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Green Building Discussion
Topic: Trying to make a "Green" business
Discussion Participants:
- Bion Howard on price structures
- Dave Warren rants
- Lenard Hart looks for a deeper benefit
- John Abrams brings it home
- Bion Howard takes the green business pledge
- Victoria Schomer on her zen stick
All postings are the opinion of the writer, and BuildingGreen can take no responsibility for their accuracy or appropriateness.
Bion Howard on price structures
From: Bion Howard
Sent: Monday, November 25, 1996 9:44 PM
On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, MFigs@aol.com wrote: >It would be great if there was an economic incentive to building green but >unfortunately it is quite the opposite. Wouldn't it seem that the less >processing a product has the less expensive it should be?
------ Response by Bion Howard ------- Your logic makes sense if the production scales are equivalent, but in grossly smaller production lots materials with lower production energy consumption levels (< embodied energy) will cost more per unit since the lack of economies of scale moves the cost. Also, since there is a certain cachet of "green-ness" there may also be an elastic markup of the _price_ even when the costs may be similar. This becomes a complex market economics problem. There are several _societal_ economic incentives that need to be documented and publicized.
1.) health is worth something -- In Feb 1989 at an Energy/IAQ conference held in Albany NY, John Spengler of Harvard SPH said annually healthy indoor air may be worth $400 [in avoided medical costs], so by now adjusted for inflation, this would be about $550/yr -- direct benefits from good IAQ not now in PITI.
2.) the external costs avoided through energy efficiency reducing pollution (atmospheric, mine tailings, runoff, etc.) amount to $0.62 to $0.67 per $1.00 of "hard" monetary energy savings (Howard and Prindle 1991 "Better Building Codes for Energy Efficiency," ASE) so if a home is 50% more efficient (target for 21st Century Homes announced November 17, 1996 at the EEBA Conference by Marc Ginsburg of US DOE) then 0.62 X ($1,110/yr X 0.5) at least $350 of societal benefit could accrue from each new building consuming only half as much energy, and so on. Pretty soon these savings that are not currently accounted in the traditional economy begin to mean alot of value for society.
We who advocate sustainable development need to get much better at documenting these and other benefits that could become useful in offseting the claimed "shadow-prices" of environmental and energy regulations. Builders and other parties concerned about "damaging regulations" never talk about these benefits because we have not provided systematic evidence they exist. By documenting the benefits perhaps additional support by insurance and lending groups could be obtained. So, let's get busy. Your views???
Mr. Bion D. Howard bhoward2@sprynet.com (business) Building Environmental ZowWatt@aol.com (fall-back) Science & Technology Voice:(301)627-2780 FAX:(301)627-4735
Top of fileDave Warren rants
From: Dave Warren
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 1996 7:26 PM
Bion --
Your analysis is right on target! That would produce an excellent tool (tho vulnerable to politization) to prioritize goals when preaching to the choir.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a pecking order in which costs people choose to believe. Out-of-pocket-right-now costs are the only ones that are "real" to some folks, even if they can follow the logic beyond that. So the tool won't bring in many converts.
I suspect that if you added up all the annual direct and indirect automobile costs to this country (or this continent), you could buy one super-nice mass transit system -- even before adding environmental and health costs. But you won't see me bothering to do the arithmetic because even my mother would ask "But how would I get around?"
It's OK to try to convince with graphs and charts -- but only if you've taken the numbers off. And then only if folks already want to be convinced.
And don't expect to find any real cash just because you've found real costs. Most companies _look_ for ways to externalize costs.
So expect only good science from this "Sustainable Genome" Project, not political action. That'll have to come the way it always does: by appealing to Joe Public's least-common-denominator sense of right and wrong.
Dave Warren Rochester, MI
Lenard Hart looks for a deeper benefit
From: Hart&Vasilodimitrakis
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 1996 9:15 AM
This is precisely why the philosopher Anre Ness decided to opt out of these sorts of costs/benefits arguments and simply articulated an alternative ethic, a deeper ecological ehthic. For those premises that he held beyond debate he simply put a ! at the end of them. For example, the organizaton Earth First! is also an ethical statement.
Perhaps this sort of thinking might be useful in other areas: No nuclear power! Trees! or even Insulate!?
Lenard Lenard Hart and Maria Vasilodimitrakis Greenovations Philosophy Dept. York University
John Abrams brings it home
From: John R. Abrams
Sent: Friday, November 29, 1996 10:00 AM
This conversation continues to reveal great technical depth among the participants, and often slides nicely over to the philosophical underpinnings. Some good balance. But,to date I've heard nothing about another part of the work we do: the way we conduct our business operations, and the effect of our businesses on the (smaller and larger) communities we interact with.
Many questions arise. How can our businesses be as sustainable as we wish our buildings to be? How do we weave into the fabric of our businesses the level of inquiry we need, and still make a living? Do we have mechanisms for communicating our values to our employees and our clients, and do we attend to the complex web of relationships that our businesses entail as carefully as we do the many-layered matrix of decisions that our buildings require? Do we understand business as an exchange that can be designed to make peoples' lives better? Are we creating useful models: businesses that prosper because of - rather than in spite of - a commitment to democracy, widespread prosperity, and environmental restoration?
At South Mountain Co., we will celebrate, on January 1, the 10th anniversary of our conversion to employee ownership. It has been one of the most compelling, rewarding, and thought-provoking experiments of my work life. Is it because of that change that our business is so much healthier now than it was a decade ago? I don't know, but it's clearly part of the mix, and the 1987 re-structuring was a hinge point in the companys' history. I was pleased to see Mary Jane Heinen, of Whole Builders in Minneapolis, mentioned in Green Clips. Mary Jane, are you out there? Is Whole Builders still co-operatively owned, and thriving? I'd love to hear. Perhaps others would too.
Maybe a challenge inherent in the pursuit of our goals of better buildings, healthier people, and a restored environment is that we must also be creating better, healthier institutions and organizations to carry out this work. As Lily Tomlin says, "The trouble with a rat race is that even if you win you're still a rat."
How are others grappling with the questions of alignment that call out when we try to match our values, our philosophies, and our technical inclinations with the immense everyday challenge of doing business in a sane way? Are we providing leadership at the same time as we lead technologically, or are we only managing? Managers do things right, leaders do the right things. Do others struggle with these questions as we do? We tend to lurch a few steps forward and then stumble over our own feet, as if our shoelaces were tied together. But we keep asking the questions. Where does this fit into the Bottom Line in Green Buildings?
508 / 645-2618 (W) jabrams@smc.vineyard.net John R. Abrams 508 / 645-3182 (F) P O Box 359 Chilmark, MA 02535
Bion Howard takes the green business pledge
From: Bion Howard
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 1996 10:10 PM
Take the Green Business Pledge (fr. Bion Howard)
Excellent point. Why not do what my small consulting group has, take the _Green Business Pledge_. Much too long for me to get into, and better for you to explore on your own.
Contact: Coop America, V: 202-872-5307 1612 K St. NW St. 600 http://www. ((coming soon )) .org Washington, DC 20006 (could not find via InterNIC/Harvest search)
Mr. Bion D. Howard, Principal Building Environmental Science & Technology P. O. Box 1007 Upper Marlboro, Maryland 20773 USA V:(301)627-2780 FAX:(301)627-4735
Victoria Schomer on her zen stick
From: Victoria Schomer
Sent: Friday, November 29, 1996 5:46 PM
Dear John,
Thank you so much for this direction.
This is where true (as in truth) sustainability issues get real and juicy for me.
As an interiors focused designer I aspire to remember that my 'work' is about listening to what the client is saying, or trying to say, and creating a space - home or work -that helps to make their life happier and richer.
As well, how we are ultimately treating each other in our 'work' consciously and unconsciously - ourselves, our coworkers, our loved ones AND the lesser loved ones - has gotta be as important as what we tangible create - but I guess that might be a different discussion group.
I think we all already know this, just need a zen stick every once in a while, the ego being what it is and all... I sure get mine from time to time.
Namaste Victoria
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