By this time many of us have seen about as much green as we can handle. As a marketing point the word “green” is getting close to jumping the shark. Just in time I suspect. If “green” ceases to be a word of distinction then it no longer provides us with a better way to distinguish the environmental degradation of our consumption from what is less so. We will still see the word around for quite a while, maybe as a verb. There is a large segment of the population that will respond to environmentally proven products and services only when they have exhausted most everything else, or succumb to group think, or peer pressure, or regulations.
I for one have no qualms seeing the word “green” take a vacation. I have always been suspicious of its vagueness because I work in the world of building, which can be very precise. In my infinite wisdom I use the word “sustainable”, instead, to describe my company. My website shot to the top of GOOGLE when you typed in “sustainable building consultant”. This is good news only if other people use the same words. So the search continues in bridging the gap between talking about the precision of what environmental design, products and services mean and the warm fuzzy “green” has promised.
Environmentally proven products and services only matter if people can find them, understand them, and can afford them. Each of these aspects requires a specific skill, and in the building world, each of these skills needs to also have a deep understanding of buildings. Your marketer is really a building professional who can reach out to the public. The designer is a building professional who can put together a functional and clear building that is intuitively better. Your developer is a building professional who can create value. They can be one in the same person, but without these three aspects working together we will not achieve a marketable “sustainable” built environment anytime soon.
I find the biggest hurdle to be that a lot of people already think they know what green building is. The problem is that they do. They know about solar panels, low-e, voc, natural plaster, etc. That is green building. Sustainable building is really the whole project, and that project is merely part of a much larger cloth, a living, breathing civilization. This is something that precious few understand and aspire to but something you need to consider for your next home.
So for this months the sustainable line I flipped a coin on whether to publish Selling the Green Shark (a little curmudgeon) or The First Step on Sustainable Building: Siting/Location (more informative). Well you know how the coin fell, but now you know what to expect for next month too, so stay tuned.
On the more practical side, I had a conversation with my local Home Depot guy and he said that although building is slow, fences and roofing is selling well. That reminded me of a little trick that can vastly improve your energy bills. If you are getting a new roof, stop! First check to see if you have roof joist, i.e. no attic. If you do, tear off your old roof and apply foam board and new OSB sheathing onto the roof deck before you put your new roof up. Upgrading your insulation now on your roof is the most affordable and effective way to improve you efficiency on top.
“Green Building with the Naked Eye” is a presentation that I offer which provides perspective and insight into what sustainable building really is. If your company, organization, conference, or neighborhood group is interested in learning about how sustainable building works, contact me for a presentation. Learn to see sustainable building clearly.
My friend Jim Tolstrup, the Executive Director of the High Plains Environmental Center has written a great article on sustainability and the mind called Inner Sustainability.
