Patricia Chase of International Sustainable Solutions sent out an e-mail recently regarding the death of Svend

Svend Auken

Auken, the Danish gentleman who helped turn Denmark into the energy efficient country it is today. He passed away in August. When Auken was last in town in June of 2008, I had the honor of personally interviewing him after his talk at city hall. My story, available here,  focuses on how Auken said green was a very tangible and possible thing as long as government set rules and got involved. He suggested rules regulating energy use per square foot of a building. I also blogged about our discussion here.

An event will celebrate his life Nov. 6 at 5:30 p.m. It will be held at the Nordic Heritage Museum, 3014 N.W. 67th St., Seattle.

Here’s what Chase wrote in the e-mail:

“I was sadly aware the last time I had the pleasure of enjoying Svend Auken’s company, that it might be the last. In spite of weekly blood transfusions, radiation, slurred speech (terrible for someone who loved to talk as much as he did), Svend insisted I come over to sit on his veranda with him, drink his favorite Barolo, and talk about everything from how grateful he was to have reconnected with the Pacific Northwest to the perilous situation with Israel and Gaza. Fully aware that all treatments had failed to halt his prostate cancer, Svend was still as optimistic and full of life as ever. He was excited about his recent speech to Congress about Denmark’s energy independence, and believed that his party, the Social Democrats, were poised to regain government. In spite of his condition, he was actively campaigning for people in his party, and was looking forward to upcoming travels. Svend was grateful that he had been able to reconnect with the Pacific Northwest in the past few years. As a student for one year at WSU, in the heady era of the Kennedy administration, Svend took his first steps in his political career as a campus organizer for civil rights in America. The people of the Pacific Northwest were very important to him, and every time he visited, he gave us 250%.”

I’ll leave you with what he said the last time he was here in Seattle: “If we want to change, we can change. We have the instruments and if we can’t do it, who can do it.”

The Washington Policy Center, a conservative think-tank whose mission is to “improve lives through market solutions,” has issued a report on green buildings in the state that has less than stellar results.

However, the center is not totally a nonpartial organization. And the study, which is not even a full four

You should know better!

pages long, seems shaky to me in that references cited include articles that are not cited, single emails, and only a small handful of case studies that really don’t provide the reader with much information with which to make an informed decision. It also is very narrow in scope and only looks at a few types of projects.

Nevertheless, the points brought up in the study are of interest. The gist is that performance-based contracting in Washington State and schools that use the Washington State High Performance Schools Protocol have mixed results. Some save energy, some don’t and many have long pay back times. Additionally, the study says there is often not enough information available to track how much energy is actually being saved.

These are important issues that need to be studied on the local level. But I’d like to see them investigated in a more thorough and scientific manner.

The study also proposes three solutions to the problem: rigorous audits of green projects, local control and flexibility as state mandated “cookie-cutter” approaches don’t always work, and accountability in holding agencies and contractors responsible for project results. The study says “if there are no costs for the agency or contractor for failing to achieve energy savings targets, there is unlikely to be strict enforcement or effective auditing. Without those elements, savings are not likely to materialize.”

In general, these suggestions do make sense. Green projects should be audited and if something is wrong with the design, that information needs to circulate back to the architect so they can learn from their mistakes. Flexibility often has beneficial results (though I don’t know I’d go so far as to change state policy on that front). And there should be some level of accountability for projects or team members that don’t meet their goals.

Now, how do you think we should do this? I’ve heard that rough times (ie the past year, anyone?) are the best times to make sweeping changes to the way we work. But I find it hard to imagine legislators moving on requiring audits or some level of accountability in green building at any point in the near future.

Ignoring the study’s flakiness, is the Washington Policy Center right with their three suggestions? In a perfect world, what would you want to see? What is the best way to ensure that green buildings are living up to their planned predictions?

In case you missed it, I wrote a story in yesterday’s DJC about how Intracorp Marketing & Sales had been hired by Bank of America to finish and sell the remaining 17 properties at Ashworth Cottages. Ashworth Cottages, Seattle’s first LEED platinum housing project, went into foreclosure in August.

Last May, I wrote a post about what went wrong at Ashworth here and it has been one of my most popular

Image courtesy Intracorp

posts ever since. Most commenters said the prime problem was houses were simply priced too high. Judging by how they’re being snapped up now, you were right.

When the homes came on the market, they were priced between $739,000 and $950,000. Today, they are priced between $399,000 and $649,000. Of the original 20 homes, 17 went into foreclosure. Since those 17 homes went on the market in a soft opening last week, eight of them have received purchase and sale agreements as of Wednesday, according to Jeff Smallwood of Intracorp.

In the article, I reference a few of your comments that said the price point was too high, even if they were LEED platinum. I wish I could have referenced more comments; they were so varied and insightful.

Today, Smallwood said the homes are probably selling at a little below market value and that the LEED features are mentioned by every buyer so far. But what does this say about green, expensive projects? While Ashworth is the prime example because it has had such a public story told, it’s not the only one. A number of super green expensive projects - haven’t sold. Or are being used for different purposes by the developer.

In my original Ashworth post, Anne Whitacre had a great comment that developers may expect green buyers to pay more because their utility bills will be lower over the life of a building. But if people don’t expect to stay in a building for years, then they can’t really take that value into account. This is why institutions, schools and nonprofits are often more likely than private developers to jump on the green bandwagon.

A few other commenters said they had been excited and interested in Ashworth but the price tag was just too much. How much of a premium would you pay for a super green house? Five percent? Ten percent? Nothing?

Similarly, if my price range is $950,000 I have a lot of options.  I could buy a great, old house with a lot of character for $650,000 (especially in today’s market) and then spend $300,000 rehabbing it with super green features. For that much money, I could make a lot of green improvements that were functional and tailored to what I wanted AND I would be saving and improving an old structure, rather than sending whatever originally existed to the dump. Even if you recycle the majority of your construction waste, some of it still ends up being tossed.

A number of green builders believe that the market is ready to pay more for green projects and a number of studies support this to different variations. (There’s this study on local green certified homes, this study on national commercial buildings and this one on four local examples).

But in today’s economy, where is the line drawn? How much more are people willing to pay if they’re willing to pay more at all? And would this be a different situation in a better economy?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, your response to Ashworth’s situation and anything you know about other high priced green projects that haven’t sold or have been in a similar situation.

Last week, I attended a Town Hall lecture by David Owen, a columnist at the New Yorker and author of the book ‘Green Metropolis.’

Owen spoke about his own experience of living in both Manhattan and in the countryside, and about which is greener (cities because people have everything they need at their fingertips).

But he also said something striking: that big, tall buildings in cities are actually the greenest projects we

Inherently green?

have, not projects that are LEED certified. High-rises get lots of people working in one space. That gets lots of people living nearby and walking between the two. The effects of this and the concentration of people, he said, is far, far greener than a LEED certified project in the middle of nowhere (though he didn’t mention if it were greener than a LEED certified high-rise in the city). The premise touches on one of the main problems of LEED: that it only looks at pieces instead of the whole.

For example, Owen discussed Sprint’s (now Sprint Nextel) headquarters outside of Kansas City, Mo. The corporate campus, he said, consists of 15,000 employees spread among a 50 building low-rise campus. The space also has 15 parking lots and an underground parking garage, providing one parking space per worker because everyone has to drive to the headquarters in the middle of nowhere. Though the campus was planned before LEED came out, one of the buildings at the site ended up receiving LEED certification. The space also preserves 200 acres of property as open space.  How is this a greener situation, he asked, then simply letting the farmland be that had previously existed?

He argued that setting up a business in a location that requires car travel is not green, even if the buildings are certified as such.

Should buildings in the middle of nowhere receive LEED certification? And should organizations that are about sustainability - like the Rocky Mountain Institute and its headquarters in Snowmass, Colo. - be held to a higher level of accountability and locate in a dense area? Or is there value to having great environmentally friendly buildings in the wilderness?

I suppose it comes down to what you prioritize and what you think the future of cities and urban planning is.

In this economy as well, it’s worth noting that cities across the nation have vacant high-rise buildings that currently are not at capacity, and are likely wasting large amounts of energy.

What do you think? Is Owen right on or way off base? If Owen is right - and the greenest project is in a city be it LEED certified or not is a high-rise - than should LEED reflect this in its rating system and how so?

Incidentally, his book also argues that New York City is the greenest city in the world. That seemed to touch an interesting nerve at Portland’s The Environmental Blog here.

If you (like me) are busy thinking about Greenbuild, the Cascadia Chapter of the USGBC is way ahead of you: they’re thinking of next May’s Living Future Conference and they want your presentation submissions. Now.

For those of you that have never been, Living Future is an “unconference,” meaning that it is presented in a

Photo Credit : A. Zucca / Roger-Viollet as seen on Fashion Nation

Living Future is a lot like these ladies. A little odd but very chic.

unique, somewhat non-traditional way (while still being a conference by definition of course). Living Future is a bit like your eclectic cousin - the one that wears vintage shirts from the 1960s, pants from the 1980s, fancy modern shoes and weird jewelry from who knows when. They might look a little odd but they always say interesting things. In comparison, Greenbuild is the buttoned up family patriarch.

Anyway, if you have something to share that’s innovative, creative or a bit off center, Living Future is looking for conference submissions. Entries are due by Oct. 30 and priority will be given to localized, community level efforts to solve “the problems we face.” Examples may be urban food production, decentralized water and energy production, eco-districts and local economies.

This year’s conference will be held in Seattle (the conference alternates every three years from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C., to Portland) and I’m excited for it to be back in my home town. It runs from May 5-7. This year’s theme is “Building Hope, Revaluing Community.”

To learn more, click here.  If you want to speak with a person about this opportunity, contact Jon Gordon at JGordon@brn-engineering.com.

Speaking of Living Future, I have attended all three so far. If you have been to multiple Living Future Conferences, which one was your favorite?

I’m behind the news curve on this one as I was out of the office for much of September, but if you missed the headlines elsewhere, Sadhu Johnston, Chicago’s point person for sustainability, has taken a job with Vancouver, B.C.

Beginning in November, he will become Vancouver’s deputy city manager, according to the Seattle PI’s Strange Bedfellows Blog. His goal? To make Vancouver the region’s very greenest city, a goal that Mayor Greg

Sadhu Johnston

Nickels has constantly touted for Seattle and a title Portland hopes to claim as well.

Johnston was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s chief environmental officer, a post Daley created for Johnston two years ago according to the Chicago Reader. More info on the switch here.

I heard Johnston speak at GreenBuild in Chicago two years ago. Not that it effects his ability to help lead a city but he seemed to be a pretty charismatic and interesting guy with  many, many ideas for how an urban area should work.

I’m interested to see what Johnston can do with Vancouver, and how he will work with Brent Toderian, the city’s development manager. There’s a great profile of Toderian and how the city’s development attitude has changed in recent years here. It’s fascinating to see how much power Toderian has in Vancouver, compared to how development is done here in good ole’ Seattle.