It has been quite a week in San Diego. The fires are truly unbelievable. I don't have much to say about green furniture, green building, LEED or anything on that topic as my brain has been consumed with fire and destruction.
The ashes are in the air making it tough to breathe and giving the air a strange, very eerie smell and feel. As the particles float back down to the earth, the plants are given nutrients and the cycle of life continues. As the fire refugees return home, they are rebuilding and starting over with their homes.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Recycle and Reuse
My daughter's grade school is having a fund raiser that involves the kids bringing cans and plastic bottles to the school for recycling. The parents are driving up in their SUV's and bringing out enormous and I mean HUGE bags of plastic water bottles and soda cans. We don't have any thing to contribute and it makes me feel strange, like I am not helping our school. But the reality is that I don't buy anything like that - we don't drink sodas in our house and I refuse to buy bottled water. My 7 year old said that it was too bad that we couldn't take wine bottles to the recycling drive because then we would be in the money! The alternative to recycling is to not purchase in the first place and/or reuse something thereby avoiding the need to recycle.
LEED-CI credit 3.3 is all about this concept. Avoid recycling by reusing. The intent is to reuse building products and materials in order to reduce demand for virgin materials and reduce waste, thereby reducing impacts associated with the extraction and processing of virgin resources. The requirement is to use salvaged, refurbished or used furniture and furnishings for 30% of the total furniture and furnishings budget.
The wording of the credit comes into play as you are looking for 30% of the total furniture/furnishings budget. There are many cost studies that address the price difference of reusing and refurbishing furniture vs. buying new furniture. But again, what is that actual cost? Environmental impact, landfill, energy to manufacture and transport etc. Clearly, it seems that reusing existing products is better environmentally then buying new.
LEED-CI credit 3.3 is all about this concept. Avoid recycling by reusing. The intent is to reuse building products and materials in order to reduce demand for virgin materials and reduce waste, thereby reducing impacts associated with the extraction and processing of virgin resources. The requirement is to use salvaged, refurbished or used furniture and furnishings for 30% of the total furniture and furnishings budget.
The wording of the credit comes into play as you are looking for 30% of the total furniture/furnishings budget. There are many cost studies that address the price difference of reusing and refurbishing furniture vs. buying new furniture. But again, what is that actual cost? Environmental impact, landfill, energy to manufacture and transport etc. Clearly, it seems that reusing existing products is better environmentally then buying new.
Monday, October 15, 2007
What is in the price of green?
When you buy something, do you ever think about what the thing costs to make and where the money is spent in bringing the product to market? When I watch the Superbowl, I always think wow, these companies spend a boatload of money for the ad time - whatever it is that they are selling has to include this boatload of cost in the product cost. So how much of what you spend to buy something is actually spent on the making the product?
When you buy a piece of furniture like a Bertoia chair, a Zody chair or an Eames chair, the designer royalty is embedded in the price of the chair. So you actually pay for the design, materials, manufacturing, advertisement etc. So when you buy a knockoff of the same chair, is the price difference the cost of design? or inferior materials? or lower wages? or less attention to details? or less advertisement on Superbowl Sunday? What is it?
We recently compared the price of a US manufactured cubicle to the price of a Chinese manufactured cubicle. The US product by Haworth has Greenguard certification and all of the needed information to support recycled content amounts and other relevant data pertaining to LEED but more interestingly, the product addresses sustainability. The Chinese product was not Greenguard certified, it did not have any available information about the content of the product and there was nothing we could find that was sustainable about the product. What was the price difference? Not much, if any. So, it got me thinking - what is it that makes up the price? Are the importers of the Chinese made furniture just making more profit and you are actually getting less of a product for the same amount? If the US product has addressed "green" at the same price as the Chinese product without "green", is there a price to green? I think we are quick to associate higher price with being more green however, I am wondering if it is really about what is in the price, like value, instead of the cost of green.
When you buy a piece of furniture like a Bertoia chair, a Zody chair or an Eames chair, the designer royalty is embedded in the price of the chair. So you actually pay for the design, materials, manufacturing, advertisement etc. So when you buy a knockoff of the same chair, is the price difference the cost of design? or inferior materials? or lower wages? or less attention to details? or less advertisement on Superbowl Sunday? What is it?
We recently compared the price of a US manufactured cubicle to the price of a Chinese manufactured cubicle. The US product by Haworth has Greenguard certification and all of the needed information to support recycled content amounts and other relevant data pertaining to LEED but more interestingly, the product addresses sustainability. The Chinese product was not Greenguard certified, it did not have any available information about the content of the product and there was nothing we could find that was sustainable about the product. What was the price difference? Not much, if any. So, it got me thinking - what is it that makes up the price? Are the importers of the Chinese made furniture just making more profit and you are actually getting less of a product for the same amount? If the US product has addressed "green" at the same price as the Chinese product without "green", is there a price to green? I think we are quick to associate higher price with being more green however, I am wondering if it is really about what is in the price, like value, instead of the cost of green.
Friday, October 5, 2007
I had 2 emails in response to my topic on movable walls and LEED, both very different. The first email asked me to explain what LEED means. The most comprehensive way to explain LEED is to send you off to www.usgbc.org and have you read their full content website. But in a nutshell, LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is a program the US Green Building Council issued with a rating system that anyone can choose to comply with for new construction, major renovations, interiors etc. It is an incentive program for green design, integrated design, elegant design and good design. It is also a recognition and publicity medium. For all those out there, I did have a question on my LEED - AP test that asked what LEED stood for - so don't forget the exact words!!
LEED has become a name for green design and it now stands for a building or space that is constructed in a responsible manner that minimizes environmental impacts of the building on the environment, it's community and on the health of it's occupants. We see LEED written on RFP's as a term for sustainable design. Instead of calling buildings LEED, we really need to be saying that a building is a High Performance Building. After all, a green building is a profitable building, it costs less to run. Or instead of saying you are looking at LEED for your interiors project, why not say you are interested in the use of materials and furniture that are sustainable, use cradle - to - cradle design, are free of gross chemicals, use post-consumer recycled content etc. There are tons of things you can do to make a space green without using a LEED rating system or process. Every little bit helps.
But back to the use of LEED as a word for green design. You can buy and do things that are green and are good decisions for business and the environment. But that is not what LEED is - LEED is really about collaborative design and utilizing a different approach to the cost and price of construction. Is it really cheaper to choose low bid? Or is there value to choosing a team that can work together to build a great product, whether they are low bid or not? That is what LEED tries to address.
The second email I received was from a reader at Affinity Building Products who sent me some really interesting information on their BestBoard building products and how they are green.
LEED has become a name for green design and it now stands for a building or space that is constructed in a responsible manner that minimizes environmental impacts of the building on the environment, it's community and on the health of it's occupants. We see LEED written on RFP's as a term for sustainable design. Instead of calling buildings LEED, we really need to be saying that a building is a High Performance Building. After all, a green building is a profitable building, it costs less to run. Or instead of saying you are looking at LEED for your interiors project, why not say you are interested in the use of materials and furniture that are sustainable, use cradle - to - cradle design, are free of gross chemicals, use post-consumer recycled content etc. There are tons of things you can do to make a space green without using a LEED rating system or process. Every little bit helps.
But back to the use of LEED as a word for green design. You can buy and do things that are green and are good decisions for business and the environment. But that is not what LEED is - LEED is really about collaborative design and utilizing a different approach to the cost and price of construction. Is it really cheaper to choose low bid? Or is there value to choosing a team that can work together to build a great product, whether they are low bid or not? That is what LEED tries to address.
The second email I received was from a reader at Affinity Building Products who sent me some really interesting information on their BestBoard building products and how they are green.
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