But that’s not really what I want to write about today.
And please, next time you travel, buy carbon offsets. While being very far from the kind of investment in clean energy we need to make as a nation, it does help finance clean energy and carbon mitigation projects and it doesn't cost very much. CarbonFund.org and TerraPass.com are two excellent web sites that will help you calculate and offset your carbon footprint.
I would like to direct your attention to the newest addition to our list of blogs worth reading, Consilience: The Blog, published by the Institute of Green Professionals, who have kindly elected me to join the ranks of their members.
The IGP, in the words of its mission statement, ". . .
is a transdisciplinary network of sustainable development
professionals, academics and organizations that advance global
sustainable development through education, credentialing, research,
philanthropy and a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct."
I feel privileged to be associated with this group of sustainability professionals and academics. Please visit their web site and check out Consillience: The Blog from time to time. You may even find the occasional post there by . . . well, modesty forbids.
I had a letter to the editor published in today's New York Times, commenting on a recent Op-Ed piece, "This Old Wasteful House," by Richard Moe, director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In his article, Mr. Moe enumerated several compelling arguments for improving the energy efficiency of older homes.
My letter suggested another benefit of weatherizing older homes - namely that older homes are often located in traditional neighborhoods that are less automobile-dependent than newer subdivisions. It's brief, so I have reprinted it below.
As Richard Moe asserts, weatherization can greatly reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Homes are responsible for 21 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States — and not only aging middle-class homes. I have observed energy audits of luxury homes built in the last 20 years that show serious deficiencies in thermal protection.
Air-sealing and insulation can pay for themselves in as little as two years, and continue to pay dividends in the form of lower fuel bills.
Another advantage of upgrading our aging housing stock is that unlike the vast tracts of suburban sprawl that characterize new residential construction, older homes are often located in compact, walkable communities.
Revitalizing such neighborhoods strengthens a pattern of development that is far less dependent on the automobile and is therefore more sustainable.
My assertion that weatherization can pay for itself in as little as two years prompted an email from a reader asking me to provide a URL that "explains/expands on/defends this comment." Here is my response.
Here are two. The calculations on the Dept. of Energy web site [the 2nd link] are for
insulation only and do not take into account sealing air leaks.
Insulation slows conductive heat loss. But more heat is lost through
convection - air movement through numerous small gaps in a home's
thermal envelope. The most effective method of saving energy is to
first seal air leaks and then add insulation. Many homeowners can do
the air sealing themselves at a very low cost, resulting in an even
quicker payback.
Also, the Dept of Energy calculations, which show something like a
5.6 year payback, are based on a typical home built after the 1973 oil
embargo, when insulation standards for new homes became more stringent.
Richard Moe's article specifically addressed older homes, which are are
more poorly insulated (if at all) and which are often extremely leaky.
So the answer to the payback question will always depend on the age and
condition of the home.
http://74.125.93.104/search?q=
http://www.energysavers.gov/
Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a piece titled, "This Old Wasteful House" (see below) on the Op-ed page of today's New York Times makes a strong case for the multiple benefits from weatherizing older homes: reducing energy consumption, cutting carbon emissions, revitalizing neighborhoods and creating jobs.
Homes are
responsible for 21% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. And it's not only aging middle-class homes. I
have observed energy audits of luxury homes built in the last 20 years that show
serious deficiencies in thermal protection.
Air sealing and insulation can pay for themselves in as little as two
years, and continue to pay dividends in the form of lower fuel bills, putting
more cash in homeowners’ pockets.
There is yet another important advantage of upgrading our aging housing stock not addressed in Mr. Moe's Op-ed piece. Unlike the vast tracts of suburban sprawl that characterize much of new residential construction, older homes are often located in compact, walkable communities. Revitalizing such neighborhoods strengthens a pattern of development that is far less dependent on the automobile, and hence, more sustainable. It’s a win-win-win stimulus package.
This Old Wasteful House
by Richard Moe
NEVER before has America had so many compelling reasons to preserve the homes in its older residential neighborhoods. We need to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. We want to create jobs, and revitalize the neighborhoods where millions of Americans live. All of this could be accomplished by making older homes more energy-efficient.
Let’s begin with energy consumption and emissions. Forty-three percent of America’s carbon emissions come from heating, cooling, lighting and operating our buildings. Older homes are particularly wasteful: Homes built in 1939 or before use around 50 percent more energy per square foot than those constructed in 2000. But with significant improvements and retrofits, these structures could perform on a par with newer homes.
So how does a homeowner go green? The first step is an energy audit by a local utility. These audits can be obtained in many communities at little or no cost. They help identify the sources of heat loss, allowing homeowners to make informed decisions about how to reduce energy use in the most cost-effective way.
Homeowners are likely to discover that much of the energy loss comes down to a lack of insulation in attics and basements. Sealing other air leaks also helps. This can be done by installing dryer vent seals that open only when the dryer is in use, as well as fireplace draft stoppers and attic door covers.
Experience has shown that virtually any older or historic house can become more energy-efficient without losing its character. Restoring the original features of older houses — like porches, awnings and shutters — can maximize shade and insulation. Older wooden windows perform very well when properly weatherized — this includes caulking, insulation and weather stripping — and assisted by the addition of a good storm window. Weatherizing leaky windows in most cases is much cheaper than installing replacements.
The good news is that the administration is taking steps to help homes save energy with a program that will invest almost $8 billion in state and local weatherization and energy-efficiency efforts. The Weatherization Assistance Program, aimed at low-income families, will allow an average investment of up to $6,500 per home in energy efficiency upgrades.
My organization is also working with the Natural Resources Defense Council and members of Congress on legislation to help cover the costs of making all older homes more energy-efficient. Under this proposal, a homeowner would receive a $3,000 incentive for improving energy efficiency by 20 percent, and $150 for each additional percentage point of energy savings. If 3,000 homes could be retrofitted each year, we estimate that after 10 years we could see a reduction of 65 million metric tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, and the equivalent of 200 million barrels of oil saved.
The labor-intensive process of rehabilitating older buildings would also create jobs, and this labor can’t be shipped overseas. The wages would stay in the community, supporting local businesses and significantly increasing household incomes — just the kind of boost the American economy needs right now.
Before demolishing an old building to make way for a new one, consider the amount of energy required to manufacture, transport and assemble the pieces of that building. With the destruction of the building, all that energy is utterly wasted. Then think about the additional energy required for the demolition itself, not to mention for new construction. Preserving a building is the ultimate act of recycling.
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.
Continue reading "Green Cities in America: Guest blogger Daniel Pike, Mayor of Bellingham, WA" »
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.
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.
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,
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.
I have a love/hate relationship with the National Association of Home Builders. As a longtime member of NAHB I appreciate many of the services they provide, including their tireless advocacy in Washington. But I've occasionally felt some of their positions were wrong-headed - attempting to protect home builders from regulations that would benefit home buyers.
Case in point - about which I am quietly fuming: While the NAHB pays a great deal of lip service to improving energy efficiency in homes, at the 2008 hearings of the International Code Council in Minneapolis, NAHB successfully lobbied for the weakening of proposed new energy standards under the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC).
According to the blog, Green Building Advisor, the so-called the so-called Thirty Percent Solution — which would have required homes built in 2009 to be 30% more energy efficient that homes built in 2006 — was defeated after vigorous opposition from representatives from the NAHB. The Thirty Percent Solution was supported by a wide coalition of organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of State Energy Officials and the Energy Efficient Codes Coalition.
The weakened regulations that were finally passed only require a 12.2% improvement in energy efficiency. The results will be still less effective becauseu the IECC codes are only sporadically enforced around the country.
I think it's an outrage. When are we going to get serious about fighting climate change?
The one question I am asked more often than any other on the subject of green building is, How much more does it cost? For a long time I cited various statistics indicating premiums in the range of 2.5% to 5% or so. But a while ago it dawned on me that this was actually misleading. My new response is that "how much more" is the wrong question. The appropriate question is, How much less does it cost?
Thinking only in terms of first costs is extremely short-sighted. What you really want to know about is the life-cycle cost. Over a building's useful life, the cost of operations and maintenance can easily equal or exceed the original construction cost. Building green, or carrying out green retrofits, nets substantial reductions in energy use, water use, waste water disposal, solid waste disposal, and maintenance, generally resulting in relatively short pay-back periods and high returns on investment.
An excellent case in point is the retrofit of Adobe System's headquarters in San Jose, CA. The cost of the retrofit was $1.4 million. Of that amount, $389,000 was offset by grants and rebates from the city, state, and local utilities. And while Adobe's staff grew by 35% since 2001, their electricity consumption is down 35%, natural gas use is down 41%, potable water consumption dropped 22% and their landscape irrigation consumes 75% less water than before. All this is netting Adobe an annual cost savings of $1.2 million and earned the project LEED-Platinum certification.
But this kind of financial return still only tells part of the story. Green workplaces have been shown to improve productivity and reduce absenteeism. For most businesses, savings on operating costs for office buildings pale in comparison to productivity increases because salaries typically run five to six times higher than all other costs combined, so even small increases in productivity have a big impact on the bottom line.
In a future post I will go into more detail about research documenting improved worker productivity in green offices. It's pretty interesting stuff. But for the moment, a few statistics will paint the picture in broad strokes.
A study published by Deloitte & Touche reports that in a survey of organizations that had carried out LEED-certified green retrofits, 87% saw an improvement in workforce productivity, 75% saw an improvement in employee health, and 73% reported that they had achieved cost reductions as a result of implementing green measures. Respondents also reported substantial reductions in energy costs and higher apprasial values.
Other recent studies of green buildings have documented higher occupancy rates, higher rents, and sales premiums as high as $171 per square foot as compared with comparable properties with standard construction.
So, how much less does it cost to build green, anyway?
My new friends, Ryan Potvin and Matt Macko of Environmental Building Strategies in San Francisco have been getting some flack about an article entitled Top 100 ways to Continue Fucking the Future. that appeared in their excellent blog on January 5. The article was about their desire to write a book listing all the things we routinely do that have negative environmental impacts.
The flack was not about the concept or the content of the piece, but merely about the title's use of the dreaded F word. People, grow up, please.
The idea was to grab readers' attention with a provocative title, a subversive twist on the hundred or so books with titles like "101 Easy Ways to Go Green," or some such nonsense, and then hold up a mirror wherein they'll catch the conscience of the king, so to speak. I often wonder what it will take to wake people up to the very real dangers bearing down on us. It a four-letter expletive helps, well then full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes, I say. When the book comes out I will be first in line to buy a copy so I hope they make good on their threat to actually write it.
Their blog is full of information and insight and I recommend checking it out. In their day job, Matt and Ryan are top-notch green building advisers with offices in San Francisco, LA and Aspen, CO. Anyone looking in their neck of the woods for green building advice, energy audits, project management, etc. should definitely look them up. All their contact information can be found on the Environmental Building Strategies web site along with all sorts of useful information.
This New Old Green House is the title of the cover story I wrote for the January issue of Period Homes magazine. It tells the story of how I turned green, and of an award-winning high-performance green home I built in Westport, Connecticut.
You can read the story on my web site or download a PDF of it here: Download Period Homes article - Jan. 2009
On the last day of Green-Build 2008, in Boston last month, I attended a remarkable talk by Janine Benyus, author of the book, "Biomimicry." What fascinates Benyus is the ways nature accomplishes things that can only be duplicated by complicated industrial processes. Her web site, www.asknature.org provides numerous examples of how mimicking nature can solve various problems more simply and easily, and with a lot less effort, expense, and environmental harm. According to Benyus,
"Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis,
meaning to imitate) is a design discipline that seeks sustainable
solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies,
e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf. The core idea is that Nature,
imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we
are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic
chemistry, transportation, packaging, and a whole lot more."
Examples of practical applications of biomimicry include self-cleaning paints that mimic the way water rolls off a lotus leaf, solar cells that mimic photosynthesis, and fabrics that are colored by mimicking the way a butterfly's wing refracts light. Many more examples can be seen at www.asknature.org, which over and over again asks the question, "How would nature solve . . . ?" Some of the answers are truly amazing.
The talk Benyus gave (see below) at the 2007 TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design - always worth a look) is fascinating and beautiful to look at. Carve 18 minutes out of your day and enjoy. It will be time well spent.
A popular bumper sticker in the 1970's, when conservation first became chic, read, "Save water - Shower with a friend." I wouldn't begin to suggest such a thing now, in the considerably more prudish 21st Century, but we could save a lot of water, and a lot of GHG emissions by showering with low-flow shower-heads.
I know, I know. Apparently the three scariest words in the English language are 'low flow shower-head.' Most Americans, upon hearing those words, react roughly the same as Kramer in a particularly funny Seinfeld episode entitled, appropriately enough, Low flow shower-head.
Fortunately, things have changed. Technology, as it occasionally does when it isn't making things worse, has made this situation a lot better. There have been remarkable improvements in water pressure from low-flow shower-heads in recent years.
One such fixture, the Alsons model 656 shower-head (available from Amazon.com and elsewhere for just over $20) produces an extremely satisfying shower using only 1.85 gallons of water per minute (GPM). I installed one in my guest bathroom as an experiment and it has turned out to be the most powerful shower in the house.
Older shower-heads, pre-1992, often used 5.5 GPM or more.
If a family of four switched to 1.85 GPM shower-heads they could save as much as 42,000 gallons of water per year. Using an average cost for water of $.008 per gallon, that's a cost saving of $341 per year.
Now, here's where it gets interesting. Three-quarters of the water used for showering comes from your hot water heater. That means roughly 30,000 fewer gallons need to be heated. The average cost to heat a gallon of water is about 5 cents. So the energy cost savings from switching shower-heads could be as much as $1,566 per year. That's a total cost savings of roughly $1,900 per year for water and energy. And a net emissions reduction of 6,155 lbs of CO2. Not a bad return on investment for a couple of $20 shower-heads!
Now, think globally. There are roughly 112 million households in the US. If ten percent of them switched to low-flow shower-heads it would reduce annual CO2 emissions by over 32 million tons, the equivalent of removing 5.7 million cars from the road. It would also save nearly half a trillion gallons of water per year.
One of our best friends in fighting climate change could turn out to be the lowly shower-head. So, go ahead, shower with a friend. You'll get just as clean and your conscience will get a little cleaner.
The Vatican has installed 2,700 photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of its Paul VI Auditorium. The panels, $1.5 million gift from the German company, Solar World will generate 300 kilowatt hours annually, more than enough to power all the lighting, heating and air conditioning for the 6,000 seat hall. Excess power will be fed into the Vatican's electrical grid.
The Vatican is already carbon neutral by some estimates. It offsets all of its greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits and carbon certificates. The Vatican is also the owner of enough forest in Hungary to completely offset all of the carbon emitted by Vatican City, which is now the only soverign state in the world that can boast of being carbon neutral.
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