With “green” being the new black of the design and construction world, a growing number of contractors, suppliers and owners – both residential and commercial – are all trying to find the best on-ramp to the green building highway. In keeping with the overall nature of sustainable building, cooperation and collaboration are two key ingredients to building successful “green teams.” In many cases, an owner looking for new and innovative sustainable building techniques and materials will be working with a design and contracting team that may be fairly new to the sustainable building market.
Here are a few suggestions for making the entry into the sustainable building marketplace a little less intimidating, and one local contractor’s experience in getting started.
Know Your Motives
Whether you are a designer, a builder or an owner, an initial consideration is to focus on the motives for “going green” with any given project. For commercial owners/builders/designers, there are a growing number of jurisdictions that are making green building techniques a requirement. Cities, counties, and states around the country are adopting policies requiring that any publicly funded construction project meet certain sustainability standards. These new rules range in scope from meeting the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification standards set by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), to rules like those found in the City of Portland that require a formal recycling program for any construction project with a permitted value exceeding $50,000.
On the residential side, there are myriad reasons for going green. Some state and local programs offer financial incentives for homeowners who go green. The City of Portland has an annual grant program for homeowners looking to “green” their residences and local recipients are featured in an annual Build It Green! Tour of Remodeled Homes. Homeowners can enjoy lower energy costs by taking advantage of a growing number of programs, from EnergyStar appliances to more formal programs such as the G-Rated and Built-Green certification program.
For both commercial and residential participants, going green can also improve the performance of any project over its lifetime. Whether it’s reducing the number of possibly toxic materials in a home or office or reducing the overall “carbon footprint” by using recycled-content materials or energy-efficient features and fixtures, more and more folks are turning green because it’s “the right thing to do.”
Great New Market Opportunities
Whether residential or commercial, designers and builders are finding that one strong motivation for “going green” is how it expands opportunities for new markets. As the nation’s residential markets – especially new homebuilding – contracts in many regions, homeowners are wringing new value out of their existing homes by undertaking remodeling and upgrade projects. Residential and commercial contractors who can add a green flag to their list of credentials are finding new opportunities, in both new construction and remodeling.
One local contractor who has recently taken a dip in the green building pool is Lane Cooper, president and owner of Cooper Designbuilders, Inc. The firm, located in Portland, OR’s, burgeoning “sustainability row” on North Mississippi Avenue, (home to such sustainability stalwarts as The ReBuilding Center) has found that when it comes to going green, some of the basics still apply.
“One of the successful elements of our business model has been our flexibility and the value-added services we can offer a client,” says Cooper. “By having both design and building service in-house, we have more options to offer a customer, and we can find innovative ways to curb costs without compromising on a client’s vision.” The “sustainable” projects being brought to Cooper these days bring with them a fairly common list of questions.
“It’s amazing how consistent the concerns of clients who want to go green are,” says Cooper. “The basic questions are similar to traditional construction projects.”
What’s the Cost of Going Green?
While this belief is starting to dissipate, there is a standard assumption that going green will cost more. But just as an owner can spend a lot or a little on a traditional building/remodeling project, there is a wide range of options for going green, and not all of them are more costly. Good pre-planning and communication with your design-build team goes a long way to keeping costs down. There are also options for salvaging and reusing materials on a project that can lower costs.
“We work with all of our clients to set a solid budget and a realistic set of expectations prior to starting any project,” says Cooper. “We’re also finding that if we invite collaboration, a sort of “we’re learning as we go” approach with our clients, we can pool our ideas, maximize our options, and keep costs down.” It’s also important to begin considering new models for measuring what the “true costs” of a project are.
“As a part of the collaborative process, we can show a client that a light bulb or a new heat pump may cost a few pennies more up front, but over the life of the project, the owner will enjoy substantial energy savings that more than make up for it,” says Cooper.
How Do I Get Started?
Both clients and designers-builders can easily be overwhelmed with “information overload” when it comes to sustainable building options. An important first step in getting started is to develop a “project blueprint” with specific budget, performance and return-on-investment expectations. Work with your design-build team to determine what the priorities for a project are. Is reducing your overall carbon footprint more important than up-front savings? Is recycling and salvage more important to you? Is the added value or projected increase in value to your project your most important consideration?
The greater Portland metropolitan area is one of the nation’s leading communities for sustainable building and both owners and designer/builders have many local examples of successful, sustainable projects to draw on for experience and ideas.
What Will Work Best For My Project?
This is one area where working cooperatively with your design-build team is essential. From good pre-planning to being flexible throughout the design and building process, good communication is the key to ensuring that you all get the most out of your project.
“Many of our clients are surprised to find out how flexible and cooperative we are,” says Cooper. “Pulling a single model or a staid set of plans off a shelf doesn’t always work, especially when it comes to trying to maximize sustainability options.”
Where Can I Learn More?
As with any new idea, keeping up with new developments in sustainable building can be a full-time job. Luckily for Portland-area residents, there are many agencies and businesses eager to offer free information and support.
An excellent resource for more information is the City of Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development www.portlandonline.com/osd is. There is also a fairly new resource in the Green Development Resource Hotline, 503-823-5431, poised to answer questions about sustainability. Two unique resources for salvaged and recycled building materials are Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore Center and the ReBuilding Center.
The Energy Trust of Oregon offers free advice, for technical and financial support for a wide range of green building and design projects. There are also a number of retail outlets offering support for sustainable building products, including Ecohaus.
The Cascadia Chapter of USGBC is an excellent resource for LEED and other sustainability programs (www.cascadiagbc.org). Metro has a broad range of information and support programs for recycling and salvage, including a free construction-specific booklet, Construction Salvage and Recycling Toolkit. It features a “start-smart” guide for planning a successful green project, a directory of area businesses that recycle building materials (www.metro-region.org/toolkit), and a used building materials exchange site (www.BoneyardNW.com.)
Gather as much information as you can, be open to collaboration and cooperation, don’t get overwhelmed, and before you know it, you’ll be a new member of the “green building revolution.”
