We’ve noted before the long running arguments and public discussion about proposed changes to the LEED Certified Wood credits.  Now comes word from USGBC that the revised language of this very important LEED credit will undergo a 4th draft and public comment period.  I don’t ever recall a proposed LEED change requiring so many different drafts and obviously this speaks to the contentiousness of the issues at hand.

It may seem a trifle, all this arguing over a single LEED credit, but it’s important stuff.  Even the most aggressive and seemingly successful forest conservation programs like REDD are finding it enormously difficult to police what gets cut down and how. We need to bring all the tools at our disposal to bear on these issues and getting the balance right in the details of the LEED credit is important since it has the potential to drive the entire market and have, ultimately, a huge impact on our ability to mitigate climate change.  I’m glad the USGBC is taking the time to try and get this one right.

The new draft will be made public on June 14.  The 20 day public comment period will close on July 4.

The C2C Certified Celle chair from Herman Miller

William McDonough and Michael Braungart have taken Cradle to Cradle certification into the public domain with the launch of the Green Products Innovation Institute (GPII). Until now, the data and processes behind the transformative C2C certification program were privately held by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC). MBDC has donated their 20 years of C2C intellectual property rights to GPII in the hopes expanding it’s breadth and reach globally. You can read details about how GPII will structure delivery and assessment of the C2C protocols here and here.

GPII will provide an open, public database of product chemical data and will also list alternative “positive” chemicals, processes and systems companies might use to protect people from toxins. After 20 years of work MBDC has processed more than 300 C2C certifications and while many of these products are truly remarkable (like the 99% recyclable Celle chair from Herman Miller pictured above) there can be no doubt that the launch of GPII is an attempt to influence a vastly greater number of products, industries and countries.

You can bet we will hear more about this development during William McDonough’s Opening Keynote on September 29th at our annual conference, Urban Green Expo.

I have to admit, sometimes when I consider how much damage we’ve done to the planet- altering the atmosphere, destroying the oceans, melting the glaciers and ice caps, forcing the extinction of myriad species- I lose hope.  And then I read something like this and think, well, we might just make it after all.

Continuing on our recent European theme- I’ll point you to a couple articles on high performance windows from across the pond.  The first focuses on triple glazed windows, and the second on Passive House certified windows.  It’s amazing to see the difference in technology and quality of the units available from places like Germany and Sweden- most of which are triple glazed.  It’s a shame that our codes don’t require these type of windows but it’s even more of a shame how difficult it is to source them even if you want to take the plunge.  This is one of the issues we hope to address at our conference, Urban Green Expo 2010, the theme of which is Pushing the Envelope.

Most of you probably know there’s a debate raging in green building circles around proposed changes to the LEED Certified Wood credit.  To receive credit for using sustainably forested wood products, previous versions of LEED required that 50% of your wood be Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.  For a decade or more the industry-backed Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) has waged a campaign for it’s standard to be accepted- and USGBC’s current draft of the certified wood credit does just that- effectively offering partial credit for SFI certified products.  Alex Wilson lays out the specifics of the proposed credit here.  And there is a good overview of the controversy from the New York Times last year here.

FSC is a standard with significant teeth and for small timber firms the costs of certification can be a hurdle (though something like 30,000 have done it.)  To some, having only one wood standard has felt like a monopoly.  Others have pointed out that SFI was created by the big timber trade association, the American Forest & Paper Association, and figure it has simply been created to water down certified wood standards.  Certainly, the first version of SFI was almost comically lenient- but they’ve improved things significantly in recent years.  Chris Hayes and the Cascadia GBC are on the side of FSC.  SFI claims Green Globes and the Australian GBC as supporters.

Here at Urban Green we find ourselves collectively on the fence.  FSC has penetrated a relatively small percentage of the timber market so you can argue it’s not having a transformative effect on the industry and that allowing partial credit for more lenient standards might improve baseline forestry practices for a greater segment of the market.  Basically, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  On the other hand, there are suspicions that big timber companies might not care so much about getting their wood used on the still tiny percentage of projects that pursue LEED certification.  What they might care more about is the marketing potential of saying their timber is sustainably harvested, according to LEED and USGBC.  It’s not an easy argument to resolve, but the USGBC is about to try.  We’ll let you know when the next draft of the Certified Wood credit is released.

Lastly, I’ll note that there’s a similar struggle happening in Europe, as they try to set in place standards to ensure their imported timber has been harvested legally.

Let’s see, does the recycled content of materials on your project equal 10% of the total cost of materials?  20%?  What’s that?  Your project is made entirely of recycled material!?!?  Is such a thing possible?

They may not be all that pretty- but here they are – buildings constructed from found materials.  I see these not as something we should aspire to but as cautionary tales- if our society doesn’t get its act together we’ll all be living in stuff like this.

The folks at DIRT, the ASLA blog, survey a recent National Building Museum symposium on this topic.

Slate asks: Do you realize how much money you could save if you insulated your house better?  Here.

The students at the California College of Arts and Design have asked the question: Where does your taco come from?  A research project that resulted in the map  shown here.  It’s a fascinating look at what you might consider a simple product, and if you are buying it from a sidewalk truck you might assume the taco in question is basically “local”.  But as their research shows, this is anything but the case. (Via BLDGBLOG, who rightly points to Sourcemap as a similarly fascinating exercise.)

I am reminded of a local example specific to green buildings.  A project manager I know well was recently researching a poured terrazo floor for a LEED-aspiring retail space.  They had selected a product manufactured in New Jersey because they have, unlike most such products, very low amounts of VOCs.  They also figured the flooring would apply towards the Regional Materials credit since it is composed, mostly, of sand and recycled glass aggregate  There’s plenty of that stuff within 500 miles, right?  Well- it turns out the company in question gets their recycled glass from . . .  Indiana.  And the sand?  Washington State.  There would appear to be no good reason this would be the case but these are the sorts of inefficiencies that exist because we still basically don’t pay attention to this stuff.  Keep in mind- this is at a company who have done highly admirable work, dedicating several staff to reducing the environmental impacts of their products- hence the low VOC %.  But no one had asked about their material origins, until now.

Alexandra Marks is singing our tune over at the Christian Science Monitor, noting the critical importance of ensuring a properly performing building envelope before considering expensive technologies like solar panels or geothermal wells. Follow her informative series on the greening of her 100 year old Connecticut home here.