Southern California Green Real Estate Blog

GREENING BUILDINGS THE EASY WAY - THE ICC GREEN BUILDING OVERLAY

GREENING BUILDINGS THE EASY WAY - THE ICC GREEN BUILDING OVERLAY

By Jodi Summers

More green building codes anyone? Sure, there are already several green building codes in use today - LEED, Energy Star, NAHB Green, Green Globes, BREEM and the latest, and perhaps most practical to join the crowd is ICC – the of International Code Council.

FYI, you’ve walked through hundreds of International Code Council respecting properties. Most U.S. cities, counties and states that adopt building codes choose the International Codes developed by the International Code Council. As the ICC already has such a huge fan base, they’ve decided to have their input into green building codes > a.k.a. IGCC.

The objective of this new project is to develop a Green Building Code for traditional and high-performance buildings that is consistent and coordinated with the ICC family of Codes and Standards.

“Congratulations on taking such an important step to ensure the creation of such a code system. We are pleased to support this effort in any way possible,” USGBC President Richard Fedrizzi stated publicly, throwing in a compliment to the Code Council for “undertaking a collaborative approach to this important work.”

A bit of insight: the International Code Council, a membership association dedicated to building safety and fire prevention, develops the codes used to construct residential and commercial buildings, including homes and schools.

Being the progressive state that we are, California, has already adopted a green building code, which is incorporated into the template the ICC has come up with for the rest of the country.

“California continues to lead the nation and I commend the hard work of the Building Standards Commission to adopt the first-in-the-nation statewide green building standards,” proudly observed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The objective of the ICC code will be to raise the bottom line, giving all buildings a greener baseline. LEED, in contrast, is a bolder standard, providing innovative and more challenging ways to reduce green house gas emissions, materials usage, enhance energy efficiency, and all other good green things.

An ICC green code will make politicians, building inspectors and code officials comfortable with adopting and utilizing I-Codes as the basis for building regulations. By adopting an ICC code and augmenting it with what some of the greener cities like Santa Monica, Berkeley, Sacramento and West Hollywood are doing, municipalities will not have to reinvent the code wheel when looking to implement green building practices.

Wisely, the ICC Green Building Code is an overlay that can integrate with the I-codes that already exist in most jurisdictions.

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http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com

http://www.greenerbuildings.com/blog/2009/08/20/why-world-needs-another-green-building-standard

http://www.iccsafe.org/

http://www.socalgreenrealestateblog.com/?p=157

http://www.iccsafe.org/news/nr/2009/0722_USGBC.pdf

CALGREEN – > CALIFORNIA NOW HAS THE COUNTRY’S GREENEST BUILDING STANDARD

By Jodi Summers

Bravo to us! California has adopted the greenest building standards in the United States…and the world.

The new code, called Calgreen, goes into effect next January 2011. It requires all builders to:

v Install plumbing that cuts indoor water use.

Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, said the new building code would require developers to slash water use in their buildings by 20%, using more efficient toilets, shower heads and faucets.

v Divert 50 percent of construction waste from landfills to recycling.

v Use low-pollutant paints, carpets and floorings

v Buildings will be given certificates of occupancy occupied only after strict energy standards were verified.

In addition, for non residential buildings:

v Install separate water meters for different uses.

v Mandates the inspection of energy systems by local officials to ensure that heaters, air conditioners and other mechanical equipment in nonresidential buildings are working efficiently.

v It allows local jurisdictions, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, to retain their stricter existing green building standards, or adopt more stringent versions of the state code if they choose.

“California should be proud… These are simple, cost-effective green practices. …” notes Tom Sheehy, acting secretary of the state Consumer Services Agency and chair of the California Building Standards Commission, which approved the standards. “This is (something) no other state in the country has done - integrating green construction practices into the very fabric of the construction code.”

While California’s largest metropolitan areas have adopted their own green building standards, these new regulations will be particularly useful for smaller jurisdictions that have been unable to develop their own green construction guidelines.

This is a positive alternative to LEED construction standards. Sites Sandra Boyle, an executive vice president of Glenborough, a developer, “The cost for owners to go through this rating system is astronomical — in a very challenging commercial real estate market.”

“You will have a whole bunch of cities that never would have included this in their building doing it, and doing it in a way that won’t kill the economy,” observes Matthew Hargrove, a vice president with the California Business Properties Association. “Outside the coastal areas it will be helpful - like in West Sacramento, where they looked into creating a green building code but balked because it’s cumbersome to develop and they didn’t have the resources.”

Buildings currently account for about one-quarter of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions. These new standards are applauded as an important step in helping California meet its goal in reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/01/13/MNDR1BH9SA.DTL#ixzz0dJ9grkaW

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/01/13/MNDR1BH9SA.DTL

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-green-building11-2010jan11,0,1841989.story <!– /* Font

http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/WA/Kohler-DualFlush-BR08-lg.jpg

BREN HALL GOES LEED DOUBLE PLATINUM

BREN HALL GOES LEED DOUBLE PLATINUM

By Jodi Summers

Quick – think of the richest man in U.S. real estate named Donald.

Bet you did not think of the real star of real estate – our local Donald Bren. Affectionately dubbed, “America’s richest landlord,” the 76-year-old Newport Beach resident is the wealthiest man in American real estate, as well as an extremely admirable philanthropist. On his shelf of accolades and trophies, Bren can now add the first double platinum building in the country.

Bren Hall, which houses the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara – has become the nation’s first building to earn two LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certifications. Double platinum is the highest sustainability rating possible from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

In August, Bren Hall received a Platinum certification for Existing Buildings –– Operations & Maintenance. This certification comes seven years after Bren Hall opened in 2002 as the greenest laboratory facility in the nation, and the first to be certified Platinum for New Construction by the USGBC’s LEED Green Building Rating System.

“As the first project to receive LEED Platinum certification as both a new and existing building, Bren Hall demonstrates tremendous green building leadership,” states Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO & founding chair of the U.S. Green Building Council. “The urgency of the USGBC’s mission has challenged the industry to move faster and reach further than ever before, and Bren Hall serves as a prime example with just how much we can accomplish.”

The second platinum certification for Bren Hall was under the Existing Buildings certification. The building is a retrofitting role model as no major reconstruction was undertaken to obtain the Platinum certification. Most of the work was done at “no cost or low cost,” observes Jordan Sager, LEED program manager at UCSB’s Physical Facilities. He notes that the biggest changes were an upgrade of the already energy-efficient laboratory fume hoods and the purchase of 2 million megawatt hours of renewable wind and solar energy credits. The building received the maximum amount of credits possible for energy efficiency.

Certification confirmation was based on how the building fared during a three-month performance period. Bren Hall’s energy use was one-third to one-half that of similar buildings of similar function.

It is an exemplary building for LEED v3.0– which focuses saving energy for the long term.

Real estate developer Donald Bren is a self-made millionaire, with a net worth in excess of $13 billion, made much of his money as chairman of The Irvine Company, a privately held real estate investment company known for creating balanced, sustainable, quality communities like the 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch in Orange County. Finished plots sell for more than $1 million an acre. The ranch also has 400 office buildings, 35 shopping centers, 80 apartment complexes and 2 luxury hotels.

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http://www.socalindustrialrealestateblog.com/?p=21

http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2069

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/31KV.html

http://www.es.ucsb.edu/general_info/es_maps/ES-BrenMap.jpg

http://ocbiz.freedomblogging.com/files/2009/03/bren-9-23-07-goulding.jpg

BRAVO! LEED v3.0 LOOKS AT THE BIG PICTURE IN GREEN BUILDINGS + LETS YOU LOOK TOO

BRAVO! LEED v3.0 LOOKS AT THE BIG PICTURE IN GREEN BUILDINGS + LETS YOU LOOK TOO

By Jodi Summers

LEED v3.0 – the U.S. Green Building Council’s latest green buildings rating system, has a brave new focus – saving energy on the long term.

“This version reflects the rapid advancements in building science and technology and provides incentives for strategies that have greater positive impacts on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reductions, among other priorities,” notes treehugger.com.

Known around town as LEED 2009, what’s piquing the interest of the saving-money-thru-green-minded is a new requirement that focuses on facility maintenance during the life span of the building. The new rules mandate that energy and water usage for buildings seeking LEED certification now has to be reported for at least five years.

“One of the major differences with the new rating system is that sharing and reporting this energy use data is now required, as it was optional in the previous rating system,” observed property manager Michael Martz.

USGBC will allow projects to comply with the requirement in any of three ways:

1. To renew LEED certification every two years using LEED for Existing Buildings: Operation and Maintenance.

2. Provide energy and water usage data for the building on an ongoing basis annually.

3. The owner of the property authorizes USGBC to access the building’s energy and water usage data directly from the building’s utility provider.

With LEED v3.0, the USGBC offers a more savvy point rating system. The LEED rating system is increasing from a total of 69 points to 100 points – with an emphasis on what matters most from an environmental standpoint – energy efficiency and CO2 reductions. It the early days, a building could earn the same number of points for installing a commuter bike rack as optimizing energy by 10% or reducing water usage by 20%. Now credits are weighed based on how the course of action improves environmental and sapient health.

The LEED v3.0 vision also does a superior job of calculating the value of refurbishing the value of existing buildings. LEED v3.0 looks at the BIG picture.

Part of USGBC’s goal is to help owners and operators optimize building performance over the building’s lifetime. LEED v3.0 goes with the theory that collecting data is the best way to identify and help correct the common gap between energy modeling during the design phase and the building’s actual energy usage.

For those already constructing or managing LEED-certified buildings, the new requirements won’t be much of a change. Add-ons to current building systems will increase front-end costs a bit, but the big upside is that owners can now micromonitor energy usage. This investment will offer a significant savings in energy usage over the life of the building.

“They can see when the energy use has peaked, when it’s at the low, when it’s at the mean, and then they can adjust their programs or their overall systems,” explains Martz.

With LEED v3.Going forward, small businesses will be able to monitor their energy usage with the sophistication of institutions that consume a lot of energy, such as universities, skyscrapers and industrial manufacturers.

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http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/leed-30-is-launched.php

http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=525

http://www.socalindustrialrealestateblog.com/?p=407

http://www.usgbc.org/News/USGBCInTheNewsDetails.aspx?ID=2628

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2009/08/leed_reporting_requirement_goo.html

http://www.constructionweekonline.com/pictures/gallery/Stock/green.buildings.jpg

http://www.eco-structure.com/Images/FBI1_tcm26-123089.jpg

http://www.ischool.washington.edu/lewis-hall/greenbuilding.aspx

http://www.fullscalearchitecture.com/press/wp-content/gallery/trevvett-images/trevvett_02.jpg

http://www.dennislawgroup.com/Green_Building_Laws_LEED.html

http://twgi.com/images/picIAMUenergyChartLarge.jpg

http://movetolakenorman.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/lake-norman-real-estate-leed-certification-may-add-value-to-your-home/

MALIBU GOES GREEN UNDER PRESSURE

MALIBU GOES GREEN UNDER PRESSURE

By Jodi Summers

Malibu should be ashamed of itself, acting like conservation is not for the wealthy. Santa Monica has been heavily into the green movement for years – aiming to become a net zero city, Our mother city, Los Angeles, is very motivated to become one of the greenest cities. Meantime the gilded village of Malibu is only turning green because of upcoming deadlines for compliance with state-mandated sustainable development standards.

Under pressure by state mandates, Malibu is finally getting around to developing a sustainable development program. This comes more than a year after the City of L.A.’s green building ordinance to reduce the City’s carbon emissions by more than 80,000 tons by 2012. Motivated only by state regulation, Malibu is planning to require larger projects to be LEED certified. Money is green; Malibu will get the hang of it.

Grudgingly, in late summer, Malibu began to comply with mandated standards addressing water use for landscape irrigation. Additionally the fabled city on PCH will comply with other statewide requirements, such as weather-proofing, formaldehyde content in wood products, air conditioning refrigerants, and outside air ventilation, not to mention finally getting collection areas for recyclables. (Hello! If that’s an issue for you guys, just bring in some homeless, and they’ll recycle for you.)

As Malibu has been so late to get on board the green bandwagon, the city is panicking about meeting residential construction standards effective Jan. 1, 2011, benchmarks that are already in place in neighboring Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Los Angeles.

The January 2011 requirements call for sediment and runoff protection from construction sites; diversion of at least 50% of construction waste; low or no use of volatile organic compounds such as indoor adhesives, paints and coatings; low formaldehyde indoor finish materials.

Looking further forward, as of July 1, 2011, residential construction projects will be required to be more water efficient – insisting on a 20 percent reduction in indoor water use.

Not to be berated for being totally arrogant and antiquated, Malibu does already have mandates in place for water conservation landscaping – though some city residents are insisting that is not enforced.

“I think our biggest problem is water in Malibu,” planning Commissioner Regan Schaar noted, more than a year after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought. “The issue of people submitting plans [development applications] without any landscaping plans is a way for them to get around the issue. We need to put landscaping plans in place and make sure they’re low water usage.”

Malibu has been an ostrich, hiding its proverbial head in the sand while other local cities have been proactive on conservation measures. Lifestyles of the rich and infamous.

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http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2009/06/10/news/news3.txt

http://pleinlesyeux2.ifrance.com/ocean/inside%20out,%20baja%20malibu.jpg

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http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/835/images/malibu_sportfishing_pier_sign.jpg

http://www.beaumondevillas.com/images/cities-malibu.jpg

http://www.imagekandi.com/photo/images/Malibu-Beach-Houses.jpg

http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/california/images/s/malibu-beaches.jpg

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv7812.php

http://pics2.city-data.com/city/maps/fr2937.png

PUBLIC COMMENT ON LEED FOR NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT DESIRED

by Jodi Summers

In their own green way, the U.S. Green Building Council values your opinion. And now, they have opened a second public comment period for LEED for Neighborhood Development. Make your voice heard on neighborhood greening through Sunday, June 14, at 11:59 p.m. PDT.

See http://lists.usgbc.org/t/943571/18403397/91/0/ to submit your comments.

During the first public comment period, the US Green Building Council received more than 5,000 comments. Reponses are said to be posted at the above link.

The LEED http://lists.usgbc.org/t/943571/18403397/1552/0/ for Neighborhood Development rating system integrates the principles of smart growth, new urbanism and green building into the first national rating system for neighborhood design.

The program is the result of a collaboration among USGBC, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The rating system has been in pilot since July 2007, with nearly 240 projects participating. Feedback gathered from those projects, as well as countless hours of USGBC volunteers’ time, have led to the current, more-sophisticated and market-responsive draft of LEED for Neighborhood Development.

THE GOVERNMENT’S COMMERCIAL PROPERTY ENERGY GOAL: TO MAKE BUILDINGS NET ZERO BY 2025

By Jodi Summers

The US Department of Energy wants to reduce the amount of energy used by commercial buildings from about 19% of total US energy consumption to 0% by 2025.

To achieve this goal (watch, Santa Monica), the DOE is offering solutions sector by sector, dialoguing with owners and developers about ways to capitalize on new technologies and reduce energy consumption,.

The DOE kicked off its Zero-Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative lastyear by establishing the National Laboratory Collaborative on Building Technologies and developing the Commercial Building Energy Alliances.

The objective of the Alliance is to share best practices and practical experiences in energy efficiency.

The Commercial Building Initiative focuses on “turning tomorrow’s buildings into domestic energy assets by constructing energy-efficient, high-performancebuildings that expeditiously and cost-effectively achieve sustainable carbon reductions and enable, through energy-efficient buildings, higher ROIs for building owners and occupants as well as to economy as a whole.” - Official word from says Drury B. Crawley, team leader in commercial buildings research and development for the DOE’s Building Technology Programs.

The rollout was a collaboration between U.S. Department of Energy and 19 commercial real estate companies, with the goal of linking building owners to the latest efficiency research and technologies from the agency’s laboratories. High profile retailers including Wal-Mart, Target and Macy’s have become involved in the Retailer Energy Alliance.

The DOE proudly notes that this “public-private partnership designed to minimize the energy consumption and environmental impact of commercial buildings.”

The focus of thе latest phase of the Alliance is to minimize energy use in leased space, offices, shopping malls and the hospitality industry.

Kudos to the DOE for this bold attempt to curtail usage in properties that involve so many random people passing through who give no thought to the building itself.

With commercial buildings comprising roughly 18 percent of the country’s energy consumption, the DOE feels that commercial holdings represent a large opportunity to cut usage. Best practices are shared and the alliance, and the goal is to serve an industry voice to advocate for more energy efficient equipment from the nation’s building materials suppliers.

Henry Chamberlain, president and COO of Building Owners and Managers Assoc. International, called the Alliance “a catalyst for long-term change” that can reduce the use of energy, cut greenhouse gases and drive innovation in the marketplace.

Each Commercial Building Energy Alliance brings together industry experts who can influence the energy footprints of the companies or institutions they represent. Members discuss energy challenges, share non-proprietary information, conduct energy saving assessments and cut the cost of high-efficiency building equipment through group purchases. They can also benefit from the technical assistance of the DOE.

The DOE has already created a steering committee for the next Commercial Building Energy Alliance, which will examine energy use in hospitals. The DOE describes the nation’s 8,000 hospitals as among its “most energy intensive commercial buildings, with more than 2.5 times the energy intensity and carbon dioxide emissions of office buildings. Unlike most other commercial buildings, hospitals are operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week and provide services even during power outages, natural disasters…”

All alliances are part of the DOE’s Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative targeting zero-energy commercial buildings by 2025.

Go to http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/tax_commercial.htmlFor tax deductions that are available for improving the energy efficiency of commercial buildings, as well as links to qualified software available for calculating the savings.

The Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative was signed into law by former President Bush as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, and is authorized for more than $1 billion in federal funds over the next decade. DOE committed $15 million last year to the program’s first phase, a research project involving two national laboratories and 21 companies that will produce new and retrofitted buildings with significant cuts in energy consumption.

Tools:

The DOE has taken a number of steps to encourage energy efficiency in the design of new buildings. EnergyPlus is an energy modeling tool, which is augmented by OpenStudio, a plug-in for the Google SketchUp 3-D drawing program that allows SketchUp to work seamlessly with the EnergyPlus program.

Both are available on the EnergyPlus page of DOE’s Building Technologies Program Web site.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/

That site also features a selection of benchmark models for 16 types of building in 16 locations to help designers understand the energy use of similar new buildings- http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/commercial_initiative/new_construction.html

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sources:

http://www.globest.com/news/1391_1391/insider/178282-1.html?type=pf

http://www.energy.gov

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http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2009/04/10/doe-forms-commercial-real-estate-alliance

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/retailer

http://www.ggashrae.org/meetings/2008-2009/speaker_presentations/Crawley.pdf

http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=C94B2CDD13C1546D6DBB4F76C65D20B1

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NEW GREEN LEED FOR RETAIL OPTIONS TO BUY SOON

NEW GREEN LEED FOR RETAIL OPTIONS TO BUY SOON

By Jodi Summers

“LEED for Commercial Interiors 2009 is a system for certifying high-performance green retail interiors, and LEED for Retail: New Construction 2009 is designed to guide and distinguish high-performance green retail buildings,” proclaimed the US Green Building Council. “The LEED for Retail rating systems were designed to recognize the unique nature of the retail environment and address the different types of spaces that retailers need for their distinctive product lines.”

Green retail is the next big push from USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) suite of rating systems. New Construction 2009 and LEED for Retail: Commercial Interiors are now being reviewed by the FCC.

More than 80 individual retailers worked with the USGBC and the LEED Retail Core Committee to formulate the draft. Both systems offer variations on site selection, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, innovation and design process, and regional priority.

Once confirmed, these new LEED for retail benchmark will join standards for New Construction, Core and Shell, Schools, Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance and Commercial Interiors. More systems are planned.

“Much has been invested in the development of these current LEED for Retail draft rating systems and a concerted effort has been made to ensure that both of the LEED for Retail 2009 rating systems capitalize on the existing market momentum while addressing the needs of LEED users,” the USGBC announced. “Most of the structural and technical changes incorporated into LEED for Retail 2009 drafts were also designed to create a rating system that can be part of a continuous improvement cycle.”

Info courtesy of http://www.globest.com/news/1361_1361/insider/177441-1.html

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/01/06/foliage-covered-building-in-seoul-by-mass-studies-architects

http://worldcentric.org/biocompostables/categories/retail

http://www.sustainablebuildings.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=75F4A2E5-1

SUPERMARKETS GO GREEN

SUPERMARKETS GO GREEN

By Jodi Summers

In SoCal, we think we’re so green with Whole Foods and other green grocers, but the Cub Foods in St. Paul, MN, is going for LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council – making Cub Foods the second LEED Gold grocery store in the United States–to do so. (Giant Eagle in Columbus, Ohio is the first.)

The 62,900-square-foot Cub Foods store boasts 44 skylights that will illuminate 75% of regularly occupied spaces, using a solar-powered GPS system that redirects sunlight as needed. LED lights are used exclusively in the parking lot.

“We never intended for this story to be green,” says Lee Ann Jorgenson, a community relations manager of Stillwater, MN-based Cub Foods. But President Brian Huff suggested the possibility and the process took off from there, she noted.

Other techniques used at the store include recycling half the waste from demolished buildings on the site, a water-saving landscape irrigation system, and recycling of building construction materials. But those technologies can be used at many other building types.

Because they sell food and other perishable items, supermarkets have special needs require adaptation to be ‘green’. Cub Foods has received an award from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Partnership at Gold-Level Certification. The award is given for outstanding use of environmentally friendly refrigeration technology. Even lighting refrigerated cases can be managed.

“Our cases use lights that are triggered by motion,” Jorgenson says. The result for all initiatives is a 35% savings on energy.

Packaging is also another important area for sustainability. Johnson Diversey is producing a highly concentrated sanitizer for sinks that automatically dispenses the proper amount of cleaner while reducing the amount of plastic in the store.

Cub Foods is not alone in pursuing sustainability. Corporate parent Supervalu also is building sustainable stores among its other banners, including testing a natural-gas powered fuel cell for its refrigeration system in a Star Market in Newton, MA. Stop & Shop, too, is building sustainable stores, and Fred Meyer hopes to achieve LEED Silver status for a unit in southeast Portland, OR. If it succeeds, the store would be the first grocer in Oregon and parent Kroger’s first unit to do so.

“There is certainly a great deal of interest in building green stores,” says Jeanne von Zastrow, a senior director overseeing sustainability efforts of the Food Marketing Institute, Arlington, VA. “About two years ago, we saw that our member companies wanted assistance to understand this issue.”

The notoriously tight-margin business must carefully track each expenditure, so FMI has created materials for executives to justify the return on investment of green building.

These include simplified carbon calculators to allow companies to assess their energy usage and emissions over a portfolio.

If your grocery store would like consultation, please contact us.

http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/10/17/giant-eagle

http://www.globest.com/news/1278_1278/insider/175032-1.html

http://www.thefoodtrust.org/…/green.grocery/index.php

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GREEN BUILDING INSIDER SURVEY CONCLUDES THAT COMMERCIAL BUILDERS, BUYERS AND SELLERS FEEL GREEN IS GOOD, LEED IS O.K.

GREEN BUILDING INSIDER SURVEY CONCLUDES THAT COMMERCIAL BUILDERS, BUYERS AND SELLERS FEEL GREEN IS GOOD, LEED IS O.K.

By Jodi Summers

The third annual Allen Matkins/CTG/Green Building Insider Green Building Survey reveals that 93.4% of those surveyed agreed that it is worth the time and effort to build green, but only 66.2% believe that obtaining LEED certification is worth the effort.

More than 900 green building professionals – from design professionals, contractors, subcontractors, construction planners to building owners - completed the survey.

Additional findings in the survey were that designers, owners and contractors each offered differing results when assessing the risks involved in green construction or whether green construction adds to the cost of projects.

Bryan Jackson, chair of the green building and sustainable construction group at the Los Angeles office of the law firm of Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis, confided to GlobeSt.com that, “…New LEED requirements being introduced this year include a carbon overlay that should bring many of the survey respondents back into the fold with respect to LEED certification. Another change in the new LEED requirements is that the certification process takes into account regional differences, which should also help the LEED process to regain some of its lost adherents.”

Tools are coming to make communicating green commercial design easier. Building Information Modeling employs computer-aided design to produce three-dimensional models of projects for incorporating green design elements from the very start of and throughout a project. Those surveyed estimate that green construction adds between 1% and 4% to the cost of a project, but those who use can BIM see a better rate of return.

“If you design for green and sustainable elements from the very beginning, you will be able to come out with a project in that could certify to Green, LEED, Gold or Silver without spending any more than conventional construction, which is pretty amazing,” Jackson says.

See the whole survey @ http://www.allenmatkins.com/emails/GreenSurvey/Third%20Annual%20Green%20Building%20Survey_v5.pdf

Info courtesy of:

http://www.globest.com/news/1354_1354/losangeles/177097-1.html