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Martha,
In late 1997, Rice University in Houston announced
they were planning to build a new Business School building on campus. One of the
professors, eight other students and myself formed a group to try to
convince the university to make the building "green". University officials
are a breed unto themselves, especially with regards to a B-school, but our
experiences might offer you some parallels to what you'll
encounter.
In general, we ran into a lot of resistance
due to perceptions of what green building is or is not. When we first
approached the dean, he said "We aren't building an adobe hut for a business
school." As a result of this and other misconceptions, we spent a great
deal of time providing education to dispel ideas that environmentally sensitive
buildings are outrageously expensive/ look funny, etc. So, you're likely to
run into similar misconceptions and you'll have to address the education
issue to explain what you want to do and why it makes sense. Because we
were dealing with a B-school in the oil capital of the world, that meant
downplaying the environmental benefits to some degree, while emphasizing
other benefits in terms of costs, enhanced experience for inhabitants, public
relations opportunities, etc. In other words, we appealed to what they
understood.
In terms of measures that officials would
accept, we found that we had to avoid features that they viewed as
extreme. I'll have to go back and look at the report, but things like PV or
waterless urinals were definite non-starters. Items that come to mind that
were easier to sell included daylighting, high efficiency windows, non-toxic
building materials, and effective use of space.
In case you are wondering what happened, we had
mixed success. By Spring of 1998, the dean said "Why would anyone build a
building any other way?", so we made some real progress on the education side.
However, we didn't get as many of the measures we had hoped incorporated into
the building. Construction on the $60 million building has begun and
should be finished in 2002.
I would be happy to send you a copy of the report
that we put together if you're interested. Good luck!
Tim Nieman
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:46
AM
Subject: GBlist: green building and
energy efficiency
Hi! I am a graduate student in the University of Texas'
Community and
Regional Planning program and am working on a professional
report concerning
the feasibility of incorporating green building codes
and/or energy
efficiency measures into the Houston CMSA State
Implementation Plan (SIP).
I have a couple of questions that I'm hoping
that this group might be able
to provide some general answers/leads for
additional information:
1. What do you feel are the top 5 or 10
easiest/most likely to be accepted
green building/energy efficiency
measures that a city or MSA could require?
2. Do you know of any cities
or areas that have done this? Which ones?
3. What do you feel are
the biggest barriers to requiring this and what
would be some ways to
remove those barriers?
I know these are rather broad questions - any
comments and/or leads would be
much
appreciated!
Thanks!
Martha Arosemena
marthaa@austin.rr.com
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