Hi all! The Seattle DJC has a new fan page on Facebook… which means you should fan us right now. What better way to keep up with all the Seattle DJC’s great news, in addition to related news from other media outlets?
You should do it. Now. Just sayin’ is all…..
The other day, I was talking with Pam Worner, top dog at Green Dog Enterprises (yes, that’s her official title) about a new green house project. When Pam just about shocked me out of my chair with the following sentence: “We had the best year ever last year but not without a lot of anxiety.” That’s right; 2009 was her company’s best year ever.
First, some history. Green Dog Enterprises is a consulting firm that has been around for four years. It “promotes
green construction practices and helps businesses succeed in the green building market.” It has three employees, including Worner, the business’ founder.
She has worked on a number of cool projects, many of which are listed here.
To survive this past year, Green Dog did a number of key things. First, it didn’t turn down any job and expanded the kind of work it did. It did consulting, marketing, verification and worked in niches that weren’t being filled. Second, it spread out geographically to areas that green building consultants don’t always concentrate on. Areas like Pierce, Thurston, San Juan and Jefferson counties. Third, it cut overhead and moved into an office in Worner’s house.
In other words, Green Dog worked with 50 different clients in 2009. That’s up 50 percent from the year before, Worner said.
Worner said a lot of her growth came from areas outside of King County. In King County, she said, “you probably can’t swing a cat without hitting some sort of green building expert.” But those experts don’t always go to neighboring areas where demand for green systems and projects are also growing exponentially.
Still, there was a lot of anxiety about surviving. But for every one thing that disappeared, another two things reappeared, Worner said.
Worner only works with green projects and attributes her success in the past year to that work. She said she knows of several builders who say that it is the green focus that has kept them competitive during the downturn.
Moving forward, Worner is confident she can continue her momentum. “This will be an even better year.”
Tomorrow and Saturday, Martha Rose (the “queen of green”) will be hosting wine and cheese parties at her
newest development, Fish Singer Place. The event features a behind the walls tour. It runs from 2-4 p.m. on Friday and from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. To attend, meet up at 15715 Dayton Ave. N., Shoreline Wa. 98133.
To watch a video about the project (with a really catchy song), click here. To learn more about the project, visit the project Web site here or click the tab ‘green developers’ below to learn more about this project.
This week, the DJC ran an excellent article from Arthur H. Rotstein with the Associated Press called “Commercial projects in Tucscon must start harvesting rainwater.” The article says that the Arizona city has enacted the nation’s first municipal rainwater harvesting ordinance for commercial projects. The ordinance requires developers building new business, corporate or commercial structures to supply half of the water needed for landscaping from harvested rainwater starting next year.
Apparently, landscaping accounts for about 40 percent of water use in commercial
development and for 45 percent of household water consumption in Tucson. That. Is. Crazy.
The article also mentions that a half-dozen other communities in Arizona are looking at replicating the approach, and that rural Santa Fe County in New Mexico has required harvesting using cisterns or similar structures for commercial and residential development since last year.
Which brings me to the next question: why isn’t this a requirement everywhere? Water is cheap, yes. But even though it is cheap, it still costs money. If Tucscon - which the article says gets 12 inches of rain a year - requires rainwater harvesting, why don’t we? (Other than little details like the state owning the rain that drops down from the sky….)
Now I know Tucson and Seattle are very different. I know Tucson uses so much water on landscaping because the city is in a desert, which means for most anything to grow, it is going to need extra water. But the underlying principal is the same. Water is a free resource. When water falls on the ground, it flows along roadways, picking up dirty icky things like metals and nutrients, eventually ending up in a water body like the Puget Sound, where it
does real damage or at a treatment plant, where it goes through an extensive process to get clean. So why don’t we, as a country, require that at least some of that water is captured and used for something productive?
It just seems like a really wasted resource.
Where am I wrong here? Please tell me why this would not work.
By the way, water is going to become an even greater issue of importance as more people move to the Pacific Northwest. I wrote this article a couple weeks ago that discusses the challenges between the desire to get off the water grid and traditional infrastructure.
In that story, a number of experts from our region discussed where we are going with water treatment and the difficulties that lie ahead. It covers a range of opinions but all speakers could agree on one thing: water needs to be more expensive for change to happen.
Kurt Unger of the Department of Ecology pretty much spoke for the crowd when he said “Water is too damn cheap… We need to assess a fee on water to enable so many more things to happen.”
Ah, June. The sun comes out. It starts to feel like summer….. and there happen to be a lot of green building conferences.
Here’s some of what’s going down:
On May 28 - 29, the University of Washington will host a conference on the intersection of climate change and human rights. The lineup looks interesting with speakers including Mary Robinson, the first woman president of Ireland. Looks like it costs $115 for general admission, $30 for students and $265 for attorneys (ouch, comparatively).
On June 2, the fourth annual Construction Solutions Conference will be held at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. The conference overview is titled “making green buildings healthy buildings” (wait, aren’t they healthy anyway? Hmm, maybe not….) It’s got some interesting looking sessions like one asking what have we learned from the first generation of green buildings? Costs $325.
On July 3, the Partnership for Water Conservation Workshop will host an event on setting water rates to promote conservation. It’s at the Carco Theater in Renton and costs $65 for members and $80 for non-members.
On Thursday, June 4, the AIA will host a water forum that looks at becoming “water independent.” I’ve been told this is the “water event of the year” and the lineup certainly makes it look that way. Speakers include Jason McLennan of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, Paul Fleming of Seattle Public Utilities and Jon Gray of Interface Engineering. Prices are $175 for members of AIA and government, $30 for students and $255 for non-members.
Also on June 4, Cascadia will host its pre-art walk green building meet up. This is the place to be if you want to meet fellow greenies in a comfortable, building-related environment. The event runs from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and features wine and cheese.
On June 25, Guy Battle, director of Battle McCarthy will speak as part of the Transformational Lecture Series. The topic of the talk is low energy buildings and sustainable communities: designing for the net zero economy. It runs from 5 to 7 p.m. at Seattle Central Library. I’ve been told I “can’t miss it” so I would suggest you don’t either.
This is by no means an exhaustive list so good luck ferreting out the green stuff that’s worthwhile!
This is a guest post by Dave Bennink, owner of Re-Use Consulting.
I was born in Bellingham and have always lived in Washington. Yes, that means I’m allergic to sunlight and spend 11.23 months a year with extremely pale skin, and the other .77 months with extremely red skin. For me, there is a positive to all that rainfall and that’s river and stream kayaking. Recently, I was able to pay penance for all of that praying for rain. I helped
organize a flood relief effort in Western Washington where materials from buildings that we were deconstructing and salvaging were donated to families around the Pacific Northwest.
The January floods damaged hundreds of buildings around the area and many of the homeowners didn’t have sufficient insurance to cover the repairs. A typical home may have had to replace sheetrock, insulation, wiring, wood flooring, doors, sliding glass doors, cabinets, appliances and more. My clients couldn’t help with the sheetrock and wiring by they donated almost 100 doors, over 40 cabinets and many other expensive items including a large amount of lumber and plywood. The value of these donations was in excess of $75,000!
What was I most impressed with? It was either because they donated them anonymously or
because they did it in these tough economic times. This project was a real pleasure to be involved in and I met a number of good people that help people in need in all sorts of ways. I would like to publicly thank all of our donors for their generosity and pray that we don’t need to do this again next fall or witner. I do hope it keeps raining though, sorry about that!
Hello Green Building Blog readers! Sorry I haven’t been able to update the blog since Living Future but things have been buzzing around the DJC. I’m off on vacation for the rest of this week and will return Monday with great green posts! Until then, good greening!
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be in Portland at Cascadia’s Living Future Conference and whenever I have a chance, I’ll be live blogging it! Stay tuned…..
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
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.
Loading ...
