is it greener on the other side of the pond?

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The USA “Green Buildings Research White Paper,” the fifth in a series of annual reports on green building by Building Design+Construction, provides exclusive data on how building owners, operators, facilities directors, and real estate executives view green buildings—and what they are doing to implement green building. The 60-page report covers corporate office buildings, hospitals, hotels, K-12 schools, college and university facilities, restaurants, and residential development.

Download here (3.2 MB PDF file) the full report.

Key findings of where respondents stand on key issues:

■ Respondents are still worried about possible higher initial costs for green buildings.
■ They’re generally sanguine about the energy savings from green buildings.
■ They believe that green buildings may deliver health benefits for occupants.
■ They appreciate the marketing and PR bonanza that green buildings often garner.
■ They see companies, institutions, and building owners more willing to invest in green buildings today than
they were just a few years ago.

Plenty of numbers and data in the report, along with signed statements from sponsors.

I need to keep asking myself why is it so much easier to access reports like this in the States than here in the UK?

Women in Construction Events

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CKE have advised of their North West 2007/8 calendar of events looking at a number of topics including Creating a Positive Business Image, how to Influence Others and dealing with Difficult People

The next event is on the 15th November 2007 dealing with Motivation and Working with Confidence

Download the WIC Events Flyer from here

Transforming Green Building Education

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Greeenbuild 365 mentioned in the last post, strap line is Transforming Green Building Education

It is through green building education, outreach, and the sharing of best practices that we will achieve our vision of a sustainable built environment within a generation.

Greenbuild365 makes this possible by providing green building education that is accessible for all. This learning portal features a Greenbuild conference journal, interactive polling, and streaming videos of visionary speakers…with much more to come. 

Greenbuild365 is part of the USGBC – the US Green Building Council. It would be good to see similar initiatives from the UK Green Building Council 

(In fact it would be good to see similar  membership fees and access to both – registration is free in the US,  minimum 0f £300 in the UK, although ft students are free)

Greenbuild 2007 … USA style

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I note the details for the mega GreenBuild event in the States on line.  Worth a look to see the scope and scale of the green building movement there.  Take a look for example at the online conference programme

Of interest is the fact that the  Greenbuild365 website this year that will broadcast live the plenaries and masterspeaker sessions at Greenbuild in Chicago. They will also include a blog, interactive polling and other features during the week.

This includes opening plenary by Bill Clinton *- watch it live on Nov 7. (early evening UK time)
* – Another name drop for isite which has name dropped, either in posts or in comments from others,  Gordon Brown, Al Gore, Prince Charles,  Helen Clarke, Angela Merkel, Tony Blair and now Bill Clinton, amongst others – the power of blogging!  Perhaps a prize for a treasure hunt through isite to find these figures and their relevance/ influence on the built environment?

Enviroment Books – Silent Spring v Walden

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George Monbiot in his recent Guardian article talks of  what he believes ” is the most important environmental book ever written. It is not Silent Spring, Small is Beautiful or even Walden. It contains no graphs, no tables, no facts, figures, warnings, predictions or even arguments”

I will let you follow the link to find out what the book is, but it did make me think of what the most influential environment peices of literature are, from Silent Spring to Walden to that passage in A Sand County Almanac from Leopold.  And importantly on this ‘built environment’ blog, what have been the most influential for our sector.

Do the lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi count?

It would be good to start a discussion here, but as blogs are not too hot on generating discussions, so, for those of you on Facebook I will start a discussion group there,  (“poke me” as they say for an invite), with maybe even the top 5 posted here?

Contraction and Convergence – UK Gov response

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I recently participated in an online petition to 10 Downing St on the governments response to C and C.  The response here is well worth a read, covering C and C and personal; carbon trading, the climate bill and other carbon iniatives.

Cant help thinking there is some political greenwashing here.

Incidentally the petition was organised through Facebook and blogs – demonstrating the emerging recognition and influence these new social networks have.

1:5:200

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I have had three occasions this week, in different workshops or events to explain or discuss the 1:5:200 concept. I am surprised that 1:5:200 hasn’t made it on to the pages of this blog, as I do use this concept a lot to explain why facilities management should be approached from an understanding of the business or organisation drivers, and construction approached from a facilities management (facilities in use) direction.

In our traditional approach to construction we are looking the wrong way through the telescope.

1:5:200 may now have a greater role to play now as we consider sustainability, ie the need to focus on the 200, the business costs of ‘going green’ or becoming sustainable – rather than on the ‘1’ where we are focusing on the costs of greening buildings.

In addition to the original paper on 1:5:200, the wikipedia entry for 1:5:200 provides an overview. For a more detailed and considered view take a look at Be Valuable. (available as pdf from constructing excellence). It should be noted that as a cost ratio 1:5:200 also attracts academic critisim

Construction carbon calculator – no more excuses…

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As mentioned before the topic with the highest hits and searches here on isite is a carbon calculator for the construction process.

I have been reviewing the calculator from the Environment Agency which come close, very close, to removing any excuses for not knowing the construction process carbon footprint, in setting a stake in the ground as a measure for improvement and in benchmarking across sites, companies and clients to drive real improvement.

In my opinion the positive points are:

  • written by a major client of the built environment for the built environment
  • not linked to carbon offset programmes (a big tick !)
  • based on spreadsheet (Excel) with visibility of data used in calculation.
  • appears easy to use with guidance, references and further reading
  • ‘open source’ in that the EA encourage its use by others
  • provides a great basis for carbon footprint benchmarking (watch this space!)
  • ability to add activities and materials to the base set up
  • deals with personal transport in a sensible and straightforward manner

The only (very) minor concern is the detail required to complete fully ( but then who said carbon diets were easy! and it would be good to see this tool as part of all site processes) and the materials element could be double counted – in the construction process footprint and the building footprint.

The EA will use the calculator on all of their projects from November

Read the Edie news link here

Capable People – a new blog on the block

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I have added another blog to the blogroll – down there on the right somewhere – capablepeople is a new blog on the block and while it isnt a ‘built environment’ or ‘sustainability’ blog, is an entertaining and readable blog on general business improvement themes.

The first batch of posts covers a wide range from EFQM and ISO 9000 to  Leadership via Joy Division and Formula 1.

One to add to your RSS or igoogle.

Greenwashed again

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A recent survey by Chatsworth Communications of the FTSE 100 green ‘claims’ reveals that top organisations are going green to protect brand and image rather than any concern for the environment.  Over 1200 ‘opinion formers’ from across the UK were asked views on the FTSE 100 green claims as part of the Green Winners and Green Washers Survey

Of course this wouldn’t be the case for organisations within the built environment sector … would it?

From the surveys press release

The results reveal increasing cynicism as to whether UK business is leading on environmental  issues out of a genuine desire to protect the environment or if this is just greenwash aimed at creating an eco-friendly corporate image.

• The main motivation for UK companies to adopt green policies is to protect their reputation (27%) followed by consumer pressure (20%) and good business sense (18%)
• Only 1% believe genuine concern for the environment is the key driver for UK companies to adopt green policies
• Marks & Spencer (45%) and HSBC voted the top green winners – the companies making
the most genuine green effort
• BP, Tesco and British Airways considered to be most guilty of ‘greenwash’ by respondents
• BP, Tesco and Marks & Spencer have the highest profile and most effective green publicity campaigns in terms of coverage
• Majority of respondents (75%) believe it is better for big business to own up where they are not green and show willing to make any changes

Nick Murray-Leslie, Director, Chatsworth Communications comments: “The views of the people polled influence millions of consumers across the UK, who will ultimately vote with the purchasing decisions they make.

(original lead from Edie)