Building Capacity

A Taste of Living Future 2012

 

 

 

Chris Edlin, Donna Trost, and Kathleen O'Brien from O'Brien and Company attended Living Future 2012 in Portland. In addition to enjoying  great food at the local street food carts for lunch, we picked up some tasty tidbits we'd like to share with Building Capacity fans. Please keep in mind we weren't everywhere, and this isn't everything we participated in, either.

Note:  If you were there and you have additional highlights (or critiques) you want to share, COMMENT on this post.  If you weren't there, you can download or view presentations at Living Future 2012 -- and start planning now to go to Living Future, Seattle,  2013. They are (happily) capping attendance at 1000 (this year's tally), so don't miss out.

Money Talks

Both Kathleen and Donna attended sessions focused on money -- how to get it (funding) and how to get others to spend it (investment). The bottom line for the first continues to be creative partnerships that produce projects that have multiple uses (and therefore benefits) that can be monetized and "pitched" to potential funders. The Portland Public School District hooked up with the Boys and Girls Club and the University Park Recreation Center in a partnership that not only saved the school from building their o wn gymnasium but also created a Community Campus for the largest revitalization project in Oregon history. Hood River Middle School's new science and music building; and greenhouse doubles as the local farmers’ market on weekends and offers its amphitheatre for public use.

The Vernonia School in Northwest Oregon was able to achieve LEED Platinum partly because it also serves as a community and emergency center and received funding to rebuild its flood damaged school (on higher ground!) for these uses; in addition the school was able to meet FSC wood goals because it included local lumber companies in its planning discussions. Another reason the Vernonia School succeeded in its fundraising is its decision to work with local residents first to approve a bond measure. This local buy-in was compelling when the district applied for county, state, and federal funding.

Partnership also figures in moving the needle on real estate investment. A team, including Jason Twill (Vulcan), David Batker (Earth Economics), Theddi Wright Chappell (Cushman & Wakefield), Stuart Cowan (Autopoiesis), reported on the work they've done to identify where the investment barriers (and opportunities) are now relevant to sustainable real estate. The results of their efforts, which they now call Phase I, are included in "Economics of Change: Catalyzing the Investment Shift Towards a Restorative Built Environment." They are now partnered with the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) for Phase 2, which is anticipated to produce an open source investment decision making tool that integrates public and private benefits not currently considered for a variety of reasons. In the U.S. where investors are driven primarily on ROI, going beyond LEED Platinum is not yet defensible, in the opinion of the panelists. In Phase 2, the team hopes their work will help justify investments in meeting the performance requirements of the Living Building Challenge.

Another tool that might be used to justify investment in the future if and when decarbonization becomes a defensible real estate investment has been hatched in Chicago by architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill. The decarbonization strategies they are promoting for existing buildings and infrastructure are familiar to most of us, but the new angle is a calculator that provides feedback on the potential carbon emissions reduction these design strategies have in a specific building project and/or a district (in their research case the Chicago Loop). Of course, one hopes that investors will look at this data in the context of other benefits.

What's the Economy, Stupid?

Turning perceptions on their head is a regular exercise at the Living Future Unconference. This year was no exception. The Living Future bookstore featured "What's the Economy For Anyway?" co-authored by David Batker (mentioned above) with John de Graaf. The book explains "why it's time to stop chasing growth and start pursuing happiness." David and Kathleen traded books and autographs, and Kathleen just lauuuvs the book -- really.

Donna attended a session on "Living Economies," which posed the need for a more complete articulation of economic value (to include social and natural assets now seen as externalities to the economy) as a design problem, not a design constraint, and suggested that Biomimicry could be the framework for solving this problem.

Vedana Shiva offered an inspiring keynote at the conference that touched on the Living Future conference theme "Women Reshaping the World." She described the critical importance of seeing nature as a living feminine being, not an industrial resource to keep the world's GDP spinning upward. With her project Naydanya (Nine Seeds), and her book "Soil not Oil" she is working for food security in India, while enlarging the definition of economic value to include seeds, soil, and the protection of nature as a whole.

This larger view of our natural, living systems should not be unfamiliar, but a form of "Re-Connecting." Chris enjoyed a presentation by Bill Reed (Alliance for Regeneration) and John Boecker (7Group), which explored the nature and practice of pattern thinking to harmonize the interrelationships between human aspirations (where the economy comes in) and the nature of living systems.

Speaking of the larger view, Pliny Fisk, as usual, invited us to his orbit on EcoBalance design, but thank goodness, Gail Vittori (his life partner and his Co-Director at the Center for Maximum Building Potential) was there to explain what Pliny was talking about. (It's okay, Pliny can take it, he and Kathleen are old pals.) Chris' take-homes: think in cycles, utilize new information visualization tools to bring together abundant and complex data, reprogram thinking that your product will look different, and learn the value of cycles and regeneration.

See Women Lead

To be honest, Kathleen, and several of her women colleagues, cringed at first when this year's theme was announced at the 2011 conference. Would the conference "trivialize" women's issues by making the their contributions "special?" Although there were a few odd moments in the program -- for example why (???) should women especially be the ones balancing business and families, the topic of one session. (Shouldn't we all be concerned about that? Let's hear it for paternity leave!) And a keynote by Carol Sanford that seemed to promote being tough and argumentative, while selling her book (Did anyone not know the name of her current and future books by the time you left the talk? Shame on you.)

But there were two workshops on the theme that were just terrific. The first launched "Making Women's Leadership Visible"-- an advocacy project that involves women interviewing each other as a way to make our achievements visible. As women readers are painfully aware, women are generally uncomfortable taking credit for their work, often qualifying their claims with "helped, was instrumental in developing, was part of a team, etc." Nothing wrong with these statements, except that men don't seem to share this discomfort. Project principals Ann Edminster (Design Avenues), Christine Magar (Greenform), and Karen Tucker (iLiv) believe that building womens' ability to stand up and be counted will actually benefit all of us . For the curious, interviews are located on youtube channel seewomenlead. If you want to contribute an interview, contact any one of these folks for the instructions.

The second workshop included a panel of women leaders ranging in age from the mid 20s to the early 80s. Besides the fact that this was a total hoot for the panelists (we know this firsthand, since Kathleen was on the panel) it was clear that the topic and the workshop design were pretty darn engaging. From what we can tell, not a single person -- woman or man -- left before the session was over! In addition to visual presentations and stories by each participant, focusing on significant moments in each panelist's professional development, as well as personal inspiration and achievements, a timeline exercise designed by Ellen Southard (Site Story) allowed participants to identify critical moments in their lives that led to their current passion and involvement in sustainability. And Marj Barlow (The Possible Woman) and Nadine Gudz (InterfaceFlor) led an affirmation exercise that brought the session to a resounding and hope-filled finale. Other panelists for this workshop included Patti Southard (King County Green Tools), Jamie Statter (Clinton Global Initiative), and Kerry Mason (TetraTech).

Chris was particularly moved by Pete Munoz (Natural Systems International) in the closing session, who emotionally voiced his opinion that the UnConference theme was not about gender at all, but about all of us integrating the qualities often associated with the feminine. This attitude will go a long way towards redefining the value of money, the scope of our economy, and the health of our professional community.

Green Communities National Summit Identifies Challenges and Solutions: Keep it Up!

I recently attended the Enterprise Green Communities National Summit – Feb 27 and 28 in Dallas, TX. In fact, my colleague, Elly Bunzendahl and I delivered a Green Communities Criteria 101 training as a prelude to the National Summit, in part to provide an introduction to the Green Communities 2011 Criteria for Summit attendees who were not familiar with the program. Roughly 80 of the 200 summit registrants attended the training, suggesting that, even after more than seven years in the field, there are many newcomers to Green Communities' approach to greening affordable housing. This is a good sign.

For O’Brien & Company, the synergy of sustainability and affordable housing has always had gravity. Who better appreciates the benefits of lifecycle thinking than the client who is required to hold a new property for 30 or 40 years, or more! And what better way to address the “equity” component of sustainability’s “Three Es” (Environment, Economy, Equity) than in the pursuit of providing high performance, healthy housing to people who are economically and/or socially marginalized?

So, what of the Summit? In 2009, Enterprise deepened its commitment to green affordable housing by setting a goal that all the housing they helped produce or preserve would be green by 2013. This later evolved into a National Call to Action; that ALL publicly subsidized housing should have the opportunity to benefit from green practices by 2020. Prior to this National Summit, Enterprise held a series of regional Convenings in Denver, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.in 2011 and early 2012 to help focus the national discussion.

The goal of the National Summit was, through the participation of national affordable housing leaders, to identify the major barriers to achieving the 2020 objective and to identify innovative approaches to overcoming those barriers. The 200-person brainstorm was facilitated and focused using the services of AmericaSpeaks; a non-profit dedicated to engaging citizens in the democratic process, and experienced in the use of technology to enhance dialogue and sharing in large-group settings, among other things. Certainly, the ability to synthesize the ideas from twenty tables into a series of powerful themes that we could then vote on using personal, wireless voting tablets put the old-fashioned flip charts and dot-voting process to shame. And the fact that they could take the output of an eight-hour session with 200 people and summarize it into a 4-page hard-copy document that was handed to participants before they left the session was impressive indeed. Not inexpensive, for sure, but if you are involved in large group process and haven’t seen this technology at work, I urge you to check it out.

For me, a few things stood out from my personal discussions with attendees at the training, at my Summit table and from the synthesized themes from the whole group:

1. The affordable housing “universe” is made up of an uncommonly dedicated, creative and realistic collection of people – if we can’t figure out the solutions to this challenge, I’m sure no-one can!

 2. The dominant themes that drive this community were “creating resilient communities of choice that fulfilled the promise of the USA,” “promoting social justice,” “creating healthier outcomes for residents,” and, “reducing costs for owners and occupants.” Nothing very surprising here, but a happy blend of idealism and pragmatism;

3. Regarding challenges, the top items were:

• In Design, Construction and Operations: Reliable data for construction and operations; changing occupant behavior; and education (somewhat related).
• In Financing: Capturing the true costs and benefits; monetizing Long-term savings; and, devising a way to subsidized the first cost of green affordable housing.
• In Policy and Regulation: Inexperienced regulators, policy makers and funders; the need for incentives for owners and residents; and the lack of a consistent approach to green requirements across Qualified Allocation Plans from different federal and state agencies.

4. In terms of innovations and breakthroughs, the top items were:

• In Design, Construction and Operations: A central repository for design, cost/benefit, operations and performance data; incentives to facilitate behavioral changes among residents; and, a “Process in a Box,” – a turn-key, step-by-step guide for designing, building and operating a green affordable housing project. (Hey! Can this really be so hard?)
• In Financing: Devise more financing options, such as Green US Treasury Bonds, PACE and on-bill financing, social impact bonds, etc.; develop a financial product to monetize off-site effects such as water quality, human and community health; and standardize underwriting by GSEs and banks.
• In Policy and Regulation – Pass a GREEN Community Reinvestment Act that requires banks and insurance companies to require green practices in CRA investments; create a uniform national green building requirement with Treasury that would apply to ALL QAPs; and, make the connection between green strategies and human health more explicitly understood.

Overall, I came away feeling optimistic. A few, well thought out and implemented policy and financing interventions could move the focus from subtraction to integration. Instead of conversations about what needs to be value-engineered out to meet capital budget and the per unit cost caps, we have conversations on how to draw more capital into the first cost of the project in order to eliminate long term utility and O&M costs, and minimize replacement requirements.

The Summit also highlighted a couple of areas that need the same kind of positive, solution-based focus:

1. There is a woeful lack of meaningful performance data available on the achieved performance of green-certified multi-family projects, most particularly affordable projects. How can we make capturing and sharing this data routine and convenient? Can this be added to the scope of affordable development projects? This is worth more discussion.

2. An increasingly large percentage of the energy, water and health impacts of a residential unit is up to the behavior of the occupants. As designing in green features becomes the norm for affordable housing, more emphasis will need to be on addressing occupant behavior. We have worked with Enterprise to create, test, and promulgate effective models of residential engagement and education. Can these be routinely added to the scope of funding for new and existing affordable development projects?

Enterprise hopes to continue this discussion. If you want to participate, check out: http://enterprisecommunity.force.com/greenforum.

Did you enjoy this article?  You may also enjoy reading Green Resident Engagement Cards Inform AND Empower in California Non-Profit Housing Developments: Interview with Maria Elena Marquez-Brookes, LINC Housing’s Director of Resident Services

Alistair Jackson, CSBA is a Principal at O’Brien & Company. He was involved in the development of the original LEED for Homes Pilot Rating System and is, among other things, the Quality Assurance Designee (QAD) for O’Brien & Company’s role as LEED for Homes Provider. He is a strong advocate for market-led innovation and market transformation towards sustainability. He is also a father of two – and impatient for change towards a better future.

Emerge: What's the Difference?

With the closing registration date only a week away for the upcoming Emerge workshop scheduled at Islandwood, I thought I'd respond to some of the more popular questions I'm getting from individuals thinking of participating.

What makes the Emerge workshop different from conventional leadership training?

Emerge: Leadership for a more sustainable society is specifically designed for individuals who are already convinced sustainable building is the right thing to do, and is committed to taking a leadership role in their communities and organizations to advancing sustainable building as part of their practice and personal lives. The agreed-upon destination for everyone participating in the workshop is a sustainably built environment. We start from that premise, wasting no energy on arguing with naysayers.

Since a society where a sustainably built environment is not the norm, we are talking about a leadership that fosters a dramatic shift in thinking and practice -- a radical, permanent change. It's not about being successful, it's about being effective.

A key ingredient of emergent leadership is a desire to serve the greater good intelligently and compassionately, and to instill that desire in others. What this workshop is not, is a lesson in how to beat out your competition in the sustainable building field. In fact, because it draws from a single area of focus, the Emerge workshop naturally appeals to individuals and organizations that have business relationships with each other (including competitive ones). This only makes the Emerge experience richer for everyone involved.

While the basic principles of emergent leadership stay constant, what it looks like when implemented will be as unique as those implementing it. Think snowflake, an example of emergence in nature. It is only natural that the Emerge workshop experience incorporate this organic sensibility. Teams will work together, applying their collective intelligence to scenarios addressing challenges identified by individual participants in pre-workshop surveys. While the problems may be predictable, the solutions teams have come with are not!

What makes Emerge leadership training different from other educational events in the sustainable building field?

Emergent leadership is premised on the idea that there is no one right answer, but many next right answers. Thus, Emerge training does not focus on a particular green building standard, building policy, or technology. Instead participants learn about the science of change, the significance of collaborative community as a context for sustained, permanent change, and real life examples of effective emergent leadership in the green building field.

There has been a tendency in sustainable building education to rely on celebrities or larger than life heroic figures to inspire those of us in the trenches. Keynote speakers go home. Epic heroes  fall off their pedestals. We need ordinary heroes. The kernel for emergent leadership is servant leadership, a concept formulated in the 70s by Robert Greenleaf, and which I adopted for O'Brien & Company's underlying management philosophy nearly a dozen years ago. The servant leader puts people first, collaboratively and compassionately works with others to better a given situation, using foresight, systems thinking, and skilled communication. All of these skills can be learned and applied if one is dedicated enough. Each Emerge workshop participant leaves with a personal development plan that identifies the unique leadership challenges they hope to address, and have the option of free follow-up mentoring sessions.

Transformational work, although inspiring to think about, can be draining day-to-day. The Emerge workshop is designed to be restorative, with a good mix of dialogue, presentation, and quiet reflection, integrating the outdoors and physical exercise, and healthy food. Since Emerge workshops are held in green buildings, participants get to enjoy the kind of environment they are devoted to bringing to the world.

How does Emerge address the urgency of our situation?

We no longer have time for quick fixes that do not work. What we need  is more long term, intergenerational thinking and sharing that allows for the truth to be told, now. True integrative design requires an honest appraisal of the options -- those we are thinking of, and those we've applied. The research on completed green building projects show, building performance of certified projects are all over the map, as are the costs of building them. That means that it is not the checklist that determines those things, but the people using them! A green building checklist is a tool, and as good as the team using it. Emphasis on TEAM. That is, on Teamwork.

As a panelist at the Living Future Conference a few years ago, I was asked how we could speed up adoption of living building principles. The fact is, and this is how I responded, this change could be instantaneous, if we surrendered our positions. No more posturing on standards or technologies. No more keeping solutions close to the chest. No more standing behind the idea that "we've always been green" (not!) Emerge is intended to bring this transformation about. But no one person can do it. Please join us for what one participant has called a "life-altering experience."

Kathleen O'Brien, LEED AP, CSBA is the Founder of O'Brien & Company, the Founder of the Emerge Leadership Project, and Editor of Building Capacity Blog. She is a long time green building advocate, and a Cascadia Fellow. Sponsors of the Emerge Leadership Project include AIA 2030, Cascadia Green Building Council, the Sustainable Building Advisor Institute, O'Brien & Company, and Eco-Maven. Kathleen was recently interviewed by Eco-Logical Radio Host Terry Phelan on the Emerge project, and has been invited to speak at TEDX Tacoma Transformation, this April 17, 2012. Register now for the only Seattle area workshop scheduled for this year at Islandwood, March 17-18, 2012.

Is Training the Answer? Not always, says Kelly Kirkland, CSBA, LEED AP O+M

The green building industry is slowly coming to realize that the most efficiently designed buildings in the world won’t operate at peak efficiency without well-trained building operators, managers and occupants. With technology evolving and people turning over, ongoing training is generally required to achieve peak efficiency and comfort.

But when faced with a building performance or comfort problem, throwing a training at it mindlessly could end up as money wasted. Experienced trainers can crank out PowerPoint slides on any topic at a moments notice to be delivered to warm bodies in a dark room. A friend, who is the training manager at a large company, refers to this as the “magical training factory.” But will anything this factory spits out result in real learning, or provide a solution to the problem?

Here are a few real examples of green building problems that may or may not have a training solution:

The Scene: A small, remote building that operates 24 hours a day to serve military personnel. Individual staff members rotate through this location every few years, and the person put in charge of building operations is likely to have had little to no previous experience—plus a slate of many other duties related to their “primary mission.” The complex building DDS system is something no one really understands. When something in the building goes wrong, a huge amount of the maintenance budget must be spent to fly in an outside expert.

Is Training the Answer? Probably not—at least not at first. When I talked to the staff members all they really wanted was something simple and intuitive that they could operate themselves. Making a change to the equipment with the next building upgrade would likely save a lot more energy and maintenance budget in the future. If the new system came with intuitive documentation, a simple recorded training could ensure that all new staff could be oriented to their role as building manager quickly and without taking time away from their other duties. Another option would be to reevaluate staffing structure to allow for a dedicated building manager—what a great skill that would be to take home to the civilian workforce!

The Scene: A governmental organization adopts a new green policy mandate that all project managers need to follow. The staff in charge of ensuring adoption with the policy are worried that PMs will be resistant due to concerns that it’s too complicated or expensive to implement. In addition, staff have been resistant to training in the past when they feel it’s not a good use of their time.

Is Training the Answer? In the case of staff resistance to implementing the policy, no. You can’t train motivation but you can remove barriers (like reducing the paperwork burden) and add incentives (like individual and departmental recognition). Both of these were done. In addition, staff tapped green advocates at each department to organize a brief “training” for PMs. The content of this training covered the basic policy requirements  and showed how these were relevant to the specific types of projects the PMs managed. These concise trainings highlighted case studies from the relevant department to provide concrete examples to assuage fears about the complexity or limitations the policy might impose on projects. Even better, these sessions provided an opportunity to determine which kind of additional technical trainings would be needed to support project managers moving forward. PMs reported  they appreciated the concise initial training and were much more eager to get additional technical training once they understood the opportunities.

The Scene: A K-12 school with a highly interactive natural ventilation strategy that made buttons on the wall glow: green, when windows could be open for ventilation, or red, when they should be shut while the building was in heating mode. In this case, I don’t know that the building managers were aware of the problem. On green building tours I like to sneak away and talk to occupants to see how a building is really performing for them. None of the teachers I spoke to had any idea what those glowing lights were for and they complained of stuffy spaces.

Is Training the Answer? In this case, yes! The teachers were motivated to make their classrooms more comfortable and had everything they needed to fix their problem—except the know-how. In fact, when the building opened all teachers did receive training. The problem was that in three years the teachers no longer had that information, either due to being new or not understanding or remembering it from the first training. A short module as part of new staff training (or, better yet, as part of an in-service training day for all staff!) would be a great way to help teachers be more comfortable and get the desired energy performance. A quick reference sheet for each classroom, and better signage on the lights would be great training follow-ups.

You don’t need a training on adult learning theory to know that adults will be learn better with information that they need to know (to do their jobs or to be comfortable) presented in a straightforward, practical way that involves some engagement or interaction. Before throwing a training at a problem, however,  make sure that the issue isn’t with equipment, policy barriers, lack of motivation, or another issue. Your time and resources might be better spent by providing better equipment, processes,  incentives, individual coaching or something else. We have had experience where training has had  the opposite of the desired effect, because it simply wasn't the right solution to the problem. Participants left the training frustrated, as they were still left with the same problem, and had (in their minds) less time to manage it.  On the other hand, if lack of know-how is the problem, training is absolutely the right way to go.

Kelly Kirkland is O’Brien & Company’s Education Coordinator. She has developed and delivered dozens of courses on a variety of green building topics. She recently completed a three-day course on training assessment, development, delivery and evaluation and holds a Training Certificate from the American Society for Training and Development.

Institutionalizing Building Performance: A Collaborative Experience

The installation of building envelope components or HVAC equipment happens in a fleeting moment in the life of a building, yet is so important to long-term durability, performance, and occupant health. Installation failures do happen. With buildings, the key is to catch a potential failure or problem early to head off more complicated issues and fixes in the future. One of the benefits of 3rd party verified green building programs like LEED, Built Green, and Energy Star  is that they put a different pair of eyes on the project, focusing specifically on the details that contribute to better long-term outcomes.

Ideally, when a failure is identified in the field by a verifier, it is communicated with a side of education to the installer, and fixed. Sometimes the installer is not present and that poorly installed detail incurs cost for a return trip of both installer and verifier. When failures are repeated, they point to a deeper issue – the need for root cause analysis to understand why the same error is being repeated. Sometimes the answer is a physical or logistical one (“we can’t do it that way because piece A won’t fit into piece B”). Often, however, it’s about divergent priorities and perspectives: Contractor is rightly focused on delivering their service according to how they understand the scope, and the verifier is, also rightly, looking for compliance with the scope but has a different (we like to think better) understanding of it. When the contractor at the head office receives repeated non-compliance reports from the verifier in the field, they can begin to feel frustrated – They “know” the installers are doing what they are supposed to do and the verifiers “are just being picky” and “not understanding the real world.” Without careful (as in “care-full”) communications, things can sometimes get tricky.

After one such spree of non-compliance reports, I was surprised one morning when three managers from an insulation company showed up and asked to shadow me for a day of four inspections. Ok. I was tempted to get defensive! Instead, I went into uber-educational mode and I showed them my inspection process. What I am looking for and why; the building science behind the requirements. My capacity-building trap was sprung.

Picture the scene. Me and three guys hanging from the attic rafters above a white sea of blown attic insulation, careful not to disturb the loft, with an assortment of personal lighting devices and measuring tapes in hand. The scene shifts to the crawl space. Same lighting, now we’re on our backs, inspecting floor insulation. The dialogue of the day boils down to… This is what I am looking for, I say. This is how we could improve our process to make it easier for our installer, they say. Through this trading of understanding each other’s expectations and limitations, a common ground was being formed. A better product for our client would be delivered.

Verification work is part of our day to day to work. Rarely, though, do we have the opportunity to work in the field (literally) with managers to identify problems and solutions in this collaborative manner. At the end of the day, these guys were not a threat, they were allies and their showing up became an opportunity. They admitted they had arrived with some resistance, with the idea that we were being picky in our inspections. It wasn’t until we established an understanding of where each of us were coming from and the reasoning behind it that a level of trust formed. This allowed easier communication to flow.

But the story is not over. The dual benefit of an effective verification process is not just those realized within buildings themselves (such as demonstrated by the excellent installation in the photo) but also increased awareness and skills among the trades who work on them. To reap these fruits, the solutions discovered in our collaborative exploration have to be institutionalized at both company leadership and practitioner levels. I look forward to the next step, in which these lessons will be transferred across the board to installation crews. And not just technique, proper sizing and placement, but the "why." The "why" energizes tradespersons with pride in their craft to do the job the right way. I've seen it, with field installers signing their work after successfully passing a verification inspection. Imagine that!

Chris Edlin, CSBA, LEED AP Homes and LEED for Homes Rater, Energy Star Northwest Verifier and Performance Tester, and LEED AP BD+C is Project Associate with O'Brien & Company, Inc. and a regular contributor to Building Capacity Blog. Chris provides technical assistance, plan reviews, and performance testing on a number of sustainable building projects ranging from single-family residential to high-rise commercial buildings.

Vision 2050: When Business As Usual Will Be Sustainable

For those of us in the sustainable building world, we are most familiar with The World Business Council on Sustainable Development WBCSD through its definition of sustainability in the Brundtland Commission Report (1993): "Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."

Now the WBCSD has gifted the global community with a set of tools that expand on that vision. In 2008, the CEOs of 29 global companies from 14 industries led an 18-month consensus effort to lay out a pathway to a 2050 world in which the anticipated nine billion population of the world live well. The effort involved dialogues with more than 200 companies and other stakeholders in some 20 countries. The tool set includes the Vision 2050 Report, generic presentations for public outreach, a poster showing the 22 dimensions of the projects within the larger realms of people, economy, governance, energy and resources, and ecosystem,  and a 14-foot mural displaying the pathway in more detail.

Vision 2050's Executive Summary explicitly declares that Vision 2050 is not prescriptive, but meant to spur dialogue. However, I found the Vision 2050 Mural displayed at a recent event sponsored by the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) looking very much  like a plan. It has dates by which certain conditions must be met in order to achieve the Vision of one-planet living. Like a true business plan, it also qualifies the Vision with risks that can be anticipated, and wild cards that can not.

Of course, the first thing I looked for on the mural was the building track. The organization  isn't perfect. When I noted that the end goal for the building track makes achieving "energy efficient appliances" (we have to wait for 2050 for this?) equally as difficult  as achieving net zero energy in the majority of new structures,  I reminded myself that the Vision was developed by corporations, some of which manufacture and distribute appliances. So from their perspective, the challenge might loom large. Not sure I agree. From my perspective this is an easy one, with great benefit -- think plug loads.

In addition, the mural suffers from the age-old problem of slicing up the pie of sustainability. Everything overlaps. In addition to the building track there are separate energy, forest, mobility and material tracks, which obviously interface with infrastructure development, i.e. building. Even if imperfect,  it seems a good first step at offering businesses a concrete set of milestones, characterized by some attendees as a veritable "chutes and ladders" scenario complete with "must haves" (ladders up) as well as "wild cards" (chutes down).

The report itself provides an excellent description contrasting business-as-usual and the idealistic vision depicted on the mural and report narrative. Businesses have their work cut out for them. Stanford University's Bob Horn, the fellow who specializes in mind messes (a play on mind maps) and other visualization products, and produced the Vision 2050 mural, keynoted the BGI event. He described  the project's historic process, as well as progress toward "must haves" for this decade. According to Horn, who presented his workproduct with a neutrality I admired, progress is mixed, with the building and energy & power tracks faring pretty well. Not surprising given the energy invested over the last twenty decades on green building awareness, building standards, renewable production and more stringent energy codes. There are other areas, such as carbon neutrality where the observer has to look harder to detect any movement of the needle. Horn was careful to note that  wild cards (war and natural disaster for example) could continue to play havoc with our plans if we aren't prepared to deal with them effectively and sustainably.

Gifford Pinchot III, founder of BGI, spoke as well.  Pinchot reported that, with the emergence of Vision 2050, the Institute has worked with its entire faculty to ensure the scenario(s) envisioned in the tool are integrated into course dialogue. I find this very exciting. I have several colleagues and former students who have completed BGI's program, the first MBA in the nation focused on sustainable business,  and I have nothing but praise for the thought leadership it encourages. I have even more respect however, for BGI's willingness to "try out" this tool, and to ask its faculty to "shake things up" a bit. It is modeling "being teachable" at the institutional level, not easy to do, but very necessary.

For those of us taking the larger view of sustainability, corporate progress toward the historic vision industry leaders have set down on paper  in Vision 2050 will be important to watch. Stay tuned.

Kathleen O'Brien, Editor of Building Capacity Blog and founder of O'Brien & Company, remains as a special consultant to the nationally recognized green building consultancy. She recently launched The Emerge Leadership Project and anticipates the Emerge: Leadership for a more sustainable society Workshop will include discussions of Vision 2050. The photo includes Gifford Pinchot III and John S. Adams, CFP, and leader of The Arbor Group, a team at UBS Financial Services.

Did you enjoy this article?  You might also like these Building Capacity Blog articles: 
Emerge: Leadership for a more sustainable society
Cool Factor: Youth Green Building Careers Symposia Inspires

Cool Factor: Youth Green Building Careers Symposia Inspires

When teens report that they'd change "nothing" when asked about the usefulness of an educational event, you know you've done something right! And that's exactly what most students participating in Built Green Santa Barbara's Youth Green Building Careers Symposia said on anonymous evaluation forms. 45 youth and six instructors from local schools and the Youth Corps attended the symposia, which offered inspirational stories, useful career building information, and a tour of the Built Green Resource Center, a historic green remodel located in the Presidio in downtown Santa Barbara.

 A roughly three-hour session (repeated in the afternoon), offered panels of designers, builders, and associated businesses (such as solar installers and window forensic specialists) who used show and tell to describe what they do, shared their personal stories about how and why they came to green building, and discussed what they do to succeed in the field. It was the personal stories that really inspired. One student wrote in his evaluation: "I liked how [the contractor] shared how he started with nothing, and now has a successful business." At the conclusion of the morning and afternoon sessions, participants completed a "job shadow" application identifying their top three choices among the panelists they heard from for a one-hour on-the-job visit.

For those planning a similar event, several elements factored into its success. Perhaps the most important was the element of partnership. Without youth participants, the event would have been a bust. We needn't have worried. Tradart, SBC Workforce Investment Board (WIB), and perhaps most importantly Partners in Education (PIE) provided the youth side of the equation. Michelle Magnusson, Program Development and Accountability Manager for PIE, a Santa Barbara County Education Office Program, performed yeoman's work getting the word out to school career centers and coordinating with schools to get students to the event. And WIB provided reimbursement funding and a van to support Youth Corps participation. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this side of the equation was the fact that capacity was limited to 30 for each session. The plus side to this limitation was that only youth who really wanted to be there were there. You could have heard a pin drop during presentations! No fidgeting, no secretive texting. Not your average high school classroom experience!

The second half of the equation -- professionals with green building careers -- was fulfilled through Built Green's partnership with the Santa Barbara Contractors Association (SBCA). Karin Perissinotto, Executive Director of the SBCA reports she "had no problem filling the panels. We have a very active membership willing to give of themselves for the benefit of Built Green and youth considering green building careers. I wasn't really surprised at the level of interest. We just had to call and they were there!" Further support for the event was provided for the event through a grant from the California Coalition for Construction in the Classroom which is in the sunsetting.

Often, contractors are invited to schools to talk in assemblies and classrooms. Holding the symposia in the Built Green Resource Center, where green building is on display, provided an energizing background to the professionals' personal stories. Green building can be an abstract concept; the Resource Center provided physicality. When Dan George, Vice President of the Built Green Board of Directors and long time green contractor, discussed how the building was insulated and protected against infiltration, he was able to direct participants to the truth window revealing a behind-the-wall look at insulation used in the building, and to turn on a display showing how various insulations protect (or don't) against infiltration.

Panelists were also able to build on each other's experiences, creating themes such as "getting trained, and staying trained" to succeed, and "earning a paycheck for doing work that contributes to the community feels good." What became very clear from the stories panelists shared is that green building careers are not for people who like to stand still! Over and over, panelists shared how keeping abreast of what's changing in the green building world is critical for success, and this learning keeps them excited about showing up in the morning!

In addition to Built Green, PIE, and SBCA representatives, panelists represented 13 organizations, including four design firms: Thompson Naylor, Paul Poirier + Associates, Kent Mixon, and Keeping Interiors; four general contractors: Allen Associates, DL George, and Campanelli; three specialty contractors: SBWindow Forensics, Maverick Windows, and California Solar Electric; retailer Livingreen; trainer Santa Barbara City College Construction Academy; and utility program Energy Upgrade California.

Kathleen O'Brien, Editor of the Building Capacity Blog, recently completed her term as Built Green's Interim Program Director and was the main convener of the Youth Green Building Careers Symposia. Kathleen has a special interest in inspiring youth to enter the green building arena and was featured in "Green Building: Jobs for the Future." She recently celebrated her 20th year as founder of O'Brien & Company, which played an instrumental role in developing Built Green Santa Barbara as well as other Built Green programs in Washington and Hawaii.

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Emerge: Leadership for a more sustainable society

As many of you know I recently celebrated 20 years as founder of O'Brien & Company, and 30 years in the field of sustainable building. For much of this time, I have focused on the practical matter of assisting clients apply sustainable building methods to their building and community projects through education, facilitation, and consultation. Since sustainable building represents a change from business as usual, this assistance has by definition required me to lead others.

I am not what you would call a "born leader" -- far from it, I have been diagnosed as an extreme introvert. And yet, driven by concern about the impact of our built environment as well as the promise of sustainable solutions, I've managed to counter my natural insecurities.

Over the years I have discovered a form of leadership that works for me, and is based on the physical process of emergence where simple elements come together to form a beautiful and functional complex system (think snowflake). Emergent leadership does not require celebrity status or title. It does, however, require inspiration, dedication, leadership competencies, and knowledge. The conceptual elements of emergent leadership combine servant leadership philosophy, change psychology, and leadership best practices. It is uniquely appropriate for our field, since it isn't simply about helping individuals or organizations to grow, nor about helping them to change. It's about both.

Indeed, unlike a change agent, which catalyzes change but remains unchanged, an emergent leader is committed to continuously growing and changing herself. I am convinced by my experience that this kind of leadership flourishes when founded in community.

That's why I've launched "Emerge: Leadership for a More Sustainable Society" -- a residential workshop especially designed for those wishing to create the change we need in the realm of the built environment. The two-day workshop's experiential elements combine inspired story, informational lectures, interactive problem solving, physical integration, and community building.

Our guest speakers represent the best of emergent leadership: Since 1995, David Eisenberg, Founder of DCAT has quietly yet firmly led the effort to create a sustainable context for building regulation. Imagine changing the International Building Code! Fiona Douglas-Hamilton, President of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, and Founder of S.E.E.C. has spent the last 20 years building an understanding of the interplay of value(s) and market. And John Cunningham, Assistant Business Manager for IBEW 77 and mediator certified by the Dispute Resolution Program for King County, brings a long history of applying mutual gains bargaining principles in his over 30 years experience successfully negotiating labor agreements and "getting to yes" when they want to say no!

Our first workshop is scheduled for December 10-11th at Islandwood, a LEED Gold Conference Center located in Bainbridge Island, Washington. Whether you have an explicit franchise to lead or not, consider registering if the concept of emergent leadership speaks to you. Hope to see you there!

If you cannot attend, please consider contributing to a needs-based scholarship fund. We are particularly interested in supporting individuals working for affordable housing non-profits and promoting leadership diversity. Contact Kathleen at info@kathleenobrienleadership.com. Put yourself on a mailing list  for future events.The workshop is sponsored by O'Brien & Company and Eco-Maven. Information about the new workshop is being updated regularly at www.emergeleadership.net.

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Maier Hall at Peninsula College: Early Collaborative Process Yields Healthy, Efficient Building, Gentle to the Site and High on the LEED Scale

When teaching Unit 1 of the 2011 Sustainable Building Advisor course at Seattle Central Community College last Friday, I showed graphs, pictures, comics, and told stories to make a case for an early integrative process as a key for cost-effective sustainable results. As I sat down to write this article about the Maier Hall Project at Peninsula College, I flashed back to a lot of early meetings where the design team diligently worked through the siting of the new building.

The new building replaces four (4) other buildings in a smaller footprint yet increases square footage by three. It is bordered by sensitive areas on three sides, including a patch of virgin forest, wetlands, and a steep slope. As I discussed in my class presentation, the design team, led by Schacht Aslani Architects, responded to these constraints with collaborative problem solving in a series of working sessions resulting in a beautiful and creative design solution.

The L-shape building wraps around the forest grove and creates an edge to the campus at the top of the slope. A breezeway allows students to pass through the building from the campus into the forest and leads them to a viewing platform at the edge of the wetland. The team included a wetland biologist who helped them understand there wasn’t enough water getting to the wetland because of previous development. They couldn’t infiltrate stormwater at building grade because of the proximity of the steep slope, so the team designed a system that sends 90% of the site’s stormwater to the wetland. Rainwater flows from the roof to the wetland in a runnel passing prominently in front of the Hall's front door, helping students understand the environmental story. Additional connection to the natural environment that shaped the building is made on the upper stories through views to the epiphatice (moss) green roof.This solution is just another paradoxical example of creativity being most available when working within constraints.

This creativity and process took significant design team time, early in the process.   Investing the level of effort this team did early in a project can be scary to project managers and owners as it indicates a possible trend towards budget busting.  Fortunately, this project exemplifies how shifting effort earlier in projects and working with an integrated team actually solves problems better and sooner, reducing design effort and minimizing costs. “Working cohesively through the design process, the design team created a synergy that enhanced the project overall," says Chris Edlin, O'Brien & Company's consultant on the project. "For example, it helped avoid the either-or situation where trees, which represent a campus asset, might have been sacrificed for program, which fulfills the college mission (or vice versa)."  Chris also notes that "a less integrated team may not have understood the stormwater/wetland relationship and spent more on pipe and pond stormwater solutions that wouldn’t have benefited the wetland.  The narrow floor plan resulting from the IP is also excellent for natural ventilation and daylighting, thus reducing long term operational costs.

The building is a 65,000 sq.ft., three-story center for fine arts, music, humanities and related instructional programs. The focal point is the 134-seat performance hall, which also serves as a multi-purpose classroom. The hall can be acoustically tuned for music, lectures and films. In addition to targeting LEED Gold, the structure is designed to exceed the current standards of the Architecture 2030 Challenge for reducing energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. Natural ventilation in offices and classrooms and daylight design are key strategies for achieving this goal.

Elizabeth Powers, LEED AP and CSBA, is principal and co-owner of O'Brien & Company, Inc., which just celebrated its 20th anniversary. Elizabeth is principal-in-charge on over three dozen LEED and sustainable building projects for the company. She advised on development of Integrative Process (IP) ANSI Standard, and is a strong proponent of the process for clients who want high performance for common sense budgets. Project photos from Schacht Aslani.

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Everything is Connected! Environmental Education and Community Center and Community Park Opens at Brightwater

In 2006, O'Brien & Company was selected by the Washington Energy Technology Center (now Innovate Washington) to conduct a strategic planning process for a Sustainable Energy Demonstration Lab (SEDL). As noted in our Final Report, The SEDL was intended to "foster the community’s knowledge of, and transition to, new energy saving technologies, with an emphasis on renewables."

The Lab is an element of the Environmental Education and Community Center (EECC) and Community Park, which opened with great celebration this past Saturday, September 24, 2011. It is always great fun to watch a dream unfold, so I was thrilled to get an invitation to the opening from The Friends of the Hidden River, a teacher-organized non-profit with whom we worked on the project. Lots of music, good food, public art, and perhaps most importantly, fun learning going on!

Early on, when the idea of a regional environmental education center was broached as mitigation for the Brightwater waste treatment facility, teachers from the region were adamant that in addition to covering water, the topic of sustainable energy should be part of the educational plan. "Everything is connected!" was a refrain heard over and over during the planning process for the SDEL, and making the connection between the water we use and treat and the energy system we consume to do that is indeed an important one.

Touring the EECC facility Saturday, I was pleased to see several elements of the SDEL in place. PV and Solar Hot Water Installations (funded by Snohomish County PUD) and related learning activities drew "students" of all ages, as did a solar oven and informational kiosks. Human operated bikes, artpieces in themselves, as well as electric vehicles, were in evidence on opening day to showcase green transportation modalities.

We anticipated in 2006 that the EECC facility would be a learning opportunity itself, and plans were to achieve LEED Gold Certification. Happily, (but perhaps not surprisingly given its constituents) the project team, including design firm Mithun, CH2MHill, the Project Managers at King County Wastewater Division as well as a host of others) blew past that goal to achieve LEED Platinum Certification. From our experience with LEED NC, this level of "green" would not have been possible without an aggressive approach to the Energy and Atmosphere Credits.

Two elements of the proposed Lab, an "Independence Hall" focused on promoting regional energy self-sufficiency, and an already-designed Energy Test Bed to test advanced emerging technologies are still awaiting funding, but a good foundation has been laid. Marie Hartford, with Friends of the Hidden River, is optimistic about these next steps. The group's grantwriter, Stephanie Hartford (yes, she's Marie's daughter!) has already enjoyed some success in gaining funding for the EECC and doesn't intend to stop.

Also, King County has indicated that if there is sufficient demand by teachers and schools to justify it, the County will work with the Friends on an addition to house Independence Hall on space that has already been provided adjacent to the new facility. The County has contracted with IslandWood to oversee the educational program at the EECC, and it's anticipated that this award-winning educational provider will ably grow regional demand.

While waiting for this next chapter of the story to unfold, it is well worth a trip to the Brightwater Campus if you live in or are visiting the Northwest. Besides the energy learning opportunities mentioned above, there are some absolutely fantastic displays and engagement activities teaching the what, why, and how, of waste water treatment, and ways to conserve water and maintain water quality at our homes and businesses. You can also chill out on over 40 acres of looping trails among restored natural settings and artwork.

Kathleen O'Brien is Founder of and Special Project Consultant for O'Brien & Company, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary as a green building and sustainability consultant. Kathleen attended the EECC's grand opening with Nora Daley-Peng, also of O'Brien & Company, who reviewed artwork for the site as an advisor to 4Culture, and her 4-year old son, Ronan.

 

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