Earlier today, NAIOP national released a report that looks at the levels of energy efficiency a standard office building can achieve while remaining economically feasible.

The study looked at whether commercial development could achieve reduction

The Casey in Portland is designed to use 52 percent less energy than a similar, conventional building

targets of between 30 and 50 percent above ASHRAE 90.1-2004. It compared results on a four-story, 95,000-square-foot, Class A office building in climate zones represented in Chicago, Baltimore and Newport Beach, Calif.

The results?

“Findings show that although significant energy efficiencies can be achieved (varying by climate zone), reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback. The study concluded that achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable.”

Here is the breakdown:

Chicago had a 23 percent increase in energy savings at a $188,523 cost increase at an 8.8 year payback.

Baltimore had a 21.5 percent increase in energy efficiency at a $165,148 cost increase at an 11 year payback.

Newport Beach had a 15.8 percent increase in energy savings at a $169,898 additional cost at a 12.2 year payback.

Ouch. Those are long paybacks for most developers. But then again, developers ARE targeting these goals and reaching them. Heck, there are net-zero buildings under development! NAIOP’s goal in developing this study was to prove that a one-size fits all approach does not work in green buildings, but that almost seems to holds true in countering the study, too. Though most of the developers who really push the green envelope, both in design and energy efficiency, are long-term holders of buildings.

Is that what it all comes down to? What a developer’s business model is?

The study also said elements of a holistic, integrated design approach that could create higher energy efficiencies were impractical in the study’s building prototype. The example the study gives is that a geothermal system requires an additional two acres of space, at least in the Newport Beach model.

To read the entire press release, go here.

Today, Sightline issued a new update to its Cascadia Scorecard. Sightline is an environmental think tank, based in Seattle. Its scorecard is a progress report that tracks seven trends in the Pacific Northwest including pollution, population, sprawl and economy.

The scorecard is a plethora of information. Here are some of its findings:

• In 2008, the Northwest states or Oregon, Idaho and Washington spent almost $30 billion on imported fossil fuels, what it says is a record high. That breaks down as $16.6 billion for Washington, $9.4 billion for Oregon and $3.6 billion for Idaho. Regionally, that’s the equivalent of $10,000 for every family of four.
• The share of residents living in walkable or transit-oriented neighborhoods has increased in each major Northwest metropolis since 1990. But the scorecard says if recent trends continue, it will take 56 years for the Cascadian city average to match the compact-growth record of Vancouver, BC. Today. 
• People in this region consume the energy equivalent of just over 2 gallons of gasoline per person every day, which is nearly double the scorecard’s model of Germany.
• People in British Columbia live an average of two years longer than residents of the Northwest states. Also, if BC were an independent nation, it would have the second longest lifespan in the world after Japan.

To see more fun facts about the intersections of our lives, the environment and the future, read the scorecard for yourself at http://scorecard.sightline.org/.

This week, I attended a conference hosted by The Seminar Group on sustainable development and green buildings. Among many interesting topics, one theme kept coming up over and over again: if we want green buildings and other parts of sustainability to catch on, we need to change the market.

Is consumerism the answer to a new society?

Hmmm. How to do that.

Susan Drummond of Foster Pepper said it comes down to how we make our money. Many industries, she said, make money on the idea of more. As a lawyer, she bills by the hour to make more. Utilities make more the more power they make. A developer makes more with more projects, as does a contractor.

But the production of more, she said, itself depends on the supply of natural capital, or those natural aspects we make money off of… like oil, or trees or vegetables. She said that frontier of natural capital is closing. And if it is closing, businesses need to adapt and create new, sustainable models of working.

But there are different interests - from transportation to land use to renewable energy - that need to be addressed. Together, they resemble a herd of cats. And how do you herd cats, she asked? By moving their food. So business needs to look at strategies that move the food bowl. (This is what the entire conference was about. Moving the bowl in looking at new strategies for transportation, land use etc.)

Later in the conference the idea of a changing market came up again when, A-P Hurd, a vice president of local developer Touchstone, spoke. One problem with the local market, she said, is essentially that things are too cheap. Water is cheap. Energy is cheap. And if they are cheap, there’s not much of an incentive to save it.

“We are going to have to, at the very least, reflect the cost of providing these things to the people, ” she said. “If the market is going to find the ability to innovate, it is going to need to find a way to get a payback on that innovation.”  

It sounds complex. But Drummond said it really comes down to one thing:

“Frankly, all we are doing is changing how we shop,” she said. That applies to your home, your food, your car. Instead of asking what’s in it for me, we need to expand our view and ask ‘what’s in it for humanity?’  

Is that really all it is? Changing how we shop? Can the market be transformed by thoughtful consumerism? And if so, how do you harness that change…..

What do you think?

This is a guest post by Dave Bennink, owner of Re-Use Consulting. 

This last week has been full of bad news relating to major corporations cutting jobs.  These job cuts are nothing compared to the amount of jobs that have been shipped overseas in the past decades.  Did you know that the City of Buffalo used to have

Image courtesy Dave Bennink

600,000 people in it and now it only has about 290,000?  First the jobs left and then the people followed.  This has left Buffalo wondering what to do with tens of thousands of abandoned homes. 

So where are we heading?  Jobs disappearing, economic slowdowns and global warming are just the start of our problems.  Fortunately, there is some good news to share:  The building deconstruction industry is creating thousands of green collar jobs, and these jobs cannot be shipped overseas! 

For years, building deconstruction has been much slower and more expensive than demolition.  Building deconstruction is the systematic disassembly of a structure to maximize reuse and recycling.  In recent years, hybrid deconstruction has allowed deconstruction and adaptive reuse companies to take down buildings faster and cheaper, completing 2,000-square-foot homes in 3 to 4 days as one example.  Even with these improvements, building deconstruction still creates 10 to 20 times more jobs than demolition while hoping to achieve an on-site landfill diversion rate of 70 percent or more (before comingled recycling options). 

These are all local jobs that cannot be shipped overseas and we are working to make them living wage jobs requiring different levels of experience and potentially launching workers into other related careers.

One thing that is clear to me is that building owners don’t want their structures demolished, they just want them removed.  Almost everyone I have talked to would rather see the their building moved intact, deconstructed, or at least salvaged or even preserved in place through adaptive reuse as long as it doesn’t take much more time and it doesn’t cost more money.  That helps the building deconstruction contractors by basing their efforts on a solid foundation. 

People realize that deconstruction creates more jobs, helps the environment, preserves local architectural elements, and assists lower-income home owners to maintain their homes.  It is also a sustainable effort, unlike some green solutions that just slow down the problems.  Deconstruction is not just saving energy and resources compared to producing all of those materials new again, but reversing problems like global warming and natural resource depletion. 

In Buffalo, we have begun to think of the streets full of abandoned homes as an asset to the community instead of a liability.  If it is decided that they must be taken down, then by deconstructing them, some of the value they hold is returned to the community, and I can tell you after 16 years in this field, it’s a great feeling knowing that you are making a difference. 

I am excited about efforts by the city of Seattle and King County, among others, to promote building deconstruction. 

The Building Materials Reuse Association is leading the way, holding a conference on the subject in Chicago in April 2009 (www.bmra.org).  Cities and groups across the Country are starting job training programs by forming deconstruction crews.  Demolition contractors are converting to deconstruction companies by performing deconstruction when their clients ask for it or it makes economic sense.  General contractors hoping to keep their crews from quiting in slow times, are beginning to offer deconstruction to their clients, knowing that they may be able to provide work to their laid-off crews.  Some schools are considering classes on deconstruction and some businesses are forming around the sales of the salvaged materials or the manufacturing of products (like tables, chairs, etc.) made from reclaimed materials. 

So if you are tired of this economic slow down and want to make a difference, join us by considering building deconstruction and considering buying reclaimed materials.  It’s  ’buying local’ and ‘employing local’ all at the same time while heading toward our goal of zero waste.

- Dave Bennink, RE-USE Consulting

This week, I wrote an article in the DJC on Bellevue Towers, its developer, Gerding Edlen, and what the project represents for Bellevue.

Bellevue Towers is a two-tower luxury condo project with 539 units. According to

Bellevue Towers

Mike Brennan, director of Bellevue’s Development Services Department, it is the most prominent green building in Bellevue and the first multifamily high-rise that has gone for LEED certification in the city. It is targeting LEED gold and is supposedly the largest LEED-certified residential project in the Northwest, according to press materials. It is also the first project Gerding Edlen has done in the Puget Sound region.

That’s a lot of firsts. I’m wondering what this means for Bellevue.

Bellevue tends to have a mixed reputation when it comes to green buildings. In my wanderings, I’ve heard about city codes that make it difficult for projects to do low impact development, and green techniques that relate to stormwater. I’ve also heard disappointed reactions that the city wasn’t more receptive to green building earlier.  (For a reaction on how Bellevue has been MIA, see the comments to a previous post regarding Kirkland here.)

But I wonder if that is changing.

Bellevue is the first city in the Puget Sound region to have a Gerding Edlen development. Gerding Edlen, Portland’s premier green developer, is known internationally for its work. I’m sure Seattle and other cities would have appreciated one of its projects.

Phil Beyl, principal in charge of Bellevue Towers with architect GBD, said the city welcomed aggressive sustainable techniques “with open arms.” Working on this project was exciting for him, precisely because he felt like he was bringing something new to the city: “We’ve been able to bring to Bellevue an elevated level of sustainability that now I think has raised the bar quite a bit higher… and that’s very exciting.”

Brennan said Bellevue is hoping this building will serve as an example and bring other green development to the city (though he also was unsure whether it actually would or not).

Incidentally, there are only two LEED certified buildings in Bellevue, according to the USGBC’s registry. But there are 24 that are registered. Then again, some of the projects that are awaiting certification like the Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center (wrote about it a year ago here in the DJC) are pretty darn interesting. 

Then there’s my own experience with people that read this blog.

I like to track where blog readers come from, and believe me, there’s been a dramatic shift. Last summer, I was surprised by how little readers I had from Bellevue (one here and there but virtually none). I even e-mailed certain city representatives to get them to read, but readers from Bellevue remained flat.

In the last two months, something changed. Now, Bellevue is consistently the third rated city, in cities that read this blog. (Behind Seattle, and then either Portland or New York, depending on the day.)

What the heck is going on?

Did something shift or did a whole lot of people from Bellevue start reading this blog for no reason? Was it the economy? Was it the change in presidents? I’m stumped.

What do you think? Is Bellevue getting - or going to be getting greener? Has anything changed or is this really just one LEED project? Comment below or answer my poll at right.

For more on Gerding Edlen, click the tab ‘Gerding Edlen’ below. Or check out SkyscraperCity and look under Bellevue Development or Bellevue Towers.

McKinstry is expanding. It is developing a new 120,000-square-foot building next to its manufacturing space. In addition to the 500 jobs it will be creating within the next couple years, Dean Allen, McKinstry CEO, said he hopes to create thousands of jobs across both in Seattle and across the country. For more on this story, read my DJC article here.

Gov. Gregoire’s climate and job package runs the gamut. It includes proposed investments totaling $455 million in the next biennium for energy-reducing transportation projects, energy efficiency projects, green buildings and clean-energy technology. Her press release says the investments would support about 2,900 jobs in 2010 and 2011.

It also includes legislation to provide a state tax exemption for plug-in electric vehicles, and Legislation to support the Western Climate Initiative cap and trade system. For more information on this legislation, go here. To see the one-stop green jobs and climate action Web page, go here. To view the full package, go here.

Like I’ve said before, everything green happens at the exact same time. Let’s take tomorrow, for example:

At 10 a.m. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is rolling out the red carpet for McKinstry as he presents an approved development permit to expand its current headquarters site in Georgetown. McKinstry says it expects to create more than 500 jobs.

(In case you missed it, McKinstry recently received a 10-year contract from the U.S. Department of Energy worth up to $5 billion for energy efficient projects in federal buildings. President Barack Obama is also a fan of the company.)

At the same time, Gov. Chris Gregoire will announce her 2009 green jobs and climate action legislation, and present results of the Employment Security Department’s “Washington State Green Economy Jobs Survey.” The announcement will be made at South Puget Sound Community College’s new LEED-certified Natural Sciences Building.

What’s a girl to cover?

The Environmental News Network recently alerted me to a report by fastcompany.com on the 10 best green jobs for the next decade. Whether it’s truly reputable or not, I don’t know, but I do know that it’s an interesting list that doesn’t inlcude (gasp!) architects, engineers, contractors or developers.

Here’s the apparent top 10 green jobs, in ENN’s words:

#1– Farmer. The average age of the American farmer is nearing retirement age. A new generation of small-scale, local growers is needed.

#2– Forester. The field has growing international significance as programs aim to finance, conserve and develop forests in developing nations.

#3– Solar Power Installer. The Solar Energy Industries Association predicts an increase to over 110,000 good-paying jobs by 2016 and maybe more if anticipated tax credits are accelerated.

#4– Energy Efficiency Builder. Obama’s pledge to improve the energy efficiency of public buildings and homes could create almost a million jobs.

#5– Wind Turbine Fabricator.  The wind industry reportedly added 10,000 new jobs in 2007 and it is the fastes growing source of alternative energy.

#7– Green MBA and Entrepreneur. More and more, companies are beginning to understand that the values of sustainability are about survival, not just good press.

#8– Recycler. Although the industry is currently in a downturn. Recycling is still more cost effective than waste disposal, and supportive regulations continue to increase.

#9– Sustainability Systems Developer. These are the high-tech positions. Essentially computer information systems (CIS) designed for support energy efficiency and alternative energy supply.

#10– Urban Planner. Large infrastructure changes are needed to transition to less carbon intensive lifestyles and to prepare for climate change.

What do you think, did they get it right?

 This is from a series of guest posts by representatives of the Northwest Building Efficiency Center. This post was written by Gary Nordeen. 

Since the 1930s radiant barriers have shown to be beneficial in reducing cooling loads in structures located in hot climates. A radiant barrier is a material, usually aluminum, which is highly reflective and has a low emissivity. A material with low emissivity absorbs little radiant energy.

Radiant barriers are usually installed in attics to reduce radiant heat gains into the attic that are transferred into the living space. Radiant barriers can be installed on

Figure 1

the underside of roof rafters; laid on top of rafters or trusses prior to installing roof sheathing; laid flat on the ceiling insulation; or “chips” of reflective material can be added to the ceiling insulation.

Proper installation of the radiant barrier is important. Refer to Figure 1 at left, courtesy of Florida Solar Energy Center: 

• Applications #1 or #2 of sheet type radiant barriers are preferred to #3.

• Dust will accumulate if sheet type radiant bareriers are laid over the ceiling insulation.

• Chips or multi-layer radiant barriers are acceptable to be installed at location #3

Recently, there has been an effort to market radiant barriers in the Pacific Northwest with unbelievable claims of energy savings. One radiant barrier company has stated that their product can reduce energy bills by more than 50%. In hot southern climates, where radiant barriers work best, energy savings range from 2% to 10%. Tests by Oak Ridge National Laboratories have shown that the percentage reductions for winter heat losses are lower than those for summer heat gains.

Radiant barrier chips

While radiant barriers can reduce cooling costs, houses in the Pacific Northwest consume more energy for heating than for cooling. Before installing a radiant barrier to reduce heating costs, the following issues should be considered:

At times radiant barriers may actually result in higher heating bills.

When the sun is out on cool winter days, it provides some heating of structures by radiant heat transfer through the roof. A radiant barrier will negate some of these gains.

Radiant barriers may create moisture problems.

If placed on top of the ceiling insulation, a radiant barrier will get cold in the winter and may become a surface where moisture laden air escaping from inside the house may condense. This may cause the ceiling insulation to get wet and become less effective.

Investing in additional insulation and better windows, and stopping air leakage are proven methods to reduce your energy use. Be wary of any salesperson making exorbitant claims about reducing your energy bill. As the old saying goes: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Contact the Northwest Building Efficiency Center at Info@nwBuildings.org if you have questions about energy efficient buildings.

Here at the DJC, there’s been a marked turn around in what stories make it to our most popular list. Namely anything that mentions ”recession” or the “economic slowdown” in some way, shape or form immediately jumps to the top of the list.

With that in mind, I’ve been speaking with people about how business is changing and how they’re shifting gears to survive the current downturn. For green building, most people say the same thing: we’re shifting how we do business a little bit, in products or services, but we’re not making any major changes. We’re going to stick with building green.

But with everyone from architecture firms to consultants tightening their belts and making layoffs, it may be hard to keep moving like nothing has happened. For information on how local firms are coping, read these recent DJC articles: read this one on architecture firms, this one on cities, this one on the contracting communities, this one on job seekers, and this one on commercial real estate.

How about you… how has your business, or the work you do changed? What about your long term business plans? Remember, you can always comment anonymously.

As for me, I’m off to a four-hour course hosted by the Associated General Contractors of Washington on … what else? How to survive a recession.