Green building code standard committee disbanded

This seems to have the same political undercurrents that met the ASTM development of proposed standard guides for green building under committee E-50 back in 1993-1999, where NAHB, the forest products trade groups, and others ganged up to say "green building standards would economically depress the construction industry, and represent unwarranted regulation" into their patch.

Divide and conquer, demand perpetual research, obfuscate information, "serve" on committees in order to dilute their progress. This is all trade association MO, that I know so well from having served on the staff of one 800# gorilla back in the late '80s. These groups want to "own" the debate to control how much green is "right" and protect their narrow interests. Remember, for the construction industry change is the enemy, and anything can be twisted around to make it look like it is "too hard", "too new", "unproven", "risky" and "expensive" until at their convenience later all of a sudden it becomes their own idea like magic. Then it is OK. Wow, this is really too bad after all that work.

But there is always LEED Certification, which in more and more cases is being called upon to represent a de-facto standard by various jurisdictions who are not willing to wait around until the building trade associations say "now it is OK to have a green standard." I have seen instances with LEED Cert. becomes the guide level, and buildings need to meet that criteria whether actually registered and certified or not. Thanks USGBC !!

The best course for now may be to "encourage" ASHRAE to resist the trade industry pressure. The USGBC has already been pressured to admit trade associations into membership due to pressure from the vinyl industry trade association a few years ago. In the longer term a discussion would be beneficial of whether a pure consensus process is really the best course of action for encouraging sustainability. Those industries most affected by various measures and standards definitely need to have input, and we need their input, but they should also be recused from voting on those areas where there is a conflict of interest.

Just when you think all of the neanderthals had already become extinct, one shows up to clearly illustrate why progress against global warming and pollution is sytematically thwarted. Leave it up to the professionals?! What you really mean is "leave me alone to make a profit at any cost" don't you? Do you really think you can just dig and drill and suck and gouge all of the earth's resources while regurgitating them as air pollution without consequences forever? That doesn't make sense at any level.

Whenever the stakes are high and there is the chance of real progress being made in the evolution of practices towards sustainability, the lobbyists come in to divide and conquer. To me it is strong a sign to push on - that that the proposed standard is worth fighting for. There are several ANSI sustainability-related standards in review process at the moment where this is happening. On the Sustainable Ag standard in particular, the USDA actually had their law teams send cease and desist letters to the standards committee. When the dysfunction of ingrained establishment is threatened, it's time to rally.