The Other 99%

There are 4.9 million commercial buildings in the US.

In 2009, more than 275 projects achieved LEED-EBOM certification. Compare that with only 12 certified projects in 2004, 11 in 2005, 17 in 2006, and 27 in 2007. (Stats taken from the Center for Sustainable Systems) For me it's very hard to hold those numbers in my head at the same time. And while I know it's not really a fair comparison to pit the entire commercial building stock of the US against a program that's only 6 years old, I hope I'm trying to make is clear. Existing buildings are the key to sustainability, if we are to achieve it in this country.

But this is a challenge so large, how shall we meet it? With the literally billions of square feet that need to be retrofitted throughout the country how can we possibly come up with a strategy to handle it all. When it comes to scaling sustainability I believe there are two core principles that our industry must utilize in order to do our part to solve the national energy crisis.

Stress what matters to most clients...ROI

When discussing scaling green building, there is often a discussion around education. The argument goes if building/business owners simply understood sustainability more clearly they would of course embrace it en mass and we'd rapidly grow a market that achieves wide scale. Sadly, I believe in our day and age everything is politicized and "green" is seen as something only some folks will be interested in. The job of greening America's building stock is a big one, and we cannot afford to make green building something only folks in blue states are interested in. We simply cannot afford to align the green building as a movement, liberal (i.e. Al Gore), or otherwise. Doing so will marginalize 49% of Americans and immediately inhibits scale. The scalable market for sustainable measures isn't found in the passionate few who think about sustainability every day. It's found in the greater population of business and property owners who don't. If we want green to scale to those folks we have to make the simplest most compelling argument possible. ROI - simple return on investment. There is a very real link between sustainable retrofit/renovation and cost savings. Exploiting that link and making green building not simply something that is done for altruism and prestige, but in the pursuit of profit is the only way to grow the market.

I know this strategy is limiting. By focusing our efforts only on those measures that are most profitable we limit the scope of what a green retrofit can be. However, given the enormity of the task at hand...we must get to work now...

Profitability is also the "gateway drug" to larger sustainability efforts by property owners and managers. Once business and property owners begin to see the benefits of simple efforts toward greener operations, the doors will open to a wider world of possibilities. We didn't get to this lousy building stock overnight...we can't expect to correct it overnight.

The Perfect Cannot be the Enemy of the Good. (Or, Incremental Change is OK)

When it comes to the greening our existing building stock we have to recognize as an industry that every building won't be able to employ every measure of sustainability in our tool kit. That doesn't mean we do nothing. It means that we attack the problems we can with every client every, every time. Affordability, return on investment and durability of retrofits are key selling points. At this point the most compelling argument for this kind of retrofit is being made in lighting technology. Lighting currently consumes about 25% of energy in commercial buildings. But promising new LED sources/fixtures along with improved lighting controls are becoming proven technologies that can be widely deployed at relatively little cost. We can right now, reduce the impact of lighting in the commercial buildings of the United States by incredible sums. I recognize that simply retrofitting a lighting system doesn't turn a brown building green, but if it makes a dent, we should take a swing.

One last thought...incremental change to system as large as the US commericial building stock is probably preferable to wide scale change anyway. Imagine if you could have waved a wand in 2005 and put the best CFL replacement lamp in every single building in America. Later this year we'd be disposing of them in favor of even better LED alternatives.

It is a testament to the brightest thinkers of the green building community that they want to design and build structures with a minimum or a net positive effect on the planet. I applaud those efforts and want to see them continued. But unless as an industry we can go after the other 99% of buildings in the US, we will not have solved our energy problem, we will only have some examples of buildings and technologies that could.


Can we make every small business green?

Before you get on the subway in my neighborhood and head into Manhattan these are some of the buildings you encounter. I've only been in some of the store fronts but from what I can gather none of them have been retrofitted in a very a long time. Knowing some of the shop owners as I do, I know that many of them don't think about sustainability on a daily basis. They're thinking about closing the next rental deal on an apartment or restocking their shelves with magazines. Maybe they are thinking about staffing for the next party at the bar. The owner(s) of these buildings probably isn't thinking about keeping them sustainable, he/she just cares that the rent comes in.

To my mind these folks aren't going to be swayed by arguments about the imminent threat of global warming or reducing dependence on dirty energy or forgien oil or even national security. These shop owners and business people are just barely making a profit and just barely keeping their employees paid. They don't have the resources to attack the problems of the nation. So how do we bring long term sustainability to these folks? How do we affect all buildings - not just the ones with an altruistic owner or one desperate to have a LEED plaque in the vestibule?

It starts when the green building community can accept that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good when it comes to reducing resource consumption. Ideally, a block like this would get completely redesigned. Buildings would get renovated with greener, healthier materials. Layouts would change to make better use of daylight. Perhaps options like green roofing, or window replacement would be considered. But for these business owners, locked into long term leases, the best thing might be to retrofit their lights, and install occupancy sensors...the point here is that we might have to nibble at sustainability, but it's no less important to bring the concepts of conservation to these so-called down markets. Can we prove that green retrofits are profitable? Can we show them that their are real dollars to be saved from this kind of investment? How do we incentivise green for these folks...we must prove that it's a smart choice for all businesses.

What steps can we take to make sustainability more affordable for every business?