As always, we've been putting out blog posts regularly this week.  Our two most popular were:

1) Ashrae 189.1 Is The Most Important Story in Green Building Today 

2) Jill Bellenger's guest blog, Green Building Sense: Do As the Locals Do

Honorable mention goes to my guest post yesterday, The Trouble in Going At It Alone, which held its own.

In other news, our podcast seems to steadily be reaching more listeners.  If you or someone you know hasn't discovered it yet, it's never too late to join.  You can catch up with us on our Podcast Page or you can search for Build2Sustain in iTunes.  If you have been listening, thank you!  And please let us know what you think.  Drop us a comment on the Podcast Page or better yet, rate or review us on iTunes.

Happy Weekend!

But, I observed as the day went on how things get done in the education world.  Here were these representatives from schools (colleges, private schools, and public school districts) talking to various product reps about things they anticipated needing.  Someone is looking to retrofit their library and ask about lighting sources or a new control system.  They like what a product rep says, and they will likely order and install it without a second thought.  I understand that schools often have very sensitive budgets and this makes them feel as though they're spending less money.  But I have some concerns.

One is that they won't know what questions to ask.  Take the person who's looking to do a library retrofit.  What if they love the idea of LED fixtures that a rep introduced to them.  They're low energy, not as expensive as other LED products shown to them in the past, and will last for 15 years without the hassle or expense of swapping light bulbs.  Sounds perfect.  But they never thought to ask, what happens 15 years from now?  And years later, when the first fixture fades or fails, they may be surprised to find that the only way to "relamp" is by tearing all the fixtures out and replacing them with new ones. Schools stay in business a lot longer than 15 years.

Secondly, aside from helping them get the best products for their situations, having a professional advocate can help any facility make sure they're getting the most bang for their buck.  By taking a little extra time (and yes, money) with a professional to plan your retrofit/renovation, you can ensure that you are focusing on the systems in your building that will give you the most savings.

And that's where Build2Sustain comes in.  We're out to convince all of these property owners, tenants, and facilities managers that hiring a strong team who will take the time to think about your space as a whole and make smart choices for you will save you money both in savings and avoidance in costly mistakes in the short- and long-term.  It takes the courage to think and do things differently, but we want to help.  We want to find your team and make sure you attain your goals.  Join us.

Living sustainably goes beyond what’s inside our homes, offices, and schools.  It also takes into account the connectivity of these uses, and how appropriate their locations are in relation to each other.  But not all green buildings are created equal.  It’s becoming more common to see buildings and even neighborhoods go through rigorous green certification processes, and depending on where you’re located, their design can be measured in a number of ways.

Primarily LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is paving the way for more sustainable residential, commercial, and mixed-use buildings and neighborhoods.  It’s one of the many recognized rating systems available (this one from the non-profit US Green Building Council) to make sense of all the potential ‘greenwashing’ that has, unfortunately, become a part of the whole Green movement. 

I say ‘many’ rating systems because as it turns out, LEED has really sparked the interest of quite a few municipalities.  Over the past decade, cities like Austin, Seattle, Portland, and San Jose have their own locally-based guidelines.  Some are complete with Green Building Task Forces or sustainability departments geared toward streamlining the program for its users.  Many of these are in response to the Federal Stimulus Bill, where cities need to use a given amount of funding for environmental programs.

Not to mention EPA’s Energy Star, which has a rating system of its own in an effort to decrease building energy usage by at least 15%.  While some homeowners may only be familiar with the Energy Star label for energy efficient appliances, the program can also be used building-wide in an effort to market it as on the cusp of sustainable design.

What happens when you are faced with so many of these rating systems is that building or renovating a project to the utmost green standards can really have varied results from design to construction.  For example, LEED has several credits that specify a building adhere to either an architectural standard such as ASHRAE or instead to a local standard, whichever is stringent. 

Having a variety of rating systems for green building is a step in the right direction, bringing light to some glaring concerns in the way buildings have been built over the past few decades.  But it’s also a little as if every city created its own version of ADA codes for accessibility, and designers could pick and choose which code to follow.  What you’d find is a genuine attempt to increase accessibility but no consistency on how to reach it. 

No matter which rating system you’re involved in, it’s best to become educated about what is available, the kinds of tax and other local incentives out there in your area, and the stake your area is claiming in regards to green building.  Until there is a nationally required rating system, LEED, Energy Star, and the many other options are slowly becoming mandatory benchmarks for sustainable design. While the future of green building is uncertain, it is extremely reassuring that there’s still a continual increase in the resources and organizations dedicated to improving the way we design. 

If you work in the design/build industry here in the US you are familiar with ASHRAE Standard 90.1, this standard establishes the baseline for energy usage and effieciency here in the US. This standard has become code almost universally across the US...the following paragraph from ASRAE explains the intent of Standard 189.1  (and here's the whole document).

The standard is not a design guide or a rating system, though it is hoped that organizations...will integrate this standard into their rating programs...Standard 189.1 is primarily based on mandatory requirements (with some elements allowing a choice between a prescriptive or performance options for compliance) that establish baseline criteria for a high-performance green building. Also, because Standard 189.1 is a code-intended standard, it references documents that are in normative language, meaning those documents are not just for informative purposes but are required for compliance with the standard.

It's a green building code. How much more effiecient is it that the current building code (ASHRAE 90.1)? Again from ASHRAE:

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, has made a preliminary estimate based on the second public review draft of Standard 189.1. Applying the minimum set of prescriptive recommendations in Standard 189.1 led to site energy savings ranging from 10 percent to 34 percent over Standard 90.1-2007, including plug and process loads and all other energy consumption for the building. The weighted average across all building types was 18 percent. Since the second public review, additional energy savings measures were incorporated into the standard, so the published standard is expected to yield even greater energy savings.

The question now is how rapidly will state and local governments adopt the green building code and make it the law of their respective land? How municipal governments answer that question will rapidly set the baseline for green building in the United States. Have any thoughts? Experience or expertise with the standard? We'd love to hear them in the comments.

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.