[Greenbuilding] what makes it green?

[Gennaro Brooks-Church]

I guess it comes down to your definition of green building. I don't
think energy efficiency is what makes a house green, which was what I
understood was said. I see a danger in that statement. Health,
sustainability, and energy or any other combination of parts might be
a narrow definition of green building. The triple bottom line is a
good start. But to reduce green building to a technical step for me
misses the whole point.
Since you are a mathematician I can see how energy efficiency would be
the main focus. And thats good because people have to focus on it. But
I wouldn't be able to build a green house if I had that focus. I'd
build a very energy efficient home, but it wouldn't be any where near
as green as I'd want it. In fact it could be completely unsustainable
and unhealthy yet still be energy efficient.

Gennaro Brooks-Church
Cell: 1 347 244 3016 USA
www.EcoBrooklyn.com




On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Corwyn <corwyn at midcoast.com> wrote:
>
>
> Gennaro Brooks-Church wrote:
>>
>> Didn't you just say energy is 90% of what makes a building green? If
>> so then that is NOT what you are saying. Because I also think that
>> without getting the other things right you are also bound to fail. You
>> will have an energy efficient building but that doesn't make it a
>> green one. A windowless block can be energy efficient.
>>
>
> I think we should stop talking in analogies and metaphors because clearly we
> are not communicating.
>
> I am a mathematician, so I think of things as wholes _and_ parts.  I look at
> a house as a whole and as a sum of parts.  I see both the concepts which
> make up a house (like heating, and shelter, and view) and the whole concept
> of house.  And when I talk about a part I instinctively put a factors on
> that part.
> If I want to look at the environmental harm that a building does, it
> naturally in my mind falls into parts like CO2 produced, waste add to
> landfillls, etc.  The whole of that harm is hard for me to visualize.  So I
> separate those things in my mind and give each one a factor so I might come
> close to comparing them.  A pound of CO2 might be the same harm 5 pounds of
> plastic waste in a landfill, as a hypothetical example.
>
> So, when if I look at the environmental harm engendered by a building and
> see that the heating system is equal to 90 tons of CO2 per year, and that
> paint choice can make the difference between 0 and 10 tons of CO2 per year.
>  I worry about the heating system first, and put the most energy into
> solutions for that problem.  I have a limited amount of resources that I can
> apply to the problem.  In my mind it makes sense to apply those resources so
> that I spend them proportional to the factor of harm that each problem
> represents.  I would therefore spend 90% of my resources on heating and 10%
> on paint choice.  This to me is a solution which is looking at the whole,
> but being most effective in reducing the total harm caused.
>
> Some things get so small a piece of my resources that no solution is found.
>  At this point, I can either abandon the project since it is still has
> fixable harm (i.e. it is not completely wholey green in all aspects), or
> effectively postpone it indefinitely.  Is it worth building a building which
> is 10% green, in my opinion, no.  Is it  worth building a building which is
> 90% green, probably.  Should  I put off building that  90% building while
> living in a  50% green building, that doesn't seem reasonable.
>
> I know that you don't believe that every building should be perfectly green
> in order to be worthwhile, because you have argued against insulation
> because it would cost you space and thus money.  But I don't understand how
> you can talk about a holistic approach which fails to achieve perfection,
> without first portioning up and quantifying  aspects of it.
> I am not sure where you got the impression that anyone was advocating "A
> windowless block".  Or even that since energy efficiency was 90% of the
> issue, that  it therefore got 100% of the resources.  In my view, I can't
> see any way to minimize environmental harm other than to spend the majority
> of my work on the majority of the problem.
>
> Can you please explain how you would describe your holistic approach without
> splitting into parts and assigning factors.  I won't claim to be able to
> understand it as it clearly not how my mind works, but I will try.  Please
> leave out the metaphors, as they are not working.
>
> Thank You Kindly,
>
> Corwyn
>
> --
> Topher Belknap
> Green Fret Consulting
> Kermit didn't know the half of it...
> http://www.greenfret.com/
> topher at greenfret.com
> (207) 882-7652
>
>