At one of the Greenbuild session I attended last week, Andy Florance, CEO of CoStar, said the biggest lie in the construction world used to be “my building is under construction.” Now, he said, “that lie has been replaced by my building is LEED certified.”

What is the gold-green standard? Image courtesy Kristopher Lee

That got me thinking about what the highest standard of green building is. Is is LEED platinum? Is it a living building? What about a building that is netzero energy? So I’ve posed the question to you in a new poll at right, and would love to hear what goal you think all buildings should be striving for, if they should be striving for any green goal at all. Or comment below and tell me what standard you think is the best.

But I digress, back to the topic line: do green buildings sell better than their counterparts? According to CoStar, that answer is yes. 

CoStar did a study of the buildings in its entire U.S. database between the first quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2008, and based on that information, LEED buildings were 4 percent more occupied than their competitors, renting at $11.33 more per square foot and selling at $171 more per square foot, a 64 percent advantage. Both the occupancy rates and rental amounts climbed - from 4 to 6 percent and from an $11.33 to $18.58 advantage - if you count the past two quarters of this year.

But, Florance cautioned, that information is going to be really tough, if impossible, to measure in the future, thanks to the current state of the economy.

If you want more factual information, read my article in the DJC here that has loads more information on the topic. Or you can see a version of this study dated March here.

After a tumultuous year, the zHome project has started off on a new foot with its Monday groundbreaking. The project is a 10-unit townhome development in the Issaquah Highlands that uses smart design and technology to create all the energy it consumes. It plans have net zero carbon emissions and cut water use by 60 percent.

I first wrote about the project last December here when Noland Homes was the

Courtesy of David Vandervort Architects

builder on the project and planned to develop it at its own cost. A lot has changed since then: namely Noland dropped out and Howland Homes came on (and will develop it at its own cost). But the project has finally broken ground and, as Brad Liljequist, zHome project manager for the city of Issaquah, says in the project’s inaugual blog post (yes it has a blog here) it “takes my breath away a little bit” to be at this stage in the project’s life.

zHome has a nifty Web site that can answer all and any of your questions from what materials are being used to how they’re doing it to how to buy into it. For more information, visit it here.

Courtesy of David Vandervort Architects

This solar panel from the groundbreaking comes wrapped in a bow!

The latest rendering

Globe2008, a conference dedicated to “developing the business of the environment” is under way in Vancouver, B.C., and its star openers spoke this morning at an opening plenary.

One of those speakers, Prince Philippe of Belgium, asked whether questions of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, could be better answered by an international organization that has the power to set standards across international boundaries. The force could act as an environment-focused NATO, coincidentally headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

“It could even be said that we need a global governance to tackle the global challenge of climate change in a globalized world,” he said. “In the Belgian view, a UN environmental organization would help us to achieve these goals in time.”

Globalization of environmental problems, and understanding how personal actions affect people in other parts of the world is a hot topic. As environmental awareness grows, so has awareness about how things that seem positive, like biofuel crop growth or recycling your electronics, can have negative environmental effects elsewhere in the world.

A great example of the difficulties of meeting giant goals like getting to carbon neutrality is online in The New Yorker’s Feb. 25 edition here.

Another topic Philippe touched on is the zero emission Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Polar Station, currently under construction. He said the station, named after his daughter, is a premier example of rethinking traditional buildings and spaces.

Once complete, the station will be a base for field research and exploration. The station is billed as a “zero emission” project, as it plans to use 100 percent renewable energy. For more information on the station or the project team, press here.

Other speakers at the opening plenary were Gordon Campbell, premier of British Columbia; and Beth Lowery, vice president of environment energy at General Motors. Dianne Dillon-Ridgeley, director of Interface in Atlanta moderated the discussion. Other topics touched on included the future of green cars, how business can work better with government to create envrionmentally-friendly advances, and the need to move quickly.