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The Green Column

by Lance Fletcher, AIA, LEED AP

Ten years ago The Green Column was begun as an effort to raise awareness about the relationship between the work we do as architects and the natural world which supports us. To that end most columns have focused on specific issues of sustainable design, new developments, ongoing progress and sources of information with which to enrich—and “green”—our design practices. Occasional columns have focused on the broader question of why we should care about sustainable building design. This month’s column is one of those. It comes about as the result of a somewhat disheartening, but ultimately energizing, four days listening, reading and, finally, meeting with building industry colleagues.

On Monday, 28 March, came an ABC news report about a group of 26 former senior national security officials, from the Reagan, Bush, Sr. and Clinton administrations, who wrote the current president that “‘The United States’ dependence on imported petroleum poses a risk to our homeland security and economic well-being.’ … In 1974, 37 percent of the oil used in the United States was imported. By last year, that number had soared to 63 percent….the signers of the letter said the country will have to look elsewhere for solutions. They suggested ‘a major new initiative to curtail US consumption through improved efficiency and other available petroleum fuel alternatives.’ ‘This is not rocket science; this is within our grasp today,’ said Robert McFarlane, national security adviser to Reagan.” (ABC News)

On Tuesday, 29 March, in a column titled, “Geo-greening is smart politics,” Thomas Friedman in the New York Times quoted Peter Schwartz, chairman of the World Business Network, a leading energy and strategy consulting firm. “Climate change is real and it poses a civilizational threat that could transform the carrying capacity of the entire planet.”

Also on Tuesday was a report that some oil industry analysts predict that oil will rise to $100 a barrel fairly quickly.

On Wednesday, 30 March, the Millennium Assessment Board released the “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report,” which concluded that “approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth—such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests—are being degraded or used unsustainably… Although evidence remains incomplete, there is enough for the experts to warn that the ongoing degradation of 15 of the 24 ecosystem services examined is increasing the likelihood of potentially abrupt changes that will seriously affect human well-being.” See www.millenniumassessment.org for information about the report and the international group of scientists behind it. Among these are the Americans: Robert Watson, Chief Scientist and Senior Advisor ESSD, World Bank, who co-chairs the board; Professor Harold Mooney of Stanford University, who co-chairs the (scientific) Assessment Panel; and Henry Schacht, Past Chairman of Lucent Technologies.

The news on the first three days of this week, then, conveyed a sense of urgency about the world for which we have responsibility, the world which future generations will inherit.

Thursday, 31 March, was spent at a day-long conference sponsored by a segment of the building industry. Three of six sessions attended focused on issues of sustainability. These sessions, which ostensibly addressed the efforts of that portion of our industry to operate sustainably, were dominated by half-truths, some downright obfuscation, and tangential attacks on efforts such as LEED to change the market. (While this column has noted before that LEED is an imperfect instrument, it is an instrument under development. Criticisms which seek to raise the bar to achieve truly sustainable practices should inform that development. The criticisms heard at this conference implied the need to lower the bar to preserve the status quo). Thursday was the most disheartening day.

To the extent that we have responsibility for the built environment, architects, American architects in particular, should feel a sense of urgency that the buildings we create do not contribute to the system overload and the crisis of resources outlined in the news reports above. Historically they have so contributed. It is now becoming common knowledge that constructing and operating buildings account for 40% of US energy consumption, for example. That development and the extraction of resources for building construction often involve water pollution and destruction of habitat is also well documented. The list goes on. The resulting problems are not the result of a few large projects, but of millions of decisions on thousands of projects—yours and mine included—which act cumulatively on the earth’s environment.

To help us address this responsibility, there are assessment systems like LEED, green design guidelines from a variety of sources, etc. It now appears that there will be competing assessment systems, some legitimate attempts to address shortcomings in LEED and some attempts to replace LEED with greenwash designed to maintain the status quo. We will need to know the difference.

Essentially, though, if we are to do our jobs well in the 21st century, for every project we design, we should be able to answer the following questions thoughtfully, thoroughly and honestly:

We often hear the question, “Isn’t green design just good design, after all?” The historical answer is a qualified yes, qualified because the arbiters of “good design” have not always cared about its environmental costs. The answer for our century, however, will be an unqualified yes.


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