Net Impact San Francisco

We have asked our guests to answer a few questions before our Green Building Meeting (held on May 13 at Cafe International)

1- What aspect of your work most excites and inspires you?
Scott Fossel: I’m primarily a Big Picture guy, so the most fascinating elements of my work for me are always the shifts in perspective, new perceptions, and innovative insights that shed new light on the future of where the work is going. For me these are almost always the product of cross-disciplinary investigations, applying lessons learned in vastly different areas to the things I do every day. In fact, I believe that this type of cross-disciplinary thinking is some of the most important work we can do today, no matter what area we specialize in. As Einstein said, ‘The solutions will not emerge at the same level that created the problem.’ I take this to heart when I look out at the global problems facing our world: largely they are problems of the limitations on our perspectives, of not seeing the whole picture clearly enough that we can devise systemic solutions to answer them. I like to focus on solutions grounded in ‘positive externalities’, that is, solutions that solve many problems at once and change the world in the process, cause the world needs a lot of change.

James Roger: Seeing the change when people really start to ‘get it’ about how much they can really improve their home and make it more sustainable. I love that clients still call and ask me for advice long after I have worked with them and, at that point, I know that they are still trying to make their home more energy efficient and healthy for their families. It’s great to see that ah-ha moment when clients start to realize how toxic and inefficient a home can be and that they have never thought of these things before.

Elaine Hsieh: I love that my role on projects is often fairly critical in terms of getting a decision-maker (owner, capital partner, developer, architect) to make a much more sustainable choice when they design and construct a building. It’s inspiring to see the transformation that takes place with a large developer who finally understands that designing and building differently will often make a significantly smaller environmental impact and improve the bottom line.

Paul Switenki: Diversity… project, team and discipline-based.

Isabelle Lavendrine: Being challenged and making a difference.

2- What is the biggest worry or challenge that you face?

SF: The biggest worry that I face is always the same I suppose and in some sense the direct inverse of the above: that all the companies in the world that make money while at the same time actually deducting renewable value from the physical and economic system of the Earth will not wake up in time. Or if they do wake up, that they will still suffer sufficiently from a crisis of the imagination to not know how to turn the ship. We have a very misguided system of rewards currently in human civilization and it is not benefiting the health of our biosystems at all. People like to espouse the virtues of ’sustainability’ of course, but if you look at it from the perspective of the planet as a global business, all ’sustainability’ means is that we’re just breaking even. Sustainability isn’t bankrupt mind you, but would you follow any business person that told you that their devastatingly bankrupt company’s goal was simply to break even, that breaking even was the future?

JR: The biggest challenge is educating the client and showing that the bottom line is not always the best indicator of value. How much does one value not having asthma? How much does one value the increased productivity of their children in a naturally lit home? How much does one value the reduction of toxics in their home? Often these do not have a monetary value until they affect us in a negative manner. Then we can put a price tag on the hospital bills but at that point it is too late.

EH: With climate change and potable water shortages as two incredibly important global issues that humanity is facing, are we doing enough in terms of reducing our absolute environmental impacts? The baselines for our built environment need to be elevated significantly, and even if we reach our reduction targets, what about all of the other social and economic sustainability factors that we haven’t yet addressed adequately? My hope is that the results of all of the things we are doing now is going to be enough for future generations.

PS: What kind of planet I am leaving for my children.

IL: How to refurbish/renovate existing buildings to make them more energy-efficient (they constitute 98% of the building stock…)

3- What, in your opinion, is necessary for green buildings to become pervasive?

SF: 1) That the actual perceptible dissolution of our quality of life at the hands of our standards of living becomes sufficiently undeniable to the majority of the population on a daily basis that we start to radically change our lives in the ways that are necessary to turn the ecological crisis and climate change around, 2) that people wake up to the fact that cities are the largest, most complexly wonderful, and at the same time most destructive things we have ever imagined, responsible for more than 40% of overall environmental impact, 3) solving the integration question, the issue of how to effectively harness the rate of innovation in clean technologies to the slow pace of infrastructural change, through some form of highly integrated retrofitting systems, 4) a recognition that the buildings are not the problem, or not the heart of the problem, that human psychology bears this honor, and that the solution to a consumptive and destructive built environment is not ‘inside the house’—it is in the ecological relationship of the house to the world around it.

JR: Although I do not think it is necessary, I think the current administration (both federal and local) is increasing in scope its legislation relative to green building. Whether that involves stricter building codes or better incentives, this will definitely push commercial and residential builders into the green building market. Those who adopt first will be the more successful companies and are poised to benefit from this type of legislation as their competitors struggle to adopt.

EH: Money talks, and the bottom line will drive people to justify behavioral changes and market transformation. But how do you drive prices for green technologies downward? It is all about “carrots and sticks” in my experience. Education and outreach at the grassroots level (in the home, at the workplace, on projects) can be powerful, but is often not enough to get the mainstream (and big business) to change. That is why you also need regulation, policies, and rebates/incentive programs to force companies/developers to comply, drive mass market demand (and more competition, which lowers prices), and encourage further innovation.

PS: More people with the same worry or challenge.

IL: A combination of stick and carrot – more building design and doing the right thing, and more incentives/rules pushing for the right thing.

Our guests from Arup were involved in the design of the California Academy of Sciences. Learn more about the building here.