The bloggers over at the Practical Environmentalist just bought a non-green building in Dallas for their business, Clean Air Gardening.  The 13,000 sf building was built in the 1960s and they have a budget of about $50,000 to make it green.  We’re talking LEED, Energy Star, etc., you name it, they want to go green in an economically pragmatic way.  I figure we can tap the wisdom of the crowds and find a way to help them out, citizen wisdom style.  Feel free to drop your ideas into the comments here, or go over to PE directly and leave a comment.  Also, if you’re a Dallas business and want to get involved helping them do their thing, make sure to let them know. 

Already, PE seems to have this situation under control.  I like that they are signing up with Green Mountain Energy, using low-VOCs inside (good for indoor air quality), replacing old toilets with more water-efficient ones, adding a rainwater cistern to avoid using new water for landscaping, and replacing the door with a more energy-efficient set up.  Here are a few additional suggestions I have:

• Consider a commercial-grade energy audit to determine where you may be losing air or energy.  Use that information to seal up cracks and fix stuff as needed (which will allow you to rely less on the dated HVAC system). 
• Like you say, go with the Commercial Solatube lighting, if possible.  The more natural light, the better.  Why pay for light when the sun gives it away for free? 
• For the interior design, use low-VOC carpets tiles and adaptable workstations/furniture from a company like Haworth (big-time commitment to recycled and sustainable products).  Haworth has a strong Dallas presence. 
• Before making the investment in solar, try using a thermal energy storage product (like the ones offered by Dallas-based Trinity Thermal) that captures cheaper energy during off-peak times for use during more expensive peak periods.  This can contribute to LEED certification and has good $$ benefits. 
• If you’re renovating the exterior, continue using a light color to reflect heat from the building.  Also, landscape in ways to shade the hottest parts of the building.  You guys are experts here, but natural landscaping will help with water conservation, too. 

That’s what I have so far, but I’m sure there are Dallas experts out there waiting to get your business and showcase their products.  Good luck!

That’s right.  Another example of the business case for going green.  Recently, Gatorade received LEED Gold-level certification for the Gatorade Thirst Quencher Blue Ridge facility in Wytheville, Virginia.  At 950,000 sf, it weighs in as the largest green food and beverage facility in the world.  Notice the oxymoron: large green; but it’s not really fair for me to say that.  Building a manufacturing facility to the LEED Gold level can be quite the accomplishment.  Like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo (which owns Gatorade) sees the benefits of having green production facilities.  In addition to the PR benefits of showing the community that you’re not wasteful of valuable water resources, you build a better work environment for employees and waste less energy.  Big companies with green buildings show their employees that green is good, and this thinking starts to cascade.  Eventually, employees will greenify their homes and habits.  Employees will tell their friends and families, too.  Word will spread and there will be a point, not in the too distant future, when everyone accepts green as the standard and non-green as passé, wasteful, and unsophisticated. 

Good Links:
+Gatorade LEED Gold Press Release
+Gatorade Press Release with Blue Ridge Image [CSRwire]
+Coca-Cola Flaunts Business Case for Green Renovations [JG]

1. USGBC Now Allows Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Points under LEED Innovation in Design Category.
2. Britain Assesses the Pros and Cons of Green Homes. 
3. Baltimore is One Step Closer to Becoming Next City to Require Developers to Incorporate Green Building Standards into Projects. 
4. New Exelon HQs Becomes Largest Office Space in the World to be LEED-CI Certified at the Platinum Level. 

This year’s Met Home Design 100 list has a ton of green projects and products and one of the magazine’s choices is the David Hertz LivingHome shown above.  Built from a unique, aluminum-based panelized system, the Hertz home is about 2,650 sf with four bedrooms + four bathrooms.  For ease of reference, I’m going to refer to this home as DH1 (see also RK1 and RK2), which I think works because in all likelihood, LivingHomes will feature more Hertz designs in the future.  DH1 features a green roof and a private balcony that can be accessed by three of the four bedrooms.  And like the other LivingHome prefab products, it will be LEED certified. 

At a price point of about $215 psf, I hear LivingHomes is looking for the right client to take the plunge on DH1.  What does it take?  (1) land in or near Los Angeles, (2) intent to build within the next six months, (3) a budget of about +$750,000, (4) interest in building a green home, and (5) tolerance and patience throughout the process. 

To me, this is a no-brainer.  If I were out of college and established in business, I’d plop down a million in a heartbeat just to get the DH1 built and use it as a vacation home (at a minimum).  I’d buy it for the joy of having one of the greenest prefabs in the country and I’d let all my friends stay in it.  Actually, I’d probably hire a management company to lease it out by the day, week, or month, so anyone in the world could test out the joys of living in a modern + green home.  I’d invite builders from all over the country to stay in it for free and showcase the green benefits.  I’d make green viral.  That’s what you can do with a great-looking, high-performance home like the DH1. 

If you’re like me, you don’t have The Sundance Channel and you buy each episode of Big Ideas on iTunes for $1.99.  I downloaded the last episode called "BUILD" and liked it so much, I’m going to buy a copy of the video on iTunes for the first 5 people to comment in this post.  It’s really good.  In an information-packed 25 minutes and 38 seconds, the producers take us through Michelle Kaufmann’s prefab factory, the process of building a Glidehouse, Carlton Brown’s green multifamily housing in New York, the advantages of green building, the future of green building with technology, and Mitchell Joachim’s fab tree hab. 

Note – I’ll use the email that you comment with to gift the episode to you through iTunes.  This is not a Sundance promo, this is JG promoting modern, green building.