Unfortunately dear readers, I will not be at Greenbuild in Phoenix this year. However, I have recruited two Seattle attendees to keep us updated with news! If anyone else is attending the gigantic annual USGBC conference and would like to contribute, please send an e-mail explaining who you are and what kind of info you would want to share at katiez@djc.com!
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
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?
Yesterday’s New York Times has a great overview on the the elephant in LEED’s room. The story, “Some Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label,” by Mireya Navarro, discusses how many buildings aren’t as efficient as they were planned to be, or should be.
It’s a good overview for those who don’t already live the problems and issues discussed in it. Though the article discusses a very valid question, I don’t know that it’s really fair, considering the
Should your building get retested?
USGBC did not even require a LEED building be more energy efficient than a standard building until June of 2007. Plus, both the main building cited in the article and the study of 121 buildings mentioned in it looked at buildings certified through 2006. (Doing a similar study looking at buildings designed and built since then would be fascinating but I digress.)
Anyhow, what I find most interesting is the last line of the story where Scot Horst of the USGBC says LEED may eventually move towards the EPA’s Energy Star Model where buildings must attain the label each year in order to keep it. “Ultimately, where we want to be is, once you’re performing at a certain level, you continue to be recertified,” he said.
This raises two main questions in my mind. First, if that’s where the USGBC wants to be, why isn’t it there now? LEED 2009 has some major changes in it, but it will be another couple years until the next version is released. I understand that LEED is still a growing tool (and money-maker) but if this is really the way it will be in the end, why not just bite the bullet and figure out a way to incorporate the goal now? The Living Building Challenge had some pretty audacious goals as a part of its first incarnation. Why can’t LEED make these changes now?
Which brings me to my other main question. Is the idea of making LEED something that can be rescinded even realistic? While there is no denying that it would be valuable to require LEED buildings be tested every year to retain their certification, LEED is an investment and an expensive one at that. Would it become a less attractive investment from a business perspective if your pretty little plaque could disappear due to let’s say a crummy building manager?… or to a changing system? What if further versions of LEED required changes that you simply couldn’t add on to a building. Would you be penalized and lose your certification because you, or the person you bought a building from, didn’t make a significantly different decision in design?
Maybe commissioning should become a required part of LEED. But that also adds costs to a project.
What do you think?
What is the purpose of a new green building aesthetically? Should it look like every other energy hog on the block? Or should it look different to call attention to the fact that it’s special?
That’s what I’m wondering after your comments to the post below, regarding the new LEED platinum headquarters building for the U.S. Green Building Council. Holz says “it’s got no soul,” while a conversation between Nate and I revolved around the image that the USGBC is trying to project. Nate says “USGBCs goal seems to be to bring green to the mainstream, and thus it is not surprising that they wanted their office building to look like a traditional office building.”
But why go traditional when you can go exciting?
I don’t even work in the field and I can come up with a number of reasons. It’s less of a risk if you design something that looks like everything else. And while many people might think the idea of LEED is great, there are also people out there who think it’s a load of hogwash. And heck, if you’re standing in a standard-looking building, you’ve got to search out the single USGBC plaque and know what it means before realizing you’re in a green building. What percentage of the population would even recognize the seal if they saw it?
But if you’ve got a green building that’s obviously a green building from its architecture, who knows how it will be accepted? Who knows if people will like it, or if tenants will choose it over a more common counterpart. It’s also more obvious to nay-sayers that the people who developed the building - and use it- are committed to green practices (or at least want to appear that they are).
Then again, one has to assume that if you’re going to the USGBC’s offices, you know that the people you’re about to be speaking with are green-minded.
And if the envelope is never pushed, you won’t get buildings like this:
or Nate’s favorite:
or possibly the first living building in the country….
Or the LEED gold Environmental Protection Agency Region 8 headquarters in Denver. From the outside…
Though to be fair, all the above photos are of buildings for private institutions or agencies that don’t really have to worry about market forces.
What do you think? Should really green buildings look like everything else or do they need to look mainstream for reasons of marketability, etc.? Answer my poll at right or share your thoughts below.
And if I missed a great example of a green building that pushes the aesthetic envelope, please comment with a link to a photo of it…..
The U.S. Green Building Council sent out a press release this morning announcing that its headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been certified LEED platinum under the new version of LEED. It also sent out a whole powerpoint presentation of photos, which gave the viewer a pretty good idea of what the space looks like.
But before I show you the eye candy, please stop and take a moment to think about what you think the headquarters should look like. First, it is important to know that the USGBC is the creator of LEED, the environmental rating system which has produced some really innovative and exciting pieces of green architecture. So it stands to reason that their building should be the epitome of everything green that it possibly can. Second, it’s also important to understand the building’s context before you judge it. The office is 75,000 square feet that is divided between two floors and connected by an open staircase. It’s also in an urban area, so realistically, this building was going to look like an office building from the outside.
Here’s what Rick Fedrizzi said he wanted it to be: “The vision of the space was to exemplify everything a LEED building is: high-performing, resource-efficient, healthy and productive.”
Alright. Look at the photos below and tell me: did they suceed? Is this how you imagined it would look? If so, what did they get right? If not, what would you have done differently?
So readers, what do you think?
Recently, I received a book in the mail called, ‘True Green Home - 100 inspirational ideas for creating a green environment at home.’ The book, by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin, was released by National Geographic this month.
The book is a handy little thing that does exactly what its title says in outlining
inspirational ideas than range from Number 1 - choose an eco-friendly location for your house - to number 100 - dry your clothes by sun.
Being an environmental reporter, most of the ideas in this book don’t surprise me. I already knew building orientation mattered, as does placement and type of windows, building material and design. But I was surprised by a few things I didn’t know. For example, Number 30 advises me to invest in a bag-less vacuum cleaner. Call me crazy, but I had no idea such a thing even existed! Number 76, regarding natural cleaning of kitchens and utensils, advises me to clean copper with equal parts ketchup and Worchestershire sauce. Really?! I almost want to go burnish my mom’s copper pots and pans just to test it out.
Every idea comes with glossy, pretty pictures. Case studies from William McDonough + Partners, Whole Foods, the USGBC and others also punctuate the pages.
For those people who live, breathe and eat green, this book will be old news. But for those who are just looking to learn about green building or are considering a home remodel, this could be a helpful source of information.
The book is available online. For more information, visit National Geographic here.
In today’s marketplace, so many things claim to be “green” that it can be really, really tough to decipher what’s green and what’s greenwashing. Sometimes, green measures even conflict with each other.
Apparently, that’s the case with LEED and Green Globes, at least in Washington State. Green Globes,
administered in the U.S. by the Green Building Initiative, is a green building certification that I have only come across a few times in my travels. LEED is by far and without question the more prominent certification of the two.
However, LEED’s prominence is due in large part to its inclusion in state and city government incentives and requirements. For example, Washington State requires major buildings meet LEED silver or higher to receive public funding. Seattle requires developers meet at least LEED silver to receive a density bonus. Those requirements have gone a long way towards making Washington a leader in its number of LEED certified buildings, and LEED projects on the board.
Senate Bill 5384 would change the state mandated requirements by adding the Green Globes standard as an alternative to LEED silver.
Now, it might surprise some to learn that Cascadia, the region’s go-to organization for green building, is lobbying hard against this. But then again Cascadia is part of the U.S. Green Building Council and the U.S. Green Building Council created LEED, so it stands to reason that it would support LEED certification. The bill is also opposed by the Washington Environmental Council and the Washington Conservation Voters, which represents many different environmental organization statewide.
An advocacy e-mail appeared in my in-box today asking readers to call state legislators to make sure
Green Globes is not included in state law as an alternative to LEED. The e-mail says “Green Globes was created by the timber and chemical lobbies as a much weaker alternative to LEED,” and that it is untested, funded by industry and requires no third party verification.
I don’t know enough about Green Globes to report on whether any of the above allegations are true. I know board members of GBI represent a number of different interests from universities to business. I know a number of industry organizations heavily support their initiatives (though to be fair, industry also supports USGBC).
I also know the actual bill, available here, has a piece in it stating all major projects receiving state funds that are four stories or under must use wood and wood products as building materials in them. Not sure how that fits into the point of the bill and it seems a little odd to me but make of it what you will.
If you’re interested in this topic, Architect Online has an excellent rundown of the two systems by Christopher Swope here that I highly suggest reading. Swope points out that LEED could benefit from a bit of competition.
For still more information, visit GreenbuildingsNYC here.
What do you think? Is LEED too restrictive and is Green Globes the way to go? Is Green Globes a less strict certification? Weigh in by commenting below!
I told you I would update you on the position for Washington State Director of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council and here I am with the update!
The position (open until filled) is responsible for planning and figuring 
out all of Cascadia’s programs in the state of Washington, together with regional staff and volunteers. Let’s just say it takes a lot of experience and leadership (though my favorite part about the description is ‘must have a sense of humor.’ If only that was always a job requirement!) To read more or apply, click here now.
Cascadia is also hiring a development director, based in the Seattle office (but will consider candidates in Vancouver, B.C., and Portland). Go here for more.
In other job news:
And that’s all for today folks! For more, check the tag ‘jobs’ below.
How much trash does a “green” event produce? Evidently, a lot if you’re the U.S. Green Building Council’s GreenBuild 2007. The annual conference, held in Chicago last year, created 44 tons of waste.
Granted, 91 percent of it - or 40 tons - did not end up in the landfill, according to Dan Bulley, chair of the Volunteer Committee for Greenbuild in 2007. Instead 300 college students sorted through the waste.
Of the 40 tons of waste diverted, Bulley said seven tons were food scrap, and six tons were wood from expo displays in the exhibit hall.
What’s 40 tons of waste? For people around Seattle, it’s all the dog droppings left in Snohomish County over two days. For out of towners, it’s 260,000 items that washed up on New Jersey’s beaches over a year. For the U.S., it’s on the low end of the total waste a person produces in a year.
When you rationalize the numbers out, the mass waste makes some sense…. it was a week long conference and expo with an exhibit hall and 25,000 participants, so Bulley says it works out to about 3.5 pounds of waste per person (nevermind most people only stayed three days but we’ll go with it….).
But does mass waste ever make sense? The diversion fact is commendable. And the image of college students rifling through my waste (yes, I was at GreenBuild) is something to ponder. But did that 44 tons of waste need to be created in the first place?
Think about it… thousands of people gathering together to figure out how to save the environment and how to build green. And yet they still can’t not use things. 44 tons of things. Thrown away. Isn’t green building all about the idea that the little things - like 44 tons of waste - matter?
No wonder right wing talk show hosts call greenies hypocrites.
Remembering back, the hefty 187-page program could have been …. digital! Or it could have been easier to compost food scraps, or recycle nametags. Those participating in the expos could have used less literature or cards that pointed attendees to a Web site.
Or, as a green building consultant said to me the other day, the entire conference could have been virtual. If 44 tons of trash sounds like a lot, imagine the carbon emissions from the millions of miles of air travel. (I for one met people from the U.K, Japan, Canada….)
This is by no means an isolated event, just a high profile one. But it seems to me an example of the kinks, shall we say, in the green building movement. Do I have something here or is it too much to think that people promoting green … could change the way they do things? It’s like not seeing the forest for the trees (that were at least, diverted).
For more, Building Design + C0ntruction runs the full press release here. FrontBurner asks if green trash is still green here. Or in another scenario from Wired Magazine here, Brandon Keim explores a Japanese city that just stopped waste collection. Now there’s an idea.
Hold onto your hats folks, the LEED you know and love (or heck, hate) is growing up.
If you’ve worked with LEED before (like the people that worked on the LEED gold Hearst Tower in Manhattan at right), you know what it looks like. You get equally weighed points for energy efficient design, renewable energy use, construction waste management and low emitting materials to name a few areas, though there are certain points you have to get. A project gets to be LEED platinum by getting between 52 and 69 points for new construction, and only 26 to 32 points for LEED certified.
Well, on Tuesday, the USGBC announced it opened its public comment period on LEED 2009, part of LEED 3.0…. and it basically looks nothing like what you know LEED to be. (more…)
Loading ...
