Being Green

Jan Collins

The environmentally responsible “green building” movement is catching on in the United States, and the Carolinas are ahead of the curve.

Jan Collins is editor of the Business & Economic Review. She is also a freelance writer and syndicated columnist.

When Wes Evans, business development manager in the Carolinas for furniture maker Herman Miller, Inc., wants to sell his clients on the idea of supporting sustainable development by constructing environmentally friendly buildings, he gives them what he calls his “elevator speech.”

“I tell them that through a collaborative design process, you can build the building in one-third less time, at one-third less cost, that it will cost one-third less to operate, that productivity will go up, and that it will probably be the most-desired building to work in of all your buildings.”

Listeners sit up and take notice, Evans says, and more and more are taking the plunge.

Indeed, the “green building” movement in the United States (green buildings are defined as those that are environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places in which to live and work) is catching on, and in some ways, North Carolina and South Carolina have been ahead of the curve.

This is true especially for its universities. Many students are beginning to demand green buildings. In addition, universities must maintain their buildings for a long time, so they want their facilities to last.

Several years ago, the University of South Carolina (USC), Clemson, and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) established the Sustainable Universities Initiative (SUI), a consortium later expanded to include 13 other schools across South Carolina. The goal of the Initiative? “To be sure our students understand their impact on the earth’s resources and at the same time, to ‘practice what we preach’ – to demonstrate good conservation practices in the design and operation of our campuses,” explains Trish Jerman, program manager of SUI.

Both USC and Clemson have a long list of green buildings under construction or in the planning stages. Winthrop and the College of Charleston have projects under way, and MUSC, Coastal Carolina, and several of the technical colleges have plans to build high-performance buildings. “We hope that students who live or study in a high-performance building will come to demand similar features in every building they occupy,” says Jerman.

Private firms, too, are jumping on the bandwagon. “Many are saying, ‘we want this,’ but they’re hesitant on the cost side,” says Anne Jackson, an interior designer with The FWA Group, an architectural firm based in Charlotte. “They’re not really ready to commit if they still have the perception it will cost more.”

Usually, however, it will not cost more and, in the long run, saves money on maintenance and utility costs, experts say. “I tell people they’re going to have to change the way they think about cost, because it’s not necessarily that it costs more,” explains Jackson. “It’s just the way it costs is different than people are used to. You might have to spend your money in different places, or you might have to spend a little more at the beginning to save money down the road.”

Every south-facing apartment window in USC’s West Quad includes a “light shelf” that maximizes daytime sunlight by reflecting it onto the ceiling of the interior rooms and blocking unwanted heat. Photo courtesy of University of South Carolina.

It’s just the way it costs is different than people are used to. You might have to spend your money in
different places, or you might have to spend a little more at the beginning to save money down the road.

The green building trend in the United States became a movement in 1993 with the founding of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a coalition of building professionals advocating sustainable design. In 1997, the USGBC announced the first version of its Green Building Rating System for Construction, called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), to produce a new generation of buildings that deliver high performance with minimal damage to the environment.

Since then, the USGBC (www.usgbc.org) has certified 254 green buildings. Another 2,080 are currently in the planning and design phase. During the past four years, more than 261 million square feet of building space has been registered or certified under LEED, which represents the nation’s most stringent standards for sustainable building design and construction.

In addition, the annual U.S. market in green building products and services grew to $7 billion in 2004, a 37 percent increase over the previous year.

Owners of LEED-registered and certified projects represent a diverse cross section of industry, says the USGBC. Twenty-five percent are owned by for-profit corporations, 24 percent are owned by local governments, 22 percent are owned by state and federal governments, and 19 percent are owned by nonprofit corporations.

There are LEED projects in all 50 states and in 12 countries.

Green buildings make sense when one looks at these statistics from the Department of Energy, U.S. Geological Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and National Science and Technology Council:

• Construction represents 20 percent of the U.S. economy.

• Buildings represent 39 percent of U.S. primary energy use.

• Buildings represent 70 percent of U.S. electricity consumption.

• Buildings use 12.2 percent of all potable water, or 15 trillion gallons per year.

• Buildings use 40 percent of raw materials globally (3 billion tons annually).

• An estimated 136 million tons of building-related construction and demolition debris are generated in the U.S. annually.

The University of South Carolina’s new West Quad dorm, the largest sustainable college/university residence hall in the United States. It was opened in late 2004. Photo courtesy of University of South Carolina.

Labor force A self-described former “plunderer of the earth,” Ray C. Anderson, founder and chairman of Interface, Inc., decided 10 years ago that sustainability doesn’t cost—it pays.

Anderson came to the University of South Carolina campus in June 2005 to speak about how, a decade ago, he found “a whole new purpose in life in my 61st year”: to head up the first company in the world that has zero environmental impact.

Interface, an Atlanta-based global manufacturer of commercial carpet and other interiors products, says it has saved more than $266 million since 1994 through cost-cutting measures, reduced waste, and increased energy efficiency. The company’s greenhouse gases have been reduced by 52 percent, and water usage is down 66 percent relative to sales. Some 44 percent of the company’s smokestacks have been closed.

Interface is “doing well by doing good,” Anderson says, and by 2020, his target is for Interface to make no environmental footprint whatsoever. “The old idea is that business exists to make a profit,” Anderson says, “but there must be a higher purpose than that.” We must “change the paradigm,” he adds. “What is the business case for saying it’s cheaper to destroy the earth than to take care of it?”

Anderson came to the USC campus to speak at a meeting of the U.S. Green Building Council’s new South Carolina chapter, which received provisional status in March 2005.

Ted Chalgren, vice-president of Cox & Dinkins, a Columbia, South Carolina-based engineering and surveying firm, is interim president of the South Carolina chapter’s executive board and one of the chapter’s founding members.

He was an important force behind Cox & Dinkins’ decision to construct the first private, commercial, LEED-certified building in South Carolina in 2003. It became the firm’s headquarters.

What is the business case for saying it's cheaper to destroy the earth than to take care of it?

The 11,672-square-foot building, located not far from the U.S. Army’s Fort Jackson, has a residential exterior appearance but the look inside of a sophisticated lodge. The building features people-friendly lighting, loads of natural sunlight, environmentally friendly building materials, rustic exposed beams, windows with embedded blinds (which, therefore, never get dusty), replacement fresh air via a special heating and air-conditioning system, and numerous green plants with their own watering system. The floors are all heart of pine that came from a plantation built in 1854 in Blenheim, South Carolina.

“We doubled our space, but our utility bill went up only 22 percent,” says Chalgren. “The building has been an economic bonanza for our firm,” he adds, not to mention that it has become an educational tool, with tours being provided to schools, professional organizations, governmental and civic entities, and members of the community.
Chalgren believes the building has social benefits (“It’s such a nice place to work”) and probable medical benefits, too, with employees seeming to take fewer sick days. The facility’s good indoor air quality is thought to be one of the reasons.

Although there is “still some resistance [to green building] among some in the design community,” says Chalgren, “we’re breaking that down because we can prove how it makes economic sense” because of the energy efficiency, indoor environmental air quality, and cheaper irrigation costs.

The architectural community is also embracing the green building concept, for a good reason. Wes Evans of Herman Miller, Inc., tells about his firm’s second LEED building, located across the street from the firm’s main corporate offices in Zeeland, Michigan. The cost of the 100,000-square-foot building, says Evans, was just $89 per square foot, compared to the average cost for regular construction of $135 per square foot. “It only took nine months from design to move-in,” Evans says. “It costs us one-third less to operate than any of our other buildings, and productivity went up.”

In addition to absorbing heat, West Quad’s turf roof reduces the amount of rainwater runoff, thus lessening the amount of water sent into storm-water systems. Photo courtesy of University of South Carolina.

The [West Quad] residence hall [on the University of South Carolina Campus] is the largest LEED-certified residence hall in the world. . .

“If you design a building the old way and then try to ‘green’ it, it will be expensive,” explains Evans. But done right, experts say, green building can cost less than regular construction. “If you get in early enough and you use a collaborative design process with people who have experience, like LEED-Accredited Professionals,” says Evans, “they usually can make a lot of very solid recommendations that don’t cost money and actually often save money.”
Anne Jackson of The FWA Group agrees: “It’s a holistic process, where everyone – architects, engineers, contractors, interior designers – works together. They don’t do their work separately and independently of each other.”

Indeed, the University of South Carolina’s newest residence hall, which opened in the fall of 2004, is one of the best examples of this integrated holistic process. USC’s West Quad Living Learning Center defied conventional wisdom by meeting LEED Silver standards within a standard construction budget and time frame. In fact, it cost just $141 per square foot, compared to the $143-per-square-foot cost for the traditional East Quad dorm built four years earlier.

And West Quad is wildly popular. “We had 1,000 applicants for the 2005-06 school year [for 500 beds], and we have a long waiting list,” says Michael D. Koman, environmental programs manager– USC Housing Maintenance Services.

The residence hall, the largest LEED-certified residence hall in the world, features a turf roof that keeps the building cooler in summer; solar preheated water; a high-efficiency irrigation system; large amounts of green and open space; landscaping that uses slow-growing, drought-resistant native plants; a hydrogen fuel cell for back-up power; high-efficiency appliances; an on-site café and convenience store that minimizes the need to drive off campus (which helps lower pollution); and a monitoring system that allows students to evaluate their energy consumption.

The entire complex is designed to be 55 percent more efficient for energy and 20 percent more efficient for water consumption. Combined with an education program for residents that encourages students to conserve, this means a $60,000-$80,000 savings in utility bills over the nine-month school year. And, West Quad uses 45 percent less energy, Koman estimates, than its sister building across the street, East Quad.

The West Quad Center is attracting representatives of other universities (Stanford, the University of New Hampshire, University of Georgia, among others), private firms, and government agencies to “get ideas and learn about green building in general,” says Koman, himself a LEED-Accredited Professional. In fact, he spends considerable time each week giving tours of the facility and answering questions about the green construction process.

The success of that construction process and the apparent operational savings has led USC President Andrew Sorensen to declare that future construction on campus will meet LEED standards. (Other USC green buildings in the construction process or planning stage include the Arnold School of Public Health, the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority House, the new Honors College complex, the Student Health Center, an addition to the Thomas Cooper Library, and the new research campus.)

The first private, commercial, LEED-certified building in South Carolina, this is the headquarters of Cox & Dinkins, a Columbia-based engineering and surveying firm. Photo copyright 2003 Brian Dressler/dresslerphoto.com

Private sector green projects—both large and small—are also burgeoning across the nation.

In Dearborn, Michigan, the Ford Motor Co. is installing a 500,000-square-foot rooftop garden at its River Rouge manufacturing plant. Another large project—and one of the most unique—is under way in South Carolina.
That is the Noisette Project, a 3,000-acre city-within-a-city in North Charleston being developed by the Noisette Company. Encompassing the former Charleston Navy Base and the historic core of the City of North Charleston, the project is bringing elements of environmentally sustainable designs into various commercial, residential, and nonprofit initiatives.

The Master Plan timetable for the project—a joint partnership with the Noisette Company and the City of North Charleston—stretches into the coming two decades. It will include new housing, conferencing facilities, schools, infrastructure and street improvements, storm water management, landscaping, lighting, pedestrian-friendly corridors, and park reshaping.

The USGBC is working with the Noisette Company to develop a new LEED standard for the ambitious project.
Then there is Beach First National Bank in Myrtle Beach, which is currently constructing the first green bank building in South Carolina and the southeastern United States. The three-story, 46,000-square-foot building, expected to be completed in June 2006, will also be the first green building to be constructed along the Grand Strand and the first multitenant green building in South Carolina. (The Columbia-based law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough will also have offices in the building, and is a partner in the construction.)

“Having a building that is beautiful, yet environmentally friendly, is important to both Beach First and Nelson Mullins,” says Walt Standish, Beach First president and CEO. “Each company supported the extra effort needed to meet ‘green’ building standards and to develop the bold design elements for a unique architectural statement.”
With a USGBC chapter already in existence in the Research Triangle area (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) of North Carolina and another chapter being formed in Charlotte, LEED experts expect the green building movement will grow in North Carolina, as well. LEED buildings “lease between 50 and 60 percent faster than average buildings,” says Sara O’Mara, LEED-Accredited Professional at Charlotte-based Choate Construction Company, “and employees love to work in these buildings.”

The “word is getting out,” adds O’Mara, co-chair of the Charlotte chapter that hopes to gain provisional status early in 2006.

Anne Jackson of The FWA Group views the growing movement toward constructing green buildings as “more than a trend. I see it as a shift in values and thinking. I think what most of us hope to see is [green building] simply being considered good design, the way that we should be doing things, with a more comprehensive approach.”

Jackson is convinced that this shift will continue to such a degree “that this is just going to be the way that we build. Everything will be green.”. ¨

The Cox & Dinkins lobby, from upstairs. The building features environmentally friendly building materials, rustic exposed beams, loads of natural sunlight, and numerous green plants with their own watering system. Photo copyright 2003 Brian Dressler/dresslerphoto.com