Hard Facts on Soft Costs

(My apologies to those that coined the above title... You know who you are. I'll be sure to return it to you when the paper is written.)

In the last week, I've heard the question "... but what's it gonna cost me?" at least 10 times when discussing green building. Of all the questions I regularly address, that is certainly at the top of the list. Right below "What is LEED?"

The biggest concern among those considering LEED is the costs, and specifically the soft costs. The costs above construction. The "vague" costs. The cost of the unknown.

My standard answer is, "Well, that really depends..." and I still argue that it does. Every project is different and unique like little snowflakes. And each snowflake requires different little snowflake systems and each has it's own little snowflake agendas and ROI expectations on overall snowfall.

The best way to determine what LEED is going to cost for your project is to gather your design and construction team to talk about goals and then talk about potential costs.

Until you have that opportunity, let's talk about some historical data on soft costs.

Colorado is ahead of the curve in terms of Green Building and LEED-certified projects, so they have more data to provide. Peter D'Antiono, LEED AP and PE with PCD Engineering Services in Colorado wrote "Cost and Benefits of Commissioning LEED-NC Buildings" which was presented at the May 2007 National Conference on Building Commissioning. Included in this paper are facts from 11 LEED-certified buildings in his state. He detailed their square footage, construction costs, Energy cost savings, LEED cost premium and the net LEED savings.

Here are some of the overall statistics:

• The cost premium for LEED NC certification ranged from 1% to 6% of construction costs.
  
• Two of the projects noted they were able to achieve LEED certification on schedule and under budget.
  
• Soft costs, including LEED registration and certification, documentation, energy modeling and commissioning averaged 0.8% of the total construction costs, or average $1 per square foot.


• Documentation was difficult to quantify as the basis for reporting was inconsistent across the projects and ranged from $3000 to $35000.


• Energy modeling averaged around $10000 across nine of the eleven projects. Eight projects fell at or below the $10,000 and one was nearly $35000.


• Small projects averaged higher costs per square foot for energy modeling.


• All the projects averaged 20% or better than ASHRAE 90.1-2004 requirements.


• The net present value of the energy savings offset all the LEED soft and hard costs in seven of the nine projects reporting energy savings.


• Commissioning averaged $0.55 per square foot and accounted for roughly 60% of the total soft costs.


• Commissioning costs between $0.19 and $1.50 per square foot

There's some unvarnished truth to start your weekend. Remember, your mileage may vary and these should not be the 'baseline' in which you quote numbers to your client.

Lastly, sometimes it isn't as much about the "cost", it's about the "value". A "cost" for me might be another person's "value". Understanding your client's goals and tailoring a solution provides value. The cost isn't an issue if the client realizes value. That's Sales 101.

Let's start talking about the value of green building.

Have a good weekend!

A Teaspoon of Perspective

From the treehuggers at Treehugger:



And in case it's a little murky for you to read:

"It's pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the ground, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, buy it, and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you're done with it."

Just a little something to think about.

LID: It CAN be done

... and, more importantly, I really (REALLY) want to live in one.

LID: Low Impact Development. According to the LID website, it is defined as:

Low Impact Development is a new, comprehensive land planning and engineering design approach with a goal of maintaining and enhancing the pre-development hydrologic regime of urban and developing watersheds.

It also goes a few steps beyond that. It's a development that sustains human life and wildlife. It protects the land below, the air above, and the people within. It conserves resources and saves money. How can you go wrong?

Well, some say that our codes have not caught up with LID. Some say that the process takes longer, therefore is economically and logistically challenging. Some say that people just don't 'get it' yet and still want McMansions.

I'd say there's a lot of valid points in there. And that's darn sad.

The light at the end of the tunnel? It can be done. We have proof.

Madera. Oh, how I wish we had a Madera.

Madera is an example of a suburban development without the damage of 'suburbia'. Madera is within biking distance of the local university. The walkways and driveways are permeable. Stormwater is treated on-site instead of running off gutters, onto curbs, into drains, and to our rivers. The landscaping is either predominantly natural, or completely turf-free. The houses are Energy Star and Florida Water Star. The roofs have a good solar reflective index, they are oriented on the site to conserve energy and the AC systems are housed in a conditioned space to optimize their performance.

And, the communities look like a state park. This is the enticing bit for me as I regularly drag tons of camping equipment to state parks all over Florida and Georgia to enjoy the beauty of the Southeast. As much as I love camping, erecting and sleeping in a tent is not where I get my enjoyment. I think I'd rather sit on an already-built porch and take it all in.

The St. Johns River Water Management Distrcit, along with JEA, sponsored a workshop on Tuesday to explain and discuss Low Impact Development. I'm so glad I attended. Not only were there expert speakers on hand to explain low impact stormwater management, landscape, code, and policy, but they also opened the floor to discuss solutions for Jacksonville.

This has to happen here. We just have to figure out how.

Florida is going to continue to develop. That is unavoidable. So you can argue all day and night that we should leave these tracts of land alone. That they should be left as state parks and people should not move in. That solution is the utopia, but it's not the reality.

If development is going to happen, we need to do it like this.

Let's help our city government understand how to implement this. No more gobbing about how this is wrong, and that stinks, and our officials aren't doing anything to help. We need to offer realistic, sustainable solutions.

It's being done in Madera... and Harmony... Let's do it here.

Why it's good to live and work downtown

I can't pass up an opportunity to give support to two worthy causes, and it's especially convenient when I can support two of them at the same time:

RADO and Green Team Project (aka Sarah Boren)

Riverside Avondale Development Organization is sponsoring the film, "The End of Suburbia" which (according to Jennifer McCharen at RADO) "is basically a detailed explanation of how screwed we’ll be (we sprawl-builders and SUV-drivers) when the oil runs out and/or the planet decides to annihilate us. Yay!"

I've not seen it so I cannot personally endorse the film one way or another, but knowledge is always powerful, so get thee to Fuel on October 4th at 7pm. View. Report back.

And, Sarah Boren, my fellow USGBC committee member and executive director of the Green Team Project will be on hand to field questions afterward. She is quite knowledgeable on all things green and the opportunity to pick her brain is time well spent.

Thanks, Jennifer, for passing it along.

Green Roofs

What's so green about this roof?

Nothing... yet.

Picture it lush with vegetation. A learning lab for green building. Contributing to a sustainable solution.

Stay tuned as Breaking Ground shares their "vegetative roof" journey with you.

Keep an eye out for future articles from the owner, the landscape artist, the installers... They will share their challenges, obstacles, opportunities, and succeses throughout the process.

We hope this will encourage more business owners to consider vegetative roofs and living walls. (Oh, did I mention the living walls? Coming soon to a contracting firm near you!)

Stay tuned!

Promoting Sustainability Beyond Construction

Though my focus and expertise is in sustainable construction, I support sustainable practices across the board. So, very often, my research brings me to topics unrelated to construction. For example, in just less than an hour, I've come across a magazine article, a friend's e-mail, and an online commentary about food sovereignty. What's that, you ask? It means community democracy and control over our food and farm system. Simply put, it's buying local and supporting local farmers.

First, I received an e-mail from my friend, Bethany Kline from Daily Billboards, who is a fellow 'green girl'. She supports co-ops, locally grown food, and green living in general. (Oh, and she can get you a great deal on some really effective advertising, too. :-) ) She send me some links to local farmer's markets:

Jacksonville Farmer's Market
1810 West Beaver Street

Jacksonville, FL

Year-Round, Daily 7am to 7pm

http://www.jaxfarmersmarket.com/

Hemming Plaza Farmer's Market

Monroe and North Hogan Streets

Jacksonville, FL

Year-Round, Fridays 10am to 2pm

She also provided this link to a list of Florida's produce availability. Yes, sustainability sometimes means sacrifice. But, doesn't a mango taste even sweeter when you've waited until May to have one? What happened to the giddy joy of looking forward to something? Instead, we have an overindulged, spoiled-child approach to foods: I want it NOW, even if it has to travel 3500 miles to get to me.

Then, the president of my company, Mary, left her copy of World Ark Magazine in my inbox with a note about climate change and the availability of wild vegetables. Looks like we may be in for a surprise when wild peas and potatoes are lost, according to a new study released by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research:

"Research predicts that long-term climate change will cause the extinction of many wild varieties of domestic crops, making domestic crops vulnerable to disease, drought and pests."

Their solution is to begin saving and cultivating the wild species that are most likely to disappear with climate change.

In the same magazine, John Peck is interviewed on the topic of Food Sovereignty. He is the executive director of Family Farm Defenders in Madison, Wisconsin, and he teaches the importance of supporting local farmers and how its benefits affect us on a global scale. He addresses issues such as concern over the global food trade by saying that only 5 percent of food is traded in the global marketplace:

"A lot of people don't realize that three times as much food is grown in cities as crosses borders, but it's the tiny fraction of traded food that dictates prices. When the world market price for commodities dive bombs, farmers everywhere are hurt. Via Campesina [an international coalition advocating for family, farm-based sustainable agriculture] argues that there shouldn't be world market prices for food. Prices should not be just country specific, but bio-regional. For instance, milk will cost farmers more to produce in New England than it does for farmers in the Midwest, and so the price should reflect that."

Peck offeres some action items for promoting food sovereignty. He suggests that we promote community-supported agriculture where people invest at the beginning of the growing season in a farm to receive fresh food throughout the harvest. Of course, he also suggests visiting local farmers markets, but be sure to ask if the food is sourced locally because some are suppliers that import the products from far away. We can also support policies, like local food purchasing in schools (which is not only sustainably smart, but definitely healthier for our children).

Lastly, in the same magazine, the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver is reviewed by Anna Lappe. The book recounts Kingsolver's experiences going "local" for one year. She and her family took it to the extreme by growing all their own food in their one acre of land. Lappe says that the book is absolutely inspirational:

"After reading about their tomato windfall and canning solution, I fell asleep dreaming of glass jars and pots of simmering tomatoes. I dog-eared nearly every one of Camille's recipes and now anxiously awat rhubarb season, salivating when I think of the strawberry rhubarb crisp. By the book's last page, I had added to my household's shopping list: bread machine (to bake our own bread), seedlings (to start our own window herb garden, and rennet (to try our hand at making cheese). Sound ambitious? Maybe. But Kingsolver makes it all sounds so easy, so tasty ... and so right."

Give it a try this week. Visit the Farmer's Market. Bring the kids. Revel in the joy of picking the perfect ear of corn and slipping it in your canvas bag. Teach them how to choose the perfect carrot. Cook a simple meal of locally-grown foods for your family and sit together with the TV off, windows open at dusk while the warm air flows in....

Talk. Connect. And then do it again.

Sustain.

Color this Cool...

This must be 'nifty thing' week for me. I've found some really cool products that lend themselves well for supporting a green lifestyle. Here's one that is of particular interest to the designers and builders:

YOLO Colorhouse has developed an exterior zero-VOC paint that also takes into account the natural lighting and shading over the course of a day. Here's a quote from the company's co-founder:

"Our process for developing the colors included tweaking them for full sunlight as well as shade. We experimented with each hue by applying them on all sides of a little outdoor structure, now called 'the Color Shed', and observed how the colors changed throughout the course of the day."

It's 100% acrylic, weather-resistant, and available in three sheens: velvet flat, satin, and semi-gloss. Price: Around $41.95 per gallon and $13.95 per quart. It's also Green Seal-certified.

Samples and swatches are available at their website, and they encourage you to reuse the samples in art projects and as wrapping paper. (Yay, reuse!)

Yolo also has a zero-voc primer available. Supersweet.

Weekend's coming... get painting!

You tell 'em, Riverkeeper!

Be sure to take a look at this week's Folio Weekly for Jimmy Orth's backpage editorial. If you aren't familiar, Jimmy is the executive director of St. John's Riverkeeper. Here are a few excerpts that I think are particularly brilliant:

"We need to put our politics aside and make a serious, dedicated commitment to sustainability. We need to honestly acknowledge all environmental impacts,not just the most convenient or politically palatable. Then, we must commit ourselves to those solutions necessary to allow us to realistically accommodate existing populations, as well as future growth, without further depleting or degrading our natural resources. We can't let politics, money, greed or short-sightedness get in the way. We can't allow the complexity or difficulty of the task deter us or cause us to compromise our goals."

"The time has come for us to accept the fact that being 'green' is not merely cool or politically popular, it is an absolute necessity. I am not referring to buying a hybrid automobile, building an Energy Star home or recycling, calling it good and feeling as if you've done your part. I'm talking about adopting a holistic approach to the environment that means completely integrating green principles and practices into our lives, governments and markets."

Jimmy's article is filled with examples of good intentions with less-than-inspiring follow through. Examples of organizations that say one thing and do another. Examples of when we could have done the right thing, but lazily did the wrong.

Examples of when we've tried, but simply not done enough.

Orth is encouraging those of us that support sustainability to push it further. Don't settle for what we're doing today. Do more. And then do a little more. Not because it's going to make you feel good, but because it is absolutely REQUIRED to keep Florida alive.

"Environmental consciousness and awareness is more than just the latest trend or
fad. It is the foundation upon which we should build our state and live
our lives." -Jimmy Orth, St. Johns Riverkeeper

Couldn't have said it better m'self. Spread the word, kids....

Solar in your Pocket

What a neat concept:

The Solio is a universal charger for iPods, cell phones, MP3 players, PDA's, GPS units, game players, and digital camera. The beauty of this product? It's a completely hybird charger! Leave the Solio in the sun for 10-12 hours or plug it in for 4 hours and you have enough power to keep you going. You can also store the energy in your Solio for more than a year.

After reading reviews on both Amazon and Treehugger, it seems to be a wonderful piece of kit for those that hike, camp, or generally spend time outdoors. Also, for those of us that are trying to plug things in LESS, this is a great solution. The Solio comes with a multitude of adaptors for phones, cameras, PDA's, etc, a window suction cup to hang during daylight hours, and both 12-volt adaptors and a global charger for international road warriors.

As with any item reliant on the sun, the gadget has limitations, but makes up for it with a plug-in option for those occasions when solar simply isn't feasible. Also, with a price tag between $80-$100, it's not out of the realm of feasability for the average Joe.

If anyone out there has used a Solio (or similar product), please be sure to share with us your experiences!

Visible Energy

How do you conserve something you can't see? Make it visible...

From Wired Magazine's Clive Thompson:

Mark Martinez couldn't get Southern California Edison customers to conserve energy. As the utility's manager of program development, he had tried alerting them when it was time to dial back electricity use on a hot day — he'd fire off automated phone calls, zap text messages, send emails. No dice.

Then he saw an Ambient Orb. It's a groovy little ball that changes color in sync with incoming data — growing more purple, for example, as your email inbox fills up or as the chance of rain increases. Martinez realized he could use Orbs to signal changes in electrical rates, programming them to glow green when the grid was underused — and, thus, electricity cheaper — and red during peak hours when customers were paying more for power. He bought 120 of them, handed them out to customers, and sat back to see what would happen.

Within weeks, Orb users reduced their peak-period energy use by 40 percent. Why? Because, Martinez explains, the glowing sphere was less annoying and more persistent than a text alert. "It's nonintrusive," he says. "It has a relatively benign effect. But when you suddenly see your ball flashing red, you notice."

Electricity is invisible. That's why we waste so much of it in the home — leaving rechargers permanently plugged in and electronic devices idling in power-slurping "sleep" modes. We can't see that our houses account for nearly a quarter of the nation's energy appetite; we don't know when the grid is nearing capacity and expensive to use.

So Martinez hacked his customers' perceptual apparatuses. He made energy visible.

JEA? Are you out there? Can we get some Energy Orbs?

Send a friend a Black Balloon

I'll let the video speak for itself on this one...




Give global warming form. Make it visible. Share this with your favorite skeptic.

Visit the Alliance for Climate Protection.