The Intention of Green

I attended a wonderful lunch sponsored by CREW San Diego a couple of weeks ago.  It was a board discussion that involved the Port of San Diego, the Airport of San Diego and the Pacific Gateway development in San Diego.  The discussion was not about green or anything so specific but,  there was this one statement made that stuck in my brain and resonated over and over.   I will never get the exact wording right but the statement went something like this - The Pacific Gateway project will of course be LEED certified...  Then later in the conversation when the board was talking about opposition to work done by any of the entities ( the airport, the port, Manchester etc ) it was said that the "environmentalists" are always fighting and very vocal.  I totally appreciate both sides of that story - those fast adapter, radical environmentalists can be completely anti-development and crazy in the minds of business people.  In the same light though, would we be building green buildings if it weren't for the efforts of the USGBC to help educate and evolve the way we build?  There is a happy medium between development and green and they can coexist in my mind.  There is clearly an intention to being green.

There was an RFP out on the street that had the intention of green but judging by the words chosen, it is clearly an intention without an understanding.  Would the team building a new corporate headquarters really build green if they didn't feel some pressure?  'A key goal of the project is to obtain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for this project.  Products that support LEED are of interest and may be considered over other products'.  Well now that barely makes sense other than you can figure out the intention of being green.  Products don't get you to LEED certification.  Process, teamwork and collaboration will get you a "green" building.  There is not a "greener" product per say - especially as it relates to this evaluation because you can only add into the mix of calculations for the overall project.  

To be truly helpful and relevant to LEED, an RFP could ask questions that go like this:

Describe your documentation process for materials you are proposing to supply to the project.    This is no easy feat as the products we support are varied and each one different.  It is cumbersome and hugely time consuming to do this - that is assuming you even know where to start.  

Provide the documentation relevant to LEED credits early on and submit using calculations.  Jeez, you really have to know what you are doing here.

Provide your process of touch up for the products you are supplying.  Often times the dealerships install these wonderful Greenguard products and then slather on the high VOC touch up paint in the field.  Yikes, talk about blowing out the LEED points.

Provide details about the packaging and disposal of trash on site.  This RFP had the standard statement that says we can't use the GC's dumpster.  Well according to LEED, that is a no-brainer - how about if we offer up our own cardboard dumpster for 100% recycling and then we provide our waste tickets to our LEED coordinator.  Wow, different approach huh.

There is really so much to learn and so much to know with how to build green.  I am just truly happy we are getting to the point where most things we hear about are intending on green building - and learning how to green build along the way.