I wish LEED had more nuanced critics.

As regular as winter, articles crop up purporting to outline the problems with LEED.  Every time I dive in eagerly and almost every time I come away disappointed.  Maybe this is inevitable.  LEED is technocratic, both in terms of content and process, and the building industry moves at its own pace.  Maybe we can’t expect our frothy media to deliver on this subject.

The latest instance along these lines is an article for Urban Land, provocatively titled LEED Backlash, that contains three paragraphs of wheat surrounded by a cloud of somewhat disorienting chaff.  First, the wheat.

The piece notes that the most recent Department of Defense (DoD) reauthorization bill included a provision that restricts DoD projects from pursuing Gold or Platinum certification without a waiver from the Secretary of Defense and requires the DoD to complete a cost benefit analysis of their green building standards (which, despite the bill, still require LEED Silver certification.)  It’s a fascinating development but the tenor of the LEED Backlash article seems misplaced.  First, they report that “the U.S. Congress passed and President Obama signed a bill in December that severely restricts the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) from spending extra money on” LEED.  This implies that government has arrayed itself against LEED, when in fact a small minority have attached a restrictive provision to a massive defense funding bill.  As the article notes later, “It appears that Congress’s action primarily stemmed from a dispute over the use of wood in green construction.”

It goes on to state, “A coalition of green building advocates, timber interests, and dozens of congressional members have objected to what they believe is an exclusion of domestic sources of wood in the LEED point system.”  This is fascinating, but it doesn’t mean there is a generalized backlash against LEED.  It means that much of the timber industry is still frustrated that FSC remains the baseline within LEED to receive credit for the use of sustainably harvested wood.  The article, for instance, could just as easily have been titled “Timber Lobby Engineers Destructive Rider to Defense Authorization Bill.”   This debate has been raging for years and is far from resolved.  More specifics on the background would have been illuminating.  Who exactly is in the “coalition” noted by the author?  Which member of Congress added the provision to the bill?  I’d be fascinated to know more about this but instead the author surrounds this nugget of actual news with a host of vague quotes about LEED’s place in the market, pro and con, and a frustratingly undeveloped premise that governments are “pursuing green building standards other than LEED.”

Which brings us to the chaff.  The article suggests that California’s CalGreen building code is somehow a rebuff of LEED.  But LEED is not a code.  It’s not written as a code and the USGBC would be first to tell you that it should not be implemented as one.  In almost every instance of LEED being “mandated” by a public jurisdiction you’ll find that the fine print is much looser.  Most require that projects meet LEED standards, but not actually certify.  And most include broad provisions for the folks that hold the purse strings to opt out if LEED isn’t suitable for the project.  This is prudently cautious, but also a recognition that LEED should not be treated as something that can be legislated.  The advent of CalGreen and other green codes can be seen as a direct result of LEED’s success in the market- not a repudiation of it.  The article also treats the existence of Green Globes as news and states rather vaguely that it is “gaining momentum.”  I’d love to know how Green Globes is faring in the market.  If states or cities are using it as a guide I want to know about it.  Same goes for the International Green Construction Code, developed by the International Code Council and soon to be, as the article notes, adopted by Maryland.  In the same sentence the article notes the presence of the Living Building Challenge, so progressive it is mind-boggling, and a new certification for windows and doors by the AMAA, a comically out of place reference.  As a result, the article hints at some fascinating developments in the industry but doesn’t pursue them in any kind of depth.

There are certainly big questions about the future of LEED; for one, LEED certified buildings don’t always perform as one might expect.  Why, specifically, does this happen?  While LEED is looking at the horizon the floor is being raised by increasingly stringent energy codes.  Will LEED remain relevant in this context?  These are important but complicated questions and none of them are served by articles that treat them without nuance.

Another piece in the same publication, The Greening of the Real Estate Industry, looks at the disconnect between right-wing policy and the work of the private sector.  It’s well worth a read and be sure to scroll down to the comments where you will be treated to entries from Roger Platt of the USGBC on the obstruction tactics of the timber lobby and a reply from Kathleen Sims of the Plum Creek Timber Company.

LEED has many rough edges.   It does some things well and others not so well.  Understanding these flaws and their impact on the future of our industry is important work.  Let’s make sure we treat those issues with the care and specificity they deserve.

I was pretty impressed with the sustainable design elements in the recently unveiled plans for the new Cornell technology campus on Roosevelt Island. SOM has proposed systems like under-floor air distribution, radiant heating panels, operable windows and a roofscape of PV panels.  There are rainwater cisterns, a cogen plant and a geothermal system. Most striking, though, is the site planning of the structures- which are laid out almost entirely in relation to the sun. As such, the orientation and massing of many of the buildings naturally provide access to useful north light, easily deal with the high southern sun, and present limited exposure to the harsh, low angled rays of sunrise and sunset. Though wrapped in the cool glass of fashionable contemporary design, the SOM proposal is a model of solar architecture- minus earth berms and banana tree greenhouses.

Interestingly, there is a remarkably illuminating counter-example right across the water from the Cornell site–the United Nations building. The UN project is designed not to ignore the sun- but to boldly and aggressively court the most debilitating aspects of it. The UN building shows its massive glass façades to the east and west horizons, and a narrow, completely solid stone façade to the south and north. If rotated 90 degrees in plan and if some simple exterior shades and interior light shelves were provided the project would be a model of contextual sensitivity. Instead, it is a nightmare. Low-angled sun slams into the east façade in the morning and the west façade in the afternoon- requiring the deployment of interior blinds, blinds that are rarely raised when the sun isn’t present, effectively eliminating the one positive aspect of this design, the view. In addition to the glare problems, the morning and afternoon sun heats up the respective facades creating a situation where the building is cooling one side of the building while it heats the other, and then vice versa, throughout the entire day. It’s a grim situation that could easily have been avoided by rotating the plan 90 degrees.

So it’s inspiring to see SOM, the heirs to the high modernism practiced at the UN, proposing a design so sensitive to its site, a design that won’t be fighting against the sun but working with it, in perpetuity.

Change is a funny thing. Often when I discuss subjects like urban agriculture someone will scoff and say, “You can’t feed everyone through urban farming.”  But the hope is to reduce our dependance on, not eliminate, industrial agriculture.  (And is it churlish to point out that our current agricultural system also doesn’t feed everyone?)  When I raise the prospect of renewable energy I can expect a similar response- and have a similar answer at the ready.  The same goes for biking.  When I argue for continuing the expansion of bike lanes in NYC I am rebuffed with a lot of high dudgeon about how biking isn’t for everyone, that sometimes you need to transport kids or groceries, etc. etc.  But no one is calling for the impound of all combustion powered vehicles.  We are simply hoping to make the city a more hospitable place for cyclists and pedestrians.  I have found that the arguments that are most persuasive in this regard are the ones that explain the multiple positive impacts of these new systems.  Not just from one perspective but from many.  The folks at an organization called Healthcare Management Degree have developed a series of infographics on biking and health that are brilliant example of this.  Their graphics link the impact of driving on public health, the positive impacts of biking on individual health (average weight loss in ONE YEAR = 13 lbs.!) and, perhaps the most compelling argument in this era of tight budgets, the considerable reduction in health care costs. They might have expanded these issues to include positive community impacts like the retention of local dollars, but they are a health care company so we’ll let that slide.

Santa- all I want for Christmas is for someone to develop a similar set of graphics for my other pet causes: retrofitting existing buildings, smart growth planning, and coffee.

A couple weeks back I attended “math night” at my kids’ school- when the parents hear about the math curriculum they can expect their children to be following in the coming year. (Bear with me- I promise this is relevant to green building.)  The major focus of the evening were changes that will be required by New York State’s adoption of what are called the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for mathematics.  The CCSS are a state-led effort to develop best practices guidelines for teaching mathematics across the country.  When I first heard that we were about to review the findings of an enormous committee of state bureaucrats I kicked myself for not bringing a book to the meeting.  I presumed that we’d be subjected to a nearly illegible mess of obvious and/or irrelevant platitudes- all delivered in bureaucratese, crammed onto Powerpoint slides in chunks of 3-400 words.

Imagine my surprise when the items presented to us were clear, instructive and, almost unbelievably, intellectually invigorating.  What I found most astonishing as we walked through the standards was that they were so sound and so deeply fundamental that they could be applied to almost any discipline.  In their own way, the standards are systems thinking at its most effective.

The common core standards are below, along with my thoughts on how they can be applied to the sustainability and green building fields:

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
I like the implication here of making sense of a problem before searching for the solution.  Often the way a problem is presented to us obscures the core issue.  Taking a moment to ask if the question being asked is the right one can help us ensure that we are not slaves to habit and inertia- the forces most powerfully aligned against change.

Continue Reading

I’ve been ruining family gatherings with this point for years.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.  There are easy jobs to be found with a little nudge from the government.  What’s the holdup?

While politicians either sit on their hands or openly mock the consensus around climate change, the U.S. Army continues to move forward on its mission to reduce dependence on fossil fuel.  Logic can be a terribly effective tool when you use it.

NPR introduces a little sanity to the energy subsidy debate sparked by the Solyndra controversy when they outline the enormous amount of government funds received by the oil and gas industry, here.

Strangely- those who point to the Solyndra bankruptcy as a clarion call to end subsidies for the renewable energy industry are remarkably silent on the billions afforded to the most profitable and powerful corporations in the history of the world. Our government sends huge amounts of our tax dollars to corporations like Exxon and Chevron that, in terms of control of global resources and impact on global finance, make the Holy Roman Empire look like a network of homeless shelters. Government subsidies ought to be used as a kickstart for fledgling industries, but the culture of lobbying in Washington means that federal money goes to the strongest, most powerful companies, not the folks that would use the cash to advance innovation. So it’s great to see NPR providing some context to the discussion of energy subsidies.

Federal Energy Incentives (1950-2010), via NPR.org

But to me it feels like NPR only gets halfway down the road. A government subsidy is an investment. You wouldn’t buy an inexpensive car if you knew that the maintenance costs were astronomically higher than other options. When we talk about federal investment of our tax dollars we need to look at both the near-term benefits AND the long-term costs associated with that decision.

To this reader, the graph provided by NPR (above) is deeply, although probably not intentionally, misleading. First it divides subsidies across the fossil fuel options of oil, natural gas and coal (though you can’t hide the gorilla in the room- oil gets 44% of federal subsidy dollars.) They then combine solar and wind subsidies on the graph, a total of 9%. The net visual effect of the graph is that there is relative balance among subsidy distribution (except for oil.) But the more striking message within these numbers is that fossil fuels greedily consume 70% of federal energy subsidies, and if you include nuclear in the “dirty” fuel package the total is nearly 80%. Meanwhile solar and wind get only 4.5% each. So- we are pouring money into industries that contribute massively to climate change and/or have significant downstream costs from pollution and a host of other issues. And the “subsidies” numbers from NPR don’t account for direct tax rebates (almost $50B every year to the oil industry.) This is what is called a losing bet.

We are constantly barraged by the simple fact that solar and wind power “cost too much.” But consider the long-term costs of these various industries. Recent studies confirm that the coal industry, for instance, is actually a NET LOSS to the national economy when you include the downstream impacts of the pollution created. And these studies don’t even include the potential impacts of climate change- numbers that ultimately dwarf pollution impacts. Let me say that again, conservative economists (not treehuggers) have determined that the coal industry loses our country money-today. Remember that any time someone tells you that propping up the fossil fuel industry is necessary to retain jobs. It is these statistics (and the recent abandonment of the Clean Air Act  by the Obama administration) that embolden the Sierra Club to run ads like the one below (sorry for the poor quality phone pic) for their Beyond Coal campaign.

Unfortunately, energy subsidies (like most federal funds) are directed not to those whose industries provide the greatest long-term benefit to society- but to those industries with the most muscle. NPR’s graph of energy subsidies could easily stand in as a measure of the lobbying clout of these various industries. In DC, muscle = money.

The headlines wrote themselves, “For the Birds” etc.  But it is seriously good news to see that the USGBC has begun to recognize bird-safe building design as a worthy category of recognition within the LEED framework.

Untold numbers of migratory birds are killed each year flying to the bright lights of night-lit skyscrapers where many become confused and too tired to continue, or are thrown off their path.  And many more die by simply flying into our massive glass facades- whose reflections they cannot “see”, it looks like more sky to them.

Henceforth, projects that  undertake measures with regards to facades and both interior and exterior lighting can receive points via the LEED Pilot Credit Library.

If the measures prove effective the pilot credit could possibly become an official credit within the relevant LEED standards. A small step toward greater recognition of the interdependency between our built and natural environments.

FURTHER READING:
Lights Out New York: Save Energy, Save Birds [8.3.11]
Urban Green Council spoke with Dr. Susan Elbin, Director of Conservation and Science at New York City Audubon, about Lights Out New York.

Photo credit: Claudio Gennari

Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto is complete! The closing plenary on Friday was a pleasant mixture of inspiring presentations, rousing calls to action and jokes about Canadian accents.  Fortunately, the Canadians were the ones doing the joking so no international tension was sparked.

The session started with a bang for me on a personal level.  Judith Webb, USGBC Vice President for Marketing introduced Scot Case from UL Environment (a major sponsor of the conference) and she explained that she met Scot at Speak Green, the June conference I organized while I was at Urban Green Council.  She even spent a sentence describing what the conference was about.  I was pretty thrilled to have something I played a central role in lauded in front of the entire Greenbuild conference.

For his part, Scot Case gave one of the only sponsor speeches I can remember that seemed heartfelt and didn’t include a laundry list of accomplishments.  He told us why he was excited to be in the room (because many of his heroes had stood at the same podium) and why UL Environment wanted to support the event (because they want to be at the forefront of certifying the impact of materials and products for buildings.)  Kudos to UL for letting him do it his way.

Four speakers comprised the closing plenary, or to be exact, four speakers, one video and one pinch hitter.

Continue Reading

My day at the conference was dominated by an excellent session on the future of the Cradle to Cradle framework.  Reading William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s book when it was first published was a transformative moment in my life.  It focuses on most everything that is wrong with our industrial economy, a system devised for 19^th century needs, and they do it with a wonderful mixture of intelligence and humor.  Later in life, I helped persuade McDonough to deliver the keynote address at Urban Green Expo.  And one of my fondest memories is of spending two surreal early morning hours at a hotel bar with Michael Braungart, talking about everything under the sun.  He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, hilariously funny, and totally committed.

The panel this morning walked the audience through recent developments on the C2C front.  David Johnson from William McDonough + Partners spoke of small things, such as the release of LEED pilot credit #43 for the use of the Cradle to Cradle framework on building materials, and large, such as their recent projects.  These include the Ferrer Grupo building, which is shaped like butterfly wings in plans, and includes an atrium that will release huge quantities of local butterflies seasonally.  He talked about Martha Johnson (head of GSA) calling for her agency to base their future on a cradle to cradle framework.  Johnson is effectively the landlord of the federal government, so it’s a big deal that she is thinking like this.  David Johnson quoted her as saying, “What if disposal wasn’t disposal, what if disposal was pre-design?”

David Nieh, from a Chinese developer called Shui On Land, presented on a massive project in Dalian, China that included the C2C framework in their master planning.  His best line, “The most efficient form of transportation is ‘taking the eleven line’, otherwise known as using both of your legs.”

Continue Reading