Why Green Buildings Take Me Back to Middle School

One aspect of my school years that I remember quite clearly was the awkwardness of each middle school dance. First, deciding what to wear was critical. You didn’t want to be caught wearing a dress if all your friends were showing up in hyper color t-shirts with jeans cuffed at their ankles. So it was important to poll your friends in advance to ensure sure your appearance would match that of your classmates. After establishing what to wear, you arrive at the dance itself. At the beginning the boys and girls stood in small groups, eying each other from across the room. For a while there is no actual dancing at the dance, just maybe some whispers and giggles from groups of girls and macho talk from the boys. Finally, someone had the courage to start dancing, and then suddenly everyone was dancing. Next a slow song came on, and you suddenly found it critical to partner up with someone of the opposite sex who 20 minutes before you could barely look at. Middle school was a stage in my life that I can now reflect on with some fondness, but that I would never want to repeat.

How in the world is the building industry like this, you are no doubt wondering? The answer is the influence of PEER PRESSURE! This week I attended a panel on green building at the Berkeley Energy Symposium. According to the panelists peer pressure to build greener buildings is a key factor in the surge in popularity of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified construction over the past few years. I have written before about the ROI of green building initiatives, but according to the panelists, many developers are making construction decisions where no clear ROI can be measured in an effort to keep up with their competition. 90% of Class A construction, such as office or condo towers, is now pursuing LEED certification, but many developers are going beyond the pursuit of LEED points and making certain decisions for which ROI is difficult to measure. For example, the carbon used to produce the materials in buildings, so called “embedded carbon,” is a significant contributor to environmental warming. Apparently, LEED awards very few points for reducing this embedded carbon. Still, many developers are choosing materials with reduced embedded carbon for fear that their building will be perceived as less green than new construction in the same markets. Fearing risks associated with being left behind, they are hoping on the bandwagon.

Several panelists expressed hope that the influence of peer pressure would also drive greener building in Class B & C construction and even among consumers who are building their own homes or remodeling. While I hope that will someday be the case, I think a key factor is missing for peer pressure to influence smaller building projects. It seems to me that green construction reached its tipping point for Class A buildings only after many elements of green building were demonstrated to have positive ROI. Measuring complex returns from different product investments is complicated and time consuming. Small builders and consumers don’t have dedicated resources to measure the ROI of every building decision. Experiencing $20 a year of ROI on a “greener” purchase may not be enough value for many busy homeowners who balance careers and families to do extensive research and complicated calculations of value. Why would a parent want to spend 5 hours on a Saturday calculating projected energy savings for different washing machines, possibly ineffectively, when his/her children are begging them to play outdoors?

For small players to get on the green building bandwagon, projected benefits need to be easily available and simple to understand. One audience member asked why the energy star ratings on appliances only show one year of expected energy savings instead of savings over the expected life of the appliance. I thought this was a great question. Even now looking online, I can’t even find something translating the ratings into projected dollars saved. One panelist surmised that it is hard to predict energy costs over time, and thus companies would be reluctant to project such benefits. However, companies make assumptions to project ROI internally all the time. Couldn’t a third party organization provide such information to help homeowners and small builders compare the ROI of different green investments without significant effort? Perhaps it could even be interactive and available at stores or over the web so that users could manipulate energy prices and their own usage levels and see the effect of their total savings to compare it to the difference in purchase prices among products?

I am glad that “green chic,” as panelist Phil Williams called it, has become a major factor in reducing the environmental impact of the construction industry. However, I truly believe that for green building to become as common for smaller builders and middle-class American homeowners, ROI of building and materials choices needs to be easily available. Only Van Jones’ “eco-aparthiedists” can justify the expense of greener building materials and appliances based on only a desire to be green chic and feel good about their environmental footprint. For the rest of the world, we need to clearly communicate financial benefits to influence consumers to make greener purchasing decisions. Once we communicate that ROI, I hope that these other markets will reach their green tipping point so that they too can remind me of my middle school days of peer pressure and awkward dances.

In case you are wondering, these were the panelists at the event:

• Jim McMahon, Head of the Energy Analysis Department, Lawrence Berkeley Lab
• Brandon Tinianov, Chief Technology Officer, Serious Materials
• Steve Selkowitz, Director of Building Technologies, Lawrence Berkeley Lab
• Phil Williams, Vice President of Sustainability, Webcor Buildings
• Sean Ivery, Director, Navigant Consulting

Van Jones & The Green Collar Economy

It was not long before my Williams-Sonoma co-workers noticed my passion for environmental causes. They observed me heating up my organic lunches in our office kitchen, taking online surveys to calculate my carbon footprint, and touting my re-usable Nalgene water bottle to meetings. So when my co-worker, David Schofield, read an article on the environmental movement written by a neighbor of his in Oakland, Van Jones, he was quick to pass it on to me.

To my horror, I learned that according to Van Jones, I was participating in “eco-aparteid,” a phenomenon where only the upper-classes of American society are financially capable of participating in the green movement. As Van Jones pointed out in the article, low-income families can’t afford organic vegetables when they are struggling to buy food at all. Likewise, Prius hybrids, roof-top solar panels, and most other “green” products are accessible only to our country’s elite. His article noted that Chevron defeated a California ballot initiative on green energy by a small margin by targeting urban, African-American communities with ads implying that gas prices would rise. Van Jones pointed out that it is hard to care about global warming when you struggle to pay rent and utilities.

Low-income communities won’t be compelled act on behalf of the environment until the environmental movement can add something to their lives. And, American society will not be able to significantly reduce our environmental impact without involving more segments of our population. What can the green movement offer these people? Van Jones’ answer is jobs. We can hire them to install solar panels, retrofit existing buildings to make them environmentally friendly, and build wind turbines. One solution can address poverty and environmental destruction, two of our country’s biggest challenges.

This week, I had the privilege of hearing Van Jones speak on campus about his vision for a “green collar” economy. Honestly, the speech was shallow in its content. I did not learn much more about his philosophies than I did from that borrowed article. However, seeing Van Jones speak in person gave me insight into his ability to lead this movement, which even a few years ago may have seemed like a lost cause. Van Jones’ personable nature and sense of humor would make his ideas accessible to all kinds of people. Much like President Obama, he has the power to communicate a message of hope to communities of Americans that have long felt forgotten. And given the current economic woes, more and more Americans seem willing to listen.

Having the opportunity to hear many CEOs and business leaders speak already at Haas, I have come to understand how important it is to have a leader with vision. The best organizations are led by men and women who are able to communicate their vision in a compelling, clear voice to diverse employee groups, potential investors, and the media. Conveying their vision, true leaders motivate others to action. The “green jobs” movement is fortunate to have found a motivating visionary.

While I would never underestimate the value of a strong leader, for the green collar economy to become a reality, it needs more. It looks more and more likely that billions of economic stimulus dollars will soon be aimed at building Van Jones’ “green collar” economy, and to make this investment a success we can learn from the strategies of successful businesses. Here are some of my thoughts:

• Mission Statement: Clarify the mission of this investment to facilitate better planning, allocation of funds, and measuring the impact of initiatives.
• Communication: Develop a mechanism to promote communication of best practices for organizations across our large country. Van Jones touted the success of Richmond Solar in training unemployed minorities to install solar panels. Rather than allowing other groups to re-invent the wheel, we should facilitate communication between similar organizations across the country.
• Key Performance Indicators: It is critical to measure the success of any investment. We should define key performance indicators to help us better understand how to most successfully spend government dollars on green infrastructure projects, green collar educational programs, and clean tech research. By comparing KPIs against our mission statement, we can assess the success of each program.
• Process for Planning & Allocation: Companies generally have a budgeting process to allocate funds to capital projects. Ideally, projects are assessed for projected ROI and compatibility with the goals of the organization. Often it seems like government organizations lack this sort of discipline. Rather than throwing money at the sexiest programs, we need to develop a process for balanced allocation of funds to meet our goals.
• Transparency: Ultimately we want to develop a sustainable green economy. Transparency can help us do this. Information on how to apply for government contracts or grants should be readily available to private contractors & non-profit organizations as appropriate. We should be rewarding the best and most creative organizations with government contracts, rather than buddies of government officials.
  

I have long thought it criminal that a nation as rich as ours would allow endemic poverty to persist in our urban communities. At the same time, I could never understand why more Americans were not as passionate about saving the environment as I was. Van Jones brought to my attention the fact that these two national problems are not unrelated. I hope that in the coming years we are able to achieve his vision of saving our planet as we pave a road that will lift Americans out of poverty.

For more information on Van Jones visit his website: http://www.vanjones.net/

Can China Go Big AND Go Green?

This week Peggy Liu, chairperson of JUCCCE, Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy, spoke at Berkeley. JUCCCE is a non-profit with the mission of accelerating the greening of China through international collaboration.

It seems that the strength of JUCCCE relies in addressing a problem I noted in an earlier post about our green future here in the U.S. Last semester, I commented that the lack of a workforce educated in green technology and development seemed like a barrier to the success of emerging green programs. For example, green buildings are receiving a lot of press here, but a developer who wants to build a LEED certified building may have difficulty finding a team of architects and builders with experience who can do so. The U.S. just doesn’t yet have enough people with knowledge to support large-scale green initiatives, energy related or otherwise.

Peggy Liu described that the lack of resources educated in green technologies is also one of the largest barriers to success in greening China. One of JUCCCE’s main contributions is educating key Chinese decision makers on green development and then empowering them by linking them to resources that can help them execute green projects. For example, JUCCCE has a training program for mayors of the 350 Chinese cities and provinces. JUCCCE provides these mayors a menu of environmental programs, already implemented elsewhere, and connections to vendors and service providers who can help launch the programs in China. A sample project Chinese mayors can explore is the building of a smart energy grid, which leverages digital technology to support more efficient energy usage. JUCCCE brings together thought leaders to evaluate such green strategies for Chinese businesses and the rapidly expanding cities in which they operate. A website is also in progress to promote online collaboration and idea sharing.

In addition to influencing China’s development through its most powerful leaders, I also liked the fact that JUCCCE is creating environmental champions from the bottom up. One of JUCCCE’s carbon reduction programs has given 10 million CFL light bulbs to high school students. These students receive education about the environment so that they can influence friends and family.

JUCCCE is mostly funded by private companies and investors who see this as an opportunity for market creation. Many companies with no plans to expand to China are becoming involved. For example, PG&E and Duke Energy believe that when green technologies are implemented in China, the scale of manufacturing will bring costs for those technologies down around the world. PG&E has been mandated by the State of California to source a certain percentage of its energy from renewable sources, so it is definitely in the company’s benefit to see the costs to implement those technologies decrease.

During the Q&A portion of the session, an audience member asked Peggy, “Does China really want to go green?” Ms. Liu had her own answer, but I thought back to a recent article in the New York Times about emerging hiking clubs in China. Hiking was almost an unknown leisure activity in China just a few years ago. However, as modern Chinese city-dwellers have become more affluent and found themselves with leisure time, some are becoming interested in exploring their natural world by leaving cities to hike or backpack. In the past few years, hiking clubs have emerged throughout China. Some of young hikers interviewed expressed their hope that as more Chinese start to explore their natural environment, they would become more interested in protecting it.

I certainly hope that China does incorporate environmentally friendly technologies into its rapidly developing cities. I do not believe we can make the world greener and cleaner without engaging China in the effort.

http://www.juccce.com/