by kevin, on November 13th, 2009
Richlite
It’s amazing how exhausting a large conference can be. After just two days I’m totally spent, but day three was worth forcing myself to get an early start. I began with a morning educational session entitled When the Rubber Hits the Road. A moderator joined by representatives from Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, and Chipotle discussed the difficulties and benefits chain food service retailers face in their attempt to move toward sustainable design. All three have have LEED certified stores (though the Dunkin’ Donuts certification is still pending) and/or were involved with the LEED for Retail pilot program. These speakers had deep experience and offered useful information. Most interesting was the discussion about how different ownership models impact their ability to pursue sustainable initiatives. With some stores company owned, some franchisee owned, some built through development deals, and many other development variations means there is no single model for design implementation. That complication is exacerbated by what McDonald’s found with increased soft costs. They built two stores simultaneously – one LEED certified, one not. There was only a four percent difference between hard construction cost. Buy-out and soft costs were nearly twice with the LEED store. Those seem excessive and the figures were not drilled down to identify where savings could have occurred, so it’s hard to know what the real differences were.
In the afternoon I attended an educational session entitled GreenFormat in Practice. CSI (Construction Specifications Institute) is one of the leading organizations attempting to bring some order to the chaos that exists with green material claims, evaluation criteria, and certification programs. It’s really difficult for designers to make informed decisions. I’ve been covering this issue here in recent posts hoping to lay out a structure for sustainable material organization and vetting processes. CSI has developed a fairly comprehensive program called GreenFormat that works as a plug-in to their MasterFormat specification system. GreenFormat is a free to use on-line searchable database of building materials. They’ve done a good job offering transparency in their evaluation process. I’ll be checking into the service and posting a review later. One interesting note is that GreenFormat is also available as a free iPhone application. I’ll admit I’m biased – if there’s an iPhone ap, I’m sold, but I’ll try to be objective. I downloaded it before I left the session and will begin testing next week. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Richlite
Richlite
Stonkast by Paneltech International (makers of PaperStone)
The exhibit floor closed yesterday. There’s simply no way to see the entire floor in detail plus aggressively attend educational sessions. Each year the floor gets bigger and more difficult to cover. I know I didn’t see everything I should have. Going into this year’s conference I decided to focus my attention exclusively on materials. There were more alternative energy products – solar PV options, wind turbines, geothermal, and others – but no time for me to visit. And there are dozens of furniture manufacturers, lighting makers, systems management companies, consulting services, educational and training programs, publishing companies, plumbing component makers, green roofs, and so much more. As I say, too many to cover. I hope USGBC will consider expanding the show floor to an additional day in the future. With all the other activities vying for time, it’s virtually impossible to see everything in less than two days. Some have said that the LEED program is about projects, not products. But the expo floor gets bigger every year and event organizers should acknowledge that by adding another day of expo floor access.
I continued interviewing some of my favorite material manufacturers – Richlite (maker of solid surfacing of 100 percent recycled paper), IceStone (maker of terrazzo like solid surfacing with recycled glass aggregate), and PaperStone (maker of solid surfacing of one hundred percent recycled paper). I also visited with Steelcase and InterfaceFLOR to get their help with a class I’m currently developing for the UCLA-Extension Certificate in Global Sustainability program. I’m planning an interesting project where students will disassemble and trace all the materials of an everyday product. I’m hoping Steelcase will allow me to disassemble one of their Think chairs in class. I’ll keep you posted on class progress. It’ll take me a little time to go through all the interview recordings, but I’ll be writing individual posts on each company interviewed.
I’ve been a fan of the Pharos Project for several years and very anxious for them to finally relaunch their site and give designers access to their sustainable materials evaluation database. I originally became away of them several years ago, but their service has been inactive for quite some time while rebuilding their site. Finally this year, they are live offering a materials database and evaluation site with a subscription service model. They’re running a two day free trial. I’m going look into it next week and will post a review. A new green building social network was launched this year called GreenKonnect. It’s intended to be an on-line platform to connect designers, projects, and material manufacturers. It seems like a potentially valuable service. I’ll review them in the next two weeks and post about it.
Please return for a conference wrap.
Kevin, thanks for your great coverage of Greenbuild. We were stuck at our booth the entire time, so it’s nice to see what else was happening. I’m used to attending, not exhibiting.
Hi Jameson,
Thanks for the comment. I wish we could have seen more. I’ll have to figure out a strategy for next year’s event. It keeps getting bigger and more difficult to cover. I’m planning to do a blog just about GreenKonnect in a week or so. I’ll let you know when.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the encouraging words about the Pharos system. I just wanted to clarify that Pharos Project is still very much a non-profit and intending to stay that way. It is a project of the Healthy Building Network (healthybuilding.net) and the 75$ annual subscription helps cover the costs of the project. We also receive philanthropic support from foundations. Most importantly, we are completely independent of manufacturers. We don’t charge them to submit their data, don’t accept financial support or advertising except for the standard subscriber fee. We are totally, 100% transparent in all our data and sources. I hope you enjoy your visit to the site. Check out the chemical and material library, with data on over 9,000 chemicals used in building products. Thanks again for your interest and your work.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the comment and the clarification. I’ll correct that. I misunderstood. I thought I heard someone from Pharos Project present at Greenbuild last year and mention the change from non-profit to for-profit model. I can’t wait to dig in and see what you have. I’ve been a fan for a long time. I give twenty to thirty presentations around the country focusing on the impact buildings have on the environment. In the section of my show that’s about solutions, I always show an image of the lens system and talk about Pharos. I’m also teaching a class at UCLA this coming winter quarter that’s about closed loop systems design. I’m going to have students research evaluation and grading systems and present their findings to the rest of the class. Pharos will be on my list of prefered systems for them to check out. I’ll let you know what happens with that.
I’m excited to see that things are progressing for you. Good luck.