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Shooting for Higher Goals in Green Building

<p>One of the clear goals of the green building movement -- and arguably the environmental movement in general -- is to do well, or even better, while doing good. And the data that going green pays off, particularly during these down years, keeps coming in.</p>

OK, I admit it . . .I have Cup Fever. Two spectacular semi-final games and who wouldn't be? We'll see which Spanish team shows up on Sunday. If it's the one that dominated Germany last night, they could win their first Cup ever. They'll need to bring their A-game because the Dutch are looking really tough to beat.  But, I digress . . .(like much of this part of the world).

One of the clear goals of the green building movement -- and arguably the environmental movement in general -- is to do well, or even better, while doing good. And the data that going green pays off, particularly during these down years, keeps coming in.

The latest is from the Earth Advantage Institute in Portland, Oregon, which shows that third-party certified homes -- EarthAdvantage, Energy Star or LEED Homes -- command a whopping 18 percent price premium over non-certified homes. A region with a long green history, nearly a quarter of all homes built in Portland are green certified. More interesting is that existing homes with green certification commanded an even higher premium of 23 percent compared with other existing homes sold, which indicates that the value of green grows over time. This value trend reflects the RealGreen Index data from the San Francisco Bay area, which shows that LEED Certified office and retail buildings have literally half the vacancy rate of non-certified projects.

Though real estate asset value is important, for business, productivity is even more important and George Boué provides an excellent summary of the scientific research and survey data behind the elusive connection between green buildings and productivity from a human resources perspective. Boué's conclusion?  "A review of scientific literature and studies indicate quite conclusively that the answer is yes on productivity, but the challenge is in quantifying said increases into profit."

My own take on this question is that, the value of people per square foot is 100 times that of utility costs -- where saving 30-40 percent gets people really excited -- so you don't have to be very precise to understand that it's a really big number that can easily justify green building investment.

Showing that competition on and off the field can produce tremendous results, The city of Chicago and ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability joined to honor 34 firms that won the inaugural Green Office Challenge. Collectively over the year this group saved over 70 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, which prevented more than 54,000 tons of carbon pollution, which is like taking ten thousand cars off the road. The overall impact of the Green Office Challenge is likely to be much greater when the efforts of the more than 150 property management firms, tenant companies and buildings that competed this year are taken into account. Wouldn't it be great if ICLEI could franchise this friendly competition and roll it out nationwide? They even could have city winners compete for national honors.

Also, be sure to check out Greener World Media Executive Editor Joel Makower's great City of Two Tales on the Shanghai Expo which shows that some industries are interested in driving the sustainability "ball" down the field and scoring, while others are content to waste their time dribbling around in mid-field.

And Shari Shapiro raises what is likely to be the defining issue facing sustainability in the 21st century: When does the collective good trump individual rights? The case Shapiro writes about hinges upon locals' concerns over pollution from trucks hauling biomass to a solar hybrid power plant in California, which eventually stopped the project. With all the money on the line for this facility you'd think they'd spend a few dollars to convert some trucks to natural gas or other clean fuel to meet the local air quality concerns.

This week's Look-Grandpa-I-picked-up-the-$20-bill-you-said-was-fake-but-it's-real! award goes to the Candlebrook Elementary School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Candlebrook implemented a comprehensive energy savings program that landed it an Energy Star score of 98, which places it in the rarified atmosphere of the top 2 percent of schools in that climate.

What makes the school special is that there is nothing special about it: Occupying an 11 year-old, conventionally heated and cooled building, Candelbrook Elementary managed over the last few years to cut its electricity by 53 percent and its natural gas by 43 percent by implementing basic energy saving measures and careful operations management supported by intelligent use of Siemens' APOGEE building automation system. Now the six-campus school district uses the system at all its facilities and has saved over $300,000. Implemented nationally, this level of energy savings could reduce school energy use by up to $5 billion. Now that's a goal worth shooting for.

Rob Watson is the executive editor of GreenerBuildings.com. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Kilrwat.

Image CC licensed by Flickr user vramak.

 

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