[Greenbuilding] Green Building Article

[Khalil Hassan]

Just thought I'd throw this log on the fire.

Khalil


Our Generation's Urban Renewal?

by Bill Walsh, National Coordinator
Healthy Building Network
I-95 N Cross Bronx Expressway
Photo by Steve Alpert

September 13, 2006

Four months after the death of New York's urban visionary Jane Jacobs 
(May 4, 1916 -- April 25, 2006) [1], I found myself jockeying for 
position on the Cross Bronx Expressway stretch of Interstate 95. [2] By 
the time of her death, Jacobs was revered; and the philosophy of urban 
renewal she opposed was reviled. But I-95's monotonous lacerations 
through cities from Boston to Washington, DC remain monuments to the 
limits of Jacobs' contemporary influence. I wondered: how will history 
judge the structures that will define our generation's green building 
legacy?

Urban Renewal, like the Green Building movement, was inspired and 
catalyzed by some of the best and brightest design professionals of its 
generation. Their persuasive vision promised to link financial success 
and social well-being within a pleasing aesthetic.

But something went wrong.

A big part of what went wrong is that those with the most to gain or 
lose financially had the greatest incentives and resources to wrest 
control of the movement from the merely civic-minded. Even though most 
projects were subject to public scrutiny and debate, the big moneyed 
interests routinely prevailed over the protests and counterproposals of 
architects, planners, community organizations and advocates working in 
the public interest.

Similar forces threaten the Green Building movement today. Deep pocketed 
product manufacturers understand the promise of a "green" marketing 
advantage conferred upon their product by a LEED credit, and the peril 
of not having a "green" product in today's market. Consequently they are 
pouring millions of dollars in cash and paid staff hours into 
controlling -- and changing -- the very definition of "green building."

According to the plastics and chemical industries, there is no plastic 
that is not a green building product. According to the timber industry, 
all wood is "good wood." Last year trade associations representing the 
two industries unleashed an unrelenting attack on LEED at both the state 
and federal level. They continue to threaten LEED's assimilation into 
governmental green building standards unless and until their products 
receive favorable treatment within the Materials and Resources section.

It is in this context that the USGBC Board has directed the membership 
to consider a proposal this fall that would meet timber industry demands 
and award a LEED credit to the greenwash wood certification label known 
as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). The Board's move is 
opposed not only by virtually all public interest groups dedicated to 
forest protection, but also by wood product manufacturers who have 
dedicated themselves to the consensus-based Forest Stewardship Council 
(FSC).

Hundreds of environmental and health advocacy groups also urge 
reductions in the use of PVC building materials due to the plastic's 
unique association with human carcinogens, heavy metals and phthalate 
plasticizers. Most leading green building tools and experts [3] -- our 
era's Jane Jacobs -- encourage reduced PVC use, contradicting the USGBC 
leadership's decision to remove a proposed PVC reduction credit from an 
early draft of LEED-CI (Commercial Interiors). The USGBC created a task 
force to study the issue. Their final report is also due this fall.

One doesn't need 20-20 hindsight to see the connection. Will the next 
generation see in our buildings the early expression of green building 
ideals and ideas? Or will they see in the vinyl and endangered (by then 
extinct?) hardwoods another monument to big money's desecration of big 
ideas? The response of the active membership of the USGBC to the course 
being set by its elected board and professional staff will mark a 
turning point in the history of this movement.