BuildingGreen.com LIVE - Greenbuild '09

Confronting Water Shortages — Post-Greenbuild Travels in Southern Arizona

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:03:00 GMT

(click photos for larger versions)

Greenbuild in Phoenix was the usual high-energy panoply of educational sessions, new product introductions in an ever-larger trade show, networking events, and — the reason our company sends so many of us — opportunities to promote our green building information resources. But this year, I was also looking forward to some vacation time following the conference. Jerelyn and I took five days' of vacation after Greenbuild to explore southern Arizona and celebrate our 25th anniversary. As day transitions to night on the flight back east, I reflect on that time. On Saturday morning, we traveled southeast from Phoenix, past Tucson, to the Hacienda Corona do Guevavi bed & breakfast in Nogales, Arizona, just a stone's throw from the Mexican border. The region is rich with wildlife and draws thousands of birders and others from throughout the world each year. Along with hundreds of bird species in the canyon oases sprinkled throughout Cochise Country (we saw about 60 species in our travels) are such exotic mammals as coati, ringtail, antelope jackrabbit, collared peccary (javalina), cougar (mountain lion), bobcat, and maybe (at least before the border fence) the rare cats ocelot and jaguar. Other than the antelope jackrabbit, we didn't see any others of those mammals, but it was great imagining them watching us from hidden spots rock ledges during our daily hikes. On all of these hikes, at least when I wasn't trying to identify another new bird species, I spent time thinking about — and discussing with Jerelyn — the water crisis facing this region. [More]

Overheard (live from Greenbuild)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:41:00 GMT

Two guys were walking down the hall. Professional-looking guys, architectorial. One of them said to the other, "It's called, um, energy... recovery ventilator." BAM! That's what it's about. Yeah, there's greenwash, there's cynicism, there's impatience. But there's also people finding their way forward. We're all spread out along the learning curve, and that's something I have a difficult time keeping in mind. It's easy to feel like everything's too-little-too-late, and hard for me to give credit for good intentions where it's due. And with that, I'm going to break with the blogging. I have an early flight, and am going to get ready for that. Perish the thought, I'm even going to skip our after-party. (Hey, it's my birthday — I'll do what I want.) I may follow up with more yet today, depending on how tired I am after I get packed up and ready to flee. But most likely, the deluge will abate...

Plyboo's New Soy Adhesive (live from Greenbuild)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:34:00 GMT

Dan Smith of Plyboo bumped into me and we took a walk over to the Smith & Fong booth. They rolled out a new soy-based adhesive just today... and unlike some things that call themselves soy-based, I'm comfortable saying that about this adhesive. It's 60% soy. It was formulated specifically for bamboo, Smith told me, and they expect to have a complete conversion of their plywood and flooring by the first quarter of 2010 — no more MDI (their current zero-VOC offering — which is zero-VOC for the consumer, but not for the fabricating workers), and no more PF. Both of those adhesives will be discontinued in favor of the new SoyBond. It's a move up in pretty much every way, he said: Better for the makers, the users, and the environment. "At the end of the lifecycle, having an organic based adhesive that will break down better than other current alternatives is a step forward all by itself — but it also really responds to the challenge of working in China." (See Bamboo in Construction: Is the Grass Always Greener?) Their non-emitting MDI line carried a bit of a price premium over the low-emitting PF line; now, all product will be non-emitting. It seems that the price difference that existed between the two lines will about average out — it will all be the most righteous glued-bamboo stuff available, and will cost less than the previous most righteous glued-bamboo stuff available due to manufacturing economics. It's easier to make more of one line than less of two, even if there's no cost savings on the resin. Testing to verify compliance with California 1350 begins next week. As you'll recall, these are also the folks who offered the first FSC certified bamboo products.

Top-10 Green Building Products (live from Greenbuild)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:45:00 GMT

I normally post the Top-10 green building products list just as Alex is starting the presentation. And this year, I just totally spaced it out.

BuildingGreen Announces 2009 Top-10 Green Building Products Phoenix, AZ, November 12, 2009 — BuildingGreen, LLC, publisher of the GreenSpec Directory and Environmental Building News, today announced the 2009 Top-10 Green Building Products. This eighth annual award, announced at the U.S. Green Building Council's Greenbuild Conference, recognizes the most exciting products drawn from recent additions to the GreenSpec directory and coverage in Environmental Building News. "Our selections of the Top-10 Green Building Products represent a wide range of product types in many different application areas," noted BuildingGreen founder and executive editor Alex Wilson. This year's list is particularly diverse, ranging from a recycled-content concrete block, to a flywheel energy storage system for data centers, a mobile solar generator for job-site power, and an advanced modular classroom for schools. Energy-saving products among the Top-10 include a line of mineral wool insulation, an integrated rain-screen / insulation wall cladding for commercial buildings, a heat-pump water heater, and an energy control system for lighting in commercial buildings. A structural matrix system, Silva Cell, provides a support system for urban tree roots, helping trees survive in largely impervious environments and helping to manage stormwater runoff. One of the nation's most innovative furniture makers, Baltix, is being recognized for new products that incorporate a variety of biobased, FSC-certified, and recycled-content materials. "Many of the Top-10 products this year have multiple environmental attributes," said Wilson. BuildingGreen's Top-10 product selections, as in previous years, are drawn from new additions to the company's GreenSpec product directory. About 200 product listings have been added to the GreenSpec database during the past year. "New products are being introduced all the time, making it a challenge for our staff to keep up," said Wilson. [No kidding — Mark] "We also continue to come across products that have been on the market for years, but were under our radar screen." The GreenSpec database includes more than 2,100 product listings. A major driver of the development of green products continues to be the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Rating System (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which awards points for the use of certain product types, such as certified wood, or for the energy savings that green products can achieve. "Designers of LEED buildings are looking for green products, and manufacturers are responding," said Wilson. In the online version of GreenSpec, users can find products organized by LEED credits as well as by building category and the CSI MasterFormat structure. The 2009 Top-10 Green Building Products are listed below. Complete descriptions and contact information are provided on BuildingGreen.com:
Pozzotive Plus CMUs and Concrete Brick from Kingston Block

Thermafiber Mineral Wool Insulation Products

Invelope Integrated Wall Insulation and Rainscreen System

Baltix Recycled- and Biobased-Content Office Furniture

Project FROG Modular Green Classroom

Rheem HP-50 Heat-Pump Water Heater

Convia Energy-Management Infrastructure

Pentadyne GTX Flywheel Energy Storage

Silva Cell Subsurface Tree Protection and Stormwater System

Mobile Solar Power Generator

"The Perfect Conversation Piece" (live from Greenbuild)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:04:00 GMT

You know my card went into that bowl. It's a Sloan Uppercut, and yes — the flush handle toggles the light. It would go great with my Christmas Story leg lamp.

LEEDuser Booth Talk/s (live from Greenbuild)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:48:00 GMT

Despite my expo-only access, I haven't had a lot of time for product-crawling. Our booth is all about LEEDuser.com this year, fresh from its full launch. Throughout the Expo we've had guest experts from the LEEDuser team in to discuss specific LEED points. I've been tasked with videotaping those smart people talking about this fascinating stuff — fascinating for anybody who happens to be bent that way, not just LEEDies. The schedule has included:

Josh Radoff of YRG Sustainability on NC SSc8: Light Pollution Reduction
Penny Bonda on CI MRc3: Materials Reuse
Erik Dyrr of KEMA Services on CS EAc1: Optimize Energy Performance
Carli Bullock Jones on CI IEQc8.1: Daylight and Views — Daylight
Lauren Yarmuth of YRG Sustainability on NC WEc2: Innovative Wastewater Technologies
Chris Lander of Veridian on NC WEc2: Enhanced Commissioning
Jenny Carney of YRG Sustainability on EBOM WEp1: Minimum Indoor Plumbing Fixture and Fitting Efficiency
Nadav Malin of BuildingGreen – LEEDuser on NC MRc5: Regional Materials
Valerie Walsh of LEED Management Services on NC MRc2: Construction Waste Management

The idea is that parts or all of this footage will end up on LEEDuser. Even though I haven't been getting around the floor all that much this year, I suspect the post-show repercussions will be more intense than usual. Jane Kolleeny, the tireless Managing Editor of GreenSource, has been doing an amazing job of handing out my cards at booths with potential GreenSource products as she makes her rounds. Never has my contact information been distributed with such frequency and intensity. Go Jane go! Where does she get the energy? (Where will I?)

The Plenary – Rick, Al, Sheryl, and the World (live from Greenbuild)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:14:00 GMT

When I found out about a week ago that I was going to Greenbuild after all — on an exhibitor registration — I didn't think Al Gore and Sheryl Crow were in the cards for me. I was prepared to accept that. Then folks at Cosentino North America came through with an invitation to their private box — and it turned out that not only did that invitation get me into a private box in the stadium, it was a pass onto the field level.

I don't have attendance figures for the conference; I've heard guesses of 30,000 or more. I asked a cop directing traffic last night if he'd heard anything; "No," he said, "but it's a lot." The opening remarks by Rick Fedrizzi were the usual fare — we're fantastic, we're visionaries, we're saving the world.

Watching the plenary in Cosentino's box

A really nice touch, I thought, is that they had the leaders of green building movements from around the world also making statements. This is a global thing, it has to be. Video is going to be available at the Greenbuild website (and presumably at greenbuild365.org as well). Since none of it was earth-shattering, I'm not going to get into who said what; check it out in a few days at one or the other of those websites. It was about as reported in the Arizona Republic. I watched the opening statements and the plenary from Cosentino's box, up on the third tier and a little behind the stage. The audio in the stadium back there was unintelligible, so everyone trouped into the box to watch it on closed-circuit TV. After the plenary, I went down to field level; ran into some people I work with, some people I don't. The thing I like best about Greenbuild is the opportunity to see people that I never see anywhere else — once a year, at Greenbuild. One thing stressed in the opening remarks is that this stuff we're doing is about people, and I can get behind that completely. Sheryl Crow put on a fine show.

Rick Fedrizzi says so

In Cosentino's box

Al Gore, live on TV

Watching the plenary in Cosentino's box

Cosentino's third-tier box from the field

Sheryl Crow

Eight Essentially Random Photos From Around Greenbuild (live from Greenbuild)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:49:00 GMT

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Better Living With Chemicals (live from Greenbuild)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:58:00 GMT

I seem to be on the chemical redlist circuit this month. Last night at GreenBuild I attended Perkins + Will's panel-and-schmooze event to discuss their brand new precautionary list of 25 chemicals that P+W wants to see out of building products. They've created a publicly available website with their avoid list and you can view the list by MasterFormat divisions, or by health effect, not just by chemical. So instead of glazing over while scanning a list of chemicals, a designer can quickly skip to say, Div 07 and find 14 chemicals to watch out for AND a list of alternative materials. P+W is already actively scrubbing the listed chemicals out of their material libraries and specs in favor of alternatives. Last week I spoke at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute's 20th anniversary conference. TURI and the TUR Act is a model for pragmatic work helping manufacturers in Massachusetts reduce toxics in their processes and products and adopt alternatives that make sense. I spoke about how GreenSpec deals with known and unknown chemical and other constituent hazards in evaluating products (more on that sometime post-Greenbuild) — and also heard some of the latest research on health impacts of nano materials... As the P+W panel was discussing, a lot comes down to how you deal with what we DON'T know. That's because there's a lot more unknown than known: Few of the some 80 thousand chemicals in use today have been thoroughly tested for environmental, health, and safety; many product constituents are considered trade secret or just too small in quantity to be on the MSDS; and we're discovering that certain classes of compounds (endocrine disrupters, nano materials) don't follow our general understanding of how harm occurs. Do we ignore what we don't know or do we actively acknowledge this uncertainty as part of making the best decisions we can? When a design firms steps in to lead — and share — in the way Perkins + Will is doing here, it raises the bar. Next up on the circuit is Pharos — I keep hearing rumors about their new online chemical database. Sometime in the Greenbuild whirlwind I'll make it to their booth for a tour.

Bonded Logic Factory Tour in Chandler, Arizona (live fom Greenbuild)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:21:00 GMT

I've gotta say, I love visiting factories, especially those that make products I've been writing about for years. I just toured Bonded Logic's Chandler, Arizona plant, 20 minutes outside of Phoenix, where each month the company converts 300 tons of post-industrial recycled denim and other cotton fabric into the UltraTouch line of cotton insulation, sound-proofing materials, duct insulation, and related products. I never knew there was so much I didn't know about cotton insulation! Liz Obloy, the publisher of Sustainable Facility magazine, and I saw the manufacturing process first hand, from the bales of incoming raw materials to the packaging of finished product. This plant gets the cotton after it's already been fiberized — broken down into the constituent fibers. Bales of polyester and polyolefin "binder" fibers that give the material loft also come into the plant. The fiberized cotton is treated with a borate solution to make it resistant to fire, mold, mildew, and pests. [More]

Electric Resistance Heat... Really? (live from Greenbuild)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:16:00 GMT

I'm really tired. Does low-voltage electric resistance heat actually make sense? Under the right circumstances, it seems like it might. I see the people from Step Warmfloor at Greenbuild every year, but I never talk to them — frankly, because I have a bias against the concept of their product. This year, I talked to them. And now I have to admit that I'm a little bit confused. Would anybody be willing to take a look at their pitch and either talk some sense into me or tell me that I'm not entirely nuts?

Timbersil Update (live from Greenbuild)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:45:00 GMT

After in excess of two hours' heat source contact, Timbersil has suffered some charring. The control structure behind it has burned completely.

Ran into the good folks from Timbersil at their booth. (You may recall that we like Timbersil an awful lot.) Things seem to be going well for them, and it pleases me when an underdog with a breakthrough product emerges from established-industry opposition and hostility to brighter days. They were featured just today in a front-page article in the Santa Barbara Independent, which apparently caught the attention of the CBS evening news. They have 12 distributors providing national coverage these days, with high-profile projects on the ground that include the front walk of the place where they hold the Grammies, a harbor in New Jersey (with full immersion piers), the city of Chicago is using it... plus international projects in China, Japan, Australia, and Europe. It seems to be gaining a great foothold in California for its stunning fire resistance — Class A — and it turns out that accelerated weathering testing is showing that it actually gets more fireproof and stronger as it ages in the environment. (Kiln-dried wood is 40% stronger than treated wood; and Timbersil is 40% stronger than kiln-dried.) Check out the video of the fire test at the website of Timbersil's distributor in California.

Me and Greenbuild — is you is or is you ain't?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Greenbuild starts today. The company's not sending me this year. That is, they weren't until a few days ago. I was in Almeria, Spain, at Cosentino's offices when I got the news. (I intend to post about that Spain jaunt after I get myself dug out; but right now, I'm sitting in BWI waiting on a connecting flight to Phoenix, and Greenbuild.) I'm not entirely sure that I'm looking forward to Greenbuild this year, to be honest. I'm on an exhibitor registration, rather than press, so anything beyond the trade show floors — there's two of those this year — is outside the scope of whatever color badge I'll have. No educational sessions, plenaries, master speakers for me... it's going to be products, products, products (plus whatever other stuff I can sneak into — and it does look at this point like I'll be able to get into the opening plenary). Don't misunderstand. There's definitely enough in the Expo to keep a person busy and interested throughout its limited run. As noted here previously, using all the available time that the Expo is open to visit each exhibitor gives only about one minute for each. Now, I don't think that anybody would want to visit each and every booth — at least, I certainly don't want to. I worked over the exhibitor pile last month to generate a list of GreenSpec-listed companies — and it seemed to me like there's going to be some pretty lousy stuff touted on that floor... and way more greenwash than any previous Greenbuild. I should probably admit that this is something I do: lead with skepticism. I bet I'll end up having a good time... I usually seem to. They're calling my flight.

Greenbuild 2009 Expo Hall: Some Math

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:11:00 GMT

I tend to spend a lot of time in the Expo Hall at Greenbuild. On the Greenbuild 2009 website, the Greenbuild International Expo page says:

This year's expo hall in Phoenix boasts over 1,800 exhibit booths showcasing the latest in innovative products and services.

Were you there last year? That was 800 booths. Double that, and add some. At this writing, there are 1,057 exhibitors listed for this year; but let's assume that there will be at least the promised 1,800 by show time. Here's the expo hall schedule:

Tuesday 5:30pm - 8:00pm

Wednesday 9:00am - 5:30pm

Thursday 9:00am - 5:30pm

The Expo is open a total of 19.5 hours — which is 1,170 minutes... or 70,200 seconds. Divide those seconds by 1,800 booths. You have 39 seconds to linger at each one. If you visit only half the booths, the time goes up to 1:18 each. Check out the video on the main Expo page, though — our own Nadav Malin in a Fortune Magazine video shot during last year's Greenbuild Expo (as previously noted here on our blog).

Al Gore, Sheryl Crow kick off Greenbuild 2009

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:45:00 GMT

If you haven't already heard, the opening keynote at Greenbuild 2009 will be former U.S. Vice President, environmental advocate, and Oscar-, Grammy-, and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore. Gore's address will take place at Chase Field stadium; afterward, a little music from nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow. The annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, this year, November 11-13, at the Phoenix Convention Center, just a block or two from Chase Field. Previous Greenbuild keynote speakers include former President Bill Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Greenbuild 2009 is also slated to have more than 100 educational sessions and workshops, a two-day Residential Summit, the World Green Building Council International Congress, tours of area green building sites, and more than 1,700 exhibition booths showcasing technologies and products. In addition to inventing the internet, Al Gore is on the Board of Directors for Apple Computer, and a senior advisor to Google. (Two of those things are true.)

Tuesday	5:30pm - 8:00pm
Wednesday	9:00am - 5:30pm
Thursday	9:00am - 5:30pm