I was in a meeting with a fellow USGBC member last August 2009 to discuss recent changes made on LEED Version 3.0.  I told him that it appears that there wasn't a change on the Materials and Resources (MR) credits where waste management is a prime component.  I attended several USGBC lecture series and other university sponsored sustainable development seminars in the past and nobody seems to be putting much emphasis on waste.  These lectures are mostly centered on energy and water issues.  Building performance seems to matter most because its the prime source of the dreaded carbon dioxide emissions.

The way we view waste (or trash in typical lingo) in the construction industry is so much the same as the way we treat them in our day to day lives - once its thrown away, we don't want to see it anymore.  What matter to us is the end product.  So much like carving a perfect diamond from a piece of mined diamond crystal.  Oftentimes, the end product is smaller than where it originally came from.  If we scale it up into a typical house construction, imagine how much waste we generate in the process.  According to the U.S. Building Energy Data Book (Constrtuction Waste, 2007):

• two to seven tons of waste (roughly 4 pounds per square foot) are generated during construction of a single family detached house
• 15 to 70 pounds of hazardous waste are generated during construction.  Hazardous waste include paint, caulk, roofing cements, aerosols, solvents, adhesives, oils and greases
• each year, U.S. builders produce between 30 to 35 million tons of construction, renovation and demolition (C&D) waste.  In 2008, at the peek of the construction boom, McGraw Hill reports that U.S. builders generated a whoping 143.5 million tons of C&D waste - that's almost 5 times the average!
• annual C&D debris accounts for roughly24% of municipal waste stream
• waste include wood (27% of total) and other (73% of total, including cardboard and paper, drywall/plaster, insulation, siding, roofing, metal, concrete, asphalt, masonry, bricks and dirt rubble, waterproofing material and landscaping material)
• as much as 95% of building related construction waste is recyclable and most material are clean and unmixed

Until several days ago, construction waste has always taken the back seat of sustainable building.  Always been part of the LEED credits but never been the primary issue that drives green building practice.  During the Greenbuild 2009, the premier annual green building convention currently being held in Phoenix, Arizona, the McGraw-Hill Companies released their SmartMarket report: Sustainable Construction Waste Management: Creating Value in the Built Environment. The highlight of the report are the following:

• Most contractors place sustainable waste management (61%) and responsible use of materials and resources (57%) as two of the three most important aspects of green building, behind energy efficiency. This importance is expected to increase in five years to 80% and 78%, respectively.
• Waste diversion activity is increasing despite the recession; 20% of firms are diverting half of their construction waste on 60% or more of projects, and 25% of firms expect to do so within the next year.
• The biggest drivers behind sustainable construction waste management practices include client demand (82%) and government regulations (81%). Competitive advantage (77%) and increases in education and awareness (75%) are also cited as major influencing factors.
• Already, 57% of contractors have set sustainability positions and diversion goals, and 43% plan to divert more than 50% of waste from projects this year.

The report in its entirety is very telling within the context of green building and sustainable development as a whole.  Its a punctuation mark to the never ending issue on the importance of waste management in sustainable development.  Now, waste has earned the equal billing it deserves as energy and water.  I have always thought that sustainable development has its own three-legged stool:  energy, water and waste.  This logic has finally been justified.

Seriously, construction waste has indeed gone mainstream....

“To achieve true sustainability, we must reduce our 'garbage index" - that which we permanently throw away into the environment that will not be naturally recycled for reuse - to near zero. Productive activities must be organized as closed systems. Minerals and other nonbiodegradable resources, once taken from the ground, must become a part of society's permanent capital stock and be recycled in perpetuity. Organic materials may be disposed into the natural ecosystems, but only in ways that assure that they are absorbed back into the natural production system.” - David Korten

Still, the public sector has not embraced this movement like corporations have just yet. I believe this has to do with the fact that consumers cannot realize not only the ROI, but perhaps even both the tangible and intangible benefits quite yet.

The lack of embrace is not due to a lack of available choices. The average consumer has a vast number of green products they can purchase for use in all parts of life. Examples include; low VOC paint, efficient bulbs and appliances, hybrid cars, geothermal power, solar panels, renewable energy plans, bamboo flooring (by the way, I hate the plant...neither here nor there), and also organic food, etc. Enough, you get it. The point of this is that still, with all of the known tangible and intangible benefits, the average consumer will not go green in their personal lives until it is cost beneficial for them, especially when times are rough.

Smaller items with huge initial ROI’s, like CFL type bulbs, are now common in the public. This is partially due to the instant gratification and tangible savings right away, sans a large investment. On the other hand, spending that extra $5 dollars for a certified organic meal may sound great in practice, but times are tough, and that mass produced hormone -injected chicken breast is cheap. Sure, there might be intangible benefits to eating organic, but a large fact remains…There is no immediate monetary reward or savings for the organic food (usually the opposite!). Comparable cases to these are really when you get to test a consumer’s green conscience.

So is it cost-beneficial for the average person to install solar panels on their house? Is bamboo flooring going to be a better choice than laminate? Will a homeowner see a certain return on their investment for a tankless water heater? As seen in a recent article from the Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/green/chi-091025-buying-green-myths-pictures,0,5048990.photogallery, these are all case-by-case scenarios for individuals to decide which answer is the best.

Yet, similar to every economic decision that consumers’ encounter, there is that opportunity cost and benefit debate that each of us will have to make. And even though it is improving, for the time being the opportunity cost is greatly outweighing the benefits of going green in our personal lives. The good news is that this is all based around simple economics; supply and demand. Inevitably, the supply and demand curves will shift to a point where the consumer will have more economically feasible choices in the green marketplace, and the green conscience in all of us will rejoice.

Remember when Plasma TV’s first came out and they were the same price as a compact car?? Now you can practically win them in a cereal box. The same thing will inevitably happen with green products.

In the mean time, it is the duty of us “in the know” to open eyes on both the tangible and intangible benefits to going green and help expedite the inevitable transformation to a green economy. We are that part of society which can help influence how economically feasible going green is in the long-run. It’s kind of a cool thing to be on the forefront of something so big…I wonder if folks realized this during the Industrial Revolution?

Only months after the launch of this region’s office, we’re encouraged by the strong positive reaction and interest in Green Squad’s sustainability consulting services for waste, energy, water and LEED gap analyses. We expect to make some announcements about some significant partnerships in the coming months.

Keep an eye out for the white Prius with the Green Squad logos. In addition, Green Squad will be at the NJ League of Municipalities annual conference, November 17-19, 2009.

The following diagram outlines how a small change to improve the triple bottom line of a community can impact all parts of a community. However messy and complex this diagram may seem, it only shows a snapshot; and although this diagram simplifies an extremely complex system, it is a wonderful way to remind us how interdependent our community systems are. Now with the triple bottom line we can take that integration that in the past has led to problems and use it to lead our communities to sustainability.

So how does a community begin to try and look at themselves from this perspective? Well, it isn’t simple, quick, or easy. Those approaches are what have gotten communities into the binds that they are currently in. First, the community needs to make a commitment and make it public. Advertise that you are looking to be sustainable. Then form a team. Triple Bottom Line planning takes stakeholder involvement from all realms within a community. Every community is unique with regard to specific stakeholders, but in general, a community will need to engage: citizens, local industry and business, economic development officials, public officials, city planners, city engineers, and non-profits ranging from environmental groups to low income housing groups to environmental health groups. Public advertising of the team creation is important, so that stakeholder’s don’t view the team selection as biased toward any particular faction.

Yes, this much involvement can seem daunting, but it is essential to create a viable, long-term sustainable plan for your community. By providing stakeholder involvement from all realms of the community you ensure “buy-in” as well as a stronger integration of your community’s functionalities.

Before advertising, lump potential stakeholders into “areas” and then when advertising request those areas to choose one “area” representative who will disseminate information to their constituents and feed thoughts, comments, and requests back to the team. The number of representatives will be determined by the size of your community, but keeping it under 20 people will help facilitate discussion and keep meetings to a reasonable length.

Ground-rules for your Triple Bottom Line team will be important. Everyone must be willing and able to hear other perspectives, promote multiple agendas other than their own, and commit to what is best for the community as a whole. Open dialogue is a must and no one faction can dominate the team. This is where a good facilitator comes in. The most effective facilitator will be an un-biased third-party. Many communities will bring in a facilitator from outside the community, which can help when animosity currently exists in a community, but it isn’t a requirement. If there is a person in your community that can be seen as impartial, trustworthy, and committed to the best outcome for the entire community (a community “father”), this often-times is the best solution because people feel that the facilitator cares about the outcome and therefore will mediate with the community’s best interest at heart.

It’s easy enough to find the soon-to-be well-trodden path; a Google search or quick meeting with a consultant will reveal literally hundreds of cases, articles and essays that can be used to put your company on the path of sustainability. However, the fact is that the optimal path is different for every company. Organizational drag, budgetary considerations, and the technologies employed will affect the complexity of the mission to make the company and its products more sustainable.

A basic law of the organization is that it makes its own survival paramount. In that, it’s no different from any evolutionary model. For that reason, it is vital to understand the organizational landscape in order to accomplish anything worthwhile. Understanding this landscape provides a starting point, a direction, and a route, highlighting obstacles and opportunities along the path to sustainability. In short, the organization is its own environment, within the larger environment we all inhabit.

GTI (General Theory of Innovation) is a powerful tool that offers a unique perspective for understanding the corporate sustainability landscape. Through GTI, we perceive everything to be a system. An organization’s products, markets, employees, and even its bureaucracy are all seen as systems according to GTI. In fact, everything that makes up the corporate environment can be thought of as a set of systems and subsystems, organized into a hierarchy whose collective purpose is to produce goods or services.

According to GTI, every system contributes positively and negatively to the organization’s environment, and requires organizational resources. A machine contributes work (positive) and emissions (negative), and in exchange requires energy, maintenance, and other resources.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. The evolution of all systems is governed by a set of natural laws that are consistent whether we are talking about the organization, or the world at large. One of these natural laws, the law of evolution, states that evolution has order and does not occur randomly. In other words, when a system evolves, it has a predominant direction. All systems strive to evolve, to deliver more functionality and require fewer resources from their environments.

Because all systems are subject to natural laws, the evolution of any system is inevitable. Evolution requires that the environment seek to reduce the price it pays for the services of the system. Furthermore, the environment will also seek to eliminate any system that harms it.

What this suggests is that none of us has control over the move towards a sustainable existence. In fact, the sustainability movement was inevitable and the result of a natural and predictable evolution.

Sustainability is simply a natural evolutionary cycle that is attempting to create efficiency in and remove cost from the environment. Fortunately for businesses, the consequences of participation in this evolution can also be greater efficiency and reduced operating expense. It’s safe to say that tomorrow’s Green Economy will continue to be a reflection of these natural laws from which no organization can escape if it desires to survive. Sustainability at its core is nothing more than a “natural” reaction to increase efficiency and drive out costs.

One final point: if you apply these same GTI principles to GHG emissions, then the impending regulatory requirement to reduce GHG emissions may just be natural laws at work. In this scenario, the environment is seeking to eliminate the systems that are causing it harm. We are all part of that evolutionary effort.

In my next blog, I’ll explore how the concept of GTI can be applied to your organization, to ensure its own survival.