our site status: We're in the process of reworking our posting strategy, adjusting the site design, and making other improvements. We'll be back to our regular posting soon. Please come back.
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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:
9/2/10: Kevin and Aleida will attend a reception at the first Women in Green Forum in Pasadena, CA.
9/4/10 @ 11 AM PST: Kevin will join Rhonda DeFelice on her new Good Green Witch radio show.
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 by kevin, on May 19th, 2010 
The first full day of sustainable building material tours got off to a rocky start. I awoke to discover that my bank and auto insurance company hadn’t been playing well together for the past three weeks. As a result, I was on the road, with a rental car, and without auto insurance. I never accept the supplemental insurance offered by the rental car companies, and my insurance company had to think about whether they were going to reinstate my policy, reject me, or allow me to renew. All three are unfortunate choices, but at least the renewal option would allow me to return or drive the rental car without fear that an accident would all be on my tab. I won’t bore you with more detail, but it was finally resolved by late afternoon.
I’ve experienced Portland’s public transportation before, so I know I would be able to make most of my meetings without using the car. But my first meeting was with a small company called Stardust Glass. They’re located outside of downtown and it would have taken more time than I had available to get there. Luckily that meeting was moved to another date and I’ll still get to visit their production facility.
Once I finally got the day of touring started, I found my way to the recycled aluminum product manufacturer Eleek. We’ve written about them in the past (here) and have used their recycled aluminum tiles. This is the first time we’ve had the opportunity to meet the owners and see how their products are made. I had a great visit, tour, and interview with cofounder Sattie Clark. I’ll do a separate post about the tour, and another about the interview. For now I’ll say that their small artisan studio is a a fascinating laboratory focused on beautiful form making. It’s a really interesting place.
My second stop was with a solid surface countertop producer that is new to me – a company called Fuez. Although I was not scheduled to meet with the owner, Greg Martin, but he happened to be there when I arrived and agreed to a tour and interview. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the production facility since it was on the edge of town and I was without a rental car. But I hope to either fit it in later during the trip or when I return to Portland. Which I’ve already decided I have to do. There are far too many manufacturers producing amazing products to fit into four days. For anyone unfamiliar, Fuez manufactures a countertop material similar to Vetrazzo, IceStone, and EnviroGLAS. I’ve interviewed and written about all three here. If you haven’t heard of Fuez, it’s likely because the company is fairly new, had been focused on the west coast, and hasn’t done a great deal of promoting. In terms of size, they are smaller than IceStone and Vetrazzo, but larger than EnviroGLAS. There are several aspects of the product that set them apart from the others in their category, but I’ll save that for a full write up to follow.
Although my day was truncated by logistical issues, I was still able to see a few producers and learn more about one company I knew and one that was new to me. Next I take a day trip up to Hoquiam WA to tour some serious manufacturing facilities. Look for that soon.
by kevin, on May 18th, 2010 
I travel regularly for work. And when I do, it’s easy to be lazy and turn to chain restaurants, or worse, fast food, for meals. Most people who don’t travel frequently believe that when you do, it’s somehow glamorous. No doubt there are moments when it’s exciting or even fun. But by and large, it’s work – lines at the airline bag check, lines at security, lines at the coffee bar, lines at the gate, lines at the baggage claim, lines at the rental car desk, lines at the hotel. Depending on the flight, you can spend more time waiting than actually traveling.
So, when I find an easy food solution while on the road, I’m overjoyed. This week I’m in Portland OR. While taking a short break to share a coffee with a friend, she tells me about a new trend toward trailer-based food venues that have been popping up all over town. I’m familiar with some in various neighborhoods in Los Angeles, but it appears that Portland has embraced the idea with real enthusiasm.
I’m told that one of the best can be found on the corner of 12th and Hawthorne in an historic industrial neighborhood on the east side of the river. It’s the kind of place where every telephone pole has years of posters and bills. On one, there are so many staples, I’m a little nervous about losing a layer of skin if I accidentally brush against it. On the northeast corner, a former vacant parking lot has been transformed into a quasi-mobile food court. It looks like a carnival had been through town but the food operators stayed after the rides moved on to the next location. Randomly placed picnic benches and temporary tent structures tend enhance the festival perception.
I would have been convinced of my imagined carnival back story had there actually been a funnel cake vendor. Instead, there’s a pizza trailer named Pyro Pizza, a new BBQ stand called Bubba Bernie’s, a Mexican booth called El Brasero, you get the picture. It seems a bit transient, but several operators have been there for more than two years. Each food vendor cooks and sells from their own converted recreational trailer. It’s like a trailer park of food. It all looked delicious and smelled good, but the reason I’m here is a trailer called Potato Champion.
While I’m waiting to order my fries, I notice Joy Division playing on the speakers. When it’s time to give my name to the kid taking orders, I jokingly tell him Ian. He doesn’t get it. He probably wasn’t yet born when the band’s former singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. Or maybe he simply wasn’t paying attention to the music. He did seem to be mindlessly going through his activities. But all of that added to, instead of detracting from, the experience.
This corner carnival concept is clearly geared to the after hours crowd seeking simple food on their way home from neighborhood bars. None of the menus are complicated, and all are either the main dish or the side item, but not both. Most vendors open at noon, don’t close until 3am, and sell every day except Monday. I’m there on a Sunday evening, so the crowd is light, mixed ages, and mixed groups. I thought at first I may appear like a fish out of water since I was an out of town tourist snapping pictures. After all, the collection of trailers, benches, tents, and port-a-potties are not terribly picture worthy. I was also much older than other customers, but I finally notice that the one thing which sets me apart is my total lack of ink. Everywhere I look there are tattoos. In fact, everywhere I look in Portland there are tattoos. There must be a robust industry of tattoo parlors throughout the city.
It’s difficult to determine if the trailers being used are new or repurposed. I would like to believe they’ve all had wonderful previous lives or were owned by cute old couples spending their final years traveling the country. It’s impossible to tell, but again, I find myself constructing a back story for each. And maybe that’s the real treasure to be found in venues such as this – the neighborhood, site, objects, and crowd are all so rich with potential that your imagination can run wild with possibilities and interesting narratives.
I plan to find a few more to see if there are any trends to identify. I’ll keep you posted.
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by kevin, on May 16th, 2010
View on tour: PDX 2010 in a larger map
A week ago I posted a question on a LinkedIn discussion board asking for sustainable building material manufacturer recommendations in the Portland OR area. I was pleasantly surprised not only by how many responses I received, but also by how many interesting companies there appear to be in Portland. I arrived today and will be in the region for the next four days. For anyone who has read this blog in the past, you may be aware our stories of sustainability and on tour articles. Hopefully, the companies on my list will become the subject of some interesting posts over the next few weeks.
Here’s a partial list of tours and interviews:
I’m still finalizing and revising the list, but I’m very excited with what I have so far. I’ll post a few daily photos of interesting finds. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions and introduced me to new people seeking to make a difference in the built environment. Stay posted,
by Kevin, on May 7th, 2010 
When arriving at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, a few miles west of Bentonville, it’s difficult to imagine that a facility with so few gates could ever become a portal to the future of environmentalism. But with Walmart’s recently aggressive sustainability initiatives, that’s precisely what is happening to this small airport. Will we look back ten years from now with disbelief, or should we have anticipated the impact of their action?
I’ll be honest, as a retail designer, I’ve never been a fan of Walmart. Don’t even get me started on issues regarding treatment of employees or potential correlation between poverty rates in counties where Walmart stores are located. There’s a great deal to dislike about the world’s largest retailer and corporation. It has a long list of enemies, detractors, and opponents. But my opinion is beginning to shift.
With little fanfare or self promotion, Walmart is changing not only how they do business, but also how their suppliers operate, persuading them to rethink production processes in an effort to reduce costs and environmental impact. Walmart wields such economic leverage that manufacturers have little choice but to follow their lead. This, of course, will likely create a sizable ripple within the retail industry. Walmart competitors will be pressured to change just to keep pace. No single company on the planet has the same potential for deep and radical change.
In Bentonville, practically everyone I met is currently or was once employed by Walmart – the hotel night manager once worked there, the waiter’s day job is there, the bartender and his brother work there, an acquaintance I meet at dinner used to be a writer there, you get the picture. Some of the biggest buildings and parking lots are related to Walmart – corporate offices, distribution centers, and stores. Streets are named for founder Sam Walton. The original store on the town green is preserved as a museum and visitor center. It’s almost impossible to experience any aspect of the region that isn’t directly or indirectly connected to Walmart. It’s like visiting a military town such as San Diego, CA or Norfolk, VA, where the Navy presence is so dominant that you’re practically guaranteed to see a soldier or a ship.
By the way, none of this should be misunderstood as criticism. I point it out to highlight the incongruity or the irony of the circumstances I witness each time I visit. The dialogue regarding environmental impact and strategies for change are becoming louder and more emphatic. On my last two trips to Bentonville, I was there to discuss sustainable building design and learn best practices from Walmart and supplier initiatives.
These thoughts were on my mind when I landed last week for another green conference and expo. The NWA Green Expo was sponsored by Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Shell Oil, but this fact was completely downplayed and practically hidden. The two-day event was free to the public and offered a half day of speakers and panel sessions, film screenings, presentations, and two days of exhibits.
Read more review: NWA Green Expo overview 
by kevin, on May 2nd, 2010 
“I wasn’t really interested in doing a business that only had relevance in San Diego,” said BottleHood co-owner Steve Cherry during a recent visit to his production facility in El Cajon, CA. And when I say “facility” I really mean a small storage and processing building at the end of a tight winding hilly tangerine-lined drive, a few work stations covered by tents, and a hillside of sorted boxes with empty used bottles awaiting their transformation from trash to useful product. If the facility sounds small, that’s because it is. That’s not only the key to its charm, but it’s also its secret weapon.
“This is a business that is very very scalable, meaning one location can get very big for very little money. And it’s also easily replicable, meaning you can easily start another one in another neighborhood,” Steve adds. “Southern California is hardly a sustainability leader [but] if we can make a success of BottleHood in San Diego, then there are probably twenty other cities in the U.S. where we can be even more successful.”
Steve’s new business venture, BottleHood, collects discarded bottles from various sources and cuts them into juice glasses, tumblers, vases, candle holders, and more. In August 2009 Steve was fed up with what he was doing and tells me half-heartedly that he had considered opening a taco stand in Costa Rica. With co-owner Leslie Tiano they decided to create an enterprise that could support the local economy, create local jobs, stop jobs from moving offshore, and keep valuable glass out of the landfill.
Just eleven U.S. states have container deposit laws, what are usually referred to as bottle bills. In most cases, the state charges beverage distributors a fee on certain types of containers. That fee is passed on to retailers and is ultimately paid by consumers. That fee can be recovered when consumers return used containers to recycling centers. In those states with bottle bills, recycling rates for glass, aluminum, and plastic are more than twice the national average. In fact, the eleven states with such programs recycle as much total volume as the other thirty-nine sates combined. In 1986, California passed the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act – that’s legislature-speak for bottle bill. Just ten years after the bill was enacted, beer and soda bottle recycling rates rose to 80%.
There is, however, one side effect of such legislation that’s often overlooked and rarely discussed. Any law that increases the value of some containers can, and often does, reduce the value of others. For example, in California, glass soft drink, energy drink, beer, and water containers qualify for the program. They have redemptive value (CRV). Wine and liquor bottles do not qualify for the program; their recycling rates are significantly lower, and they have limited value. The program incentivizes the collection and return of some containers and creates disincentive for others. The next time you’re in a bar, restaurant, or nightclub, glance at the shelves of bottles behind the bar and you’ll see an incredible collection of beautifully designed objects. Expand your view just a little and you’ll find a treasure trove of small soda bottles and micro brewed beer with stunning silk screened labels.
Read more on tour: BottleHood
by aleida, on April 28th, 2010  Image courtesy of BrightTALK webinar BrightTALK’s Green Building Summit continued on April 22, 2010 with What’s Good and What’s Next: The Future of Sustainable Materials, a panel discussion moderated by our very own Kevin O’Donnell. I won’t write more about the session here as Kevin will post on it later this week. Instead, I’ll skip right to the day’s final session, titled Solving the Cost Hurdle for Green Retrofits: GreenFinanceSF. It was presented by Rich Chien with the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
The city of San Francisco not only promotes but actually mandates high-performance buildings. LEED Silver is the standard for new construction of all municipal, and most commercial and residential buildings. But, to date, there haven’t been many city programs aimed specifically at the residential sector. Enter GreenFinanceSF, the city’s newest PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) program. It promotes low cost – high savings residential building improvements.
In essence, the program lends people money so that they can immediately make money-saving “green” improvements to their properties. On a shamelessly skeletal level, here’s how it works:
- All retrofit projects must be related to energy efficiency (insulation, water heating, window replacement, etc.), renewable energy (solar panels), water (efficient fixtures), or “other” (greywater irrigation systems, rainwater harvesting, living roofs).
- The property must be within the City and County of San Francisco.
- The property must be current on all property tax and mortgage payments.
- The property owner voluntarily applies for financing, listing all planned retrofits and committing to performing them.
- The applicant must be listed as an owner on the property’s title.
- Applicant must agree to get energy audits or Water-Wise evaluations as outlined by the program.
- Applicant must participate in any applicable state and city rebate and incentive programs.
- If approved, the program will provide financing to the property owner to pay for the retrofits. Financing cannot exceed 10% of the property’s assessed value.
- The minimum financing per property is $5,000, and the maximum is $50,000.
- Once financing has been provided, the program places a lien on the property, and the owner begins to repay that financing, with a repayment period of up to 20 years.
As of right now, GreenFinanceSF, which was launched just this month on April 12, applies only to residential properties. In mid-May, the program will begin supporting higher incentives for Economically-Disadvantaged Populations (EDP), and in late May it will accept applications from commercial properties.
During the webinar, Chien provided a considerably more in-depth review of GreenFinanceSF, and he also quickly mentioned some other local programs and policies applicable to existing residential and commercial buildings. It is definitely worth hearing. Click here for the show.
Thanks for reading!
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by aleida, on April 28th, 2010  Image courtesy of BrightTALK webinar The BrightTALK programming continued with Randy Knox’s presentation titled Adobe – LEED & Beyond. Knox is the Head of Environmental Programs at Adobe, and oversees their global real estate facilities and physical security operations. His was a very short presentation – it lasted only 28 minutes – but it was nevertheless a very informative look at Adobe’s internal sustainability initiatives.
In the United States, Adobe has already earned four LEED-EB Platinum certifications: three for their headquarters in San Jose, CA, and one for their offices in San Francisco, CA, which also happens to be the oldest building in the world with that level of certification. The shift at headquarters began during the energy crisis of 2001 with a concerted effort to reduce their electrical use. With just a few small and simple projects (like turning off lights and de-lamping certain areas of their building), they reduced their use by about 10%. This compelled them to commit to an additional 10% reduction, and installed real-time electrical meters to measure their progress.
Meters in place, they replaced incandescent bulbs with CFLs in some areas, installed watt stopper power strips in all of their 2,500 employee offices (which also allowed them to run other electrical devices via motion sensors), reduced the run time of their garage fans (without endangering human safety), and reduced the length of time that their outside lights were on at night. The projects cost $118,000 to implement. They received $79,000 in rebates from PG&E, their local utility, for a total out-of-pocket expense of $39,000. Knox reports that they are currently saving about $212,000 per year thanks to these changes.
But they didn’t stop there. Continuing with lighting, they replaced all of their garage high-pressure sodium lamps with CFLs. Currently, they are experimenting with LEDs, which are already installed in elevator lobbies and exit signage. They are working on transitioning their garages’ first floor to LEDs. So far, they have spent $400,000 on these lighting efforts, have received $70,000 in rebates from PG&E, and are saving $306,215 per year.
Read more event review: BrightTALK GBS3 session 5
by aleida, on April 27th, 2010  Image courtesy of BrightTALK webinar Right at noon on April 22, 2010, BrightTALK presented the roundtable discussion Ghirardelli Goes Green. Moderated by Deanna Meredith, the Senior Marketing Manager for Willdan Energy Solutions, the panelists were Jane Echlin, the General Manager of Ghirardelli Square and the Developer Representative for Fairmont Heritage Place located in Ghirardelli Square, Darren Nix, the LodgingSavers Program Manager with Ecology Action, and Dr. Densen Cao, CEO of the CAO Group. The discussion was specifically centered on the transition of the historic Ghirardelli sign that sits atop Fairmont Heritage Place to an LED system.
“Ghirardelli Goes Green started last year with a focus on our trash and recycling program, but has morphed into us reviewing other areas here at the property … where we and our tenants can make an impact,” says Echlin. They have tracked gas and electricity use for each tenant through the ENERGY Star website. An assessment of the carbon monoxide emissions in their parking garage concluded they could turn off some fans. And then they organize an actual event – that coincides with Earth Day – attended by various participants who showcase ways that the public can reduce energy use.
Last year, Echlin and her team actively started looking at alternative, lower wattage lighting systems. The property had historically had problems with maintenance with the old type of bulb, which would be affected by the salty air and often go out. But when they started looking at the options “we were confused by the amount of product out on the market and knowing which were reliable products, which were going to last, etc.,” says Echlin. For professional advice, she reached out to Willdan Energy Solutions and PG&E.
Read more event review: BrightTALK GBS3 session 4
by aleida, on April 27th, 2010  Image courtesy of BrightTALK webinar BrightTALK’s Green Building Summit on April 22, 2010 continued with Bridging Ecological Research and Urban Design: Ecological Design and Planning, presented by Alexander J. Felson from Yale University School of Architecture and Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Felson first did a fast-paced overview of the lack of rigor within sustainability, stating that “often what passes as sustainability are in fact predictions of actions or conditions that are expected to lead to sustainability.” He identified these as necessary questions to ask when it comes to sustainability:
- Which system, subsystem, or characteristics are to be sustained?
- How long are the systems to be sustained?
- When can we assess whether the system has actually been sustained?
So in his work, Felson has been pushing the notion of linking science to practice. He admits it’s not a new concept. Some of the ways in which the two have been linked are:
- monitoring and developing metrics – technology
- applied ecology/urban ecology
- translating ecological science into practical use (ecosystem services)
“There has also been a move to explore multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary partnerships as a way of addressing these ideas of linking science to practice and really playing more of a management role,” says Felson.
He goes on to present case studies of “designed experiments”: “a creative combination of traditional ecological research methods with urban design to create functional experiments with invested cultural meaning.” He speaks about:
- wetland remediation cells that can be introduced to parking lots around the United States;
- the LiB-E (Life Information Beacon – Ecology) Project, a web-based community engagement board that would gather information from community members to quantitatively assess the lifestyle decision-making patterns and their implication on sustainable practices;
- saltwater irrigation along New York’s East River waterfront;
- Million Trees NYC 2008, a reforestation project set up as the largest urban forestry study in the country that hopes to answer how best to incorporate the required rigor and statistical criteria for experimentation with public use patterns;
- the Tuxedo Reserve, a conceptual storm water management project incorporating high-value vernal pools and home to the marble salamander, a species of special concern. The project linked ecological practice with master planning and local land use law.
To watch the full presentation, please visit here.
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under construction
For anyone who was following our posts regularly, we apologize that our pace has dropped off so dramatically. To explain, our summer was filled with more travel and activity than anticipated. I would love to believe that maintaining a blog while traveling is easy. After all, the applications needed are loaded on both our iPads. But finding time to craft stories and write rational text is something that requires far more effort and brain power than we usually have available while on the road. We’ve done tours to sustainable building material manufacturers in Portland, New York City, Boston, New Hampshire, and Philadelphia, and conducted interviews with each owner.
At the same time, we’ve also been fortunate to take on several new projects with some great clients, but with urgent time tables. As a result of reduced time available for writing, we’ve decided to rethink our posting strategy and put the blog on hold while compiling a backlog of articles. Our plan is to begin posting again once we have a month of material ready to go. This way, changes in our work schedule shouldn’t have such a dramatic effect on our posting schedule.
Our original idea was to hold off posting during June and be back on schedule by July 1, but here we are in August and it’s more likely that we won’t start posting again until September 15. We’re also planning some changes to the blog site which will hopefully improve loading times. And we’ll be adding new features and tweaking the overall design. Those enhancements should go live around October 15.
Thank you for your patience. We’re sorry for the lack of recent content, but we think our new plan will ensure a steady stream of writing without killing our schedules. Please return soon, and feel free to dig through our hundreds of existing posts.