Behaviors and Green Purchases

You can't prescribe something green and then become green. Specifying a green chair does not mean you are green - it just means you bought a new chair that has sustainable features like recycled content or non-horrible toxins. If you want to be greener, it is probably better to not buy a new chair at all and therefore you are using less virgin materials or throwing away more old stuff into the landfills.

There are several points in LEED that have an intent around impacting the environment less. In Sustainable Sites, you can earn a point by locating your building on a brownfield site. The intent is that you are cleaning something up AND putting less pressure to use undeveloped land. In Water Efficiency, you can earn a point by using high efficiency irrigation technology or using captured water to irrigate. The intent is to limit or eliminate the use of potable water for irrigation. In Energy & Atmosphere, you can earn a point for increasing your energy performance to reduce environmental impacts of using excessive energy. In Materials & Resources, you can earn a point for recycled content of building products with the intent on boosting the demand for products with recycled content and decreasing demand for products that extract and process new virgin materials. See a trend? You can earn points by selecting things that preserve land, water and resources.

According to Cornell University, an average of one pound of drywall ends up in a landfill for each square foot of drywall built in initial construction. The EPA estimates that 155 lbs of material waste is generated for every square foot of built out space - and we demolish 1.75 billion square feet of existing building space a year. So how can the USGBC not acknowledge movable walls, or plug and play power or removable access floors or modular carpet tiles or sound masking or indirect lights as terrific strategies?

The manufacturers call these behavior - changing tools. If you use the products, they are actually probably more effective for the second time around LEED process because you would be reusing a huge portion of existing building materials, diverting scads of trash from landfills etc.

I found it wonderful that DIRTT, KI and Haworth joined forces as manufacturers to work on the USGBC to recognize behavior changing tools as huge parts of green building and green using of buildings. Good for them! Collaborative, innovative, sustainably focused and interesting.

Green Teamwork

It occurred to me a while back that teamwork is a term that is heard all day every day but it is not really understood by a large part of the working world.  Not to be gender based but, there are many women I know ( and a few men ) that have never really played on a sports team.  Certainly women in my generation - old - did not have the opportunities that the girls today have in the sports world.  There were no team sports available to play until maybe junior high school when softball was offered back in the day.  I happened to love competitive sports and played softball, field hockey, lacrosse, volleyball and the creme de la creme at the University of Michigan, women's rugby.  I also have an older brother that I spent years chasing and trying to impress by volunteering to be the goalie ( in full pads ) during our winter hockey games.  But what about those individuals that do not really understand that the power of the team is so different from the individual star?  When I use sports analogy in my office, it is only partially effective.  Talking about the full back and the wide receiver don't really hit home sometimes, or talking about running a play without a plan from the quarterback doesn't sound that bad...

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.  When you work as a team, this permeates the whole of the individuals and allows the "specialists" in different functions to collaborate across rigid silos.  When you are building a workspace, it is pretty darn important to work as a team and let the talent be talented all together.  Bringing this back into my little world, our movable wall component to a project isn't just about how the manufacturer makes the panels in a factory, ships them to site and discounts the price the most aggressively.  We touch a whole pile of trades and people on the team.  If the GC ( or quarterback for this analogy )  calls the play for the team and the timeline moves ( oh heavens ) then the whole team needs to flex.  But what if the quarterback doesn't tell the players that he/she changed the timeline?  What if we don't talk to our teammates about how we can resolve the problems?  What if we chose to just do what we want because it is good for us and the client but hammers the project team?  Yikes.

I was talking about style and culture this week with a colleague.  We were lamenting about our dislike for micromanagement.  Now of course there is a time for getting deep in the details and using that hard/soft combination punch that motivates and drives the team however, a collaborative dance can be so much more effective.  Sometimes we see the micromanagement style combined with knowledge is power in our LEED teams and it is definitely not the most effective way.  Typically, we see the start of the project through a LEED checklist of yes/maybe/no.  I was talking to a new green furniture buyer in Las Vegas this week about how this checklist starts the process of points.  We talked about how the checklist is a guideline but it is not the culture of the project.  It is merely the starting place for the team.  We take that list of point opportunities and figure out how we are going to align and add value.  The micromanagement style just asks us to provide information that they want for the points.  The collaborative team gives us the list and asks us to help solve the point puzzle and asks us to add value and help get the points.  Totally different experience and result.

Harboring information as power makes me personally crazy.  There is so much more to creative thoughts and innovative problem solving that experience and expertise bring to the table.  Why exclude that as you build out a space?   We see it all the time.  And oh, it has nothing to do with price.  Wisdom and experience can come at the same price point - you just have to look and want the added value.  Teamwork attitude is also "free", you just have to look for it and want it.

The Green Building Doesn't Do It By Itself

The San Diego market has a shortage of green buildings - or so I hear.  The one big one on everyone's mind is the new La Jolla Commons building.  So, there we have it.  A green building in a prime location in UTC.   So, if you move into the building are you more green than if you choose another building that is not green?  What if you don't want to afford the rent costs in that new class A space.  Can you be as green as the tenants in La Jolla Commons?

Well, lets think about this.  Let's say you rented space in the LEED building and you drive to work every day in your autosaurus and sit in your furniture that is made of toxic chemicals imported from China.  Are you more green than someone that rents space in the non-LEED building but takes the Coaster to work and sits in reused furniture?  Hmmm.

You can't do everything so you have to do what you can do to be more green.  In an overly simplified way, here are some thoughts when you think about that building choice.   How about picking one that has access to public transportation or that is easy to ride a bike to?  How about a building that has drought resistant landscaping, my personal favorite is the Kilroy Del Mar Heights buildings on Valley Centre.  How about a building that has natural sunlight and you utilize the space in a way that everyone enjoys the light and you can use less lighting or leave the lights off completely?  What about a building that uses cleaning products that are non-toxic, uses paint that has low vocs, has extensive recycling programs for the tenants, uses reusable building materials like movable walls so you can reconfigure your space to meet your changing business and the building owner can tailor space for new tenants without tearing out hundreds of pounds of drywall.  Hmmm, that all works.

There is no solution that addresses everything, so do what you can and be smarter.  Being green does not mean that you have to be uncomfortable.  Being healthier has to be more comfortable.  And, being green does not require you to buy anything.