The Yudelson Associates Blog: What's New

Sunday, December 16, 2007

San Francisco Goes Deep for Green Buildings! Just the Beginning, says Consultant.

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s legislation would require all new residential high-rises, all commercial buildings over 5,000 square feet and all renovations over 25,000 square feet to become LEED certified by 2012. If implemented, the City’s green building standards (short of LEED certification) would affect all buildings requiring permit approval beginning in 2008. Already, the city “fast tracks” building permits for developers who agree to acquire LEED certification for their projects. I predict this is just the beginning: I foresee every large city (and many small ones) enacting similar green building legislation by 2009, despite the strong preference of the development community for voluntary approaches. The recent climate change conference in Bali has made the growing problem of carbon dioxide emissions too important for cities to ignore. And green buildings offer the most immediate and cost-effective way to respond to the growing climate change prevention imperative.

Posted by Jerry on 12/16/2007 at 06:56 PM

This entry has been viewed 231 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis   

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Salvage Materials:  An Excerpt from Jerry Yudelson’s “Green Building A to Z”

“A penny saved is a penny earned,” wrote Ben Franklin. We care about reusing building materials because of the energy and resources they represent. It takes energy to down-cycle them into recycled-content materials (think of old concrete from a building ground into three-quarter-inch aggregate for use in concrete or as the base material for a parking lot or roadway), so why not use them in their original form instead of throwing them away or using them in some devalued form?

LEED recognizes the value of salvaged or reclaimed materials, such as decorative brick, heavy timbers and other framing lumber, doors, millwork, furniture and partitions, by rewarding projects that use them for at least 5% of the total value of all building materials (not counting equipment). On a typical $10 million (construction cost) project, this would represent $225,000 worth of such materials, not an insignificant amount. One benefit of this practice is the development of local enterprises based on deconstructing buildings and salvaging such materials. If you consider how much useful material is saved from old cars by auto salvage yards in every town, you’ll see the benefit of this practice.

With the advent of Web-based auction sites such as eBay and retail/ wholesale reclaimed building materials stores in most large metropolitan areas, there is now a nationwide market in reclaimed building materials for building projects. So, there is no longer an excuse for not being able to find materials. The only issue is their quality and availability, along with transportation and storage costs.

Some creativity might be required to find and reclaim salvaged materials. The first LEED Platinum project, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation building in Annapolis, Maryland, used large wooden tanks from a former pickle manufacturing facility to harvest rainwater from the roof of their new building. The three tall pickle barrels create a strong visual and architectural element at the building entrance.

This is an excerpt from Jerry Yudelson’s book, Green Building A to Z: Understanding the Language of Green Building.

Click here to download the PDF version.

Posted by Sky on 12/15/2007 at 05:27 PM

This entry has been viewed 348 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis   

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Canada Green Building Rocks!

I met today with Thomas Mueller of the Canada Green Building Council , at his office in Vancouver. The CaGBC now has more than 1,700 business, agency and institutional members vs. USGBC’s 12,500. Applying the “10% rule” (Canada’s population is just about one-tenth that of the U.S.), the CaGBC now has more members per capita. The CaGBC is moving quickly to create a flexible Canada LEED rating system for all building types and all stages of a building’s life cycle, using a flexible “bookshelf of credits” approach, combiined with serious “life cycle assessment” methods, directions in which the USGBC is also headed. Mueller is also spearheading moves to bring Canada’s homebuilders into the LEED camp. Expect to see much more coming out of the CaGBC after a major “summit” in Toronto in June of 2008. According to the conference web site, this event will see the launch of the next generation of the LEED® Canada rating system—a tool that will facilitate measurable and large scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and support building owners and operators for continuous building performance improvement. I also learned from Mueller that most of Canada’s major developers are moving quickly to make commitments to LEED office buildings throughout Ontario, the most populous province.

Posted by Jerry on 12/11/2007 at 05:32 PM

This entry has been viewed 361 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis   

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Commercial Market Size

But what about cost? If green buildings cost more and certification costs are
onerous,we would expect that most of the activity in green buildings would
be found in government agencies, schools, and universities: institutions
that can afford to take the long view and invest more money up front to
save money on operating costs year after year. That was certainly the case
early in the development and use of the LEED system,when only about onethird
of the project owners (by area, or value) were private corporations.
Lately, however, the pendulum is swinging: private companies and private
developers now represent the majority of LEED projects (ranked by building
area, or value) applying for registration in 2006 and 2007…
Download the full excerpt.
Visit the Books & Resources page.

Posted by Eileen on 12/08/2007 at 06:53 PM

This entry has been viewed 324 times.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    TwitThis