Educate yourself on how WHERE you live, work, or play is affecting the environment. The season is changing. We are shifting from the warmth of the summer sun, encouraging us to be active and savor the outdoors to the teeth-shattering unwelcoming cold. The days are becoming shorter, allotting us less time on our favorite bike or running trails. We begin to find ourselves hibernating inside and hopefully not storing up our fat cells. Even if you are the most avid skier or hiker slicing and crunching through the snow, you still need a warm haven to crash in. As we use the indoors more in the colder seasons and some of us in the hottest seasons, utilizing air conditioning, more people are realizing we have yet another personal choice to make. Most of us opt for environmentally friendly food, transportation, clothes, etc. So isn’t it time we use our conscience and wallet on one of our most basic of needs for survival. Our shelter. Regardless of our motivations of slowing global warming, respecting mother earth, or saving money, we can only do good and reap benefits by becoming more aware of where we our living, going to work, or taking vacations. “Building Green TV and RCLCO (Robert Charles Lesser & Co.) announced that health is the most powerful motivator for consumers to build or purchase a green home. A recent survey conducted by RCLCO found that as many as 42% of all buyers would be motivated to purchase a green home based on knowledge of their health benefits, compared with only 17% for energy savings and 12% for the environment.”* We care about our family and friends and being able to come together in our homes, offices, or commercial centers without worrying about how our surroundings are deteriorating our bodies.

The environmentalist began asking long ago, but now the suburban mother is asking, what is “green” building and how to do it. The terms thrown around are “green”, “eco-friendly”, and “energy conscious”. It comes down to how friendly we are to our natural environment as we populate and cover natural ground with residential and commercial properties. Most people hear about new “green” building projects and know it’s a good thing, but don’t know why. I know when you think of “green” homes or office buildings, some of you picture a mud hut and others of you see a chic office building with a wall of ferns and flowering plants which actually cleans the air inside of the building. Since “our nation’s 81 million buildings consume more energy than any other sector of the U.S. economy, including transportation and industry”, more corporations and upscale homebuilders are recognizing how appealing it is to become LEED or energy star certified, minimize your carbon footprint, contain urban sprawl, renovate old spaces, and create and construct with the environment on the forefront (www.eere.energy.gov). The main goals many ecologically aware builders are focusing on include: understanding your natural building site to find a balance with it, becoming a minimalist, creating a self-sustaining energy efficient building, and educating oneself on where the materials are actually coming from.

So what is the USGBC or LEED certification? The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system encompasses a third-party coming in to evaluate the design, construction, and operation, and certifying the commercial building as either LEED Certified, LEED Silver, LEED Gold, or LEED Platinum to prove to the developer, clients, and the critical public about their use of “sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources and indoor environmental quality. LEED standards cover new commercial construction and major renovation projects, interiors projects and existing building operations.” In the works are certifications to “cover commercial “core & shell” construction, new home construction and neighborhood developments”.

Sustainable/Sustainability is a very common word these days. Many people throw it around, but does everyone really understand its true meaning? It is the ability to continue to supply the current necessities of life with minimal long-term effect on the environment so that future generations will still have the same resources available. We can accomplish this by the 3 R’s; reduce, re-use, and recycle. We have to conserve the natural resources we still have by taking advantage of renewable natural sources rather than the ones that have an end in sight.

Be careful to not assume that all green development is overwhelmingly positive. “Greenwashing” is when the same building receives a “new image”, but it is just a positive façade. It is “disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image” as McGraw-Hill Construction states. Corpwatch.com states that it is “the phenomenon of socially environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment. It is environmental whitewash. Hogwash.” Developers may make a list of their “green” improvements, but they may just be worded very well and actually may be very minimal changes. These improvements may be very randomly chosen, such as air quality over energy efficiency, and don’t work together overall. As a friend of mine stated, “When your environmental advocate is placed only in a marketing department position, then there’s something wrong.”

Although with the current certifications and updated building codes, green washing is much harder to get away with. Now, between the new “green” TV shows, your boss at your newly renovated “green” office, or choosing your upcoming vacation hot spot, you as a home dweller, employee, or consumer no longer have to be torn between protecting the environment and living. In the upcoming series on green development, you can look forward to learning about terms such as, geothermal, FSC-certified wood, runoff, native landscaping, VOCs, solar PV, and energy star certifications. You will also learn about investing and the returns on environmentally friendly building, the building process, energy efficiency, and more opportunities and resources.

Valuable Resources: www.NRDC.org/buildinggreen : The Earth’s Best Defense: Building Green from Principe to Practice

http://greensource.construction.com : GreenSource

www.bcap-energy.org/home.php : The Alliance to Save Energy’s Building Codes Assistance Project (BCAP): “promotes energy-efficient building codes and standards in the United States through advocacy, technical support, and outreach.”

www.buildinggreentv.com : *” In the spring of 2007, RCLCO (Robert Charles Lesser & Co.) conducted a national survey of homeowners to gain an understanding of their attitudes toward Green residential products. The survey, deployed via the internet, yielded 1,011 complete responses from the continental United States. The survey was geographically stratified to mirror the geographic distribution of householders across the contiguous United States. The survey targeted existing homeowners with incomes of over $50,000, or in the case of retirees, those with estimated net worth of at least $250,000.”