Hoyt Yards & The Encore: Portland, Oregon

How many "bad" things would it take in a "green" building to undo the good things that can be done under a LEED neighborhood program? Hoyt's website claims that "In addition to incorporating eco-friendly components and features throughout its buildings, Hoyt Street Properties has applied an equally green approach in creating a community where limited car usage is made possible." The trouble is, The Encore has at least two decidely bad features for the environment. By admission of its own architects at Boora, the wood used in its "ebony" cabinet veneers is actually a wood from west African rainforests called “obeche” (Triplochiton scleroxylon).

According to the cabinet manufacturer, the wood being used comes from an Italian company, Alpi, that holds logging concessions in Cameroon, west Africa. Fully half of all logging in Cameroon is illegal, and virtually none of it is being done in a sustainable manner, with serious damage to forests, watersheds, and wildlife, particularly throught the "bushmeat" trade, where monkees and other animals are slaughtered and then brought out on logging roads

Rainforest Relief is also concerned about the “mahogany” flooring being used in The Encore. We have not been able to ascertain the actual species to be used (Hoyt isn't talking, nor is Boora), but usually flooring is not made with true Latin American mahogany, but from another South American rainforest species called Santos mahogany. We have never heard of any plantations with this species, and we are highly confident that it too is coming from primary rainforest. Logging in South American primary rainforests generally is highly unsustainable. Damage to forests from logging is combined with construction of logging roads that often are the primary means of forest invasion by colonists, ranchers and farmers who then cut and burn the remaining forest. In Brazil, a leading supplier of Santos mahogany, approximately 60-80% of all logging is done illegally, often in nature reserves or on lands of indigenous people, according to Defenders of Wildlife and Greenpeace International.

Hoyt Street Properties has declined several entreaties from Rainforest Relief to develop a rainforest-safe wood use policy. It is a shame that a company that otherwise is doing so much good for the environment refuses to engage on this important issue. With the high impacts of rainforest logging on biodiversity, carbon storage, and indigenous people, Hoyt is undoing much of the good that it claims under the LEED program.