October 10, 2010
by Environmental Building Strategies
in Energy, Green Building, LEED
Tags: energy, Green Building, productivity
Today attention is paid to one of two things regarding green building: energy cost reductions and/or the coveted LEED Plaque. Both are important – one to demonstrate return on investment while the other showcases a company’s ability to “walk the walk.” However within the world of commercial office space, one component of green building should shine above all else – impact of indoor environments on the people who occupy them.
If you haven’t read the University of San Diego study titled “Green Buildings and Productivity,” then you may be missing the largest piece of why green building is so important. The question that CBRE’s Director of Sustainability and folks from the Journal of Sustainable Real Estate address in “Green Buildings and Productivity” is relevant to triple bottom line thinkers but hones in on the crux of why traditional bottom line thinkers are still not sold on green. Green Builders continue their inability to convey value through delivered tangible and tractable economic benefits. Why is this?
The USGBC has failed to convey the importance of life cycle costs to owners and developers and while an overwhelming number of buildings continue to be certified (now over 6000 commercial spaces bear the logo), the meat of the value equation lies in productivity. The question we need to ask is “Do green buildings provide more productive and sustainable environments for workers than non-green buildings, and if so, what is that value?” This question has rarely been addressed and since it bears relative importance, we must first understand the 3 main workforce trends driving this ideal:
This group of up and comings are integral to any organization and that trend will only be augmented in the next 10 years – Gen Ys refuse to be part of traditional office environments and have leverage even in today’s job environment.
Office communication is increasingly crucial – team environments and sharing of ideas in the fast pace of today’s world, even more so. Traditional office environments often lack the parameters to foster this type of productivity.
Productivity loss and sick days cost firms the most money and at the same time offer the greatest opportunity for return on investment especially when comparing that to traditional green building efficiencies such as energy and water.
The University of San Diego study finds that an average productivity value added impact per worker to be over $5,000 while the average fewer sick days value added impact per worker was lower at $ 1,250. Combined, that translates to a $153.61/sq ft Net Present Value (Discounted at 10%) and since building green costs relatively little in terms of a total initial increase to project costs, the choice should be as obvious as cost-efficient green buildings’ impact to the bottom line. Since we know that employees and their associated costs are the largest component of most budgets, we must wonder why the correlation between environment and employees is just surfacing. Knowing that a 2008 JLL study found that 70% of corporate executives value sustainability as a “crucial business issue,” we’re left to wonder when the real tipping point for corporate sustainability will begin and the greenwashing will end. As evidence by the overwhelming number of “green” commercial interiors spaces, we certainly know that LEED for Commercial Interiors Certification is where it begins.
August 5, 2010
by macko
in EBS News, Energy, Energy Auditing, Green Building
Tags: energy, Ghirardelli Square, Green Building Examples, Green Property Management, waste
EBS Ghirardelli Case Study
Today marks great news – 2 months in the making and 2 years of consulting have culminated in one great case study. Ghirardelli Goes Green is a case study highlighting the reduction in environmental impacts and reduction in costs that JMA Ventures and Ghirardelli Square have realized after systematically finding ways to affect both criteria.
Environmentally Ghirardelli Square educated tenants and reduced energy usage dramatically in key areas. Resulting from low initial cost and high value, the results have yielded impressive rates of return and present values using virtually any criteria. Working with Rita Hernandez and Jane Echlin we at Environmental Building Strategies were able to help them find ways to be better to both the bottom line and the environment.
Please feel free to share this case study with anyone looking to save money by engaging sustainability criteria in their everyday actions. Download here: EBS Ghirardelli Case Study
– The EBS Team
January 8, 2010
by Environmental Building Strategies
in Energy, Green Building
Tags: energy, Green Building, West Coast Green
I recently attended the West Coast Green conference in San Francisco and came out enthused and confused.
I was enthused about the progress the green buildingindustry is making. That over 14,000 people from all over the country came to learn about the new innovations in green building is huge for an industry, which in many ways, is in its infancy.
I listened to speakers from all sides of the business, real estate experts, government officials, green building consultants, and contractors to list only a few. They all provided interesting insights on where the industry was and should be going and a bit about it how it was going to get there.
There were also more numbers thrown around than a mathematician could handle. The amount of the money that was being directed to the industry from the stimulus bill, CO2 reduction goals, energy efficiency performance goals, and more and more goals.
One thing I didn’t hear enough of was specific ways to connect money to goals. People were so excited to learn that the government was finally sending money their way they forgot to ask how it would actually be implemented and with what oversight.
After the opening remarks I decided to spend the next three days focusing on one thing, how to get actual changes implemented. I decided to break down this task into two areas. First, I would focus on how conferences like this could teach and encourage people to start changing the built environment to stop negatively effecting the natural environment. Secondly, I wanted to know how to get money to these newly educated people to carry out the ideas they learned.
Interview with an Environmental Consultant
To figure out how conferences like West Coast Green affect change I decided to talk to a presenter who led a session at the conference. Matt Macko is a principal at the San Francisco based green building consulting firm Environmental Building Strategies. He led a session titled Deep Retrofits of Commercial Buildings along with Jose Guevara, Property Manager at Cushman & Wakefield of California, Inc.
CleanTechies: What was your talk focused on?
Matt: I discussed the potential to flip the current green building conversation from its current state, littered with defensive reactionary discussions mostly focused only on conservation, to one where we work on the offensive to create demand in the marketplace around sustainable decision making. I targeted some economic and financial evaluations that a handful of firms are providing their clients as highlights of the quality work being done in the sustainability industry.
CleanTechies: What were the three most important things you think people got out of your talk?
Matt: People walked away with an understanding that demand must be created to tip the marketplace in order to meet our GHG goals. They also left with a better understanding of the financial value that can be derived through intelligent sustainable decision making. Lastly, they should have walked away understanding that investing in energy efficiency is as at least as lucrative if not more profitable than investing in Google.
CleanTechies: How do you think people will use the information you gave them to improve the green building industry?
Matt: I hope to generate more intelligent conversations around how we value “green.” If I had one main objective to relay it would be that we have the tools to prove the value of sustainability but we are just not doing a good enough job to date. I hope from there people will find ways to carry the message along and encourage others to join the movement.
CleanTechies: What is the focus of your firm’s work and how are you trying to change the conversation?
Matt: My firm focuses on making the business case for sustainability. We are a consultancy that uses tools such as discounted cash flow and energy models to prove the value of energy efficient decisions to our clients. Many of our clients come to us looking for efficiency through the LEED process. Our development of the LEED EDGE tool has helped several firms realize significant efficiency gains through making the LEED Certification process easy and virtually paperless.
Why I was confused?
Throughout the three days, and from almost every person I talked to, people had an encouraging outlook on the future of green building. They cited the mass amounts of money headed its way and they mentioned the new standards mandated by the government as proof that green building is here to stay.
One of the most exciting talks I heard was Panama Bartholomy’s talk on “Greening Existing Buildings: The Biggest Piece of the Low Carbon Puzzle.”
In it he mentioned the importance of the existing building retrofit market on reaching all of the carbon emissions goals being sent down from the politicos in Washington and Sacramento. He also outlined where some of the stimulus money was headed, but very little about how exactly it was going to be used or who was in charge of oversight.
I wouldn’t call it lack of foresight but clearly the infrastructure is not ready for all the money flowing in, though there are signs of life. Panama mentioned one specific financing optioned that would encourage homeowners to improve their home’s energy performance. PACE districts allow homeowners to implement energy efficient measures with no upfront cost to them. They pay for the measures with increased property taxes, which should be more than offset by the resulting energy savings.
Some recent success.
Joe Biden recently announced his contribution to the movement. He asked the Council Of Environmental Quality, earlier this year, to come up with a study on how the government could guide the development of a home energy efficiency retrofit market. They produced the “Recovery Through Retrofit” report. It offered several recommendations: more access to information for homeowners, more transparent and accessible financing, and a plan for worker training.
All these things are necessary and important but this report fails in going far enough in its scope. It doesn’t hash out any programs or concrete plans on how to bring all of its recommendations to fruition.
The “Retrofit Ramp-Up”, a program recently drawn up to fund retrofit programs, has started receiving applications for qualified projects to receive funding but this program also has its flaws. It helps facilitate funding but only for those who go looking for it and have the knowledge and expertise to get it.
Compare this approach to the one the government has taken with auto industry. The government does not offer funding to improve average MPG of automakers’ fleets to meet more stringent standards; instead they mandate the new standards. Why couldn’t the government take more of a hard-line approach, similar to this example, with the existing home and building retrofit market? I like the idea of money going to the right people but couple that with some mandated standards that have teeth, then everyone will be forced to see what they sometimes are too stubborn to realize, that green building can save them money.
My solution.
California already has a leg up on most states and could act as an example for the nation to follow. State government officials could begin by using the power of AB 1103 to get ENERGY STAR scores for all commercial buildings in the State.
The “Recovery Through Retrofit” report also called for an ENERGY STAR program for homes to be created, which could provide later structure to update this solution.
After compiling all of the ENERGY STAR scores, the government could mandate and directly fund the retrofit of the worst buildings, possibly the lowest 10% of ENERGY STAR scores. These buildings would then go through an energy audit where the best energy conservation measures could be identified.
Payback could be formulated in either of two ways. Either the government could get paid back with the energy savings resulting from the increased efficiency or they could increase property taxes and have the building owner get the energy savings, similar to PACE districts. In both cases retrofits would be mandated, but the key is that these changes would not cost a dime in the end.
Energy savings in these wasteful buildings would be very high and would easily pay for the retrofits within a couple of years. The government could then use the projects as an example of the potential of the industry, further enticing interest and generating new projects. These projects would also create numerous jobs. Connected to the program would have to be a mandated education curriculum to get contractors up to speed on how to implement the upgrades. This education would further improve the future of the retrofit industry by increasing the stock of qualified workers.
— The EBS Team —
October 7, 2009
by Environmental Building Strategies
in Energy, Renewable Energy
Tags: energy, Renewable Energy, Solar
With the recent surge in money going towards renewable energy research and implementation, many people are forgetting a key factor in reducing our impact on the environment: energy efficiency.
Utilizing renewable energy in your home or commercial building is great, don’t get me wrong, but before this expensive option is employed, you should first look at the efficiency of your home or building’s energy systems.
If your building wastes energy, you should prioritize improving this aspect and use the money that you had set aside for a renewable project to accomplish the task.
Once you have collected enough savings from the efficiency retrofits, you can look to implement a renewable energy generation system. By following this succession your system can be sized accurately, and your benefit to the environment, the ultimate goal of all these measures, will be significantly better.
Benefits of Energy Efficiency
In the United States, buildings use 72 percent of electricity consumption, 39 percent of energy use, and produce 38 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
If we, as a nation, are looking to decrease our C02 emissions and conserve energy and electricity, we should look no further than the existing buildings in our country.
Recently, as new construction projects have been on the decline, the opportunity to retrofit existing buildings has been increasing. There is vast potential for energy savings in these buildings, which makes them prime project candidates.
A study done by a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist claimed that commissioning all of the nation’s commercial buildings would yield the greatest energy savings per dollar spent of any option, including wind and solar energy production. Commissioning involves fine tuning a building’s existing energy systems to improve performance and eliminate wasteful energy use.
After commissioning the building, and saving tons of CO2, energy and money, you can determine what systems need retrofitting.
The fact that commissioning alone has the potential to save the most energy per dollar spent just shows the prospective savings that upgrading a building’s energy systems would create. In the near future, all existing building upgrades should be green focused, as it not only makes environmental sense but economic sense as well.
The same Lawrence Berkeley study claims that $30 billion dollars in energy costs and 300 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions can be saved a year by existing building retrofit projects with paybacks of one year or less.
Renewables
Let’s be honest, renewable generation doesn’t always make economic sense. This is why federal, state and local municipalities have set up generous rebate and tax credit systems to offset the costs. Even with these savings measures, many solar and wind projects have long paybacks.
Take San Francisco, for example. On top of the 30 percent federal solar rebate and the California Solar Initiative rebate (currently at $1.10 per watt for commercial and residential solar installations), San Francisco offers a $1,500 rebate per kilowatt up to 10 kilowatts.
With all of these rebates you are still looking at 10 to 15 years or more to recoup initial costs. Ten years is not bad, but compare this to energy efficiency retrofit projects, which typically have paybacks of one to five years and produce significant energy and cost savings, and it doesn’t seem to make monetary sense to choose solar installation first.
What does make sense is to evaluate and implement efficient upgrades into your building or home and then look to install renewable energy generation down the line. That way, when you do implement the photovoltaic cells or wind turbine they can be smaller, less ambitious projects that still produce the same percentage of your buildings energy use as was initially desired.
If you use 30 percent less energy after the retrofits, you can make the renewable installation 30 percent smaller.
Success
There has been some success in getting government money to the energy efficiency sector. On September 14 the Department of Energy announced that it would allocate $454 million from the stimulus bill to a new program called “Retrofit Ramp-up.”
The initiative will save $100 million dollars a year in energy savings, according to the Department of Energy. It’s initially focused on whole-neighborhood efficiency retrofit programs that will produce significant cost effective solutions, especially ones that incorporate both public and private buildings.
The department’s hope is that these projects will provide successful sustainable business models for the rest of the country to follow.
The program provides funds to states, U.S. territories, counties, cities and Indian tribes to improve energy efficiency in the building and transportation sector. These entities have to fill out documentation explaining their project and how it will improve efficiency in their community. The applications are then reviewed by the Department of Energy and accepted or declined based upon the merits and potential energy savings of the project.
This is one of several programs funded by the stimulus bill that can be applied to energy efficiency retrofits. There is also a specific appliance upgrade program for residences that is quite comprehensive.
The future
The future seems extremely promising for all the green industries as many policy makers are starting to jump on the sustainable bandwagon. My hope is that the energy efficiency sector does not get overlooked. It may not be as flashy or exciting as renewable energy production but it is equally important. It is also a great place to start improving our eco-friendly practices and it is where money should begin funneling to first.
Once improvements are made in this sector it will be easier to move forward with renewable energy generation, especially small-scale on-site generation. As many buildings start to follow this model, the public will see renewable energy as a more viable and inexpensive solution to our current environmental situation.
In addition to energy savings, the energy efficiency sector has the potential to create a huge number of jobs. At a time when unemployment is rising above 10 percent in many states, job creation is exactly what our country needs. Estimates are that the existing building retrofits market is likely to be a $400 billion dollar industry, and it only makes sense.
Wouldn’t you move forward quickly with a project if you knew it would pay for itself in five years or less? Considering a huge portion of the existing 5 million commercial buildings in the United States could undergo retrofit projects and each project would employ construction workers, engineers, architects, project managers and planners, this industry alone could ignite job growth nationwide.
In light of the recent CO2 reduction benchmarks that are being pushed by President Obama (which will hopefully be more robust after the Copenhagen Conference), we need to act now. If the future of energy production is rooted in the success of renewable generation, the means to get to that end is energy efficiency retrofits.
— EBS Team —
July 17, 2009
by Environmental Building Strategies
in Energy, Green Building
Tags: energy, Green Building, Modular Homes
I am not sure how many of you read the recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a net zero modular multi-tenant townhouse being built by a bay area company. I am very glad that this article made the front page especially on a day when Michelle Obama visited San Francisco. It just goes to show you the importance of green building in the bay area.
This article made it seem that modular homes were an unusual medium for energy efficient building. If you look at the facts, modular homes are just as easy if not easier to make efficient compared to regular construction. The same measures that are devised to make a typical residential home energy efficient are similarly implemented in modular homes. These include, but are not limited to, using high grade insulation, high efficiency appliances, utilization of active and passive solar solutions for heating, energy production, and natural lighting, as well as innovative strategies to employ existing conditions within a house to improve energy efficiency. This last category is where I saw the most unique and creative measure utilized by the company in the article. They implemented a wastewater heat recovery system that preheats shower water.
What makes modular homes a great form for sustainable building is the construction process. Having a standard prefabricated design cuts down on waste and the energy used during construction. It also allows designers to implement the same energy efficient solutions to each house quickly and easily.
The process for making any home energy efficient can seem daunting and complicated but two easy steps can be taken to get you started.
Maybe the most important is energy efficient appliances. When you are constructing a new home make sure you look for ENERGY STAR rated appliances. The initial cost may be slightly higher for these appliances, but they can save you significant energy costs and have substantial rebates attached with them. Considering that kitchen and laundry appliances account for a third of a house’s energy load with central air-conditioning adding another 15 percent, conserving even a small amount of energy with energy efficient appliances can result in huge savings.
Another important aspect to consider is the geometric placement of your house. The sun’s rays penetrate the most from the south. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west it is seen in the southern part of the sky at high noon. In the summer when cooling loads are very high energy costs are also more expensive. To solve this catch 22 you can do several things.
First, make sure the windows on the southern exposure have low U-value glass. U value is the amount of heat the window transmits; lower U-values mean less heat is transferred. One of the best types of glass that has come out recently is spectrally-selective glass. This glass lets only certain wavelengths of light in cutting down on heat gain while not sacrificing the amount of natural light coming into your building.
Secondly, shade the south facing windows with plants, artificial shading, or for the best results solar panels. Shading windows will cut out, almost entirely, heat gain during the summer, and if done right will still let in sunlight and its heat in when its needed, during the winter.
Solar cells provide shading for windows or help keep roofs cool while also generating electricity for the house. Though expensive, Photovoltaic cells are a key aspect in trying to make your home net zero. PV cells should come farther down the line in the process as energy efficient measures should be implemented first.
With these easy steps, you can be on your way to making your modular home or regular home as energy efficient as possible. This will help you comply with the new mandates and save you a ton of money. Being ahead of the game is very important, especially down the road when the 2020 deadline for making all residential buildings net zero comes along.
This is a green modular home designed by MOD-ECO Architecture.
–The EBS Team–
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