Cooler Planet

We just found out Pizza Fusion is coming to Cooler Planet’s hometown of Seattle.  They are aiming to be the first LEED certified restaurant in Seattle.  The restaurant is focused on being environmentally friendly by using eco-friendly delivery vehicles, recycled church pews, hardwood floors from a local high school, and old doors from a local health club.  This will be the 2nd Pizza Fusion on the west coast and is planning on opening in July.

Though the State of Washington did not make Home Power magazine’s top ten list, we at Cooler Planet believe our home state deserves an honorable mention.  Washington has a history of adopting innovative legislation.  While Washington laws are not perfect, many of its mandates have inspired other states to adapt and customize similar types of laws for themselves.
 
For example, in 2005, Washington was the first state in the nation to pass a green building mandate.  The legislation requires all major renovation projects and new construction funded with state monies to meet the US Green Building Council’s LEED Silver rating system or higher.  That same year, Washington State passed two laws to advance solar electric use and nurture the solar industry’s development throughout the state.

The State’s two renewable energy bills specifically try to bolster solar photovoltaic manufacturing and wide spread use of solar electric systems.   One law provides tax breaks to the manufacturers of solar photovoltaic modules and components that locate in economically depressed and low population counties within the state. 

The other law, based on a successful program in Germany, provides a tax credit to residents and businesses that have renewable energy systems (which includes solar photovoltaic, wind, and anaerobic digesters).  However, unlike other states that set aside funds to pay property owners an upfront rebate for installing a renewable energy system, Washington law rewards property owners for their system’s production of electricity.

The Washington legislation establishes a $0.15 per kilowatt hour minimum credit for all the energy generated from a resident’s or business’s renewable, on-site power system (with a cap of $2,000 annually for households).  If the solar electric system components (modules, inverters, rack, etc.) come from Washington State manufacturers, then the property owner is awarded additional funds per kilowatt hour (which can amount to roughly $0.54 per kilowatt hour).  The property owner can also take advantage of the state’s net metering laws, thus make additional cents from its system.

Yet because these two solar bills provide complementary approaches to help jump start the nascent solar photovoltaic industry in Washington State, the $0.54 credit is not yet a reality.  Several companies do manufacture inverters in Washington, but no module photovoltaic manufactures currently exist. 

Perhaps the most innovative part of the Washington solar legislation is how the state structured its funding.  All utilities – regardless of this legislation – must pay a “utility use tax.”  The solar legislation enacted in 2005 promises the utilities an equal dollar match for every dollar the utility pays its customers for their own electricity production via renewable energy.  In essence, the tax becomes a closed-loop system:  the state does not set aside additional funds for the program instead it returns potential revenues to the utilities.  The utilities, in turn, get “a wash,” the portion of the utility use tax used for renewable energy is handed back to them.  The utility does incur the adminstration cost to track the funding; the state tried to minimize that cost by requiring utilities to report only once per year.  

Unfortunately, it’s still too early to determine what state’s approach and funding strategy works best to advance renewable energy.  

Washington State continues to move forward and enact legislation aimed at tackling climate change, and to a lesser extent renewable energy.  In March 2008, Washington made headline news again when Governor Christine Gregoire signed a measure that requires both State government and private industries to reduce their carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and meet further reductions by 2035 and 2050. 

These days, there are seemingly endless amounts of “green labels” out there.  What do they all mean?   

In the world of green building there are a variety of green building rating systems.  Some take a holistic approach and evaluate all the various systems inside and outside your home; others examine a narrower band of categories such as indoor air quality or energy efficiency.  Complicating matters further, different – yet similar – names are used within different regions (or even smaller jurisdictions) throughout the country.  Take, for example, this dizzying sampling of names:  Built Green, Build Green, Earth Advantage, Earth Craft Home, Green Home Choice, I-Built, EcoBUILD. 

Generally, to achieve certification in any of these green building rating systems designers produce designs and specifications that incorporate the required goals and then builders incorporate requirements into their construction practices.   What generates confusion for home owners and buyers is trying to understand the myriad of different goals and check-list requirements applied to each prospective home.  Green labels wouldn’t do much good if consumers did not understand them and what they are trying to achieve. 

Understanding and appreciating the design, engineering and finishing choices builders include can help prospective home buyers differentiate between homes beyond an aesthetic appeal.  Builders often tout a home’s “green features.”  However, until a single building standard is adopted what is called “built green” may differ between programs.

So how do you distinguish between green building certifications?  Let’s start at the national level.  Both the National Home Builders Association (NAHB) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) have developed rating systems for residential construction.  The NAHB calls it guidelines, the Green Home Building Program; the USGBC who created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system, calls its system:  LEED for Homes.  Both of these rating systems include a wide-range of protocol for how to build a green home. 

At first glance, both the NAHB Green Home Building Program and the USGBC LEED for Homes look similar.  They are.  Both organizations have published lengthy checklists and guidelines that define categories such as Energy Efficiency, Water Conservation, and Indoor Environmental Quality.  Both describe criteria and objectives to meet in order to obtain points toward a rating.  And each rating system has different levels – the Green Home Building Program has 3-levels:  Bronze, Silver, and Gold; LEED for Homes has 4-levels:  Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.  The higher the level, the more green features a home has incorporated.  Both rating systems aspire to design and build homes that are energy efficient, use water wisely, are well placed on a site, and incorporate building materials and best construction management practices that tread lightly on the earth.

The differences between the programs are subtle.  Many of the variances relate to how the homes are rated, how the programs are executed, and plain old competition for brand name recognition and dominance.   The USGBC rating system relies on third-party certification to determine how many points to award each house.  The NAHB allows local builders and jurisdictions to establish their own certification process.  For example, the local home builders’ chapter in King and Snohomish counties, two counties in Washington State, has established a rigorous green building rating system that requires third-party certification to achieve its highest green building levels whereas the lower-point levels are based on the builder’s self-verification. 

In future posts I’ll explain the actual differences between other types of green building certifications, labels, and standards.