.

Johnson & Johnson has a long history dating back to the early 1990s of conscientious energy use, water conservation, and utility minimization. Projects across the globe (from Cork, Ireland, to Malvern, Pennsylvania, U.S.), use recovery Reverse Osmosis (RO) to minimize water consumption and discharge to publicly owned treatment works.

WRB Refining, a joint venture between Phillips 66 and Cenovus Energy, recently completed a project at its Borger, Texas refinery that proved 400 gallons per minute (gpm) water savings. The project focused on water with high silica and salt content that was causing cooling tower inefficiency through scaling and fouling. The project repurposed existing Evoqua Water Technologies Reverse Osmosis (RO) equipment to help clean up the feed quality of the refinery cooling tower water.

To further highlight the importance of preserving water on World Water Day, Evoqua today released an infographic highlighting the influence water has on business, industry and modern life, including:

Providing peak performance conditions for elite swimmers
Creating award-winning beverages and ensuring food safety
Producing microchips and solar cells
Creating safe and sterile healthcare environments
To learn more about Evoqua and World Water Day, and to download the infographic, visit Evoqua’s World Water Day page.

Evoqua services more than 200,000 installations across the globe. For this reason, Evoqua understands the profound impact of providing solutions that ensure its customers and partners meet or exceed their sustainability goals. For more information on Evoqua’s sustainability efforts, as well as more information on the finalists, visit www.evoqua.com/sustainability.

Leading ocean science and engineering institutions are joining forces to create Ocean Visions, an innovative scientist-driven ocean conservation venture that fosters collaboration between top researchers, conservationists and entrepreneurs committed to solving some of the biggest challenges facing ocean health.

The endeavor’s first summit – OceanVisions2019 – Climate – will be held April 1-4 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The summit will highlight ocean-based science and engineering successes that promote solutions addressing human, climate and ecological pressures.

There are many problems facing the oceans, and Ocean Visions enables a huge and optimistic step forward by creating a comprehensive set of commercially marketable solutions that will make a powerful positive impact on ocean health while offering profitability incentive for widespread adoption on a global scale.

Ocean Visions represents the nation’s leading organizations in ocean science and engineering – Georgia Tech, The Smithsonian Institution, Stanford University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography University of Georgia, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Georgia Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium and Birch Aquarium at Scripps – coming together under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on scientifically sound, scalable, impactful and viable ocean conservation solutions.

The ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth and provides food and jobs valued at $2.5 trillion dollars each year – making the ocean the seventh largest economy in the world. Unfortunately, ocean health has been declining as a result of climate change, overfishing and pollution. Climate change is making our ocean warmer and more acidic, threatening critical ocean ecosystems including corals, shellfish, and plankton. Thirty percent of the world’s fisheries are overfished and nine million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year. Fertilizer and sewage runoff are creating massive “dead zones” – waters with such low oxygen levels that fish can’t survive. Coastal dead zones have increased tenfold since 1950. Finding solutions to these pressing challenges is more urgent than ever.

“The ocean is our past and our future. Healthy people, healthy communities and healthy economies depend directly on a healthy ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., recipient of the OceanVisions2019 Tethys Award, past head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and environmental scientist and distinguished professor at Oregon State University. “Ocean Visions is a pioneering endeavor that is committed to delivering comprehensive, science-led solutions to the ocean’s many challenges – solutions that are scalable at a global level. That has never been done before.”

A champion of science, Lubchenco is the first recipient of the Tethys Award, which was named for the Greek goddess of water and created to honor role models who contributed to, promoted, enabled or raised awareness about ocean solutions and who inspire new generations of ocean experts and leaders. Lubchenco will deliver the Tethys Award lecture during the summit’s opening ceremony live streaming on April 1.

To nurture and work towards these solutions, Ocean Visions will:

create a network that will bring together non-profits, industry and other private and public groups to focus on translational research;
host regular summits to highlight the latest research and scalable concepts to address ocean conservation needs;
launch a fellows program to foster an integrated community of scientists, engineers, policy makers, stakeholders and other groups who can exchange knowledge and experiences; and
sponsor startup competitions in the heart of academic institutions to engage young talent.
“Addressing the challenges facing our oceans will take an ambitious effort that brings together the best talent in our nation,” said G. Wayne Clough, Ph.D., secretary emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, who will open the summit. “Ocean Visions is unique because it is led by trusted institutions and top scientists and researchers in ocean conservation working together to formulate a call to action to foster, support and advance innovative and viable solutions that can make a difference.”

The summit will provide networking events for business leaders to learn more about proposed solutions, ranging from advanced concepts to those that are market ready, such as marine algae-based animal feeds and biofuels that can reduce the carbon footprint of biofuel and protein production and sea-level sensor technologies for coastal cities and communities threatened by rising sea levels.

“There are many problems facing the oceans, and Ocean Visions enables a huge and optimistic step forward by creating a comprehensive set of commercially marketable solutions that will make a powerful positive impact on ocean health while offering profitability incentive for widespread adoption on a global scale,” said Martin Gray, senior vice president & chief marketing officer for the Georgia Aquarium.

Georgia Tech is hosting the April 1-4 OceanVisions2019 summit. Learn more about the OceanVisions2019 program.