KISS: Keep it Simple Sustainability! – Part 1

Posted January 10, 2012 By Aman Desouza and has no comments yet.
 

Aman Desouza

Aman Desouza

Aman Desouza is Director, Innovation and Sustainability for CertainTeed Corporation

Not least among the challenges of sustainability are the challenges of recognizing and avoiding greenwashing. The market seems to want sustainability and demand greener products but it also wants to know, understandably, that the claims of sustainability are credible and have been verified. 

From a manufacturer’s standpoint, we look for ways to provide that credibility, which in turn we hope will give us a competitive edge, accelerate the adoption and sales of our products and bring value to our sustainability efforts.  We are, after all, a competitive and profit oriented bunch. So, over the last few years, most manufacturers have moved from making blanket statements about sustainability towards fact based claims and they are now moving even further towards the use of third party labels. 

This is all very good and generally positive, but does it help the customer?

The problem is that not all labels are created equal and for the most part, labels are not even comparable, which does not help the consumer much.  While there is certainly value in the 3rd party validation that a label offers, we are essentially shifting the burden of credibility from products to labels. 

I propose that what consumers need to facilitate good decisions are not verifications of a myriad claims of uncertain value in their context, but a few simple, relevant facts and the knowledge required to evaluate them in context. 

Should the facts be verified? Certainly!  That’s where third party validation would be valuable. 

 This is part one of this blog.  Watch for the second installment.

About Aman Desouza

Aman Desouza is Director, Innovation and Sustainability for CertainTeed Corporation

Categories:
 green/sustainable

The U.S. Green Building Council Beefs Up LEED 2012 Standards

Posted November 4, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has 1 comment.

Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation.

Do you remember the Wendy’s ads that featured an old woman walking up to the counter of a burger joint and asking “Where’s the Beef?” Well there are times when I feel the same way about our efforts in the U.S. to really advance energy efficiency.

I am glad to see that the U.S. Green Building Council is upgrading the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification standards.  The bar needs to be continually raised especially with regard to measuring the long-term results of energy upgrades.  But will they have gone far enough and are there tools available now to accurately measure performance?

The retrofit market clearly needs to be encouraged to improve energy efficiency.  One way that this is happening in major cities is through mandates.  New York and San Francisco have such mandates but there are a great many cities and towns between those that are not even ready to mandate LEED on new construction.

Even with a stalled economy with regard to new construction, manufacturers continue to develop products that propel us into sustainability: wallboard that removes formaldehyde from the air; insulation that minimizes its environmental impact; and solar roofing to harness power from the sun instead of the grid.  But without real incentives or mandates we continue to be a nation of obvious consumption because the cost of energy is still reasonable, for now.

The new LEED rating systems do include more stringent requirements regarding the sharing of data on a building’s energy use and owners of LEED certified buildings will have to re-apply for certification every five years.  This is crucial because maintaining the systems is just as important as installing them in the first place.

In a previous blog, I discussed the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) Energy Quotient which rates buildings on energy consumption.  Making these tools standard practice will drive us as consumers to improve the efficiency in our homes and buildings.  It supports the “buyer beware” far beyond the current home inspection process.

More and more professionals are getting credentialed in building energy rating which will increase the ability to test buildings and make recommendations.  These are the green jobs that are coming on line. Now we need to add more ‘beef’ and some incentives (not necessarily hand-outs) to help building and home owners choose a sustainable future.

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

Embodied Energy Versus Operational Energy

Posted August 23, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has no comments yet.

Lucas Hamilton

Recently during a webinar I was conducting, the topic came up of embodied energy versus operational energy.  This topic continues to come up as building scientists evaluate systems with regard to their sustainability.

There are two things that can make a product green. It can be green in its manufacture or it can be green in its application.  One of the important topics for understanding the manufacture or delivery of a product is the concept of embodied energy – how much cumulative energy went into the extraction of the raw materials, the manufacture of the product and the transportation of the product to its final application.  This is the concept of embodied energy. Operational energy relates to how much energy the product uses or can save once it has been applied or installed into a system. 

For instance, look at insulation. Many types of insulation are actually very energy intensive in their manufacture, however once they are installed they can save many times over within the very first year of their application. A perfect example of operational energy is fiberglass insulation. In its first year of use, fiberglass insulation can save 12 times the amount of energy it took in making and transporting the product.

So let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Sometimes, material that is superior in performance with regard to the life cycle of a building may have a little bit of negative upfront energy costs, however in its use can be very positive. 

So don’t make a judgment solely based on the embodied energy but rather on the life cycle of the project to determine if it is positive or negative for the project itself.

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

Living Inside a Cooler – The Challenges of the Net-Zero Building Envelope

Posted August 16, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has 1 comment.

Lucas Hamilton

Can we live inside a cooler? We’re going to find out.

As we respond to the challenges of energy and resource depletion through the construction of super efficient and sustainable buildings we must remember why we are constructing buildings in the first place- it’s for people. The net-zero envelope is like a portable cooler – super tight, thermally efficient, and breathes no air.  The easiest was to create super efficient buildings is to just copy a portable cooler and then shove people inside. However, a building’s primary function is to provide a safe and healthy habitat for people. The success of any building technique or approach should be judged by this criterion first.

When struggling to find motivation for doing the right thing – good indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in this case – we have a strong incentive when it comes to our homes.  We love our families and want them to have the best environment we can provide.

In a commercial setting, since some of us don’t love our co-workers, we need to find a different motivation. A really smart guy I know (no name dropping here) explained to me that when a building occupant such as a large corporation considers where they are spending their operational costs, the break-out is 15/85. 15% goes to operation of the space; the rent, the light bill, the toner cartridges, etc. 85% goes to Human Resources (salaries, benefits, etc.). Perhaps it is here that we find good cause for doing right.

In this sort of space we can create a more financially based argument by focusing on the impact of good IEQ on worker productivity and related issues. We know that IEQ leads to better problem solving, increased productivity, lower absenteeism and lower health care expenses. I would also suggest that it leads to a greater sense of happiness and accomplishment.

Now let’s get the building envelope dialed in. We can do zero energy. We can do zero carbon. We’ve gone from negative to neutral. The challenge now is can we do this so that it has a positive effect on people?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

Green Product Certification – The Demise of Greenwashing

Posted July 29, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has no comments yet.

Lucas Hamilton

Over the past decade we’ve witnessed the expansive growth of the sustainable building movement. Sustainable design and building professionals are constantly raising the bar in the creation of long-lasting, healthy structures that minimize carbon footprints.  A key factor in the propagation of this trend is green product certification.

The growing emphasis on green living and sustainable building has increased green claims by companies about their products and manufacturing processes.  False green product claims have come to be known as “greenwashing” and it has far reaching consequences – it harms the credibility of manufactures who do take sustainability seriously, as well as the consumer.  When consumers lose faith in manufacturers’ green claims after too many incidents of greenwashing, they may lose faith in the entire green building movement.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to fine tune the Green Guides to provide more specific requirements for the green claims that manufacturers are making today. Of course the most important element is the enforcement of the Green Guides for companies that don’t comply or those making inaccurate or unsubstantiated green claims.

In the meantime, the best way to fight greenwashing is to use only products that are certified by an impartial, independent third party, such as GREENGUARD Environmental Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy, Forest Stewardship Council and Green Circle.   

Third-party certifications examine a variety of green performance criteria that are most important to the certifying body, as well as the overall sustainability of a building.  These include energy efficiency, low VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions and other contributions to high indoor air quality, moisture resistance, and high recycled content. Some certifications will focus on one criterion and are therefore known as single-attribute certifications. Multiple-attribute certifications look at several different green product characteristics.  It is important for manufacturers, consumers, builders, architects and building owners to be education on the importance of specifics and accuracy with third-party certifications.  With product certifications, the more detail, the better.

The most extensive, reliable certifications are those that involved life cycle assessments (LCA).  These assessments examine a product’s total impact on the environment throughout its useful life.  Environmental impact factors include: raw materials used, how the product is manufactured, how it performs in a building and what happens to it after its useful life has ended.  CertainTeed recently published an LCA for our vinyl siding products and revealed the results in a blog.

Green building product certification is a vital factor in the growth and longevity of the sustainable building movement.  Until more stringent standards are developed by the FTC, it is crucial for building professionals and product distributors to be educated on which product certifications carry the most weight.  By directing customers toward green building products with reputable, third-party certification you are helping to preserve the environment for future generations.

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

Categories:
 green/sustainable

Human Comfort is Best Delivered by Water Not Air

Posted July 11, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has 1 comment.

Lucas Hamilton

While attending the Regenerative Network conference in California, I spent time in a LEED platinum certified building which is radiantly heated and cooled.  Recently, I have been giving presentations on human interactions with their environment. This has caused me to consider how differently the radiant heating and cooling system in the David Brower Center influences our perception of comfort.

We understand certain things about human senses such as how temperature, humidity, air speed and radiation are inter-related and together influence our perception of our surroundings.  These are the four things that will dictate how comfortable you are.  Because these things are inter-related, the way that heating and cooling is delivered has a huge influence on how you perceive your comfort level. As background and in simplified terms, these energy delivery methods are conduction, convection and radiation. A pot on the stove is conducting heat, when you pull out the spoon and blow on it to cool it is convection, and radiation is when you can stand a few feet away from the pot and feel the heat.

We traditionally heat and cool our buildings with air.  This is a most inefficient method. The idea of trying to store energy in something that has little mass makes little sense.  Using water to deliver energy as a way to comfort is very, very efficient.  This gives you radiated comfort as opposed to convection or conducted comfort.

To achieve the desired goals in energy savings delivering comfort by air may be on its way out. Using water to heat and cool buildings is a far more efficient method and it will save lots of energy going forward. But, we will have to make some personal sacrifices to accommodate this change. We may have to give up on instant gratification and develop patience through acceptance.

If you are outdoors on a cold day and enter a warm building, it will take awhile for the body to warm again to where you would say you are comfortable. However, after walking outdoors on a hot, humid day and entering an air conditioned building the cool rushing air will evaporate the sweat on your body and you cool off very quickly.  It’s like the building is blowing on the hot spoonful of soup.  When you condition a building space using surface temperatures, the energy exchange between the building and the person becomes largely dominated by radiation. While this will cool you down by allowing excess energy in the form of heat to flow out of your body and into the building through radiation, it will not be nearly as quick a process as having cold air blowing across your sweaty skin. Chances are you will continue to sweat for a few minutes after you have come inside so be ready for it.

Being patient and waiting for the comfort to occur is a small price to pay in order to make our energy go further. It sounds like a contradiction to say “exercise patience” but there you have it.

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

Life Cycle Assessment Tells the True Green Vinyl Siding Story

Posted June 24, 2011 By Drew Brandt and has 5 comments.

In a previous blog, Who Says Vinyl Siding Can’t Be Green, I started to discuss the move to manufacturing vinyl siding products with recycled content making it a more sustainable product.  This began a quest to dispel the misconceptions about vinyl siding and the fact that vinyl is a more sustainable cladding solution than brick, stucco or even cedar.

Vinyl siding has long been viewed by some as a product assumed to not be environmentally friendly.  Well, I am here to tell you that following a very long and tedious process of conducting what is called a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on CertainTeed’s vinyl siding products that vinyl siding is GREEN!  Based on all the elements that go into the LCA such as raw materials, transportation, production, and installation vinyl siding clearly leads the way in sustainability. CertainTeed’s vinyl siding LCA has been accepted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) through the Building for Economic and Environmental Sustainability (BEES) program which is a leader in the credentialing of LCAs.

The LCA provides full public transparency and ensures that manufactures are not engaging in green washing.

The LCA is an analytical tool used to quantify and interpret the flows to-and-from the environment over the entire life cycle of a product, process or service.  It is also referred to as cradle-to-grave analysis. The goal of the LCA is to compare the full range of environmental effects assignable to products and services in order to improve processes, support policy and provide a sound basis for informed decisions.

The term ‘life cycle’ refers to the notion that a fair, holistic assessment requires the assessment of raw material production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal including all intervening transportation steps necessary or caused by the product’s existence.

Our first step was to create LCA’s for all of our vinyl siding lines.  In all cases, our vinyl siding outperforms alternative cladding products such as brick, stucco, Dryvit Outsulation and even cedar in all of the environmental impact calculations identified in the BEES methodology.

CertainTeed is committed to product stewardship and the LCA, as well as the entire process to complete the LCA because it provides us with information to continue to improve processes to reduce their environmental impact.

CertainTeed will continue the LCA process on all of our siding product lines as a firm commitment to our mission in sustainability.

About Drew Brandt

Drew Brandt, LEED AP, CGP is Vice President of Marketing, Research & Development for CertainTeed Insulation

Quantifying the Value of Sustainability Going Forward

Posted June 10, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has 1 comment.

Lucas Hamilton

As we continue to improve energy performance, acoustics, comfort and aesthetics in our buildings, we are left with the challenge of quantifying the impact of these practices and how much they influence our quality of life.

This is a needed validation of sustainability – evaluating the effects that improving systems has on the occupants over a period of time.  While we are preaching the gospel to improve the performance of our buildings by including more natural light, better indoor air quality, improved acoustics and overall comfort are we quantifying how these changes improve employee or student performance in an improved environment?

For example, we have a need for connectivity. Older buildings were not built to provide ample natural light needed by people. Workers who sit in cubicles with no window tend to feel disconnected because they lack connectivity. Think about it when you enter a room, do you take a seat that enables you to look out a window?

Are we adequately documenting whether:

  • Students test scores improved because they could hear the teacher better?
  • Worker productivity increased because they had access to natural light?
  • Absenteeism decreased because of improved indoor air quality?

Some decision makers will argue that there are only two kinds of decisions: rational (based on facts) and irrational (not based on facts.) I would suggest they change these terms to fact-based and faith-based. In our private lives we make decisions based upon faith all the time and we are completely comfortable doing so. I think we need to develop more data to help less confident decision makers defend their faith- based decisions with some facts. If we are successful, eventually some of these decision makers will develop enough confidence to be truly innovative.

Are there other ‘quantifiables’ that we should consider to justify the decisions we are making now and in the future? I would like to hear your thoughts?

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

The U.S. Regenerative Network Creates New Level for Sustainability

Posted May 19, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has 1 comment.

Lucas Hamilton

CertainTeed was recently invited to participate in an event in Berkeley, California which could be the next rung on the ladder of sustainable building.  The U.S. Regenerative Network was founded and is led by David Gottfried.  Gottfried is considered a pioneer in the green building industry and is a founder of the U.S. Green Building Council.

The U.S. Regenerative Network brings together a select group of leading non-competitive product manufacturers and service providers from the green building industry to form an innovation incubator.

The Network brings together:

  • Product Manufacturers and Building Service Providers (Network Members)
  • Real Estate Portfolio Owners (Network Affiliates)
  • Architects, Engineers, Contractors (Network Affiliates)
  • Green building and sustainability Experts (Network Experts)
  • Staff (Network Coordinators)

At the event in Berkeley, there were a variety of activities designed to bring together emerging needs and technologies. The activities allowed world class manufacturers to brainstorm with each other as well as to engage with pioneering designers and construction professionals. The very nature of the organization allows for deep and meaningful engagements, which usually take years of relationship building, to occur very quickly. It reminds me of the difference between velocity and acceleration. As sustainability begins to accelerate, we see an increasing rate of change in change and we must keep up. If not, the pioneers are going to take an awful lot of arrows and our growth will come to a stop. This is a true next generation effort to bring together non-competitive stakeholders to engage in collaboration and best practices toward the creation of exceptional buildings.

The race to zero energy has been won.  We can do zero energy buildings.  We can do zero carbon footprint but can we regenerate and actually move beyond negative or neutral to become positive?  This is exciting stuff.

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed

Getting on the LEED H ‘Cart’ with YouthBuild

Posted March 15, 2011 By Lucas Hamilton and has 2 comments.

YouthBuild design charrette participants

I was privileged to participate in a design charrette which was held at the YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School on Broad Street in Philadelphia.  The charrette was conducted as part of the partnership between Saint-Gobain, CertainTeed and YouthBuild USA. The partnership aims to help low-income, disconnected young adults transform their lives and their communities by working towards their high school diploma or GED while learning green construction and job training skills.

The Philadelphia project is a renovation of an abandoned row house in the Germantown area of Philadelphia as a hands-on learning in sustainable design and construction for the students.  The project will be seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Homes (LEED H) certification.

The concept of a charrette is from the French meaning cart.  In the 1800’s, architecture students created most of their models at home. When their models were due to be reviewed by their professors, the school would send a cart around Paris to pick up their work. Because they were rarely finished with the models or drawings by the time the cart came by, the students would often get on the cart to finish their work while it wound its way back to school. As a result, collaborations between the students started to happen regarding the various design projects.  The collaborations, charrettes, continued, expanded and are currently used when discussing design projects by groups of interested parties.

While I have participated in charrettes working with architecture firms I have never participated in a LEED charrette.  This is a field function of LEED and it is a very comprehensive analysis of the project. The YouthBuild students were able to participate in something that most builders have not experienced unless they are building LEED H homes.

The  key stakeholders in the renovation include a representative from the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, college professors, city officials, sustainability experts, architects, renovation specialists, developers and, of course ,YouthBuild students. The charrette was led by Sustainable Solutions, a Philadelphia area company dedicated to sustainable construction.

This was an incredible opportunity for the students to see a LEED design charrette in action and have hands-on knowledge which will help them immeasurably when seeking employment.  By walking through many of the sustainable aspects of the project –  the site review and preparation, architectural/structural issues, the envelope, materials and systems and finishes/appliances in one continuous process the YouthBuild students saw firsthand how everything on the project is interrelated. Each step in the process is critical to satisfy all the requirements for LEED H.  This will keep all the stakeholders moving in the same direction.  Of course, the charrette ended with “next step’ assignments for all of us.

 

Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed Corporation

About Lucas Hamilton

Lucas Hamilton is Manager, Building Science Applications for CertainTeed


TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY
Opinions expressed in CertainTeed's blog and in any corresponding comments are the views and opinions of the original authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CertainTeed. All CertainTeed names, copyrights and trademarks are the property of CertainTeed or its licensors in the United States and other countries. Photos, charts, graphics and other information in CertainTeed's blog are not for commercial use.
Copyright ©2010 CertainTeed Corporation • P.O. Box 860 •  Valley Forge, PA 19482 • 800.233.8990