Why We Don't Build Green

There seems to be a natural inclination towards green building practices yet traditional building methodologies continue to dominate in the United States today.  Green building is about reducing waste in the construction and operation of the building, proper site selection with respect to local ecology along with enhancing the health and quality of life of the occupants.  All seemingly good design goals but still usually prioritized lower than ROI calculations by developers.  The World Green Building Council released a report recently addressing ROI in that it is also superior in structures built with sustainability in mind.  Maybe this will be helpful in continuing the trend towards better building, but I think addressing a few of the reasons why we haven't adopted green building so far will be even more helpful in spurring change.

I've written before about how we are cursed with abundance here in the US.  My point was that we don't have to innovate on the energy front because we have significant traditional energy resources that feed an energy generation infrastructure that still works (albeit typically near the end of its design life).  Dan Burris in Flash Foresight makes a similar observation about how developing nations have the ability to skip the incremental technology gains that we've had to slog through and just adopt the latest and greatest stuff.  I still think this situation is the primary reason (i.e. we don't have to change) we don't see more growth in green building or in clean energy system development.

Here are a few of my observations about why green building continues to languish in the margins:

Construction professionals have years of experience building and designing in a particular way.  Without formal training, many are unwilling or unable to do things differently and formal training is costly in time and money.  Often local building code is too restrictive and government bureaucracy too slow to meet the speed of change.  Since building construction is a such a collaborative process involving so many people like architects, engineers, code officials, product manufacturers, skilled trade workers, building management companies, and the owners/occupants, any new techniques that would be innovative enough to make a significant impact in terms of sustainability are usually too complicated to pass through the gauntlet of these disparate stakeholders.  The end result is that we seldom bother with innovation and build buildings the way we always have.

Another problem is that green buildings seldom seem any different than a non-green one.  The key stakeholders may not see much reason to go through the effort without an end result that wows them or their clients.  Incremental enhancements in air quality, lighting, or energy savings often goes unnoticed.  No one can see where building materials were sourced without explicitly stating this with signage.  Local environmental amelioration is also hard to tell without educational efforts.  To encourage more green building people have to see and feel that they are getting something more for the struggle.

A third big reason that green building is held back in the US is the stagnant building market as a whole.  In parts of the world where any significant building activity is occurring, green building principles are at least considered if not completely implemented.  Developers here feel lucky to get any projects going so pushing the envelope with respect to innovative design or cost constraints is dead on the drawing board.  Developers typically give the customer what they want anyways and lowest cost is what almost all the customers want. Without an external force mandating better design features and building products, the US market will continue to see green building as merely an academic exercise for a small group of idealists with deep pockets.

Timing is key to getting good ideas off the ground.  Green building is a great idea.  The speed of technological change across industries we are seeing means that we can't afford to adopt innovation in a merely incremental way though.  We need to develop an ability to discard old practices before they are obsolete.  If we don't, our building practices and construction professional talent pool will fall behind other parts of the world and we won't be the innovative nation that got us to the point where we are today.

Water heating is bigger than ever

A lot has changed in energy since the 70's, but we still use a lot of it.

We do have a bit of good news on the residential energy efficiency front.  The average American home uses just about the same amount of total energy as it did 30 years ago despite a rising standard of living and more plug-in creature comforts than ever before.  It's actually trending down on a per household basis.

I see two problems with this however.  First of all, we have a whole lot more homes today than in 1978.  We're around 115 million households today where we were only at 68 million in the 1970s.  While flat or even slightly declining per household energy consumption is great, 47 million new households means that we're using a lot more energy on the whole than ever before.

Where we use energy in our homes--1978 and today.

The second problem I see with this data is highlighted in the two pie charts above.  Where we use energy has shifted rather dramatically.  Due to key improvements in building technology and code, space heating accounts for much less of our homes' energy budget.  Air sealing, insulation, and mechanical system efficiency enhancements have worked.  This was low hanging fruit though and further total efficiency gains are going to be harder to achieve.

Take a look at the water heating portion of the chart.  20% of our residential energy goes to heating up water for showers, cooking, and cleaning.  This is a very predictable energy load that is completely unrelated to any other mechanical system in the house or to the quality of the building envelope.  As we look to make further cuts in per capita and total energy consumption, the water heating load is an excellent place to focus.

Germany has far less sun & far more solar than the US.  No one thinks the Germans are flaky environmental nuts either.

This is where solar water heating can make a big impact.  We have more than enough sun anywhere in the US to offset the water heating energy requirement with existing solar collector technologies commercially available today. Despite the cyclical ups and downs on the prices of specific types of energy, energy efficiency strategies enacted today will pay for themselves over the long run.

The answer to our energy problems rises every morning.

Solar panels are more than energy generation

Solar electric vehicle charging station at the OMSI in Portland, OR--shelter & power!

Electricity and thermal storage from the sun is pretty awesome, but solar panels can really offer so much more.  In certain parts of the world, covered outside areas are the norm to shelter people, animals, cars, or other equipment from the sun or rain.  Why not incorporate solar panels into the design to replace other building materials?  The structure is already budgeted and the incremental cost adder for the solar panels over the dumb panels would easily pay for itself from the locally generated clean energy.  As the weather continues to warm across the country and here in the Midwest, shading structures will continue to grow as a building design concept.  What a great way to add solar too! 

Chicago Botanical Garden Rice Center green roof with PV panels

Another example of the energy from solar panels being only one facet of its benefit to a building owner is with LEED projects.  Solar panels on a roof reduce the amount of roof space the project manager would need to dedicate to a green roof in order to achieve green roof credits.  Green roofs reduce water runoff, filter this runoff water, reduce building energy consumption, and the local heat island effect which effects the entire community.  Solar panels mixed with greenery are a win-win on all these accounts plus you get local energy production (EA credit 2) to boot.

Reducing expensive roofing materials with solar panels can pay for itself even before any energy generation 

One more example of solar being more than the sum of its energy production value is with slate and cedar roofs or other expensive roofing materials.  With these roof types, the installed cost per area of a roof integrated solar water heating collector could actually be less than the cost of the roofing material that is displaced--even before any energy savings are accrued.  I know that this is true for skylights with the daylighting and natural ventilation benefit being only a fraction of the total energy savings a building project with higher end roofing can see.

The more you look at solar, the more benefits you see, and the harder it becomes to justify sticking with old, polluting technologies.