Going Green, Lean and Mainstream

The first thing you need to know about going green in building and remodeling is that it is not just a here-today-gone-tomorrow phenomenon. In fact, green building has moved from the camp of eccentric tree-huggers and bio-theorists to the best practices of mainstream builders in just a few short years and it continues to expand exponentially.

The burgeoning of green building and remodeling is generally attributed to a growing national eco-consciousness which in turn is thought to have spurred consumer demand for more efficient products, renewable materials and conservation technologies. All that may be true, but in hindsight we may discover that it was a combination of factors that created the increase in demand by consumers for green building efficiencies, not the least of which was a downturn in our national economy. This factor may have done more to speed up the acceptance of green building than any other factor, including the often extolled virtue of a new national ecological awareness.

In fact, today’s struggling economy has created a perfect storm of sorts that has changed the climate of opinion on green building from one of slow acceptance to a new atmosphere that is pushing consumers, in spite of themselves, to be more aware of issues like efficiency and wastefulness. At a time when consumers are worried about the rising cost of energy, the dwindling of their bank accounts, the uncertainties over job losses, the higher cost of living and the struggling economy in general, it seems logical that cost-cutting efficiencies and energy conservation would be more appealing than ever. Nothing grabs the public’s attention like someone’s hand in their pocketbook.

Whether the impetus for green building can be likened to the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes of today’s struggling economy or is indeed a consumer-driven eco-consciousness, the fact remains that its time has come.

The second piece of information that has been established with respect to green building and remodeling is its long-term cost effectiveness. Studies both here in the U.S. and abroad have proven that there are financial advantages to going green such as lower utility and operating costs. An often cited example is the Genzyme Center building located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Harvard Business Review reported that in its very first year of operation, this well-designed building used 42% less energy and 34% less water than standard buildings of comparable size. That’s a considerable savings of money and resources.

Another proven advantage of green building is an increase in employee productivity as measured across a number of variables: alternative building materials versus toxin-emitting materials (like many standard building products that release formaldehyde into the air), improved air quality, natural daylight and outdoor views, employee satisfaction, employee morale and sick time. In the same Genzyme building just mentioned, overall productivity was reported to have increased by approximately 15%. Ask the employees who work there and they will tell you that the majority, or 58%, feel they are more productive in their new building than they were in the old and that green building standards like abundant natural light, individual climate control and outdoor views have improved their levels of morale and satisfaction. Sick time was 5% lower. Across the board every variable that was measured showed positive results. When productivity increases, so too does the bottom line.

While most people would agree that lower energy costs and higher productivity are solid financial incentives for green building, many would question how those savings stack up against the cost of building a green structure in the first place when compared to the cost of standard construction. The goods news is that the cost to construct a green building today is considerably less than it was just a few years ago and now nearly equivalent to standard construction due to the wider availability of green materials and lower prices.

According to four industry studies that included more than 150 green buildings across the U.S., the cost of attaining green certification was only 0.8% more than standard building construction. In fact, when PNC Financial Services Group built its Firstside Center in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania they were pleasantly surprised to learn that they had saved a pile of money by going green. Firstside was the first building to be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) green rating system, but the project was originally budgeted as standard construction. Instead, the owners decided to take it green and when the building was completed, a savings of $4 million had been knocked off the original standard construction budget. That’s not chicken feed.

Impressed by the success of its Firstside Center, PNC has since constructed several green, branch-bank buildings. PNC was pleased to note that it’s newly constructed green buildings cost $100,000 less than a competitor’s similarly sized, non-green buildings and when PNC compared the average construction time between its own traditionally built buildings and its new green buildings, it discovered that the green buildings required 45 days less to construct. Saving time saves money!

The chart below is from a report, “Green Building Costs and Financial Benefits,” written by Gregory Kats for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state’s development agency for renewable energy. The compiled figures demonstrate that the resulting financial benefits of green construction are more than ten times the initial average investment of designing and constructing a green building. In other words, the initial investment of going green is repaid ten-fold in 20 years.

It must be noted that much of the initial expense in going green lies in the time it takes to design a green building and that research has proven that projects that start with green design early in the process are more cost-effective than those that do not.

The conclusion that can be drawn here is that the cost of green construction is 1-2% more than the cost of standard construction (design time, certification, etc.), but this slightly higher initial investment is recouped over time along with an additional savings of dollars.

Going green has become more than just environmental experimentation for the future; it is here now and it has achieved mainstream status. The hoped-for benefits of green building-conserving our natural resources by eliminating waste, creating efficient systems and using sustainable materials and sources of renewable energy-are no longer merely lofty aspirations. Theory has been put into practice and the results measured and tested. In addition to attaining the theorized environmentally-friendly goals, research has confirmed that green buildings come with corporate perks, physical and mental human benefits: enhanced worker productivity, higher morale, less absenteeism and fewer health insurance claims. As impressive as these benefits were, however, a last hurdle needed to be jumped before green building would finally replace standard building and that was the cost disparity between the two types of construction. With the elimination of that final hurdle, the old way of doing things, standard building, is no longer justified.

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