The Greens

It took a little time, but finally we were able to hold a green building meeting specifically for our San Francisco Meetup group, Green Building. Nils Davis of Keeping the Lights On came and talked about the passive house conference.

Nils attended the 13th International Passive House Conference 2009 held last week in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He reported that over a thousand people attended the conference, where they got the latest update on passive houses, buildings so energy-efficient that they don’t require a heating or cooling system.

A number of people new to the Green Building group showed up for the meeting (at Prana restaurant, part of Temple nightclub). We took suggestions for future venues. (If you have a suggestion, please contact us). We need someone from the group to step forward to be the point person for the group, someone who can be the host for future meetings, so if you live in San Francisco and can help us out, please volunteer!

Some members stayed after the meeting to tour Temple. From the left: (top) Nils Davis, 150 year-old Buddha statue, Rich Wingerter; (bottom) Florence, Alex, and Kathryn

One question that came up was whether to be a member of both the San Francisco and the South Bay Meetup groups. Events are placed on the calendars depending on whether we think that people in that area would be interested in the event. For many events we cross post them to both groups because we feel that the topic or speaker would be worth a little travel. Also, events in the middle of the peninsula are likely to be within easy travel for both groups. So, my advice is to join the group that centers on the place you are closest to. If you are closer to San Francisco than to Silicon Valley, then the Green Building group is a better bet. If you are near the Palo Alto-Santa Clara area, then the Green Making for the Silicon Valley Area is probably better.

Temple provided us with a tour of their facilities, which aim to be a totally green nightclub. From the vertical garden on the front wall to the green roof being installed, the owners are committed to building a sustainable operation. A new piezoelectric floor to be installed will capture the energy of dancers to create lighting. Most solid waste is diverted from landfill.

Nils provided a detailed update from the conference. Passive houses represent a huge step toward building zero-net energy houses, but making them widespread in the U.S. will need to overcome some barriers. Only about 20 to 30 passive houses have been built in the U.S., mostly in the mid-west. Nils said that he thinks cities need to provide incentives to builders and the concept of the passive house needs to be publicized. Then it is a matter of making the proper materials available, such as heat exchanging ventilators and high-performance windows and doors.

We plan to schedule Nils for a meeting in the South Bay so he can tell us more about the conference. Please look for the announcement on our Meetup group.

I want to thank everyone who came to the meeting for helping to make it a success!

–Rich Wingerter

Monday, I attended the State of Green Business Forum sponsored by GreenBiz.com and held in the PG&E auditorium in San Francisco. You can probably find out everything you need to know about the conference itself elsewhere, so I just want to touch on the most important observations here. (You can see videos of the conference here.)

Obama Panel (from the left): Joel Makower, Jeff Anderson, Sanjay Wagle, and Holly Kaufman

Observation 1: It’s no longer fringe. I estimate there were four to five hundred in attendance, nearly filling the auditorium. Most of these people were official corporate suit-wearing managers, not tie-dyed, granola eaters (at least during the work day). They also spoke corporate-speak: “Innovation as a Green Strategy”, “Energy Efficiency Rises Again”, and “Is Water the New Carbon?” Officially, the conference featured the role out of GreenBiz’s latest “State of Green Business 2009” report, available free here (with registration). We are not wiring up mud huts with our hands and spare bailing wire.

Observation 2: Sometimes green is only skin deep. One participant (Peter Williams of IBM) noted that if green is centered in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) then the company isn’t serious.

Observation 3: Just because we’re experts, doesn’t mean we know what we’re talking about. One question to a panel was, “Is this just a fad?” See Observation 1. Look, the first time this came around in the 1960s there were 3 billion humans. Now there are nearly 7 billion and we’re looking at 10 to 12 before it’s all over. The average person in the U.S. uses five times as much energy as the average person worldwide, but everyone wants our standard of living. (Well, YMMV, but as a generalization….) So, are we going to produce seven or eight times as much energy in the world as we currently do to fill all that need? Using oil- and coal-fired power plants? Not! QED.

Observation 4: It’s still not obvious how to sell “green”. Another question that came up was, “Why has it been so hard to establish clear needs?” The reason seems obvious to me: the needs are global but people feel needs on an individual level. I don’t need to buy sustainably planted wood to put up studs in the wall, but if no one does it then all our forests may disappear. Figuring out how to turn this tragedy of the commons into a personal tragedy is the key to selling green to consumers.

Observation 5: You can’t go it alone. Maybe this is a corollary to Observation 4, but if your company does green and your competitors don’t then they are playing you for a sucker. To get around this, Levi Strauss developed the practice of bringing their competitors into the loop. To preserve watershed, for example, they went to other clothing manufacturers and created a “CEO mandate”, which brings them all together to set standards for water use.

Observation 6: You don’t need to go it alone. At least, you don’t always need to. Many companies are reluctant to implement energy-saving changes because they doubt manufacturers’ energy-saving claims about products. To combat that, PG&E is doing product testing that can tell their customers whether products live up to their claims, according to Lee Cooper of PG&E.

Observation 7: Laggards are losers. That’s not an observation from the conference, but it is an important concept in evaluating when you are going to jump on the green bandwagon. You might want to consider what Geoffrey Moore has to say about the motivations of early adopters vs. laggards. What drives an early adopter? The knowledge that they can sometimes use new technology to steal a march on their competitors and reap the huge profits that follow from capturing markets early. They are willing to trade high risk for high rewards. So, if you are a high-rewards type, don’t wait too long to get on the green bandwagon. See Observation 1.

–Rich Wingerter