Bob Lindal is the President of Lindal Cedar Homes, and his company is probably the largest provider of custom cedar homes in the country.  Bob has been in the business for about 50 years, and today published a letter on the company blog.  Lindal explains that he’s seen several recessions before, but this one is different.  Prior recoveries retained the status quo, but “this emerging recovery is into a fundamentally changed world with new long-term priorities in housing.”

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William McDonough is one of the greatest minds the environmental movement has to offer.  He’s the co-author of Cradle-to-Cradle, Time’s Hero for the Planet, and a recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development.  And, perhaps more importantly, he’s extremely influential.  McDonough shares ideas with compelling clarity, and listeners can’t help but pass the message along.  I had the opportunity to listen to McDonough’s keynote at West Coast Green yesterday and took down the following quotes.

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William McDonough* has always been a beacon and true voice of environmental leadership, despite what a recent magazine article may be trying to say.  Case in point, just last week he warned of a lop-sided focus on carbon during his keynote speech at the ParkCity conference in London (organized by Cabe and Natural England).  If you've ever listened to Mr. McDonough, you know his speeches are captivating — there's always a lot worth remembering — but in this most recent keynote, one particular sound bite has been making the internet rounds.  He likened buildings to "killing machines:"

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“At this point it is my experience green buildings are receiving the same financing they would get for any high quality building with a good tenant … what I think will change is that lenders will start assessing a premium on financing for any building that is not designed to green standards.”

Comparing green buildings to the advent of air conditioning, the quote continues:  “At first buildings that came equipped with air conditioning were seen as luxury developments.  But within a short period of time any building that didn’t have it was considered functionally obsolete.”

– Jim Amorin, president-elect of the Appraisal Institute [via]

"Truth is, I’ve been a skeptic about many aspects of the green building movement.  My eyebrow arches when, for example, someone uses bamboo flooring (which is held together with lots and lots of glue, often containing formaldehyde, and is shipped to the US on bunker-oil-burning ships) to floor a new ‘green’ 11,000 sf house.  Tough too to get on board when magazines feature low-VOC paints on one page and walk-in showers with multiple heads and bodywashers on another.  Greenwashing, marketing whatever’s hot, and just trying to make ourselves feel better as we change almost nothing about our consumption habits — the suspicion of these plus the thought that a year’s worth of green living is negated by 2 minutes operation of a coal-powered electricity plant … you get the picture … but after my time in the desert of cynicism, I’ve been reminded that every little bit helps, and just because larger forces are at work doesn’t mean we do nothing as individuals—as long as we keep lobbying against the big stuff, like coal-powered electricity plants."

     — Bruce Irving, Renovation Consultant, former producer of This Old House

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