As I mentioned in my past post, I’ve been on a series of vacations over the past couple of weeks. And during my series of nine flights, I had a lot of time to read magazines, catalogues and view countless adds on nameless airport walls. And do you know what I discovered? Green is really, really hip! Before you scoff and say in your head ‘hello Katie, where have you been?’ let me explain:

Over the past two years, even with a recession, sustainability and green promotion has become more than just a tactic. It has become necessary. Flipping through the Crate and Barrel catalogue, furniture

good-news

is advertised as being “sustainably harvested and sustainably engineered.” In that same magazine, Calphalon advertises a new recycling program where they promise to responsibly recycle your old cookware, while simultaneously advertising a new green nonstick finish for pots and pans. The message is pretty clear: Crate and Barrel cares about sustainability (hence you should buy their stuff, which I am in no way supportive of or not supportive of, by the way).

At my stay at the Omni Parker Hotel in Boston, it advertised green alternatives like most other hotels nowadays. But unlike many other hotels, it connected those green services to its premium Select Guest program, thereby making sustainability (and not washing your sheets) special.

Starbuck’s has upped the content of recycled fiber in its cups (now 10 percent, not sure when they did that) and touts its eco-consciousness on the side of current cups.

Heck, even Clorox has its Greenworks natural green cleaners label. It just never ceases to amaze me.

Do you agree? Are you constantly amazed?

Anyway, back to the news.Kevin Daniels of Daniels Development is currently in New Orleans where he is repairing homes that are still damaged from Hurricane Katrina. He’s there with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is blogging about the effort. To read the blog, click here. To learn more about the effort in general, click here. We also wrote about the trip here.

While I was gone, the DJC Green Building Blog was named to two “best of” lists. We were named number 71 on a list of  ”100 Innovative Blogs for Architecture Students.” We’re under the category “Eco-friendly architecture.” The list is compiled by a site called onlineclasses.org that is “dedicated to bringing you the absolute best resources and online educational tools.”

We were also named number 21 (but first under the “Green Construction” category) on a list called “Top 50 Construction Blogs.” This list is compiled by The Construction Paper.

The format of both sites look suspiciously similar though I’m not positive they are related. Hmmm. Either way, they both present a comprehensive list of great blogs, many of which I read on a daily basis to keep informed. It’s a good resource to see viewpoints from around the country and world on construction and architecture.

Incidentally, on one of my many flights, a gentleman I met who owned a construction company in rural Georgia said green building techniques are not used in every project, but are becoming much more common, especially in the major cities and in office projects. He said he’s taking classes on it and suspects they are moving slower than we are on the West Coast, though the south is still moving in that direction.

It’s called the Quick Guide to Green Tenant Improvement series, and is a guide that shows users how to do sustainable commercial improvements in a variety of ten topics. The guides are a product of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development’s City Green Building team.

The guides are available online here, though I haven’t had time to study them yet. They are

The guides come in many handy flavors

meant to help project managers, owners, interior designers and architects apply sustainable building practices to commercial remodel projects, though a press release says the guide works equally well for interior construction or renovation. Each guide includes an overview of a topic, key benefits and strategies, quick facts, a case study, a checklist, additional resources and potential LEED-CI credits. Helpful? Only you can be the judge.

If you want a hard copy of the series, contact Rebecca Baker at (206) 615-1171.

According to the press release, the guides come in the following fun flavors:

01 Green Lease — A green lease can enhance recruitment, lower healthcare expenses, yield productivity gains and lower operating costs.

02 Connecting with Nature — Interiors with natural elements foster positive connections between people and enhance physical and mental well being.

03 Adaptable Design — “Future-proof” office space by providing for the integration and adaptability of various building systems.

04 Office Equipment — Using energy efficient office equipment reduces energy costs, ambient noise, air-conditioning loads, electromagnetic fields and greenhouse gas emissions while extending equipment life.

05 HVAC: Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning — Energy efficient HVAC equipment can reduce energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and utility costs while increasing thermal comfort and improving indoor air quality.

06 Lighting — Energy efficient lighting systems can reduce a significant amount of electrical energy costs while enhancing aesthetic design inside and out.

07 Employee Well-Being — The quality of the indoor environment directly affects employee well-being and performance.

08 Healthy Building Materials — A healthy workplace is built, furnished and operated to minimize exposure to sub-stances harmful to human health.

09 Regional Resources — Purchasing locally supports our local economy and reduces transportation costs and emissions.

10 Construction Waste Management — Many construction, demolition and land-clearing waste materials have high value for salvage and reuse.

Sometimes, I get really cool things in my in-box. The Earth Day Network Ecological Footprint Calculator is one of those things.

The calculator, created by the Global Footprint Network and launched today, measures how many planets it would take to sustain your lifestyle. Like most calculators, you go through a series of questions, pick the answers that fit your lifestyle and watch the results come in. But there are two things that set this calculator apart from the pack: the interactivity and the measurement of an ecological footprint.

First the interactivity. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a world of video games but if a tool like this is fun as opposed to bland, I’m a lot more likely to pay attention. And this tool is fun. First, you get to design an avatar (mine had blue spiky hair), and then you get to watch the avatar’s world change as you enter choices that correspond to your life. Fun, no?

Second, and more importantly, the ecological footprint. Most calculators out there measure a person’s carbon footprint. But how much carbon you generate is only part of your impact as a human being. A carbon measurement doesn’t count more esoteric things like how much meat you eat, where you get it and how that affects your impact on the world. 

The ecological footprint, on the other hand, creates a full picture and represents the overall human demand on nature; it compares human consumption with what it takes to regenerate natural resources.

Using this idea, the calculator measures how many planets it would take if the rest of the world lived like you. It’s a really visual way of seeing how much you impact the world… versus seeing a large number that you don’t really understand. For example, even though I recycle everything, almost always carpool, live in an urban environment etc. etc., if all the world lived like me it would apparently take 3.8 planets. And the majority of that (46 percent) is in services. That surprised me. 

The idea of measuring your impact by planets, then decreasing it, is the push behind One Planet Communities and BioRegional, the groups that brought the world BedZed (at left), one of England’s poster children for sustainable living. I wrote about BedZed and One Planet Living in December here in the DJC. According to their numbers, it would take 5.3 planets if the rest of the world lived like the United States does.

There are plans in the works to create One Planet Communities across the world, for more visit www.bioregional.com.

The calculator also offers suggestions after you’re done on what you can do to decrease your result, and lets you change your choices so you can see what exactly affected the final total.  

Though it’s fun, I don’t know how they calculate their numbers and can’t comment on whether the amounts are accurate or not. If you have a favorite calculator that you like better than this one, or can comment on the accuracy of the numbers used, please share your information below. New resources are always appreciated.

More info on the calculator at Plime here.