A Green Building Consultant's Dilemma

Advisory Board member, Elaine Hsieh shares with us her thoughts this week.  You can find out more about Elaine on the B2S team page.

As a green building consultant, I often find myself torn between day-to-day consulting realities and my vision for true sustainability. 

We all know that mainstream methods of building, especially in the US, are unsustainable for the environment, and many builders who call themselves "green" are just following checklists toward an end goal of getting some sort of green label or certification. These lists are mostly just collections of prescriptive, accessible steps aimed at performing better than minimal standards. As a consultant, it is my job to help these owners, developers, design teams, and other building professionals understand the value of pursuing green building certification goals that include rigor and transparency and third-party verification to ensure credibility. I help teams make more sustainable decisions and perform as well as they can to achieve their certification goals, and I do my best to support an integrated project delivery process, manage expectations, educate, and assist the team toward their greening efforts. 

In some cases, people are motivated to pursue certifications out of their enlightened interest in sustainability. Even though education and cost-benefit discussions are usually part of these efforts, they can lead to innovative results and rewarding work as a consultant. In many cases, however, project teams are motivated to chase green building certifications because there is either a local ordinance requirement or because the owner is trying to compete in a market where these labels are in demand. As a consultant, the outcomes of these situations are usually far less satisfying; they often wind up feeling like mindless point-chasing, with needless cost additions, uncooperative construction teams that didn't account for "extra paperwork," and a lot of people who shake their heads at how annoying "green" building is. The unfortunate reality is that most people don't care to listen to consultants like me unless the owner (i.e., the one with the purse strings) cares. 

Regardless of their motivation for certification, I'm happy that people are doing something to modify past behaviors and look for greener, more sustainable solutions. But are these minimalist, box-checking approaches to green building enough? Most green building certifications help teams get acknowledged and rewarded for taking small steps toward reducing their environmental impact, but will these baby steps make a difference when 99% of the world's buildings still need to be addressed? 

Some have suggested that tighter local regulation is a way to move beyond voluntary green building certification recognition. While this sounds good in theory, in practice it's mostly unrealistic. Consider how few building departments in the US know how to actually enforce their local green building ordinances credibly. It's impossible to issue a building permit after a project gets built and certified, which makes it impossible for an inspector to ensure the building is actually going to meet the required certification standards. This is not to say that green building regulation is not good, but the experience enforcement authorities have with green building rating systems is generally low and some of these "green" policies are just plain hard to enforce. These are some of the reasons why many well-intentioned green building regulations often lead to buildings with perceived "green label equivalence" that contribute to greenwashing and confusion in the marketplace.  

Another possible step beyond basic green building certification lies in tighter federal building codes. If these codes become stricter and incorporate more sustainability elements (e.g., adopt ASHRAE/USGBC/IESNA Standard 189.1P), then this may force awareness, education, and change. Unfortunately, not all parts of the US are created equal in terms of building codes, so this transition to a federal green building code may take a while. 

All of these approaches are a bit superficial, though. They lack a true philosophical foundation. It would be great to find a deeper, less prescriptive approach to sustainability. 

One green building certification system that is trying to do some "pulling" in the building industry is the Living Building Challenge. The system's author, Jason McLennan, indicated that its purpose is to "act as a lighthouse" for project development teams striving to achieve true sustainability. More specifically, the system is only made up of prerequisites (i.e., imperatives) like net zero energy, net zero water, no "red list" materials, and other equally challenging systems-based targets. In the Living Building Challenge, "all aspects are guided by identifying an ideal and positioning that ideal as an indicator of success, so decisions are steered by restorative principles instead of code-minimum solutions." Here is a system that is based on constant reminders of the objectives we are working to achieve. In my world, I think it's one of the few green building systems that is aligned with what most "deep green" professionals can generally get behind. Although the risk of setting goals too high may stop most people from even trying, a system that is guided by ideals is not intended for everyone. 

And that's the conundrum. Keep the sustainability bar low (i.e., check-box green building), and you'll get more adoption, but slower overall progress. Set the sustainability bar higher, and you'll get better results where they're implemented, but less adoption. 

If we can't strike the right balance between green ideals and practices that people can actually adopt, how long will it take for us to reach the vision we share for a sustainable future? 

Week in Review

Had a busy week and feel like you missed some of the content we put out?  No problem!  Here is a succinct recap for you:

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!

ASHRAE 189.1 Is the Most Important Story in Green Building Today

That headline is not linkbaiting either. ASHRAE 189.1 represents the first green building standard written in enforceable code language here in the US. As we highlighted in our podcast over the last two weeks, programs like the Living Building Challenge and LEED will always be there to advance the higher causes of green building and challenge pros to think about how to design and construct our buildings more sustainbly, but the introduction of this kind of code represents a primary shift in the way buildings will be constructed in the US.

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.

Getting a "C"

First of all, if you are a regular visitor to the Build2Sustain website, THANKS! We're sorry for some of the changes in design, we're working on a new layout and a stronger landing page, so things might be a little wonky for a bit. As always, we'd love your feedback.

Enough about us-let's talk about rating systems, or more specifically a new rating system from ASHRAE. I came across this article from DJC Oregon, its worth a read all on it's one. The article describes the current war of the rating systems between Energy Star and ASHRAE. Energy Star has a pass/fail system for being in the 75th percentile or above for energy effiency. Whereas the new ASHRAE system will grade with a letter system to exemplify the best performers with higher grades. As always we have no great devotion to any specific code but there were some specific quotes from the article that caught my eye.

Building EQ (the new ASHRAE system) focuses solely on energy, unlike Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which considers other factors. As such, Building EQ will appeal to building owners who wouldn’t consider LEED, said Louis Starr, a commissioning agent for Heery.

“I’ve seen schools say, ‘We want to do something about energy efficiency, but we don’t want to go through the LEED process because it costs a lot and a lot of it doesn’t relate specifically to energy efficiency,’ ” Starr said.

This is the crux of what I was trying to say with yesterday's post. LEED is an excellent rating system and presents real thought leadership. But it's not always the right fit for a given client. As design/build professionals it's our responsibility to steer our clients toward the best long term solution for them and the environment. I'm happy to see national organizations working to create more intelligent and more stringent rating systems. This last quote codifies the spirit of competition more rigorous rating can engender.

...the competitive nature of the grading scale could easily leave Energy Star in the dust.

“We all know what it feels like to get a ‘C,’ ” Kane said. “And we all know we want to do better.”

What's your take? The comment section awaits.