The Future is Green

Green Cities in America: Guest blogger Daniel Pike, Mayor of Bellingham, WA

Photo: Paula Tullar

Bellingham, WA is one of the greenest cities in the United  States. Among numerous lists that have cited this city in northwest Washington as among the top five or ten green places to live, Forbes magazine has rated Bellingham the second greenest metropolitan area, and Country Home magazine rated it as the third greenest city. Whether it is first or third or twentieth, there is no question that this is a place where people take their responsibility for the environment seriously.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Bellingham's mayor, Daniel Pike as a guest blogger. I asked Dan to write about his city's green initiatives, its commitment to sustainability, and to what extent that has helped mitigate the current financial crisis. Here's what he had to say. Take it away, Dan. . . .

"Bellingham is a community of about 75,000 people tucked into the northwest corner of Washington State, itself tucked into the northwest corner of the continental United States. As a community, we share the challenges and joys common to most communities: tough finances, a rising unemployment rate, businesses struggling, but also a shared sense of place and connection with our neighbors. What makes us a little different from the mainstream, though, is our commitment to a triple bottom line, or TBL, approach to the issues before us. In Bellingham, the conversations are not about jobs versus the environment, rather the community talks about how to grow better. This is a community whose ethos receives notice from authors such as Bill McKibben and Paul Hawken, and that National Public Radio’s “Marketplace,” in its Nov. 15, 2008 broadcast, described Bellingham as “the epicenter of a new economic model for a post-consumerist economy: locally produced goods and services focused on what surrounding communities need and can sustain.”

Does this approach, does this ethos matter in an era where most economies, large and small, personal and communal, are deteriorating? I think so, though perhaps not for intuitive reasons. Bellingham is not being spared from economic pain because it strives to do right, as a community. However, we are working together well to deal with both the immediate crisis and longer term solutions.

We are, in fact, a community, not just a haphazard collection of souls sharing a living space.

James Howard Kunstler on the Recovery, Suburban Sprawl, Obama, and Wall Street's "Stupendous Orgy of Misbehavior"

James Howard Kunstler has occasionally been described as a purveyor of doom and gloom. His book, The Long Emergency painted a particularly bleak picture of the prospect of living in a post-carbon world - i.e. a future in which the exponentially rising imbalance between supply and demand for petroleum-based fuels has brought economic growth to a standstill and unleashed widespread disruption of the social order.

Pretty scary stuff. But implausible? Perhaps not so much.

 In a recent post to his blog, Jim responds to the charge of being a "doomer" by challenging us to take a clear-eyed look at reality and asking pointed questions about what shape we expect future to take. He writes,

     "At the risk of confirming my critics' dumbest charge -- that I am a "doomer" -- the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation. We're done with that, we're beyond that now, we've crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we'd better get our heads straight about it."

He goes on to criticize some of the Obama administration's efforts to put the country back on track, and makes a few interesting suggestions about possible alternatives.

Jim Kunstler is nothing if not provocative. In the ten or so years since I first met him I have often marveled at his unwavering rejection of complacency and his steadfast refusal to accept conventional wisdom about almost everything. While occasionally over the top (to understate the case) his observations and the questions he raises are always worth pondering. I reprint the rest of his March 9 posting below. Readers' comments are welcome.

Barry Katz on the Radio Friday March 20

This Friday, March 20, I will be a guest on the internet radio program, The Success Express to discuss Greening Your Business with hosts, Nancy & Lisa (editors of BigBlendMagazine) and special guest co-host Gerry Rose – President of Integrity Networking Solutions. 

The program airs from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM. To listen, click here.

Other guests include, Daniel Sitarz – author of Greening Your Business: The Hands-On Guide to Creating a Successful & Sustainable Business; Leon Grundstein - GenCare Lifestyle in Seattle, WA; and Stephanie Dowling - The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa, Scottsdale, AZ.

If you can't listen at that time, you can listen to the archived program here.

Barry Katz speaking at Residential Design & Construction conference April 1

From the Department of Shameless Self-promotion: On April 1, 2009 yours truly will be speaking at Residential Design and Construction 2009, sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects.

My workshop, Residential High-performance Green Design and Construction (W-61) runs from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM. I'll be talking about green design, materials, and construction methods for new and remodeled homes and will be showing photos of an award winning green home I built in Westport, CT, as well as images from my upcoming book, Practical Green Remodeling.

The conference, which takes place April 1 - 2 at Boston's Seaport World Trade Center, is a forum for nationally and internationally recognized industry leaders to share their knowledge and expertise in over 80 workshop and professional development opportunities. Anyone who wants to register can do so here.

Residential Design and Construction is a two-day convention and trade show featuring more than 220 product exhibits, 85 workshops, and special events focusing on New England’s residential design and construction industry. In the exhibit hall, attendees have the opportunity to examine the latest materials, pick up literature on new services and discover innovative technologies from more than 200 exhibitors.

Who Should Attend? 

RDC 2009 is for everyone in the residential-design community including:
architects | residential designers | engineers | interior designers | landscape architects | home builders | developers | subcontractors | specialty contractors | remodelers | renovators | specifiers | custom builders | marketing professionals |small-firm administrators | planners | public policy leaders | residential clients | urban designers | young professionals

AIA/CES Learning Units

Architects, interior designers, and other industry professionals may earn continuing-education credits by attending RDC 2009 workshops.

Department of Obfuscation: Misinformation on green building techniques in the NY Times

A recent article in The New York Times is a good example of how misinformation gets disseminated. Citing a report from NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, the article gives the impression that cost savings from green building are not as readily achievable as advocates maintain.

As pointed out by Edward Mazria of Architecture 2030, this report is part of a disinformation campaign meant to stall efforts by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on improving building energy code standards. According to Mazria, in a blog post entitled, A Hog in a Tuxedo is Still a Hog, “It is clear from a simple analysis of the study that NAIOP commissioned a building energy efficiency analysis to support predetermined results.” Mazria continues,

"They contracted with ConSol, an energy-modeling firm, and asked them to analyze five (yes, only five) efficiency measures for an imaginary, square-shaped, four-story office building with completely sealed windows and an equal amount of un-shaded glass on all four sides of the building. In other words, analyze an energy Hog.
 
“They did not study changing the shape of the building, its orientation or form, or redistributing windows or using different windows to take advantage of natural light for daylighting or sunlight for heating (office buildings are day-use facilities). They did not study shading the glass in summertime to reduce the need for air-conditioning, using operable windows for ventilation (not even in Newport Beach with its beautiful year-round climate), using landscaping to reduce micro-climatic impacts, employing cost-effective solar hot water heating systems, employing an energy management control system or even study the impact of using inexpensive energy-saving occupancy sensors in rooms to turn off lights.

“In other words, NAIOP intentionally kept out of the analysis all the readily available low-cost, no-cost and cost-saving options to reduce a building's energy consumption. This deliberate omission is glaringly apparent in their press release and in the NY Times article. In fact, they take so many inexpensive, energy-saving options off the table that it is impossible for the imaginary building to reach commonly achievable energy-consumption-reduction targets.

They then add an inflammatory headline to their press release, “Results show efficiencies unable to reach 30 percent mandates”, and state that, “The study provides an unbiased insight into the energy targets practical to commercial development today.”

Using this analysis as their baseline, NAIOP goes on to report, without any objective basis, that “reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard (a commercial building energy code standard) is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback.” They conclude, “achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable.”

Clearly, this study is meant to confuse the public and stall meaningful legislation, insuring that America remains dependent on foreign oil, natural gas and dirty conventional coal.

NAIOP touts itself as advancing responsible commercial real estate development and advocating for effective public policy. This study and misleading campaign accomplishes none of these goals.

The American public deserves better.

How much less does it cost to build green? Part II

I am always frustrated when people ask me how much more it costs to build green. I tell them it's the wrong question to ask. The appropriate question is, how much less does it cost? 

It is a mistake to look only at first costs when considering the budget for a building or remodeling project, because operating costs, over the life-span of a building, can be two to three times the original cost of construction. So green upgrades that increase energy efficiency and reduce maintenance costs quickly pay for themselves and then continue to pay dividends for the life of the building. And that's not even taking into account the documented increases in productivity among workers in green buildings. That's a topic for another post.

I wrote about this last month in a piece called How much less does it cost to build green? Today I want to expand on that topic with some excerpts from an article entitled Valuing Green Buildings, by my friend, Constantine Valhouli, of the Hammersmith Group. It was originally published in Urban Land magazine, a publication of the Urban Land Institute. You can find the complete article here.

Do green buildings present a competitive advantage that can translate into lease premiums, reduced risk, and increased renewal rates? Given that buildings account for one-third of all energy and water consumed in the United States, there is increased interest in “going green” as energy prices continue to rise. The benefits of sustainable structures range from quantifiable energy and water savings—to the “brand” benefits brought about by actual stewardship of  environmental resources.

“There is a strong business case for high-performance buildings,” maintains Brenna S. Walraven, executive managing director of San Antonio, Texas–based USAA Real Estate and chair of the Building Owners and Managers Association International (BOMA). Previously, green features were considered primarily on the basis that ‘if it’s good for our image, it’s good for marketing.’ Now there is greater awareness—and better documentation—of the financial benefits of high performance buildings.”

Energy-efficient and water efficient features can increase a building’s value by lowering operating costs. High-performance buildings can generate a 7 to 12 percent increase in net operating income (NOI) by reducing operating costs, notes Dennis Fleming, managing director of Revival Funds, a Denver-based firm that funds sustainable real estate investments.

Green buildings use on average 30 percent less energy than conventional buildings, points out Greg Kats, managing director of Good Energies, a venture fund focused on renewable energies based in Manhattan. If energy costs run, say, $2 per square foot, this becomes a savings of $0.60 per square foot. For a 100,000-square-foot building, this represents energy and water savings of $60,000 annually. With a 20-year present value of expected energy savings at a 5 percent cap rate, this savings adds roughly $750,000 to the value of the building—all for a small additional investment in the initial costs. As interest rates and energy prices rise, these benefits become even more pronounced—and green buildings become even more valuable.

“Energy-efficiency has helped drive value for our portfolio,” says Walraven. By using Energy Star’s tools and ratings that normalize building efficiency for factors such as weather, occupancy, and building characteristics, Walraven explains that it was possible to identify low-cost opportunities to increase operating efficiencies for USAA Real Estate’s portfolio properties.

The result, she says, is that implementing the recommendations from the energy audit generated $10 million in savings on capital expenditures of $2 million.

That's not a bad rate of return in any economy.

Exxon-funded scientist says CO2 emissions are good for us and we need more

Opinions, it has been said, are like a certain part of our anatomy associated with elimination - everybody has one. That, I suppose, might explain the bizarre testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week by Physicist, Dr. William Happer of Princeton University. Happer offered the opinion that we are actually in a CO2 famine - compared with Earth's atmosphere of 80 million years ago - and that increased CO2 emissions would actually be good for mankind.

Happer's testimony, part of which you can see below, drew an incredulous response from the committee's chairwoman, Senator Barbara Boxer who said, "I don't even know how to say this, but a lot has happened since then," before noting that conditions on Earth 80 million years ago were probably not something we would find particularly pleasant today. Boxer later noted that Happer is Chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, which receives a large part of its funding from Exxon. Hmmmmm.

Happer claims that Earth, during the Pleistocene era (which was actually from 1.8 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago - NOT 80 million years ago) had many times more CO2 in the atmosphere than it does now, and that, as a result, the planet prospered.

In fact, CO2 levels in the Pleistocene - the period when the the planet was much colder and glaciers reached their furthest limit - were roughly 200 ppm (parts per million). Today's atmospheric CO2 level is about 386 ppm.

80 million years ago, by contrast, during the Cretaceous Period, when CO2 levels were 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre-industrial value of 285 ppm, the climate was very hot. Ice sheets had melted and sea levels were 120m higher than today. This map, published last year in the journal, Science, shows what the world would look like today with sea levels similar to those of 80 million years ago. The dark blue areas would be completely under water.

Perhaps Dr. Happer would prefer it that way, but I suspect most of us would not.

Back by popular demand: Stephen Colbert on greenwashing by oil companies

There's nothing I can possibly add to this. Just watch and enjoy.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Prescott Oil Loves the Earth