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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…
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Posted by Eileen on 12/08/2007 at 06:53 PM
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Saturday, December 01, 2007
Restoration of Sites: An Excerpt from Jerry Yudelson’s “Green Building A to Z”
A goal of many green building projects is to leave the land a better place than it was before. Achieving this goal requires site restoration activities, such as rehabilitating natural drainage systems, replacing wide swaths of green lawns with plants that provide wildlife habitat and replanting ornamental plants with native and adapted species that need far less water and intensive maintenance. As we complete the switch from a predominantly manufacturing economy to one based primarily on services, developers are finding attractive options in paved-over older parts of cities that once supported manufacturing, warehouses and similar industrial uses. Many of these sites were polluted with petroleum products, heavy metals, PCBs and other toxic substances that require remediation before reuse. Even paved-over but unpolluted sites can be converted to offices, retail, hospitality and housing, with considerably more wildlife habitat.
Often the task of the architect and builder is to find a way to place buildings so they don’t disturb what’s already working on a site. Several years ago, I visited the National Conservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Shepardstown, West Virginia. Located on an upper tributary of the Potomac River, this site is very hilly, like most of the state. The project designers placed 17 buildings on the site, only on the hilltops, leaving the hollows alone. Because of a number of changes of site elevation, the design required many wooden bridges between buildings, sometimes with entrances on upper floors. However, this approach allowed the project to avoid extensive grading and degradation of wildlife habitat, while promoting the very values inherent in the Center’s mission. This is a good example of a smart and wise approach to site planning.
Another interesting project is Tanner Springs Park in Portland, Oregon. Completed in 2005, this park sits on top of about 40 feet of historic fill of the original Tanner Creek. To honor its origins and to provide city residents with a natural park, the landscape architects designed a reconstructed wetlands with a boardwalk over it. This park is now habitat for many creatures including various waterfowl. It is mainly used for passive recreation and helps incorporate sustainability into the fabric of the city.
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Posted by Sky on 12/01/2007 at 05:18 PM
This entry has been viewed 527 times.
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Thursday, November 15, 2007
Paints, Low-VOC: An Excerpt from Jerry Yudelson’s “Green Building A to Z”
In 2006 I moved into a home that needed repainting. Since my wife is a “miner’s canary,” in terms of her sensitivity to all chemical emissions, we went in search of paint that wouldn’t leave a strong odor. After some looking, we found an “ecological” paint from a major manufacturer with only 3 grams per liter of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), versus 127 grams per liter for their conventional paint. Thinking that would be just fine, we added the color we wanted and took it home. Guess what? The color added so many volatile solvents that the paint still bothered my wife significantly.
Fortunately there are options for buying low-VOC natural paints. In a city with an ecologically focused home-improvement store, you can get expert consultation on low-VOC paints. One unique approach to paint selection is at the Ecohome Improvement store in Berkeley, California. There, you can sit around a “paint bar” and a knowledgeable “paint tender” will show you the choices.
Another approach is to choose an entirely new way to make paint. Green Planet Paints is headed by Meredith Aronson, an entrepreneur in southern Arizona with a Ph.D. in chemistry. She is beginning to hit the market with paints made from clay, marble, mineral pigments and a soy based resin that makes the surfaces washable, all based on ancient Mayan techniques and ingredients. These paints have no VOCs at all. Of her more natural paints, Aronson says, “The environmental footprint of even ‘zero-VOC’ paint can include all kinds of synthetic materials to control flow, skinning, settling, etc. that ultimately don’t support a vision of sustainability and goodness for the environment.”
In larger commercial settings, there are of course many options, and the LEED system has very defined rules for limiting VOCs in paints and coatings below threshold levels. These limits, 50 grams per liter for fiat and 150 grams per liter for non-fiat interior paints, are set by the Green Seal standard, GS-11.111 They are still a far cry, however, from “zero-VOC” paints that must contain no more than 5 grams per liter.
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Posted by Sky on 11/15/2007 at 05:09 PM
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Thursday, November 01, 2007
Incentives: An Excerpt from Jerry Yudelson’s “Green Building A to Z”
Given a choice, most people prefer the carrot to the stick; at this point in the development of green building methods, techniques and technologies, incentive systems seem a better approach than mandates. Incentives allow the private sector to experiment with a vast array of methods for achieving various levels of energy-efficiency and LEED certification. By combining all of a building’s environmental attributes into a point system, LEED makes it easy to trade off among various components of a building while still achieving a specified result such as Silver, Gold or Platinum. However, green building advocates and local and state government leaders are not going to wait around for the private sector to construct high-performance buildings. By 2010, if not sooner, we are going to see incentives coupled with mandates, as green buildings and green homes move into the mainstream. The issues of combating climate change are too urgent and too political to wait a generation for the private sector to start constructing and operating buildings in a sustainable manner. But for now, incentives are the preferred method for accelerating the growth of green buildings.
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Posted by Sky on 11/01/2007 at 04:45 PM
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