Green Globes

We’ll be signing off today for the holiday weekend, but before we do that, I want to point out a couple of interesting green building statistics: one group collected by NAHB and the other which was mentioned during yesterday’s Green Building Initiative webinar discussing insurance and surety issues for green construction projects. During the webinar, one of the panelists noted that only 20 percent of his company’s (XL Specialty Insurance) insured design professionals consider themselves “very experienced” in green design- obviously a percentage to which XL is paying close attention in the context of green risk management. On a different track, the National Association of Home Builders recently released figures from a survey of multi-family builders and developers. While 74 percent of respondents said that their buyers and renters are willing to pay more for green amenities, the median additional amount that they’re willing to pay is just 2 percent.

Almost a year ago, USGBC announced that it was developing a new building standard in cooperation with ASHRAE and IESNA. Standard 189P for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings remained open for public comment through the end of last July. Though modeled on it, 189P is not the same thing as LEED. It’s intended to contain a series of performance-related criteria- including targets for energy and water efficiency- that buildings must satisfy in order for municipalities to issue a certificate of occupancy for new buildings or major renovation projects. The Green Building Initiative has announced that, it too, is in the process of developing a similar standard based on its Green Globes tool.

The Chandler Airport Commerce Center is an office and warehouse building that just became the first in the Copper State to earn any level of Green Globes certification from the Portland, Oregon-based non-profit Green Building Initiative. Located just outside of Tempe, the Center features a modest 27,000 square feet of warehouse space and 3,000 square feet of office suite space. According to Michael O’Connor, senior VP of Wisconsin-based developer Irgens, “[t]he building is relatively small, and going for LEED certification didn’t make sense financially.” Irgens has a number of LEED-certified projects throughout the Midwest, but the Chandler Center was its first to seek a rating under Green Globes.

According to University of Minnesota biosystems engineering professor James L. Bowyer, USGBC’s LEED system may be doing more harm than good when it comes to fostering sustainable design practices. In a recent article in Professional Builder, Bowyer specifically pointed to LEED’s current lack of life cycle assessment (”LCA”) for building materials. LCA in the context of sustainable building refers to an analysis of the environmental impact of construction materials and building systems during the course of their entire useful lives. Bowyer’s main point is that, in the absence of LCA, LEED encourages project teams to achieve as many credits as possible, which may actually end up increasing- rather than decreasing- the environmental impact of purportedly green construction.

Ceres is a non-profit coalition of investors, environmental groups, and other public interest organizations that works with companies as they negotiate the issues implicated by sustainability and climate change. Last week, it released From Risk to Opportunity: 2007, Insurer Responses to Climate Change, a comprehensive overview of presently available climate change-related insurance products. The report [...]

The Green Building Initiative announced last week that Kentucky and Illinois have become the tenth and eleventh states in the nation to incorporate the Green Globes green building rating system into local legislation. (gbNYC has written a number of posts discussing Green Globes and comparing it with LEED). Kentucky’s bill recommends that its Finance and [...]

The May/June issue of eco-structure magazine offers an excellent article on insurance industry perspectives towards green building and the potential risks that design professionals may unwittingly encounter on green projects. Written by Chicago-based Gary Kingery, a design professional liability underwriter for architects and engineers, the article starts out by noting that insurers have little understanding [...]

The Green Building Initiative (“GBI”) made an interesting announcement today with respect to its Green Globes green building rating system. GBI will now offer the use of Green Globes for free to GBI member firms. Unlimited use of the system is available for a membership cost of $2,500/year. A $500 membership provides access to the [...]

Just a quick post to direct you to tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) free Building Design + Construction New Developments in Green Building Webcast. BD+C EiC Robert Cassidy will moderate a panel discussing the pros and cons of LEED and Green Globes, as well as daylighting and site planning issues, starting at 2PM EST. I’ve never participated in [...]