Design/Build Professionals great challenge: Make Green Make Sense
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 5:48AM 
I am a firm believer that "green" will not become the norm in this country until certain basic steps are taken from voluntary to mandatory. Simplicity is the mother of replication and right now there are simply too many standards that a given product or building manufacturer can envoke to call themselves "green." Competing programs, Energy Star versus LEED for example, end up hurting both standards as they create a competitive, rather than cooperative environment. Then of course there are the moving goal posts. From the ever-readable Chris Cheatham's blog:
First, why is the DOE willing to give up Energy Star products to the EPA? Turns out, the DOE has focused on a new building labeling system:
"[Cathy] Zoi, [the DOE's new assistant secretary for energy efficiency] pointed out that while D.O.E. has lost some of its Energy Star territory in the deal, it gained ownership of a new program that will develop an efficiency rating tool and labeling scheme for assessing energy in buildings — a major source of infrastructural inefficiency."
Second, how many more green labels can be created before consumers can no longer discern between them? Among the many plans put forth by the EPA and DOE, the agencies have proposed a "'Super Star' label to identify products that perform in the top five percent of any given category."
We need to move away from these competing standards, and move toward a universal one. The best example I can think of is UL. Underwriter's Laboratory signs off on nearly every product that uses electricity or heat in the United States. They came about based on a market need. Insurance underwriters were tired of insuring homes and having faulty electrical devices burn them to the ground. A standard was created that gave independent labs the power to review products under given standards and approve them for sale in the US. We need a green standard as simple and a clear as that if the movement is going to go mainstream. I imagine a day when no appliance could be sold in the US without an Energy Star label. Consumers didn't think about it, and the standardization debate happened behind the scenes. By the time these appliances were in our buildings we would know they reached a baseline for effiecency.
In the interim, we have to simplify "green" for our clients...
As a design/build professional how do you simplify green for your clients?
Energy Star, regulation, standardization in Open Questions
Reader Comments (8)
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