Collective marketing materials for owners and tenants, derived from the business case for green buildings

Business cases provide a plethora of support for green buildings, and input for marketing materials. To enable market proliferation of green buildings and common messaging, it is useful for associations to have a toolkit of collective marketing materials which articulate the information based on client need and focus, and are updated as new data arise.

Nils Larsson (MRAIC, Executive Director of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment), Mark Lucuik (P. Eng., LEED AP, Morrison Hershfield) and myself (lead author, MBA, LEED AP, Sustainable Alternatives Consulting) have just completed two projects for the Canada Green Building Council, intended to help members market green buildings to owners and tenants of leased properties, to enable data updates, and provide common messages. This material is derived from The Business Case for Green Buildings in Canada by Mark Lucuik, (lead author), Wayne Trusty, Nils Larsson and Robert Charette, with research updates.

Look for the material on the CaGBC’s website in about 6 weeks.

LEED Canada Launches Green Building Pilot Project

The deadline has been extended for submitting expressions of interest in participating in the LEED Canada Complete Pilot Project for Commercial Office Buildings.

This initiative has the support of REALpac and NAIOP who are encouraging their members’ participation in the pilot. Expressions of interest are to be submitted to Maura Chestnutt at the CaGBC: mchestnutt(at)cagbc.org or by fax to: 604-681-7817.

The CaGBC will be giving a 2-week notice when the submission period will be ending.

LEED® Canada Complete is being developed by the CaGBC for launch in 2008 at the CaGBC’s first national summit, June 11-12, 2008 in Toronto, and full program launch in 2009. It is an expansion to provide low-cost, performance-based LEED certification at all stages of a building’s life cycle via a distributed, on-line, market-based delivery.

LEED® for Homes: Call for expressions of interest in CaGBC’s Case Study Program

The Canada Green Building Council’s LEED® Canada Complete has just received a huge response to their call for expressions of interest in their upcoming commercial office buildings national pilot project.

The CaGBC is now taking expressions of interest (before September 13, 2007) from Canadian teams that are part of (or interested in participating in) the USGBC’s Pilot project of LEED® for Homes, for inclusion in the CaGBC’s Case Study Program. These participants will have a variety of benefits, including contributing to the development of the LEED® Canada for Homes rating system.

Canadian teams that already are involved or interested in participating in the USGBC LEED® for Homes pilot are invited to apply to the CaGBC Case Study Program before Thursday, September 13th, 2007.

LEED® Canada Complete is being developed by the CaGBC for launch in 2008 at the CaGBC’s first national summit, June 11-12, 2008 in Toronto, and full program launch in 2009. It is an expansion to provide low-cost, performance-based LEED certification at all stages of a building’s life cycle via a distributed, on-line, market-based delivery.

The CaGBC has ambitious goals, and LEED® Canada Complete is the tool to achieve them.

More on LEED® Canada Complete in the next issue of www.iGreenBuild.com’s e-newsletter.

Florida Green Communities Sets Eco Friendly Example

I just read about The Florida Community Loan Fund, the Florida Green Building Coalition and Enterprise and their effort to invest more than $2.5 million in green building in Florida. This funding will be used to build or remodel 200 homes in the state. Organizations with programs of this sort are starting to surface in other parts of the U.S. and are wonderful tools for increasing earth friendly awareness in business and community.

Learn more about Florida Green Communities here.

improving climate change reporting

A new study, entitled improving climate change reporting is destined to advance both the recognition and the implementation of green buildings’ utility in reducing energy consumption and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

The report is published by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and the investment index organization FTSE. ACCA has global membership comprising 115,000 members plus 296,000 students, throughout 170 countries.

Some data from the study:
· of the 990,000 business entities in operation within the UK, 2,000 are energy intensive, and represent 45% of total UK emissions from business.
· of the balance of (non-energy-intensive) UK companies, over 60% of emissions arise from ‘buildings-related energy consumption.’ this is also the scenario for SMEs and public sector organizations.

As the title indicates, the report contains recommendations that companies are expected to demonstrate their actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and improve their climate change reporting. Implications are for energy efficiency, renewables and supply chain management including carbon labeling of products.

While the tone of the report’s recommendations appears to be voluntary, the urgency of the issues – and the opportunity costs of inaction - make these suggestions more of a warning or directive.

Environmentally Friendly WorldGBC International Congress

WorldGBC International Congress
The WorldGBC International Congress in July was "an unbelievable execution of a world class event with less than two months to prepare," as noted by WorldGBC Chair Kevin Hydes.

Kevin Hydes’ and that of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Rob Bennett were two of the many important presentations from the Congress that were reported in my recent www.iGreenBuild.com article.

Kevin Hydes later issued a call to action in his thank-you message to participants:
"These are unusual times as our earth suffers the stress of a century of abuse. Our organization needs to find unique solutions to meet our destiny and create the real impact on carbon reduction that the planet needs for its survival."

It is a call to action for us all.

Green Building Thought For The Weekend

Are you going green this weekend? Home improvement project? Yard work? Vacation? Whatever you do this Saturday and Sunday and whether you are eco friendly or not, pick up a piece of trash from your local park or beach, buy a green friendly product for your house improvement project or turn the lights off in the five star resort room you are sleeping in (before you grab a cool drink by the pool!).

I'm going surfing now and will no doubt have a handful of plastic and paper on my way back from the Pacific.

Cheers....Matt

What Will Create Positive Change In Green Building?

What are the weak signals that could spur momentous changes in the green building world? Here are a few that occur to Jerry Yudelson of Yudelson Consulting and iGreenBuild.com's Sr. Editor.

1. The trend in venture capital to focus on renewable energy, carbon mitigation and energy efficiency technologies (these grabbed almost 10 percent of all new venture money last year). This could mean that concept-busting innovations might be coming a lot sooner than you think. Consider solar powered roofing systems that deliver electricity at 10 cents or less per kilowatt-hour and what that could do to building design and zero-net-energy homes and buildings.


2. The availability of software, sensors and intelligent networks that make buildings so smart they can identify their problems and come up with fixes, so that we can achieve these 50 to 90 percent reductions in energy use that are part of every scenario for controlling global warming.


3. The continuing trend to cheapen and miniaturize communications technologies, along with an increasingly mobile workforce, means that we can make buildings half the size we think we need and still accommodate workforce and productivity needs.


4. LED lighting is moving rapidly to replace even compact fluorescents, with half the power consumption. This will allow the further downsizing of mechanical HVAC systems, opening the way for new HVAC technologies to serve buildings' needs.


5. Nano-technologies will revolutionize every aspect of building technology, from self-cleaning windows (no more guys suddenly materializing outside your windows ladies, watching you put on makeup at 10 a.m. in your office!), to self-cleaning façades, windows with R-10 values (instead of R-2 now), wall paints that insulate and so on.


6. Building information modeling that will enable integrated design to happen in real time, so that you could know the energy use of every possible building design change in minutes, instead of weeks.

New Issue Of The iGreenBuild.com Newsletter Is Published

We're done clicking, typing, copying and pasting and the latest issue of iGreenBuild.com has been published to our green building and eco friendly subscribers. if you haven't received it or simply don't have a subscription you can sign up for it here.

This issue covers a number of sustainable building and environmentally friendly living topics. We've published articles about Live Earth, the 2007 International Green Building Conference, building green for less, Project Frog high performance modular schools, green cleaning, news and more.

National Wildlife Federation Talks Global Warming With Students

ClimateClassroom.org helps educate children about global climate change in accurate, developmentally appropriate, and hopeful ways. Sections designed for parents and K-12 educators provide talking points, attractive visuals, instructional guidelines, and helpful resource links for investigating the topic with children. An additional section for school-age children offers quality learning experiences and realistic suggestions for becoming part of the global-warming solution.

Visit www.ClimateClassroom.org