Building Capacity

Transformation: The Theme of TEDx Tacoma

Most of us working in the green building field understand that to truly achieve our goal of achieving a sustainable built environment - one in which future generations thrive -- a major transformation in practice and thinking must occur. Therefore it was quite satisfying recently to participate in TEDx Tacoma where the theme was "transformation." TED Speakers included scholars, visual artists, musicians, activists, and educators working in fields as various as neurological research, psychology, self-discovery, cloud technology, product design, local food activism, and green building.

If nothing else, the day was transformative for those participating. For some of us, this was the first time before an audience; and for most of us, the first time being in those circumstances with cameras running and a larger-than-life timer blinking down the seconds you have left to complete your talk. Where you might expect the 'green' room to be filled with nervous, inward-looking pacers, it was actually quite the opposite. We were anxious to be sure, and as our talk approached we focused on our notes, but the focus of our conversations was generally curiosity about each other and support for "stepping up" for societal transformation in some way.

Quite appropriately, the venue for the TEDx Event was the "hot shop" for the Tacoma Museum of Glass, with the glass blowing furnace the backdrop for our stage. If you've been working in the trenches of green building, I'm sure you can relate to being on the "hot seat" when defending innovations! And if you've been successful, you've managed to create some confidence in those you wish to put those innovative ideas into practice. I found it intriguing that the TEDx experience was as much about building confidence for the speakers as the audience. It makes sense, doesn't it? How convincing can you be if your concern is not so much about the content as your delivery? Or, if you pay so little attention to your delivery that your audience doesn't get the content? It's a delicate balance, for sure. Taking care with both is a form of respect for those you wish to communicate with.

Kathleen O'Brien founded the award-winning green building firm O'Brien & Company in 1991, and continues to provide special consulting services for the company. She has dedicated her "retirement" to the Emerge Leadership Project, which provides leadership training and mentorship for industry, business, and community members convinced sustainable building is the right thing to do, and called to leadership to make that happen. Her TEDx Tacoma Talk was entitled "Emergence: A Leadership Style that Works for All."

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.

Another Tool for Building Capacity: Newsletter Reports Trend Observations

Thank you faithful readers! After two years at Building Capacity Blog, our (nearly weekly) posts have garnered interest from multiple time zones and continents. As promised the blog has focused on issues you face every day in your sustainable building projects and programs, providing lessons learned straight from those who have applied them. The more practical the post, the higher the hits spike. We know what you like.

There's another tool, however, which I think you’ll find practical, timely and valuable. The O'Brien & Company newsletter, released bi-monthly, offers announcements about upcoming events and shines a spotlight on recently completed green buildings. Last, but not least, each issue features an article written by a staff expert at O’Brien & Company who shares his or her insights gained by working with many projects struggling to achieve the latest and greatest in sustainability.

In the December issue, Elizabeth Powers, Principal-Owner of O'Brien & Company, offered her observations on trends in 2011. Some of these will likely coincide with other "trend" articles you will read in industry publications, but a few are uniquely from the position of a long-time green building consultant who has watched the ups and downs, curves, tsunamis, and windfalls of the last several years. The newsletter's project spotlight actually focuses on two high performance projects celebrating LEED recognition in 2012 and representing two very different climates: a LEED NC Gold Fire Station in Seattle; and a LEED Home Platinum single family residence in Hawaii.

Check out Elizabeth's Trends piece and share your thoughts here on the Building Capacity Blog about what you've seen in 2011 and think you'll see in 2012.

Kathleen O'Brien, Founder of O'Brien & Company, the oldest green building consultancy in the Northwest, edits the Building Capacity Blog. Elizabeth Powers, CSBA and LEED AP (multiple specialties) is a regular contributor to the blog.

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.

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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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Sweet Sustainability on the Ancient St. James Way: Kathleen O'Brien Reports in From Her Trek

Many of our local readers know I recently completed a 200-mile trek with my husband John along the St James Way in France. The Way, a path taken by pilgrims since the first century, and ending at the St James Cathedral in Santiago Spain, is comprised of several routes that begin in France. We were walking along Via Podensis, which passes through Conques, Cahors, Moissac, Aire-sur l'Adour and Navarrnx. We planned our trip to begin at the start in Le Puy en-Velay and end (for now) nearly halfway to the Spain border, in Moissac. Our purpose was spiritual and contemplative, and it was certainly that. But it was me that was there, so I couldn't help but notice how frequently "sustainability" was part of the landscape. Let me share just a few observations, keeping in mind that our terrain ranged from medium-sized cities to towns to places where cows and sheep outnumbered the local population.

1. Function is as important as form. No offense to the historic preservationists among us , but the French just don't seem so "precious" about their old buildings. Patterns in the stone show where doorways and windows have been "moved" to make buildings more functional, and there seemed to be no shame in covering clay tile or slate roofs with photovoltaic and/or solar hot water installations. We saw old inns, homes, and barns with new energy efficient vinyl windows (yes vinyl!) framed by beautifully maintained wood shutters. The combination of old and new, and obvious regard for reuse was really quite stunning.

2. History is a part of life. On the GR 65, which is the nationally protected hiking route that coincides with the Via Podensis, there are many, many sites that have historic and sometimes sacred value. Often these are off the road, so somewhat protected. But sometimes they are in the middle of modern life. In Cahors, we learned there were ruins of a Roman amphitheatre in the middle of town. We went to the location on the ville map where it was supposed to be and found a multi-level underground parking garage. We were confused. Was this just a place to commemorate the ruins? Would we find interpretive signage telling us of what once was -- a popular technique in the U.S.? No, on the first level down, the car park actually shares space with the ruins, complete with tags from the original dig. There's also an electronic screen showing the latest news alongside the ruins. The ground level is a plaza used for community events. Talk about creative land use!

3. Green Building is in! We stopped for lunch at Ecoasis (one of the gite d'etapes that serve pilgrims and hikers on the Way). Ecoasis opened just this year in Grealou and was featured in June as part of the Quercy Energies 2011 Programme, for its "ecoconstruction, efficacite energetique, et energies renouvelables".  Several of the new gite d'etapes along the Way do have solar power installations and dual flush toilets, but this place went much further. The gite's composting toilets, solar hot water and photovoltaics, rainwater capture, plant-based waste water treatment, "ecologique" paint, organic food garden and husbandry were a sight for sore eyes (and sore feet!). After a delicious lunch and time to rest our feet we asked if they had space for us that night. They did not, but were able to connect us with the owner of another "sustainable" gite 5 km down the road that was a restoration of an old ruin. It also had composting toilets, solar power, and other green building features. We slept in a naturally ventilated (of course) yert dortoir (dormitory) that night. Further down the road, the owner of our gite d'etape in La Bastide told us over a simple dinner her husband had prepared for us, that she worked for a "green builder." She was very proud; they had just completed the first certified Passive Haus in the Quercy Departement. "Passive Haus, have you heard of it?"

4. Waste not. Given the rampant reuse of buildings, it's not surprising that the three R's are important in the French countryside. No matter how small the city or town, you would eventually run into a set of bins for the community to use for recycling paper, metal, and plastic goods.  I also noticed that educational signage attached to these bins, and signage about the environment in general -- such as those concerning protection for waterways -- were well done. And dual flush toilets are pretty much everywhere, except in public WCs where it seems the flush is meant to sanitize the entire building and you while you are there. Finally, I was excited to see that homes for sale are "rated" for their energy efficiency. 

5. Someone (owners, utilities, or both) is absolutely gaga about efficient lighting, and especially sensors. This is where it got a bit much. I decided early on that there was a "trip" factor planned into any building. Even new buildings seemed to have changes in floor levels in the oddest places. This was especially a problem when hallways were dimly lit to save energy. I can't tell you how many times I stubbed my toes on the way to the shared salle de bain because of the low light levels at night, which were only triggered if you knew how to wave your hands just right. The worst situation was in a cafe's water closet. The light went out and the closet went absolutely pitch black. I tried waving, dancing, and clapping. It occurred to me then -- My god, it's on a timer! Which it turns out was outside in the hallway out of reach. Yikes. As my friend Katrina says, sustainability is all about the right strategy, right place.

Kathleen O'Brien is founder of O'Brien & Company, which is celebrating its 20th year this September. For information about the celebration,  visit our website announcement.

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How Can Communities Accelerate Change Towards Green Building?

Solid Waste Developments - Alistair Jackson, LEED AP Homes, Considers the Options

Every once in a while, there comes a fundamental shift in how we approach things in the green building world. Such a change is happening right now with regard to solid waste management.

Construction waste management was one of the sectors where O’Brien & Company entered the green building world 20 years ago today, helping jurisdictions figure out how to help builders reduce the amount of construction waste going to the landfill. For as long as there have been green building rating systems, there has been a reward for diverting a larger percentage of construction waste from the incinerator or landfill. Whether by donation for reuse or by recycling into another product, keeping waste out of the landfill has been seen as a good thing. The co-mingled and source-separated recycling industry that has resulted has developed very efficient systems for  separating and tracking materials and has dramatically reduced the amount of construction waste going to the landfill as trash. A huge success, right?

Over time, however, our conscience has begun to ache as we have come to understand that most recycling is really down-cycling and, more recently, that much of what we claim is recycled actually ends up, yes, in a landfill. It may be as alternate daily cover (ADC) or Industrial Waste Stabilizer (IWS), or it may get burned as a Wood Derived Fuel (WDF), but its landing place is still often times a landfill. For waste receivers, this has meant that they need to document and report the ultimate disposition of their diverted recycling streams.

The latest wrinkle in this evolution has been a LEED for Homes’ v2008 update that requires that the estimation and documentation of diversion must relate to the specific loads coming from an individual project, not from a receiver’s monthly average diversion reports. Some receivers (such as Allied Waste and CDL) tip each load onto a sorting floor to separate recyclable material, making this an easy task. Alternately, some of the larger receivers (such as Recovery One) have sophisticated continuous flow sorting systems. Inbound loads are tipped into hoppers that feed sorting belts, making it impossible to differentiate one load from another. In pursuit of greater efficiency and lower cost of service, we have lost access to one aspect of transparency. Two projects delivering to such a facility during the same month can achieve very different proportions of recyclable vs. non-recyclable waste, yet will get the same diversion results (and so the same LEED points, by extension). Do we want efficiency or transparency?

And what of the real goal? Are we trying to reduce waste to the landfill? Or are we trying to reduce the amount of high value material we consume without generating value from it? At our roots, the prioritization of the old adage, “Reduce Reuse Recycle” rings true. Is it really sound practice to generate larger than average volumes of waste as long as we can claim it is being recycled? At O’Brien & Company, we don’t think so.

The real goal is to reduce the amount of waste that is created . . . period! Unfortunately, it has been difficult to develop fair, dependable ways to do that – after all, how do you measure what you don’t buy, use, or throw away?

LEED for Homes was one of the first rating systems to offer a metric and reward for waste reduction – offering an optional credit for reductions in waste generated per square foot of construction, below a baseline derived from NAHB’s national average statistics. For projects run by teams with good resource conservation practices and those located in areas with poor recycling infrastructure, this option has been a boon. A focus on eliminating waste from the jobsite results in less material being purchased and handled, less space taken up for staging, and less time and cost associated with removing it from the site to its ultimate destination whether it be landfill or as raw materials inbound to some manufacturing facility.

At a time when construction process efficiency has become an essential part of survival, it would seem that a shift from measuring what we throw away to measuring what we don’t buy would be a big winner. In reality, however, there are structural and systemic challenges to making the shift from waste diversion to waste avoidance. Now, with the tide running in our favor, is the time to address them.

In the next blog on this topic, we’ll be talking about real world examples of the steps builders have taken to help this transition, both within their own operations and in association with their building business partners. Look out for it!

Alistair Jackson, LEED AP, CSBA is Principal in Charge of O’Brien & Company’s Residential Technical Services, and is a LEED for Homes, Energy Star and Built Green Verifier, LEED for Homes Faculty and ARCSA certified Rainwater Harvesting designer. Alistair is a frequent contributor to the Building Capacity Blog and was also a major contributor to the Northwest Green Home Primer.

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"Extreme" Collaboration: Crossing boundaries to achieve sustainable goals mark these initiatives

A number of sustainability initiatives in the Northwest illustrate the power of "extreme" collaboration. Initiated through the research of a PhD student studying the climate change mitigation efforts of jurisdictions within King County, the Cities Climate Collaboration gained momentum through staff members enthused by the idea of learning about and from neighboring cities’ efforts. These champions formed the basis of what has grown into a steering committee, comprised of city and county staff and partner organization representatives.

King County showed early support to the effort, and wrapped planning efforts together with ongoing initiatives, such as the Sustainable Cities Roundtable (now in its third year) and Green Tools. The Collaboration was formally launched on June 9th at a special event Roundtable, where King County Executive Dow Constantine (shown in photo) officially pledged support as a signatory along with several other Mayors. Six mayors have now signed the pledge.

As signatories to the Pledge, King County cities will partner on climate change outreach, coordination of standards, strategies and goals, climate mitigation solutions, and -- sealing the deal as an action-oriented effort – funding commitments for shared resources.  The Collaboration is unique in that the group is grounded in local efforts, experience, and action, but tethered by common higher level commitments such as the US Conference of Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, and ICLEI membership.

Another noteworthy collaborative model that has emerged includes the City of Seattle’s 2030 District – a public-private partnership effort of property owners, managers, design professionals and City of Seattle to create the nation’s first High Performance Building District. In this case, it’s an effort largely driven by a committed private sector group who in other respects might be seen as competitors – each working to maximize energy savings to their best ability in order to achieve an aggregate energy savings across the entire portfolio of properties within the district. After incubating for a year, 2030 District officially launches this week. Its visionaries hope to become a replicable model for similar collaborations in other cities.

Finally, at a national scale the Emerald Cities Collaborative (EEC) leverages the expertise, assets and skills of the public and private sector to create clean economy cities. Seattle and Portland are two of several early municipal partners who have signed on to the EEC. The EEC is a national non-profit based in Washington, DC that pools the resources of 21 national partners – organizations targeting green economies, the environment and community development – along with local partners such as non-profits, labor and industry groups, workforce development, and training centers, and city signatories to forge energy efficiency and sustainable development solutions at the local level. 

Working together towards a common goal is not unusual. What is unique about these initiatives is the willingness to cross economic, political, and social boundaries that have hitherto seemed uncrossable, making their efforts much more robust, and more ambitious goals attainable. As the father of evolution Charles Darwin said, “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

Andrea Lewis, CSBA, LEED AP ID+C is Senior Project Associate at O’Brien & Company. She has provided assistance to King County’s Green Tools and Sustainable Cities Roundtables initiatives since 2009 and is a regular contributor to the Building Capacity Blog. King County Photo by Ned Ahrens.

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How Can Communities Accelerate Change Towards Green Building?