Blueprint for Design

What is your impact on the global health of the climate? That is a question we are now getting daily from websites, the media, our friends, our politicians. When consumers go to a website that has a carbon calculator, they will see their carbon footprint  generated. A large portion of it will be from what they spend on their electricity, gas and water.

As architects, we need to be leaders and experts on this because buildings use most of our energy and water.  Clients are going to want to know what they can do. The biggest problem is not ignorance, it’s what people know that isn’t true.

I spent this last weekend volunteering at Green Festival in Seattle. The convention was only $10 to get in, but instead I decided to volunteer on the Green Team. The Green Team has two parts, Garbage separation and Education. On day one, I was on the education end. My teammate and I stood behind the garbage cans, recycling bin and compost bin. We instructed attendees how to dispose of their trash. Your standard coffee cup with lid and cuff we split into three parts. The lid, #6 plastic is not recyclable – it goes in the trash.  The cuff (if clean) can go into the recycle bin, and the cup goes to compost (because it is soiled). Many people think that plastics #4 – #6 can be recycled, and generally, they cannot. Excessively soiled paper in with other clean paper that batch of recycled paper is tossed out. Compost with too much plastic, glass, or metal is rejected – ending up in a landfill. To recycle effectively you must know the requirements of the processor receiving your materials.

The next day I served on the back of house aspect of the Green Team. Here our duties are more hands on. Each bag that came in from the floor is opened and the garbage further separated. Our goal at Green Festivals is a 93% to 98% diversion of material from landfill. We physically pull the materials out and sort them, down to the last sample toothpick or the smallest bit of plastic. We had a dumpster for glass, paper, and recyclable plastic. Additionally there was a separate dumpster for corrugated cardboard, and a dumpster for compost, and finally one small dumpster for landfill. We also received garbage from the kitchen too. In the course of my life I have lost most of my sense of smell – that day it was a blessing.

Green Washing

One of the things that irked me was that some of the sample containers vendors were passing out – in huge numbers – are non-recyclable containers. Most of the vendors were putting samples in corn-based sample cups. Perfectly fine, corn plastics we composted. The kitchen was terrible at separating their garbage. We would get bags of food waste – designated compost – and it would be full of plastic, rubber gloves, glass. Only a few bags like that could have contaminated our whole dumpster of compost. It would have been rejected and have to go to landfill. So fortunately, we were able to go through it and correctly separate it. Again the tradeoffs: The convention needs to sell spaces to vendors, so they provide a venue for green businesses, and collect an audience receptive to the ideas of conservation and the new green economy – the tradeoff – some of the sample containers are not so eco-friendly. I have to report though the overall amount of garbage left by the attendees was very low.

What this experience taught me was as architects we have to be thorough. Many product sales people are going to tell us something is recyclable, low impact, carbon neutral, etc. We have to find out what they mean by that. Read the fine print. Understand the tradeoff the product has.

Things we can do

Conservation – If you are not concerned with conserving gas, electricity or your money – get with the program! This is the easiest way to make a change for the positive. Drive less, make fewer trips, do what you can to bike or walk to accomplish a task. One group taking a good approach that I met at Green Festival is 10:10US. Originally started in Britain, the basic goal is 10% reduction in direct carbon emissions every year for 10 years.  They don’t count emissions offsets purchased to absolve you of your lifestyle choices. Very practical and strait forward – I calculated my Carbon Foot Print to be about 13.09 Metric Tons of carbon a year, so I need to find a way to cut out 1.3 tons this year.  I have a low carbon footprint for several reasons: Unemployment (so I don’t commute), I live in an apartment (so I use less power), and I have all electric utilities. It will be larger once I start commuting, how large will depend on where and how.  I’ll have to make that choice: do I drive, take the train, where do I make compromises?

In building design, it’s all about tradeoffs. There is no one building material, structure, or system that will guarantee better building performance. It’s how you put all of the systems together in the site as it is. Knowing the client’s goal is important too. If they want to be purely carbon neutral on paper, you can cut down those trees and they can purchase an offset – If they are purists, leave the trees and get creative. Again the fine print, what are the goals. If they don’t know, it’s our job to explain the implications of choices, the trade offs of costs and benefits to the client’s budget or to the planet.

photo credit: ezioman