our site status: This week we're a little bit behind due to a trip to Miami, which was wonderful. We'll be doing a field trip with our UCLAx class to the LA Steelcase showroom, and a few design friends will be in town for the weekend.
join our site: We just added this feature. Please become a member of our blog so we can begin to build a community around the idea of sustainable age design.
our schedule: We're regularly attending events and conferences around the country, or speaking at them. Here's where we'll be in the next thirty days:
3/11/10: Students will present the second of three profile research presentations. This time about companies and/or people.
3/19/10: Kevin will appear as a guest on the award winning DAMage Report radio show on LA Talk Radio.
3/20/10 @ 11 AM PST: Kevin will again join hosts Rhonda and Johnnie for his monthly appearance on the Good Green Witch show on LA Talk Radio.
4/2/10: Kevin and Aleida will attend the grand opening of L.A.'s Zenergy House.
4/22/10: Kevin will present at the first annual Valley Water Expo on Earth Day.
4/22/10: Kevin will host a panel discussion about sustainable building materials during the second annual BrightTALK Green Building Summit.
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 by kevin, on March 10th, 2010 
For our ninth class we return to our normal class room, but at an alternate time and date. This week was a make-up class required due to a scheduling conflict. We continued discussion of an earlier topic – waste reduction – and transitioned to resource preservation.
In previous classes where waste was discussed, we focused only on municipal solid waste (MSW). What we see at the curb in trash cans, in dumpsters, in garbage trucks, and eventually in landfills is just the tip of a very large waste iceberg. MSW represents just one percent of all waste produced in the United States. The other 99% is waste produced that does not go through the MSW system and does not end up in municipal landfills. 57% is classified as waste produced by industrial processes. The average consumer product generates many more times as much waste as finished product. Another 40% is classified as special and usually includes hospital or medical waste, dangerous or possibly toxic chemicals, or other waste that requires special treatment as part of its disposal. And a final 2% is classified as hazardous and is usually military, government, or highly controlled, such as nuclear waste. What’s not typically counted, yet represents an even larger amount, is agricultural waste. It’s not usually included in waste calculations because it’s difficult to measure and usually stays on the property where it was generated.
Over the past two hundred years, industrialized processes have become very efficient, yet continue to produce a significantly larger percentage of waste material in comparison to finished product. One-size-fits-all and other monoculture strategies rely on brute force to produce the greatest amount of mass consumable product following universal design strategies at the lowest possible cost. McDonough and Braungart give an excellent example of this in their book Cradle to Cradle by describing how “major soap manufacturers design one detergent for all parts of the United States or Europe, even though water qualities and community needs differ.” Some regions of the country have hard water, requiring more detergent to work. Other regions have soft water, requiring less detergent to work. The product is designed to work under any condition in any location. Therefore, waste is inevitable. In addition to reconceptualizing the idea of what constitutes waste, cradle to cradle strategies need to rethink the use of raw materials and preserve natural resources by using less and developing selection strategies that reduce waste.
Within the building materials world, there are new products being introduced every month. Some of them are taking a serious look at resource management. Designers of all kinds, whether they be architects, interior designers, industrial designers, graphic designers, set designers, product designers, or any other need to look at materials, resources, and their sourcing prior to or in conjunction with design. I can say that in the architectural world, too much design is done before materials are considered. Like the detergent example, this inevitably leads to inefficiency and waste.
We’ve developed our own material selection criteria and group products in six categories – those with a high percentage of recycled content (with a grading scale of A, B, and C for both post-consumer and post-industrial content), those that can be reused or repurposed, those made with rapidly renewable resources (with a grading of renewable, rapidly-renewable, and hyper-renewable based on time to reach biological maturity), those that contribute to the reduced use of virgin sources, those that rethink technology, and those that are locally cultivated. We’ve posted about this subject several times (read here) so we won’t go into detail with this post.
There is a rapidly growing collection of excellent sustainable materials. The class and I had a great time looking at and discussing these potential options. As the market begins to prove its viability, new companies are entering the marketplace and older established companies are starting to change their existing practices. Significant movement is underway, even while the world economy is struggling. Companies old and new are seeking new processes and new options for raw materials that reduces waste produced before the product reaches the consumer. Which is where most of the waste is generated. I’m very optimistic that progress is being made and we’re moving in the right direction.
by aleida, on March 9th, 2010  Image courtesy of Bentley web site For the third session of the day, I planned to attend The Recycling Business: Entrepreneurial Inspiring Models, but, sadly, the co-founders of Ecoist, who were slated as two of the three speakers, were not present, nor was anyone taking their place. So, I instead moved over to Truly High Performing Buildings: Tools and Techniques for Getting It Right, which was presented by Noah Eckhouse, the Vice President of the Building Performance Group for Bentley Systems.
My late arrival prevented me from hearing the set-up and introduction to his session, but I still caught what the presenter called the “canons” for achieving energy efficient, high-performing buildings. They were:
- Thou Shalt Not Believe the Greenwashing
- Thou Shalt Not Avoid Hard Work
- Thou Shalt Not Overlook the Obvious
- Thou Shalt Learn From Others Before You
- Use The Best Tools & Don’t Work Alone
While pretty self-explanatory, Noah still elaborated on them. There are a lot of technologies out there, and even practitioners, who make promises they cannot deliver, or which cannot be attained when their system or service is considered as part of the whole, so he cautioned the audience to do their research and not blindly believe what anyone says. That leads directly into point number two: there are no easy solutions. Do not rely on shortcuts, do not read “top 10” lists of green building advice and believe that you know how to design and actually create green buildings. The most simple formula to keep in mind, he said, is “garbage in = garbage out.” Always keep your brain engaged, and allow yourself to detect obvious missteps. Here he showed images of solar panel arrays installed behind shading elements which prevent most of the available sunlight from reaching those panels. Whoever was leading those projects didn’t stop to consider that trees, for example, are not transparent. So the presenter encouraged us to be wary of what he called “one click solutions.” Solar panels are great, but they will do nothing if improperly used. Thus, they are not a solution unto themselves.
 Image from solarpowerrocks.com And when such mistakes are made, everyone must learn from them. There are already buildings whose design intended them to be high-performing, and they have gotten a lot of hype, but, once constructed, they have fallen far below expectations. We must learn, therefore, that good design does not equal good performance. He advised the audience to beware of LEED tunnel vision, saying that there are at least 50% of certified buildings that are barely at or below the code baseline. Simply designing a building to comply with the certification requirements will not actually get you the desired results.
So how can someone get a high-performing building? Noah advised that all parties involved in the project get together at the very beginning; this is the simplest way to avoid losses. Everyone from conceptual designers, to engineers, to operators should be on-board with the plans. And it is important that the entire team be working with professional grade tools. He mentioned the U.S. Department of Energy’s EnergyPlus, and Bentley’s Tas Simulator V8i as examples of software that can help engineer the performance of a building before an actual structure is touched. EnergyPlus is programmed to model heating, cooling, ventilating, lighting, and other building energy flows. The Tas Simulator can perform external shadows and internal sun paths studies.
As a quick case study, Noah undertook the virtual retrofit of a random building in Massachusetts using the Tas Simulator V8i. Through Google Maps, he picked a 1950s structure in Amherst, and walked us through what changes he could make to it to get better energy efficiency. The results were rather surprising. Through trial and error, he was able to achieve a 25% energy efficiency level, but he did it without too many bells and whistles. Better windows yielded a huge gain, but a central HVAC system did just the opposite, eating up all the gains in efficiency. External window shades turned out to be pretty much useless, while chilled beams got the model closer to the 25% efficiency level.
The benefits of this study were quite evident: you can essentially play with every aspect of a structure, incrementally building up to the best possible model. And if you make mistakes along the way, you are not stuck with them and they don’t cost you any money. It was rather clear that some of the solutions we might consider absolutely necessary for a high-performing building don’t always yield great solutions, so really no single system should be locked in. Energy modeling can show you where to invest your resources for maximum impact.
Thank you, Noah, for this lively and informative session!
by kevin, on March 8th, 2010 
Our eighth class was our second field trip, this time to the Santa Monica showroom of Steelcase. My first experience with Steelcase dates back only five years. I was attending the ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) Interiors 05 conference in Nashville TN and Steelcase was offering attendees a special deal on their Think office chair that brought the price down by nearly two thirds. At the time I was vaguely familiar with its environmentally favorable attributes, but the surprising comfort and variety of color options is what really captured my attention. Prior to that I had worked in offices with various Herman Miller chairs, including the Aeron, but was never totally comfortable. Maybe the Think chair was just right for my body size and shape. As part of the special offer available at the conference, I purchased a number of Think chairs for myself and several colleagues. A few years later when moving my office to a new location with additional staff, I turned to the Think chair again to outfit it. Even today, that’s the chair I’m sitting in while writing this post.
So it was quite a thrill to do one of my classes at the Steelcase showroom and have my students experience first hand their great furniture design and also hear from them about how they make material decisions when designing a new line. We started the evening with refreshments donated again by Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and general conversation. Then we moved up to the second level where Steelcase has a mock classroom with folding tables and chairs, a rolling podium system perfect for presenting, and an interactive white board. It worked perfectly for our class size. We went over some house cleaning issues and class updates before turning the class over to our hosts Danielle Razo and Diana Weichbrodt, both A+D workplace consultants.
Their showroom and offices are located just off the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica on four levels of recently redesigned space. The new look is in keeping with the smooth, simple, clean lines of their furniture and the building makes an excellent backdrop. Danielle gave us a comprehensive tour of all four levels and all of their displayed furniture systems. It’s all so beautifully displayed that it makes you want to work in an office, or in their office. We tried out desks, cubicles, couches, lounge chairs, conference rooms, and even a workstation set up as a treadmill for those who like to walk when talking on the phone or other tasks. We saw the largest collection of Cradle to Cradle Certified furniture currently available from a single manufacturer.
After our tour, Danielle and Diana tandem presented a show called The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Materials Selection. It’s a course they deliver for architects and designers as part of continuing education efforts. The show focused on six key materials that impact their business – chrome plating, leather tanning, PVC and plasticizers, flame retardants, pesticides and insecticides, and stain resisters. For me, a few of the more memorable parts of the show were issues related to chrome. We tend to take for granted the amount of shiny objects we have in our daily lives. By and large, any metal with a shiny surface has a chrome plating. Although it’s a naturally occurring metal called chromium, direct human exposure can be toxic. In particular, hexavalent chromium is a well known carcinogen and has been used in the tanning of leather and in the creation of dyes and paints. Danielle and Diana showed a number of hidden camera photos taken in offshore chrome plating factories where only the slimmest precautions were being taken to protect workers from exposure to toxic substances. Awareness of the hazards associated with chrome has led Steelcase to move away from plating in favor of polished aluminum instead.
It raises an important question when thinking about how products are made or when considering purchasing decisions – what do you really know about the resources used and processes employed during manufacturing? Companies who don’t question their processes are comfortable with the status quo and are more than likely contributing to environmental problems. Companies such as Steelcase are actively engaged in a discussion with their consumers to inform them about how design and manufacturing decisions are being made.
I know I learned a great deal. And it seems like the students did as well. Thanks to Danielle, Diana, and Steelcase for a great evening.
Click the icon below for more photos taken during our field trip:
by aleida, on March 7th, 2010 
At 11 a.m., we jumped right into the session tracks. I attended Track 3: Experiences and Opportunities From Around the World, where the topic was Carbon Monetization and Worldwide Initiatives. Daniel Smyth, the Director of Carbon Finance at MGM Innova, LLC., was the presenter.
A brief overview of the existing global carbon markets showed that there are essentially three groups: compliance markets; regional; and voluntary. I was astounded by the plethora of acronyms being thrown about, most of which I had to look up when I got back to the office. So, before I get into mentioning any of them, here’s a quick guide:
In the compliance market there are basically two sub-groups: the EU ETS, the largest program in the world, and other non-European programs brought to life by the Kyoto Protocol. Some examples of regional initiatives are the NSW GGAS in Australia, and the RGGI in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States. Within the voluntary field, the CAR and VCS offset certification programs operate in North America and around the world, respectively.
Those programs provide emissions allowances or offsets to their participating members. EU ETS issues EUAs; CAR supplies CRTs; VCS provides VCUs; the United Nations is in charge of all Kyoto Protocol-based credits, and oversees the distribution of CERs and ERUs.
While this entire field is generally referred to as the “carbon markets,” they don’t necessarily focus on only carbon emissions. The EU ETS currently does regulate only CO2 emissions, but there are proposed changes that seek to include other greenhouse gases. Daniel gave a brief overview of chemical compounds with significantly greater global warming potential (GWP) when compared to CO2. They were: methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), perfluorocarbons (PFC), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), and sulfur hexaflouride (SF6).
The table below shows ten of the most powerful compounds in terms of GWP. CO2 is listed for GWP comparison purposes.
Source: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Chapter 2 – Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing, pages 212-213, table 2.14.
While the majority of us has probably never heard of most of these other compounds, they are very common in our industrial complex. For example, HFCs, of which there are well over twenty that are tracked and measured, are used as refrigerants – they abound in supermarkets everywhere! (Walmart has calculated that fully 10% of its total corporate carbon footprint is due solely to refrigerant leaks in their stores.) PFCs are used in the production of aluminum, and sulfur hexaflouride is a common component of LCD manufacturing. And while SF6 is not emitted nearly as much as CO2, the release of a single SF6 molecule is equivalent to the release of 22,800 CO2 molecules in terms of its contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Emissions reductions are being pursued through various CDMs, with projects related to industrial gases, renewables, and methane and cement largely dominating the field with a combined 81% majority. Forestry, transportation, and demand-side energy efficiency projects are expected to make up a meager 1.7% of the total through the year 2012. Not surprisingly, the following were identified as potential new sources of emissions reductions in the context of a cap and trade market:
- avoided deforestation in tropical countries;
- sustainable agriculture;
- sectoral initiatives in large developing countries;
- more emissions reduction programs targeted at households and buildings.
The presenter acknowledged that, as currently structured, the offset market created by the Kyoto Protocol heavily favors the most industrialized developing nations, and singled out Brazil, South Korea, India, and China as the countries that have most benefited from that set-up. While the future of cap and trade in the United States is still uncertain, he believes that Congress will have to move on something. It may not be what was originally proposed, but government officials will have to reach a compromise because the issue is at a point where it can no longer be put off for future consideration. As the largest emitters, the U.S. and China do have to be part of the solution if the world as a whole is to make any progress on the issue.
The overall carbon market is currently valued at $125 billion, and it continues to grow. Hopefully a general overview of new developments will be scheduled for next year’s conference as well.
Daniel has been kind enough to share the slideshow of his presentation with us. If you would like to download it, please click here.
Thank you, Daniel, for this informative session!
by aleida, on March 6th, 2010 
Friday’s opening session, titled Successful Entrepreneurial Approaches to the Current Green Economy was a pretty fun way to start the morning. It was a panel discussion moderated by Lilian T. Chiu, CEO of Morgan Environments and current President of the Society for Marketing Professional Services South Florida; the three panelists were Greg Horn, a partner in World of Green, Marty Metro, co-founder and CEO of UsedCardboardBoxes.com, and Eric Corey Freed, Principal of organicARCHITECT. All four individuals possess very animated, strong personalities with very definitive points of view. They were not afraid to speak openly.
Whether it was the panelists’ openness and honesty, or Lillian’s efforts to get them to engage directly with the audience, or the make-up of the audience itself, this session was extremely participatory. From the very beginning, audience members started asking questions, making comments, adding to what the speakers were saying, and even challenging what the speakers said. And this appeared to set the tone for the rest of the sessions that day; in every one of them we witnessed audiences who were engaging the speakers even before they started their presentations.
This first morning session provided some very lively interactions; here is a list of some of the take-aways:
- Watch out for externalities to be priced. All those things that nature gives us for free, and all the negative impacts of our current industrial age business model, the cost of which are never factored into how much we pay for goods and services, will soon be given an economic value. Businesses should start to consider how that will impact their operations and pricing structures.
- Don’t wait for the government to do anything. It is almost inconceivable that the government will be the one to price those externalities, considering how difficult it’s been for it to implement baseline regulations. Metro put it simply: “Screw regulation.” The general feeling was that the business world is far more advanced than the government, so businesses should not wait for government support nor funding to help with any sustainable pursuits. Metro questioned whether any program that relied on government funding could be considered sustainable, because there would then be little guarantee of the program surviving if government suddenly withdrew that economic support.
- There is no such thing as a “green” expert. “Green” as a category is so immense, and evolving so rapidly, that no single person can know everything there is to know about it. There are many breakdowns, and there certainly are specialists in specific fields related to sustainability, but don’t believe anyone who claims to be a green expert.
- When you do meet an expert in some area of sustainability, don’t be intimidated by them. Everyone right now is part of a developing movement, and there is a lot that we can all learn from each other.
- Everyone benefits when we all share knowledge freely. So within your network, lead by example, and encourage others to share best practices and operations.
- Forget about “going green.” Don’t worry about positioning your services or products as the “green” alternative. There is a lot of greenwashing out there right now, so the best you can do is to focus on providing value. When you provide value, you will also most likely be embracing sustainable practices.
- From an education perspective, the panelists did not feel that a green MBA was actually important. They used themselves as examples of individuals who were simply passionate about sustainability, and who pursued it long before it became trendy, and certainly long before colleges and universities started teaching the value that sustainability holds for the business world.
- If going into business as a “green” service provider, be careful and specific about what you offer and about what benefits clients can derive from hiring you. How do you define, for example, a green realtor or accounting firm? Does it have to do with the clients you represent, or internal business practices? Define it specifically and don’t greenwash, as that is a disservice to the rest of the movement.
Thank you, Lilian, for leading such an energetic opening session!
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