Women Build for HabiJax: What does THAT cost?

Do you know that HabiJax pre-cuts all their materials to minimize waste?

Do you know that HabiJax recycles and reuses so much material that they rarely need to have trash hauled away?

Do you know that HabiJax installs Energy Star appliances in all their homes?

Do you know that HabiJax was green before green was cool?

We do, which is why we're so proud to support the 2008 Women Build project.

We also know that HabiJax is already doing so much to reduce the cost of their homes to bare minimum and still provide a welcoming, healthy home for their deserving families.

Now, for the big "Do you know"... Do you know that, after all those cost-saving measures, and sweat-equity, a HabiJax project must still raise $65,000 to bring the project together?

We definitely do. Which is why we need help! To raise the roof, we need to raise $65K!

Please spread the word, incorporate this worthwhile project into your yearly charitable budgets, and find a spot in your own wallet for HabiJax this year.

Pass it along and help us make Women Build a roof-raising success!

E-mail me at ellen@breakinggroundcontracting.com to learn how you can help.

LEED ROI and Payback

Here we are again, speaking on the cost of going green. I find it remarkable that there are those that still question the value and benefits of going green even when faced with strong Return-on-Investment numbers that confirm that high-performance building is the right way to go. Is it so difficult to believe there's some good deals out there?

I'm currently attending the FEFPA (Florida Education Facilities Planners Association) in Fernandina Beach and this morning's speaker, Alan Whitson, spoke about money and green building: It's the Money: Separating Green Fact from Fiction. (For more information on Alan Whitson, visit www.squarefootage.net) He provides some excellent numbers to share with clients when discussing green building options.

As mentioned before, the first question asked when discussing a LEED project is "How much more is it going to cost?" Or, "What is the payback on this?" If you had to convince an owner that the payback period was 5 years, would you receive a favorable response?

How about if you said the return on investment was 20%?

20% sounds mighty good.

In his example, the 5 year payback earned a 20% return on investment. I think we should start talking in terms of ROI instead of payback. Whitson does, too. He shared some excellent suggestions on why to use ROI instead of simple payback:

Simple payback focuses on how fast capital is returned, not on maximizing the return on capital. Simple payback doesn't consider post payback period cash flows, the time value of money and the risks to the cash flow.
Acceptable time periods are arbitrary and do not reflect market rates of return.

He also suggests that we include ALL financial benefits that can be generated including increases in building value and shareholder value. Your assumptions should include a realistic time horizon, inflation, and reinvestment of savings. Also, consider the financial impact of depreciation and income taxes.

Here's a great example Whitson provided:

Let's look at the impact of a $0.40sf. annual energy savings on a 130000sf school.
With no inflation and no reinvestment: $2,600,000 savings
With 2.5% inflation rate and 5% reinvestment: $22,260,535 savings
With 2.5% inflation rate and 8% reinvestment: $41, 093,713 savings

If you could incorporate energy saving measures that would equal $0.40sf on a 130k sf. project, you could reasonably earn back $41M dollars?

Let me guess... "That couldn't POSSIBLY be correct. There must be faulty numbers or everyone would be doing this."

Mmm hmm. Exactly.

As the green building champions that we are, we should be providing our clients the tools they need to make the right decisions. It's up to us to get this information into their hands so that they can move forward with sustainable projects. This is what they need to present their shareholders, or their boards, or their owners, so that they can feel strongly about making the right decision.

Most owners already have the desire to build an environmentally responsible, healthy place to work and live. Let's show them that it can be profitable, too.

Green Building Ordinance Update

A reminder to my fellow Jacksonville-ians:

The City of Jacksonville's Environmental Protection Board is drafting a Sustainable Building Ordinance which will require COJ new construction and major renovations to achieve LEED certification and incentivize private development for achieving LEED certification.

This draft needs your support to ensure it has the best possible chance before City Council. Here's what you can do:

Attend the Public Forum: The Public Forum for the proposed ordinance will be held Tuesday, January 22nd at 430pm in Conference Room 3C, City Hall - St. James 117 West Duval Street.

Provide a Written Comment: For those unable to attend, send your thoughts to Mr. Robert Schuster, Environmental Protection Board, 117 West Duval Street, Suite 225, Jacksonville, FL 32202, no later than January 29, 2008.

Notify your City Council Representative: Remind your city council representative that your future votes depend on their current votes. Send an e-mail stressing that this issue is critical to Jacksonville's future. Here are a few statistics that your city council representative may not know:

• USGBC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which is dues-based representing over 10,000 companies from 12 membership categories.
• With more than 1000 certified buildings and over 7300 registered buildings, USGBC has extensive experience in assessing, documenting, and administering what has become the leading green building rating system in the United States.
• As a third-party certification system, LEED validates achievement and establishes leadership in the green building sector. LEED provides a clear roadmap for sustainable design and then ensures its performance by documenting that the building is constructed as designed.
• More than 90 local governments have adopted LEED.
• 24 states have adopted LEED.
• 41 countries have LEED projects.
• According to the US EPA research, by cutting energy use by 30% tenants can save 50 cents per square foot per year.
• LEED Green Building Rating Sytem is available for New Construction, Existing Buildings, Commercial Interiors, Core & Shell, Homes, Schools, and Neighborhood Development.

To e-mail your city council representative: http://www.coj.net/City+Council/City+Council+members.htm

Take the time to raise your voice for sustainability! How often do we have the chance to truly make a difference in our city? Make it your priority to support this draft and attend the Public Forum on Tuesday.

We need YOU!

2008 Women Build: HabiJax and Breaking Ground

Breaking Ground Contracting Company, in partnership with HabiJax, is pleased to announce the 2008 Women Build!

This innovative initiative was introduced in order to encourage women to participate in the construction process in a less intimidating environment and, at the same time, enrich the life of a deserving family through the rewards and responsibilities of home ownership.

We are especially proud that Mary Tappouni, President of Breaking Ground Contracting, is leading this effort as Project Manager and will bring her years of construction expertise and commitment to the community through this worthwhile project. As many of you already know, Mary’s dedication is evidenced by the time and resources she and her employees give the community through organizations such as Child Guidance Center, YMCA, ACE Mentoring, Junior Achievement, JaxPride, St. John’s Riverkeeper and professional organizations such as Associated Builders and Contractors, ABC Women’s Council, US Green Building Council, SMPS, CREW, Urban Land Institute and NAIOP. HabiJax and Breaking Ground will be reaching out to the many women’s associations and groups, as well as women business owners to act as construction volunteers and supporters.

What will make this year’s Women Build especially noteworthy is that we (of course) will be focusing on “building green”. We are excited to learn that HabiJax has used green practices in the construction of their homes for years. For example, HabiJax uses Energy Star appliances, eliminates waste through pre-planning and measuring of building components, and recycles and reuses construction debris when possible. Also, their revitalization of urban neighborhoods supports green efforts to develop sites appropriately. We will highlight and share those green practices during the build, but also seek to attain LEED for Homes certification on the Women Build house. Having a LEED-certified home ensures that we will exceed certain thresholds for energy efficiency, water conservation, responsible use of materials and resources, and high standards for indoor air quality.

If you are a local reader, then you are probably very familiar with HabiJax. For those that are unfamiliar, HabiJax was founded locally in 1988 and is the largest Habitat for Humanity affiliate in North America. In June of 2007, they celebrated the construction of their 1500th house and each week construction begins on two new HabiJax homes. It takes approximately 3-4 months to build a home and volunteers are typically working on houses Tuesday through Saturday from 8:00am to 3:30pm. The average HabiJax home is 1100-1200 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths (but they have floor plans to meet the needs of all their families!). Since its creation in 1976, Habitat for Humanity has built or rehabilitated more than 225,000 homes worldwide and Breaking Ground is thrilled to do their part on this one in Jacksonville.

Breaking Ground Contracting Company is a commercial and institutional general contractor with an award-winning, ten-year history in North Florida. Founded by company president, Mary Tappouni in 1997, Breaking Ground has been redefining construction on a diverse portfolio of projects such as new construction, tenant build outs, renovations and additions. By incorporating sustainable building practices into our business philosophy, we are proud to say we are providing an environmentally responsible, economically profitable, and healthy place to work with each project.

Keep an eye out for updates and more details on the 2008 Women Build. We are proud and honored to lead this effort and look forward to working with many of you to make this the most successful Women Build ever!

Please contact me at 904.388.1350 or e-mail to learn how you or your company can become a sponsor, provide in-kind donations, or volunteer and keep an eye here for updates on our progress.

-Ellen Reed

Happy Green Year!

Florida's Department of Environmental Protection offers a good bit of advice:

DEP is encouraging Floridians to make a “green” resolution for the New Year. "Even small things like changing one incandescent light bulb to an ENERGY STAR® qualified bulb can have a big impact,” said DEP Secretary Sole. “For example, if all the households in Florida changed just one light bulb to a compact fluorescent bulb, the combined effort would save enough energy to light all the households in Tallahassee for more than two and a half years.” For more information on Green Tips for the New Year visit http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/news/2007/12/1226_02.htm.

Here area few ideas from The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen (which is a great book for those that want to know how to make a difference and WHY it makes the difference) to get you started this year:

1. Take a shorter shower. Every two minutes you save on your shower can conserve more than ten gallons of water. And that can add up: If everyone in the country saved just one gallon from their daily shower, over the course of a year it would equal twice the amount of freshwaster withdrawn from the Great Lakes every day. The Great Lakes are the world's largest source of freshwater.

2. Set your thermostat a degree higher for air-conditioning and a degree lower for heating, and you could save $100 per year on your utility bill. Keep adjusting and you'll save even more. If every home in America turned the dial, we could save more than $10 billion per year on energy costs, enough to provide a year's worth of gasoline, electricity, and natural gas to every person in Iowa.

3. Recycle. If everyone in America simply separated the paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum products from the trash and tossed them into a recycling bin, we could decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by 75 percent. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all our waste each year.

4. Use fewer paper napkins - everywhere. There's no need to grab a huge stack of napkins from the concession stand when you know you'll use only one or two. Each American consumes an average of 2200 standard two-ply napkins per year, or the equivalent of just over six of these napkins per day. If everyone in the United States used an average of one fewer nakpin per day, more than a billion pounds of napkins could be saved from landfills each year. A stack of napkins this size could fill the entire Empire State Building.

5. Buy rechargable batteries, and you'll save money over the long term. A single rechargable battery can replace up to one thousand single-use alkaline batteries over its lifetime. Americans throw out approximately 179,000 tons of batteries per year.

6. Drink tap water when dining out. You can save as much as $7 for a bottle of water, and it may be safer to drink. Tap water is more strictly regulated than bottled water. If everyone drank tap instead of bottled water in the United States, it would save about $8 billion - about as much as the US spends each year in drought response. It also would help prevent plastic waste: Sixty million water bottles are tossed each day in the United States.

7. Pack a waste-free lunch. Eliminate plastic bags, plastic utensils, disposable containers, paper napkins, and those brown paper bags. Instead use a reusable lunchbox, reusable drink containers, cloth napkins, and silverware. You could save $250 a year and as much weight in waste as the average nine-year-old!

8. Walk to school. Only 31 percent of children who live less than one mile from school walk there. Half of all students go to school by car. If just 6 percent of those students who go by car walked, it would save 1.5 million dropoffs and pickups - and sixty thousand gallons of gasoline - a day!

9. Use both sides of your plain paper, and recycle. Paper is the biggest form of waste that comes from schools. Every ton, or 220,000 sheets, of paper that is recycled saves approximately seventeen trees. The average school tosses thirty-eight tons of paper per year, or more than 8 million sheets.

10. Double-side your copies. Whether printing or copying, use both sides of a piece of paper. If just one in four office workers made all of their copies double-sided, the annual savings would equal 130 billion sheets of paper - a stack thicker than the diameter of the earth!

11. Carpool. If the average commuter carpooled every day, he or she would save five hundred galls of gasoline, and 550 pounds of poisonous exhaust emissions every year. Commuters sharing a ride to work would be the equivalent of taking 67.5 million cars off the road - four times the number of new cars sold in the United States per year.

12. Use a ceramic mug for your coffee. Americans use more than fourteen billion paper cups every year, enough to circle the world fifty-five times. The Styrofoam kind will stay on the plaet for nine generations, enough time for your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids to be born.

13. Don't take ATM reciepts. ATM receipts are one of the top sources of litter on the planet. If everyone in the United States left their receipt in the machine, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or enough to circle the equator fifteen times.

14. Request automatic deposits for your paycheck. Not only will you get your money faster, but you'll reduce the time and fuel you spend to go to the bank. More than seven billion checks are written annually that could be replaced by automated deposits. If everyone who was eligible for an automated deposit opted for it, it would save about $65 billion in fuel costs and lost time expenses - and enough paper checks for everyone in the world.

15. Get paperless bank statements. Some banks will pay you a dollar or donate the money or your behalf when you cancel the monthly paper statements you get in the mail. If every household took advantage of online bank statements, the money saved could send more than seventeen thousand recent high school graduates to a public university for a year.

There are 15 actions you can take today to make 2008 a greener year. On this first day of the year, I've already seen at least 10 people walking, riding, or jogging in the neighborhood. They've made a new year's resolution to be healthier. Let's see how many of us can incorporate one green practice into our new year's resolutions and make the planet a little healthier, too.

Happy New (Green) Year!