feature
The Emerald City
by Emily Landes
The first West Coast Green took place only four years ago; yet in that very short time there has been a revolution in the public’s perception of green building. The 2009 conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco was bigger and broader than ever, featuring three full days of informative, interactive lectures on everything from the most local issues (sustainable development in West Oakland) to heady philosophical discussions (the relationship between human evolution and environmental change).
The event also included prominent keynote speakers like San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and PG&E CEO Peter Darbee; two massive trade show floors filled with the most ground-breaking green products (some of which are so new they are still in the testing stages); and, new this year, a green jobs pavilion and a show garden suspended over the San Francisco Bay. At only four years old, West Coast Green certainly appears to be the granddaddy of green building conferences.
Salvaging Water Savings
The comments by many company representatives made it clear that, in just a few years, green building materials have become more common and, even more importantly, more desired by residential and commercial owners and developers. Bill Savage has been selling a gutter protection system called the RainTube since 1996. He says that gutter failure is the largest single cause of damage to buildings. His ribbed plastic tubes fit inside of gutters of all sizes to stop the build up of plant debris that can cause these failures, which often lead to leaks, mold and dry rot.
The basic function of the RainTube is unchanged, but today, rather than being made from virgin material it is made of 100% post-consumer recycled material.
The change came in 2007, which is also when Savage noticed an increased demand for green building products. “Three years ago, they didn’t care at all,” he said of his clients. “Now they care a lot. That’s all customers want to talk about.”
He says the demand has increased by one-third since the company went green. Interest has also been high for the company’s water harvesting system, which uses the RainTube to collect rainwater and siphon it into a storage system that can be installed underneath parking areas. This water can then be used for irrigation, which Savage says can save owners up to 50% on their water bills. He believes that the system is useful not only for homeowners in the stormy Pacific Northwest, but also in places like Arizona, where people want to catch whatever water they can so they can use it during droughts. “We are targeting anyone intelligent enough to know that water needs to be controlled and that water is an asset,” he explained.
Several other vendors at the conference agreed, saying that water is not only an asset, it’s one that owners are routinely letting drip away. San Francisco-based Brondell, a bathroom supply company, launched its Perfect Flush at West Coast Green; the $99 attachment allows flushers the option of a half-flush or full flush on any toilet. Four out of five flushes need only a half-flush, according to Director of Operations Steven Scheer, which could translate into a 35% to 50% water savings.
Aqua One’s H2Orb also targets the toilet, particularly the infamous leaky toilet, which COO David Parrish calls the number one cause of high water bills. He claims one leaky toilet can leak anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 gallons of water per day. “You don’t realize you could drop tremendous costs just by fixing the leaks in your toilet,” he says. The Orb is a $125 sensor that can tell when a toilet is leaking and turns off the water to the tank until the leak has been fixed, or until an override button is pushed on an interface that attaches to the water valve.
The company obviously hit a nerve—it sold 1,200 Orbs in the first six months of production and Parrish said they are selling best in places with older toilets that are most prone to leaking. But, he added, Orbs are useful on new low-flow toilets as well. After all, he said, “One leak is going to wipe out everything you got out of that low-flow toilet.”
The Innovation Pipeline
The Orb hit the market a few months after the 2008 conference, but a beta model appeared at that year’s “Innovation Pipeline”—a special area of the trade show dedicated to the latest and greatest in green building materials. One of the highlights of the 2009 Pipeline was Oryzatech’s Stak Block: an interlocking building block made from agricultural waste rice straw. There are 500,000 acres of rice straw grown in California and 500 million acres grown worldwide, explained Oryzatech President and Santa Barbara farmer Jay Ruskey, and usually this waste is burned, creating tons of greenhouse gases.
That’s why, for eight years, Ruskey has been working on making something productive out of the rice straw waste. With funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture and rigorous testing by Cal Poly, he now has a building product that he hopes will lead to “treeless homes” all over the world. He expects to manufacture the blocks wherever rice straw waste is currently being burned and says that, in China for example, each block has the potential to offset 50 pounds of carbon. The blocks also eliminate the need for insulation, as they offer three times the value of an insulated 2-by-6 stud wall.
Once the product has completed the patent process and has been proven to be load bearing, it will be ready for a major launch. But right now, developers looking for a greener building material will just have to wait. “Structurally speaking, there’s not a lot of innovation,” Ruskey lamented. “People are still building with wood, concrete and steel.” And why is that? “We’re the only crazy people out there spending eight years on this project,” he laughed.
That may be true, but some people at the conference have been toiling away in the green trenches for far longer. Alex Green started Environmental Building News back in 1992, practically the prehistoric era for green building. But ever since then, Green has been bringing his recommendations to a loyal and growing cadre of readers who trust his opinion completely. The newsletter cements its unbiased reputation by printing without any advertising.
Green led a talk on green building products and was very excited about Pozzotive, a substitute for cement made from 100% recycled glass. Not only can it take the place of concrete block, which releases greenhouse gases and takes a lot of energy to create, but because it has a polished finish, it can take the place of drywall as well. Potential environmental problems with drywall received major media attention after it was discovered that defective drywall from China was responsible for health issues like nose bleeds, headaches and respiratory ailments (not to mention homes that perpetually smelled like rotten eggs).
Green was concerned about toxic chemicals in other building supplies as well, particularly treated wood, which commonly contains arsenic, copper and chromium. These chemicals can leach out into their environments over time, he explained. “All ways of treating wood are basically toxic,” he said. “We want it to be toxic enough to kill insects, but not so toxic that it harms our pets and children.” That’s why he prefers TimberSIL: a wood that has been chemically (but nontoxically) transformed to make it unrecognizable as a food source to insects. The material comes with a 40-year warranty; is durable, fire-resistant and paintable; and, while it costs more than other woods, is substantially less than composite plastic decking choices.
Green Government
The fact that green products often come with a higher price tag than traditional building products has long been a deterrent for environmentally minded owners and developers who lacked the resources to make their buildings as green as possible. As Noisette CEO John Knott put it during his lecture on business and society, “It’s easy for us to walk around talking about green, but when economic disaster hits, how are we behaving?” He should know: his company is working with the City of North Charleston to sustainably retrofit a 3,000-acre historic segment of the South Carolina city.
Closer to home, several speakers spoke about the new funding that is available for greening existing buildings in California. According to Panama Bartholomy of
the California Energy Commission, “Retrofitting is the key to meeting our climate goals in California.” That’s why the California Public Utilities Commission will be handing out $3.1 billion to local governments between 2010 and 2012, including money for green jobs, public sector building retrofits and the nation’s largest home retrofit program.
Property owners must take advantage of this funding while they can, explained Brian Gitt, former director of Build It Green. The $100-million set aside for
existing home retrofits isn’t likely to be repeated any time soon. “We’re not going to get this kind of stimulus money again before 2020,” he warned.
He also encouraged owners to take advantage of AB 811, which authorizes all cities and counties in California to designate areas within which willing property owners could enter into contractual assessments to finance the installation of distributed renewable generation, as well as energy efficiency improvements, that are permanently fixed to the property owner’s residential, commercial, or industrial property through the property tax bill. The long-term loans are not tied to the owner and are not based on personal credit, a definite boon during a time when the lending is limited at best. These tools are designed to help the state meet its green goals, without placing an insurmountable financial burden on owners. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $20,000 just sitting around for energy retrofits,” Gitt empathized.
With more interest from consumers, more green products on the market every day and more government funding available, this year’s West Coast Green showed just how mainstream green building has become. Bartholomy likened the moment to the part in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and friends first see the Emerald City come into view. “We can see the green horizon on the future,” he crowed, adding, “But this point in the movie is also when the flying monkeys show up.” In other words, even though we can see our green goals more clearly than ever, there is always the danger of losing the way.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Emily Landes is the editor of SF Apartment Magazine. Copyright © 2010 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.