Memo to: Kim Hughes, Instructor, Sustainable Building Advisors Course
From: Bud Munson
I am a
member of the residential development community. As such, I have watched for
years as people in my business have tried to formulate business models. These
models typically revolve around a certain development profile. The first is the
high-end home. These homes usually don’t have many financial or resource
limitations. The second is the primary home, in which certain areas of the
building process are limited to provide good quality, but keeping the price in a
range the average person can manage. Often this is done by providing potential
upgrades, giving buyers choices in areas they find important. Third, is the
affordable home. In this category the primary considerations are cost.
I believe
as the sustainable building industry has worked its way through the stages of
ridicule, discussion and adoption, it has mostly landed in the higher end
category. Until now, most of the sustainable building concepts have been new
and typically more expensive. It’s okay that Larry Hagman can afford to put a
$750,000.00 solar system on his Malibu ranch home, but most of us don’t have the
resources to do upgrades like this on ours.
What we in
the development community need to realize and begin to implement, is the idea
that all buildings we build need to fall into a sustainable profile regardless
of category. If we truly understand the concept of sustainable building it
means that EVERY building we build needs to meet the criteria of
sustainability. I think that, for a long time, typical builders and developers
have equated sustainability with higher costs. In many ways this has been
true. What we have to begin to do now is to try to create a totally new
business model that will allow us to build highly efficient, thoughtfully
constructed, sustainable homes and buildings in every category. In the next few
years every city and county building department will begin to set standards of
sustainability, and, as they do, it will become necessary to find ways for all
homes to be built to these newer standards. If builders are going to survive in
this new environment, we must begin now to create these sustainable building
business models.
As I have
looked around over the last couple of years I have seen a lot of new ideas, some
quite efficient, and yet still very expensive. However, I have also found
systems and processes that are efficient and yet give us more “bang for our
buck.” As we see more and more of these ideas become commonplace it will be
incumbent on the building community to embrace these new ideas and courageously
begin to include them in our new business models.
It’s my belief that the new paradigm in all types of building construction will be created by the companies and individuals that will take the time to research and explore all of the new sustainable building concepts and formulate development and building plans that utilize the best of them. This will start with site development and go to building orientation, construction parameters, building materials, and, in the end, use of resources in the new building. The new profile must be built from the ground up to try to incorporate as many of the best design and construction ideas as possible to meet the highest standards of sustainability. This, by the way, will not be easy, but I believe it can be done.
One thing that concerns me is that, many times, human beings don’t look as closely as they should at the real impact their ecologically-minded systems have on the world. Just building highly-efficient buildings isn’t the total picture. An example from the auto industry is the mining of nickel in Canada, shipping the nickel to China to have a car battery built, shipping that battery to Japan to install it in a car and then, finally, shipping that car to the United States for sale. Maybe that’s not the best idea for building an “energy-efficient” car. I once owned a 1974 Honda Civic that got 43 miles to the gallon, and it didn’t have a battery. Slow down, analyze, evaluate and try to proceed using the most effective tools, systems, materials and ideas we can find to reach our sustainable building goals.
In our
world today sustainability is a lofty goal. In all societies in the past, the
world was basically a limitless resource. If you used up the resources in your
area, you simply moved to a new area. On our planet today we no longer have
that luxury. The human dwelling is one of the three most basic of human needs.
If we don’t begin to find more efficient ways to construct these dwellings we
will fail future generations. If we, as caretakers of this world today, want to
be responsible to our children and their children, we must begin to seriously
implement as many effective, intelligent strategies as we possibly can to
guarantee our world’s and our society’s future.
Bud Munson
Bend, Oregon
541-389-8769 home
541-419-0745 cell
