The Blue Men are a mindshift both in message and delivery. Enjoy their take on planet earth as an intro for today's blog.
Green is in. With the momentum of an Oscar, a Nobel Peace prize and daily articles from all major media public awareness has reached that proverbial tipping point. The pendulum has now swung so that demand and expectations far exceed current capabilities.
The recent Businessweek Cover Story, "Little Green Lies," is an reminder that authenticity and transparency go hand in glove for those serious about restoring the planet. Corporations that jump onto the bandwagon will be closely examined to see if the talk matches the walk.
Here are some excerpts to the article.
"Barely a day goes by without a prominent corporation loudly announcing its latest green accomplishments: retailers retrofitting stores to cut energy consumption, utilities developing pristine wind power, major banks investing billions in clean energy. No matter what Al Gore's critics might say, there's no denying that the Nobel Prize winner's message has hit home. With rising consumer anxiety over global warming, businesses want to show that they're part of the solution, says Chris Hunter, a former energy manager at Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) who works for the environmental consulting firm GreenOrder. "Ten years ago, companies would call up and say I need a digital strategy.' Now, it's I need a green strategy.'"
"Much corporate environmentalism boils down to misleading statistics and hype. To make real progress, genuine accomplishments will have to be sorted out from feel-good gestures. Schendler no longer views business as capable of the dramatic change he thought possible eight years ago, the sort of change that corporations have grown accustomed to boasting about. His own employer is "a perfect example of why this won't work," he says. "We've had a chance to cherry-pick 50 projects and get them done. But even if every ski company could do what we did, we'd still be nowhere."
For the complete article link here. There is also a Podcast for the story behind the story. You will find a link at the beginning of the article.
If sources like The Economist and the AIA are correct there is somewhere between 33% - over 50% waste delivering conventional real estate. Most efforts to achieve sustainability or some level of LEED certification proceed under the old paradigm; a linear, hierarchical design-bid-build approach. Conventional wisdom says that any effort above LEED Gold requires an up front cost premium. The current premium estimate for LEED Platinum is somewhere between 5%-7%.
Unless I'm missing something, a new paradigm that can make a significant dent in the 33% - 50% waste will also be able to deliver a LEED Platinum building for the same cost (or less) as conventional unsustainable buildings.
Partnering on a project to achieve LEED Platinum with no upfront preimium sounds like a proof-of-concept test. What do you think?
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1 comment:
Agreed! With an integrated team approach designing and constructing with Building Information Modeling technology, a project ought to be able to be delivered with no premium for LEED Platinum.
The question becomes: Which owner, which financier, which contractor, which code official, which plan reviewer, and which A/E firm is willing to team up, invest in the new tools/infrastructure/learning curve together and pull it off?
It would take the perfect storm of site and circumstance and unified teammates - bring it on!
The status quo is stacked against this happening - our industry is so incredibly slow to change. I'm currently working under a design-builder who has an electrical subcontractor who does not have a computer let alone CAD. And he's still making money at what he does - he doesn't see the need to change.
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