The Next Big Thing in Green Building

Sustainability Flows into the Mainstream

By Rob Bennett

Rob Bennett is the director of the city of Portland Office of Sustainable Development.

The signs are all around. The latest office towers in Portland's Pearl and emerging South Waterfront Districts are installing ecoroofs to capture stormwater and high-efficiency district energy plants. Universities are designing student housing to naturally capture prevailing breezes. Daylit-drenched municipal libraries are consuming 30 percent less energy than code requires. City councils support it, state legislators are creating bills to encourage it, and the federal government is funding efforts to stimulate it. The 'it' is high performance green buildings, and it's a multi-billion dollar industry nationwide that the Pacific Northwest is helping lead.

Developers are investing billions in new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-rated office buildings, industrial facilities and research centers. Affordable housing providers, used to working with miniscule construction budgets are bringing healthier, more durable green housing units on line. Multi-national corporations like Shell, DuPont, Interface and Carrier are introducing new 'green' technologies at a rapid clip. Schools, auto manufacturers, supermarkets - the list is growing. Further indication of 'hot' market trends: A Google search on 'green building' nets more than 10 million hits.

What's going on? Why, after 30-plus years of energy and resource conservation, is green building sliding off the lips of the most unlikely people and happening in the most unusual places?

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The Green building phenomenon is quickly heading towards the mythical 'tipping point'.

And while green building may have tipped - becoming increasingly mainstreamed, it is certainly nothing new. Historically, buildings have existed as an expression of a particular culture in conversation with its environment. Totems, longhouses, Timberline Lodge, bungalows - all represent different periods of northwest history and their particular cultural "design assignments" to capture sunlight, shed water and provide shelter. Indeed, buildings represent the culture that creates, where intentions and values are literally made concrete.

In the last 30 years, economics has driven building development almost exclusively.

Pro-formas, return on investment, and value engineering is the language of development, a focus that can marginalize integrated design and resource-efficient building practices for short-term profit. At the same time, increasingly standardized construction practices replaced bioclimatic practices. Out went buildings that effectively capture wind and sun energy; in came hermetically sealed, air conditioned boxes. Cheap water, cheap energy and cheap resources fueled the shift.

It couldn't last forever. Today, critical environmental impacts are reframing the development landscape:

• Global warming: Buildings in the US contribute almost 40 percent of all greenhouse gases. Scientists have adjusted their predictions - between 1990 and 2100 the earth's temperature will increase between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Farenheit.
  
• Energy destabilization: a barrel of crude oil is at an all time high. Natural gas rates will jump 20 percent this fall.
  
• Persistent toxins: chromated copper arsenate treated wood, once considered a safe replacement to penta-treated wood was pulled off the market in 2003.
• Water shortages. In August, US Geological Service scientists reported that the parched Interior West could be the driest it has been in 500 years.
  
• Resource scarcity. Steel prices are up a staggering 50 percent this year, driven in part by the construction boom in China.
  
• Human health. The EPA estimates that building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects in more than 30 percent of all new and remodeled buildings due to chemical and biological contamination and inadequate ventilation.
  
• Taxpayer costs. The long-term costs of development are starting to add up. Portland residents and businesses have the second highest stormwater utility rates in the nation - money used to pay for water pollution from urbanization.

Each of these impacts can be traced at some level to how towns and cities have been built over the past century. Green building is taking hold because the interconnectedness between resource depletion, pollution, sprawl, and increased use of fossil fuels is compelling. These increasingly complex problems are stimulating equally creative solutions.

Thus, the excitement over green building: a trend proving to be fun, creative, and 'cool.' It is reinvigorating developers, designers, and engineers alike, encouraging them to experiment and create solutions with multiple benefits. Green buildings in the Northwest represent some of the most elegant design, sophisticated engineering, and best construction practices in the country. Green building turns codes and regulations upside down, identifies synergies between resource flows and waste output, and looks upstream for ways to future proof buildings to increase their economic value, longevity, and environmental effectiveness.

Portland is squarely in the middle of the green building revolution. Thirty years of progressive land use and environmental planning, recycling, alternative transportation investment, and urban renewal is paying off. The city is paving the way to make green building easier and more cost effective to execute. Consider some facts: Portland has the most LEED registered buildings in the nation. Oregon has more LEED buildings per capita than any other state. Two green building policies - one that requires LEED certification in city-owned facilities and one that requires LEED certification for publicly funded, private sector development - direct new construction in the city. Portland is home to one of the nation's only municipally funded green building programs, called G/Rated (www.green-rated.org). It also funds the country's only municipal green building incentive program, the Green Investment Fund. The state's Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) has been redesigned to encourage green buildings, and the Energy Trust of Oregon provides incentives as well.

As a result, developers are innovating across a range of project types from speculative office towers in the trendy, upscale Northwest Pearl District to Oregon Health Sciences University's latest medical research lab in South Waterfront. Infill mixed use development, affordable housing, and local business is also getting involved; investing in energy efficiency, on-site energy, rainwater harvesting, FSC certified wood, recycled steel, and aggressive construction and demolition recycling.

Emerging technologies and integrated systems are coming on line:

• Distributed wastewater treatment that reuses water for toilet flushing and irrigation;
  
• Water gardens that turn rainwater into kinetic water art while recharging groundwater and keeping pollutants out of the Willamette River;
  
• Green streets that provide additional landscaping and treat roadway pollutants;
  
• Commercial building that uses 60 percent less energy less than a conventional building;
  
• Portland's first "zero net energy" house that will produce as much energy as it uses over the course of a year.

These innovations contributed to Portland being chosen to host the Olympics of the green building industry, 2004's USGBC Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in early November.

However, Portland has much to accomplish if sustainability is the ultimate goal. To stay ahead of the curve, it's important to look for areas of improvement and innovation and ask 'What's the next big thing?'

The Northwest both suffers and benefits from geography. It is historically rich and abundant - thousands of square miles of timber, healthy fisheries, productive soils, a mild climate, and community-based politics. Yet, the city lies far from the country's major business centers, manufacturing bases, and investment capital. Portland is often viewed as a quirky anomaly. To succeed, we need to tap our inherent creatively, link it to our natural resource base, and continue to prove that we have a winning model of livability. This will take:

Increased professional capacity. The region needs higher levels of expertise in green design and construction. Daylightng, natural ventilation, integrated water and energy systems, and smart technologies require an increasingly sophisticated set of tools and techniques. As a start, regional universities, colleges, and trade schools need a stronger sustainability focus on building sciences, engineering, and technology transfer. A recent study conducted for the NW Energy Efficiency Alliance found that commercial buildings are using more energy per square foot than ever before, in spite of 25 years of increasingly strict energy codes. Additional research can track building performance over time.

Economic development. Maintaining a competitive advantage depends on supporting a conservation-based economy that comprehensively integrates social, natural, and economic capital. As a first step, political and business leaders must embrace and link sustainable development to economic development activities. This includes policies and investment strategies linking sustainable management of natural resources to value added manufacturing capacity. An exciting example - Ecotrust's, a local non profit, market connection program links sustainable forestry practices, wood products, and green building projects - helping stimulating the market for FSC certified wood products.

Currently, a resource flow map of a typical LEED building reveals that most value added materials and products come from outside the region. This is a dramatic missed opportunity that will only be remedied by coupling green building, low impact development and smart growth policies to a targeted and aggressive economic development strategy. A targeted strategy will help businesses begin to identify gaps in the market for sustainable products and services, and over time fill those gaps. These will include manufacturing of recycled steel, recycled gypsum drywall, finish materials and cabinetry made from agricultural waste, smart energy controls, wind turbines, and fuel cells.

Incentives. Access to capital and risk avoidance - two key ingredients of a successful developer. Over the past few years, the city and state have ramped up incentive programs for green building and sustainable site practices that address both issues. In the coming year, the city of Portland is redoubling efforts to look at additional incentive tools to accelerate market transformation. The city is replenishing Portland's Green Investment Fund and investigating promising policy innovations such as facilitated permitting and zoning bonuses. And, the Portland Family of Funds is moving needed capital into some of Portland's most innovative developments.

By creating policy tools and incentives that link to a regional economic development strategy, and focus on increasing capacity across the development and construction industries, the region has the ability to transform cities and towns in the Northwest. The net result will be an ever-increasing number of high quality, creative and restorative buildings and neighborhoods that celebrate the interconnectedness between the natural and built environments.

(Editor's Note: Rob Bennett is the director of the city of Portland Office of Sustainable Development. One of the first such programs in the country, the office oversees and encourages sustainable building practices.)