Southern California Green Real Estate Blog

NEIGHBORHOOD + SCHOOL DISTRICT SEARCHES MAKE HOME BUYING GREENER

By Jodi Summers

So easy + so green to search for a new residential property in the new millennium National real estate search sites have become so sophisticated, they are giving residential buyers the opportunity to search for properties in specific zip codes, neighborhoods and school districts. You can do all the work online, without having to waste the time and fuel of driving around the neighborhood.

Visit any of the leading real estate residential search engines - Realtor.com, Trulia, or Zillow, and type in Sunset Park, Santa Monica, or whatever neighborhood you choose. You will get a list of properties for sale in the neighborhood AND Trulia and Zillow will display the names of hundreds of other neighborhoods on an interactive map of the city, then you can pick and choose and build searches around those neighborhoods.

“We will be moving back to the Los Angeles area from London next year,” shares Mary. “Some of these real estate websites make it so easy to learn about the neighborhood.”

The nice thing about the neighborhood concept is that the word conjures up more than just demographic information – it brings up images of a lifestyle. For homebuyers like Mary and her family, who are relocating to a new city, neighborhoods are a way of breaking down the choices.

“I like the area where I grew up, near Wonderland Avenue School in the Hollywood Hills,” she notes. “My husband, who grew up in London, envisions the California surfer life of Venice or Santa Monica. As far as the beach goes, we’ll focus on Santa Monica because of the schools. We can compare values on the internet and decide what’s best for our needs; it’s such an easy way to go.”

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http://www.inman.com/news/2010/04/26/name-your-neighborhood-new-wave-in-real-estate-search?page=0%2C0

http://www.inman.com/news/2010/04/26/name-your-neighborhood-new-wave-in-real-estate-search?page=0%2C0

http://img4.sunset.com/i/2002/03/neighborhood-pasadena-m.jpg

http://terrynagel.com/UserFiles/Image/Neighborhood-Net-logo.png

http://whosthefairest.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/santa-monica-beach-santa-monica-ca400.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1GdWKeEevqQ/SjcHviGtcbI/AAAAAAAAAKo/Xn7mPujsgLM/S1600-R/blog_hhla_logo3.gif

THE GREENEST BUILDING IS THE ONE THAT’S ALREADY BUILT

By Jodi Summers

We love this website http://www.thegreenestbuilding.org/. The Greenest Building website is based on the premise of “the Greenest Building is the One Already Built,” and they have the calculators to support that claim.

The goal is to get developers to rehab existing buildings as opposed to tearing them down and building new structures.

For example, the embodied energy calculator will figure out the total energy spent in the production of a building, from the manufacture of materials to their delivery to construction.

The demolition energy calculator is to calculate the amount of energy “needed to raze, load, and haul away construction materials.”

Convert energy to gasoline, figure out BTU usage…http://www.thegreenestbuilding.org/ is fascinating.

HOW GREEN IS YOUR GOOGLE?

HOW GREEN IS YOUR GOOGLE?

When was the last time you considered the environmental impact of Google searches Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2; boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centers around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist who did the research on the environmental impact of computing. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centers. However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines - about 2% of global CO2 emissions. “Data centers are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” said Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power.

Though Google says it is in the forefront of green computing, its search engine generates high levels of CO2 because of the way it operates. When you type in a Google search for, say, “energy saving tips”, your request doesn’t go to just one server. It goes to several competing against each other.

It may even be sent to servers thousands of miles apart. Google’s infrastructure sends you data from whichever produces the answer fastest. The system minimizes delays but raises energy consumption. Google has servers in the US, Europe, Japan and China.

Wissner-Gross has submitted his research for publication by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and has also set up a website www.CO2stats.com. “Google are very efficient but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy,” he said.

Get the whole story @ http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece

DANCING PRESIDENTS TO DELIGHT U

As a holiday delight, please enjoy these disco dancing presidents courtesy of www.elfyourself.com

Click on

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/9L025guZb3dngeLSREh0

and prepare yourself for some holiday cheer.

A GLOSSARY OF GREEN LIVING TERMS

A GLOSSARY OF GREEN LIVING TERMS

A glossary of green living terms. Be green + grow:

· 2000-watt society — The 2000-watt society (2,000-Watt Society) is a vision, originated by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich at the end of 1998, in which each person in the developed world would cut their over-all rate of energy use to an average of no more than 2,000 watts (i.e. 17,520 kilowatt-hours per year of all energy use, not only electrical) by the year 2050, without lowering their standard of living.

· Carbon Diet — A carbon diet refers to reducing the impact on climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (principally CO2) production.

· Carbon Footprint — A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels for our everyday living.

· Carbon Intensity — The ratio of Carbon Dioxide to energy: a measure of the “greenness” of different fuels.

· Chief Green Officer — A Chief Green Officer (CGO), or Chief Environmental Commitment Officer (CECO), is a corporate officer responsible for implementing and managing the corporation’s commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and protecting the environment.

· Dual-flush toilet — A type of water-conserving toilet that is relatively common in the commercial sphere but is only now becoming available for the home. After each use you have a choice of low flush (using as little as 0.8 gallon) or a more powerful flush (about 1.8 gallons).

· Earthcheck – An adaptable environmental benchmarking tool that measures an organizations environmental output. This is done across a variety of areas, including energy consumption, waste production and resource conservation for the core areas of an organizations operation.

· Ecological Footprint — a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate it. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste, given prevailing technology and resource management practice. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how many planet Earths it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle.

· Ecosharing – is an environmental ethic for people to live by: that their own impact on the Earth’s biosphere be limited to no more than their own fair ecoshare.

· Energy Neutral Design - an Energy Neutral Design is a design of any type (Website, Multi-media, Architecture, Art, Music, Entertainment, etc) that has the environment and low energy consumption practices in mind during all stages of planning and production.

· Energy Policy – The manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy production, distribution and consumption. The attributes of energy policy may include legislation, international treaties, incentives to investment, guidelines for energy conservation, taxation and other public policy techniques.

· Energy Star (www.energy star.gov) — An energy-efficiency rating system sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. A high Energy Star rating means that the product — from small household appliances to entire homes — is designed to minimize its energy consumption. The theory being, using as little energy as possible helps protect the environment, conserves fossil fuels and saves you money on the electric bill.

· Forest Stewardship Council (www.fsc.org) — A third-party certification for wood, wood products and forests. The FSC tracks the wood from its forest of origin all the way through the chain of custody to where the product is sold. If a product is FSC certified, you can count on its having been harvested and produced in a stringently eco-sensitive manner.

· Formaldehyde — A toxin found in many adhesives, such as those in plywood and panel board; it also can be found in paints, caulks and other building materials. The World Health Organization recently upgraded it from a possible carcinogen to a known one. When present in the home, it tends to “off-gas” and pollute the indoor environment.

• Global Warming — The increase in the average measured temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century, and its projected continuation. In media, it is synonymous with the term “climate change.”

· Greenhouse Debt - The measure to which an individual person, incorporated association, business enterprise, government instrumentality or geographic community exceeds its permitted greenhouse footprint and contributes greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and climate change.

· Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (www.usgbc.org/leed) — Developed and administered by the U.S. Green Building Council, the LEED rating is the most widely known and accepted green certification program.

· Life Cycle Analysis — The process of tracing a product, material or practice from its origin through its final disposal or reuse, from factory to landfill or recycling plant.

· Linoleum – A natural and eco-sensitive alternative to petrochemical-based vinyl. Linoleum is typically made from the renewable materials jute (used for backing), linseed oil, pine resin and sawdust. Eclipsed by vinyl in the 1960s and ’70s, it’s now experiencing a revival; it comes in both sheets and tiles, in a wide variety of colors.

· Low Carbon Diet — A low carbon diet refers to making lifestyle choices to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from energy use.[1] More specifically, a low carbon diet refers to making choices about eating that reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) as a response to estimates that the U.S. food system is responsible for at least 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases.

· Low-flow faucets and shower heads – Installing low-flow fixtures is a simple and cheap way to conserve water. If you’re in love with your current faucets and shower heads, you can instead choose to amend them by installing aerators, which slow the flow and disperse water. These simple steps can reduce water use by about 10%.

· Off-gassing – Also known as outgassing, this is the emission of chemicals from building materials, furniture, textiles, bedding or other products in the home. Many of those “new house” smells that we’ve come to enjoy are actually hazardous to our health — they accumulate in the bloodstream and have been linked by some scientists to the increasing rates of asthma and some cancers, particularly in children. The best way to avoid off-gassing is to look for natural products that don’t contain toxins such as formaldehyde.

· Recycled content — Refers to the amount of recycled (reused) material in a given product. There is post-industrial recycled content, which refers to the use of scraps from industrial manufacturing, and post-consumer content, which is the reuse of products that consumers have used and thrown away.

· Solar — Simply put, solar processes harness energy from the sun. The solar panels that most of us associate with solar energy are called photovoltaic panels; they transform the sun’s rays into usable electricity. Solar thermal processes can be used to heat our hot water. Technological advances in recent years have made both photovoltaic and solar thermal systems amazingly effective. And prices are more affordable nowadays, in part because many utility companies and local governments offer rebate programs that lower the initial costs of purchase and installation.

· Water Footprint — an indicator of water use that includes both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. Water use is measured in water volume consumed (evaporated) and/or polluted per unit of time. A water footprint can be calculated for any well-defined group of consumers (e.g. an individual, family, village, city, province, state or nation) or producers (e.g. a public organization, private enterprise or economic sector). The water footprint is a geographically explicit indicator, not only showing volumes of water use and pollution, but also the locations.

· Weighted Average Cost of Carbon — A term used in finance to measure a firm’s specific cost of carbon. It expresses how much an organization is expending to either reduce carbon emissions internally (abatement) or offsetting externally (carbon offset). As such, the weighted average cost of carbon is the cost a company incurs to balance its carbon liability (carbon footprint).

· Volatile Organic Compounds — The toxic or noxious chemicals that are found in or released from paints, stains, adhesives and sealants. Whenever possible, look for products labeled as having low, no or zero VOCs.

Please help us add to this list.

Info courtesy of:

http://www.globalgreen.org/gbrc/

http://wikipedia.org

GREEN COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE WEBSITES

GREEN COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE WEBSITES

Building Owners and Managers Association - www.boma.org -  provides goals with its 7 point challenge, plus links to resource sites.

California Sustainability Alliance  - www.sustainca.org ­- offers a toolkit to help tenants evaluate the greenness of buildings.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Program - www.energystar.gov-  offers an energy assessment matrix and online portfolio manager software to help assess energy and water consumption in a building.

Institute of Real Estate Management - www.irem.org - publishes A Practical Guide to Energy Management, a primer on buying and

saving energy.

National Association of REALTORS®  - www.realtor.org - offers an online “Field Guide to Commercial Green Buildings,” through its

Information Central.

U.S. Green Buildings Council - www.usgbc.org - provides an operating and maintenance rating system and checklist for existing Buildings to benchmark building performance–a first step toward achieving a

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification

Wind Power  - www.windustry.com - This web site provides an overview of the basics of land specifics that are needed to produce wind energy.

Manufactured Housing  - www.manufacturedhousing.org/default.asp -

Low cost housing developments; investing, green buildings

Info courtesy of http://www.realtor.org/NCommSrc.nsf/files/RCA_Report_summer2008.pdf/$FILE/RCA_Report_summer2008.pdf

Interesting Local Websites

Interesting Local Websites

www.Gasbuddy.com links to the local gas prices in your neighborhood. Consumers report in real time the price they paid to fill up their tanks. This tool is another excellent way to motivate people to visit your site each time that they need to fill up.

www.Everyblock.com offers Los Angelenos a wealth of information, including business reviews, permits, crimes, liquor licenses, real estate listings from Trulia and Redfin, restaurant inspections, zoning agenda items, as well as maps pinpointing relevant locations.

www.walkscore.com, as you know, we like www.walkscore.com. (Check out post http://www.santamonicapropertyblog.com/?p=303) Walk Score allows your Web visitors to determine the “walkability” of various neighborhoods. Plug in your address (or the address of any of your listings) and you’ll receive a score between 1 and 100 rating how “walkable” that address is. The site grades walkability based upon the convenience of various businesses to the residents, income mix, parks and public space, nearby schools, bike paths, and a “pedestrian-centric” design. They also evaluate how accessible the area is for the disabled, what the flow of the traffic is, and how comfortable and/or convenient it is to use mass transit if available.

Highlight Interesting Architectural Properties in Your Area with www.Ourbania.com - a site for real estate enthusiasts who want to share pictures and other information about “the buildings that shape our cities worldwide — innovative existing and future projects, from bridges to skyscrapers.” www.Ourbania.com is an excellent sightseeing resource if you’re traveling to major cities both inside and outside the United States.
www.Eventful.com boasts being the “world’s leading events Web site” and has a comprehensive list of events occurring near your local address.

FREE HOUSE PLANS @ www.freegreen.com

FREE HOUSE PLANS @ www.freegreen.com

Thinking about building a green home? Get free house plans @ http://www.freegreen.com/.

The mission of FreeGreen we hope to encourage progressive building practices by making green home designs free for everyone.

Why Free? www.freegreen.com developed a new business model because they believe green design should be accessible to all. Today�s homes are assembled from a combination of products and raw materials. If you are building a new home, or even renovating an existing one, then you have a lot of decisions to make. At FreeGreen, our team of engineers and designers works with industry-leading product manufacturers to present you with different combinations of products, materials, and vendors. We also provide 3-dimensional images, energy simulations, and written descriptions to help you find the right fit for your lifestyle. Ultimately you and your builder will choose the products and materials that are right for your house. We just hope that our designs help you build the home you want.