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? 

Design/Build Professionals great challenge: Make Green Make Sense

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?