Doom, Gloom and Green

So, apparently the sky is falling. Surely you've heard the news. The USA - the World!!! - is, right now, at this very moment, in the midst of the apocalypse! Or, if things maybe aren't quite that dramatic, at least we're facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, to hear the powers that be tell it. During this highly charged political season blame is flying around like the meat loaf in a college food fight.

As the guy at the helm of a small business launching itself into the world at perhaps the worst time to launch a small business since ... ever ... well, the whole thing just gives a guy pause, that's all.

Friends, family and colleagues have been asking me what I think about what's going on in the country, and what it means for my decision to launch a brand-new business at this time. Hmmm... Pause.... Well, after thinking about it for a minute, I'm jazzed. Call me crazy, but for anybody swimming in the green building waters, this whole economic meltdown thing might be just the thing to move our industry forward and into the mainstream.

How could that be? Simple: Green building is better, more efficient building. It uses materials more efficiently, increases the efficiency of the things you're building, and saves you money in the short and long term. (Oh, yeah... and it's better for the Earth, too.)

OK, so let's pretend for a moment that you, dear reader, are a real estate developer. You're presented with two choices for your next project:

1. Build a building that is less durable, will rent for less, will take longer to sell, is less healthy for its occupants, and will cost more to run and uses more energy over its (shorter) lifetime, or...
2. Build the same building, but it will last longer, will rent for more, will sell faster, is better for its occupants and costs less to run and uses less energy over its (longer) lifetime.

Oh! One more thing: #1 and #2 cost basically the same to build.
I would choose #2. You can make your own choice.

As a green building professional, I know that the biggest hurdle to mainstream green building adoption right now is perception: the perception that building sustainably is much more expensive, is strange, is for tree-huggers, is ugly, is not mainstream, is left-wing, or whatever. I am fully aware that my biggest barrier to success in this industry is not in overcoming reality; rather, it's in overcoming perception.

That's why I'm almost glad we're staring into economic gloom and doom -- well perhaps "glad" is not the appropriate word here, but suffice it to say that I do see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the green building community worldwide to re-focus the green building conversation from die-hard historical perceptions to present-day ECONOMICS. Like it or not, in a profit-driven, capitalist world, economics drives all things forward. Green building will continue to be a relative niche until the perceptions of the past catch up with the economic truths of the present. Which is to say, at the end of the day, building green costs LESS than building conventionally, when all of the aspects of putting up and maintaining that building are considered as a whole.

We can talk all day about global warming, polar bears, climate change, rising sea levels, carbon footprints, melting glaciers, Hummers vs. Priuses, clean coal, nuclear, drilling offshore or in ANWR and all that. But frankly, in my opinion, when it comes to moving green building into the mainstream -- we're wasting our breath. We need to talk about economics. All the rest will take care of itself once the profit motive is aligned with what is right for all the rest.

The message is simple: Building green is good business and it makes sense economically. Period.