Paper Project

We are heart-breakingly close to being able to announce our academic partner for the Build2Sustain Paper Project, as soon as we can publicly share, we will. We're very excited about our partnership, and very soon we'll be able to announce who these people are, the timeline and we might even be able to delve into project specifics.

Services Definition

We'll be working to define with laser-like accuracy and twitter-like brevity what our service offerings are, in plain English, this goes hand in hand with a minor website overhaul we plan on undertaking in the very near future. These sound like minor projects, but trust me, they can be brain taxing.

Podcast

In the past month our podcast page has been visited 423 times. We're thrilled with the reception of the podcast thus far, our content is quickly becoming a destination for thought leadership in green building, but we know we can do better. We want more community engagement, more conversation and more transparency and we're prepared to deliver all three. Have some thoughts on how we can make the podcast better? Shoot us an email...

So that's the briefest of rundowns on what B2S is up too...we'll be checking in more frequently in the days and weeks ahead.

We are four episodes into our podcast and while we feel really good about it, there's also this feeling-something like a little like a kid just getting on a two wheeler, lots of potential, could be awesome...but wobbly at the moment. So we're turning to you all out there for feedback...what do you think of the podcast?

The style of the hosting (I write these posts in the "we" tense, because we're a team, but you can criticize me, I can take it), the content, the length, frequency of the content. Nothing is off limits...we want the podcast to be a valuable place for information and discussion of green building. So you can do us HUGE favor and tell us what YOU want more of...

The comment section is always open, but if you'd like to write us a private note, you can email us at podcast@build2sustain.com

I feel a little bit like this post is a What I Did on my Summer Vacation post, and that’s kind of fun. 

2009 was by no means a stellar year for most of us. And if Raquel and James had asked me to write this post a year ago, it would have been a pretty short post, stating “trying to get work.” Last year at this time, I was teaching and that was it. However, because of that, because of having no work, it forced me to innovate both myself and my business in ways I did not expect I would need to do. It also opened doors to opportunities I never expected –even if the opportunities took months to come to fruition. Today, I can write that I am quite busy on several different fronts. 

I continue to teach part time at Philadelphia University, which I love. I teach a class on building systems and materials to the sophomores in the Department of Architecture. It’s their first introduction to how buildings go together, how they really work. Not only do I love the class and teaching, I also love the energy of the students and learning from them. It is indeed a win-win scenario. 

On the business front, I have a few LEED consulting projects in the works now. One project is with my former firm, Blackney Hayes Architects and is a new 72,000 sf academic building for Ocean County College. It is my first LEED v3 project and I am very excited to be really getting my head into the new rating system. I have also just started two smaller projects, also LEED v3 projects. One is a small Black Box theater for a CDC in the Kensington Section of Philadelphia, with a very talented young and local firm, ISA, Brian Phillips and Daryn Edwards at the healm. The other project is a new mixed use building for PBCIP, a non-profit neighborhood organization in Camden, NJ. PBCIP wants to build a landmark new sustainable office, retail and training facility at a prominent intersection in the Parkside section of Camden. Once a vibrant industrial city, Camden now has the reputation of being one of the worst cities in the United States. To be part of this project is very exciting. Also exciting is the architecture and engineering firm I am working with, DCM Architect + Engineering, a Camden-based firm headed by Eduardo Guzman and Robert Bensen. Eduardo is one of the most talented and forward-thinking architects I have met, and I can only say the same about Robert, who is a P.E.  

I am also working with strategic partner, Scott Chrisner, of Chrisner Group, on the Home Performance with Energy Star residential energy audit program, as well as offering full service green project management. It is part of the New Jersey Clean Energy program, and being a part of this new program here in New Jersey is very exciting.  

Finally, I am being trained by Bedford Cost Segregation, a company dedicated to providing cost segregation services, to help them out with projects. It is essentially a tax planning strategy to accelerate depreciation deductions and improve cash flow. It is a completely different way to look at a building, since its focus is breaking down the building specific to components which depreciate in 39, 15, and 7 years. The faster a component depreciates, the more money is available in deductions up front. I really wasn’t sure if I’d like the work –I was able to test the waters a few weeks ago on one project. I was surprised at how interesting I find it, and now I am taking the next steps to learn more so I can continue consulting with them. 

Looking at this list, I never would have expected a year ago that this is what I would be working on, nor would I have expected I would be this busy. But I knew I needed to keep at it last year, and it has paid off in the end. Now, I need to get back to work!

We'd like to thank Scot and Jason for joining us, and a special shout out to Advisory Board member Elaine Hsieh for pulling this discussion together.

As always the podcast is available right here on the website or subscribe via iTunes.

A brief excerpt:

GBLB:  What is the motivation behind TD Bank's green initiative? 

Frank Sherman: Lack of Federal leadership leaves it up to private enterprise. Right now, the private sector is going to have to pull us through in the short term.  Our green initiative is work we have been focusing on for a year and a half internally. The driver stems from TD Bank Financial Group in Toronto. Their senior leadership made the decision to become carbon neutral as a company. Their initial commitment early last year or late 2008 was to become carbon neutral by end of October of 2010.

There's much more in the interview about primary strategy and implemenation. Mr. Sherman even touches on green building. Great piece, Shari!

Tepid. Uninspiring. Why Bother? This language makes our potential clients less enthusiastic about jumping into sustainability.

Couple that kind of language with conflicting reports in the media about the best initiatives in the industry, like LEED and Energy Star. Stories like these only foment cycles of misinformation and lead to further paralysis. Am I saying LEED or Energy Star or any competing standard is perfect? Couse not. What I'm saying is they're making progress. Progress should be something we're all after.

Imagine if we’d had the same kind of caution when it came to proliferating say, the automobile or the PC. What if Henry Ford had promised marginal improvement to our daily lives with the automobile? What if Microsoft’s goal had been to put a computer on 20-30% of the desktops in the world? These companies set bold goals. They had big ambitions larger than profit alone. They wanted to fundamentally change the world, change markets and improve people’s lives. Yes, they also stumble, remember the Ford Pinto? Remember Windows Vista?  Big companies with bold goals sometimes fail, but we must fail forward. Has the building industry created so many barriers to success that we are afraid to set bold goals? Are we afraid to change the world? Are we too afraid too fail forward?

There are some that will say the industry doesn't lack big vision. It lacks a big market. The argument goes something like:

There is no incentive (particularly in this economy) for building owners in the commercial world to take up the cause. They will lease their buildings to businesses and continue to make a profit on their building stock whether or not they improve it for the betterment of their clients, the nation, the globe or whoever.

To those people I would remind them of two things...

First, the buildings that are the most efficient, productive, healthy and well designed i.e. the best buildings will be leased first and at higher rates. Period.

Second, I would also quote the great Henry Ford...

The highest use of capital isn't to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life. 

So how bold should we be...

I can’t speak for the industry, but I can tell you Build2Sustain’s North Star Goal:

To make every commercial space in the United States sustainable.

Northstar goals are big and open ended by nature, but if we don’t start pursuing them...
 
Who will?

1) Reports indicate your retrofit achieved an energy consumption reduction of more than 40% resulting in $800k worth of savings. We're always making the business case for sustainable retrofit and renovation; can you give us a sense of the ROI and payback period associated with the retrofit?

We spent approximately $3,000,000 to get this $800,000 in savings for a payback of 3.75 years.

2) Were there primary building systems you knew you could target when planning the retrofit or did you evaluate everything? What was the design process like?  

Primary building systems that were evaluated were the air handlers and air distribution, the chiller plant, and the lighting.  The design process was based on seeing what current equipment was not performing as it should have been and then looking for further improvement opportunities.  A walk-through audit was performed after maintenance improvements were made to determine what kind of engineering changes were needed for the systems.

3) As a result of your design process, what primary building systems were retrofitted? Were core systems retrofitted (HVAC, Lighting, Windows), was this largely a control-based retrofit, or both?

The major areas of work for this project were to convert the building from a constant volume system into a variable air volume system, controls upgrades to convert pneumatic controllers at terminal devices to direct digital controllers, control upgrades to the chiller plant, and the installation of an automated lighting system to schedule the lights on and off.

4) You achieved LEED Gold-EBOM certification for this project. Was LEED certification a primary goal of the project? How did that impact the way you approached the project?  

Yes, LEED certification was a primary goal.  It impacted the approach of the project in the following way.  To get LEED, you need a minimum score on the Energy Star of 69.  We were well below that value, so the energy improvements became a major focus of the project in order to reach that minimum score.  Also, the savings from the energy improvements went to offset the costs of additional changes need to achieve LEED.

5) How long did the project take from internal proposal to completion?  

We worked 2 years on this project.

6) Given the success of this project, are there future Caterpillar sites slated for similar retrofits?

Yes, we are always looking to make energy efficiency improvements that are in line with our enterprise sustainability goals.