Greenwalshing

Bill Walsh, Healthy Building Network.

How do you determine what should be classified as a “worst in class” building material?    — Name not provided

A three-pronged analysis: First, is there a serious environmental problem associated with the material? Second, by focusing on that material, would we contribute to achieving the goals of the larger environmental-health movement? Third, are there commercially available alternatives that are superior from an environmental-health perspective and comparable in price and performance?

To mix some common metaphors, are we at the tipping point where we can raise the bar?

Take the case of arsenic-soaked pressure-treated wood, the Healthy Building Network‘s first campaign victory. Aside from exposing kids to arsenic on their playground equipment, a huge problem with arsenic-treated wood is that the arsenic will leach into groundwater from landfills, especially unlined construction-debris landfills. This is already a problem in Florida. And the catch is that most of the arsenic-treated wood produced hasn’t even reached the landfill. But for being lodged in wood, the same amount of arsenic would be considered hazardous waste and banned from even lined solid-waste landfills.

How’s that for a loophole? You mean to say the wood is going to degrade and release the arsenic? D’oh!

At the same time, there were arsenic-free formulas, made by the same manufacturers, performing to the same standards, being niche-marketed as “green” specialty products. This is a case where an industry could have taken the high road, committed itself to a gradual transition, and made money coming and going. But when a few companies started to aggressively market the new formula as safer for the environment, their competitors, using their trade association, threatened to crush them.

There are two satisfying things about that campaign. First, we were actually defending the integrity of good businesses as much as the health of kids. So no one can say that HBN is anti-business. Second, when the arsenic formula was banned for retail sales, the trade association folded. Woo hoo! Its president went on to work for a trade association defending the interests of snack foods.

What’s your opinion of the LEED rating system, as administered by the U.S. Green Building Council? Do you think it represents a significant step forward for the building industry?    — Meghan Houlihan, Missoula, Mont.

LEED is such a significant step forward for the building industry that it is now in jeopardy, as the least ethical interests in the business community seek to gain control of it. Every manufacturer whose building product does not make the cut under fair but firm definitions of “green” is strategizing right now about how they can bend the LEED system to their purpose.

A LEED rating system that lives up to the U.S. Green Building Council‘s stated mission, “to transform the building market,” could be the first great environmental policy achievement of the 21st century. A LEED rating system that degenerates into a greenwash marketing scheme will be the most counterproductive development for the environment since Dick Cheney emerged from his undisclosed location.

The fight for the soul of the USGBC has been joined. Last year, a management initiative to grant membership status to trade associations was rebuffed by contentious opposition from some board members and local USGBC chapters. Now a new CEO and board face proposals that advance transparent greenwash agendas by the American Forest & Paper Association and the Vinyl Institute. These have been widely and publicly denounced by, among others, companies who truly are committed to green building principles.

So it is a defining moment for LEED and the green-building movement. HBN is committed to preserving the integrity of LEED, so you can keep track of developments on our website.

Where can I learn about green building techniques? Are there any classes or certification programs for green building?    — Kassandra Sutherland, Davis, Calif.

In California? Nah.

OK, seriously, there are a lot of options, especially in California. The dominant certification standard, for buildings and professionals, is the USGBC’s LEED system. Local USGBC chapters around the country host a variety of educational programs. Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility also has chapters in San Francisco and Chicago that hold educational forums on green building and run listservs for other regional and national events. Building Concerns has regional directories for educational programs (and architects, contractors, etc.) for California, the mountain states, and the Southeast. Building Green, publishers of Environmental Building News, and the Green Resource Center both publish regional and national listings of educational opportunities.

What do you see as being the best way to bring about fair costs for green building materials?    — Jared Webb, Rocky Mount, Va.

Manufacturer responsibility has so many direct and indirect benefits: creating immediate economies of scale for materials reuse, stimulating design innovation, and fully accounting for product costs. One of the best examples of this in the U.S. today is the carpet industry, led by manufacturers such as Interface, Milliken, and Shaw.

What, in your opinion, is the greatest threat to human health from the building sector? Reading your newsletter, more or less everything is about vinyl.    — Ÿystein Solevâg, Eidsnes, Norway

We focus to be effective, not to suggest there is one “greatest” threat. A few years ago, the site was heavy with information about arsenic because arsenic-treated wood was a top campaign priority.

We focus on PVC or vinyl because the weight of available evidence tells us that among building materials, it may well be the single most important source of many of the worst toxic chemicals plaguing the global environment today. Dioxin and three other chemicals targeted for elimination under international treaties can be traced in significant quantity to the production and use of PVC. Some 65 tons of mercury have been unaccounted for by chlorine factories, which produce the feedstock for vinyl. That’s more than the annual mercury emissions from power plants. More than half of all chlorine produced is used to make PVC, which can be over 50 percent chlorine by weight. (By comparison, less than 5 percent is used for drinking and wastewater disinfection.) There’s more, including growing bodies of evidence that chemicals leaching from PVC contribute to indoor air quality problems. And PVC has been declared a “contaminant” to other plastics recycling, after more than a decade of failed efforts to effectively recycle it.

What people really need to understand is that no other plastic is based on chlorine, so other plastics do not have the unique environmental impacts of PVC. But many other plastics, not to mention other materials, do offer equal or better performance at comparable cost. If PVC makes the grade in green building, then what doesn’t? Failing to distinguish PVC from other plastics is like failing to distinguish old growth from other lumber. This is the easy one folks — the low-hanging fruit!

How is your organization funded? How can citizens get involved?    — Pat Vairo, New York, N.Y.

We are predominantly funded by grants from philanthropic foundations and contributions from the general public, so go to our donations site! Another way to get involved is to participate in local efforts. In New York, an effective statewide group is the Citizens’ Environmental Coalition. In New York City there’s a great group called WE ACT (West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.) that does environmental-health work citywide. Just search “environmental health” and a state, and you’ll find many excellent organizations around the country.

I saw a portion of a documentary called Blue Vinyl in which Greenpeace partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build an environmentally friendly home in New Orleans. Do you know of any other partnerships with Habitat for Humanity? What is your organization doing in regards to environmentally friendly housing for the poor?    — Mamatha Gavini, Atlanta, Ga.

Everyone interested in green building or toxic-chemical policy or just good documentary filmmaking should watch Blue Vinyl. It is a remarkable piece of work. To give you some idea of how good the movie is, consider that every interview I did for it ended up on the cutting room floor! The DVD version is about to come out, with an update on the Habitat for Humanity project and, finally, a scene featuring moi. The first email I got after my Grist interview was from the filmmaker, Judith Helfand, saying, “I can’t believe you don’t have a favorite movie!” I could only reply: cutting … room … floor.

It was an honor working with Habitat and Greenpeace on the New Orleans project. The top folks at Habitat’s headquarters in Americus, Ga., set us up with their national green team leader, with whom we worked for over a year, and then we got the red-carpet treatment from the New Orleans affiliate and produced a fine house. Habitat has a nationwide commitment to building Energy Star-qualified homes, but they are a highly decentralized organization, and running on charity at that. So they can only go so far in terms of uniform standards. There have been other exceptionally “green” homes built by a number of chapters that I’m familiar with, including Puget Sound and Washington, D.C.

If folks know of others, let us know. We would love to feature them on our website.

As for HBN and affordable housing, later this year we plan to launch a new program, so stay tuned.

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I am currently working with the local Habitat for Humanity chapter to get a reuse center started. We are in the early stages of planning. Do you have any suggestions? Any ideas where we might be able to find funding sources?    — John Terry, Fairbanks, Alaska

John, do you really want me to put your potential funding sources on the internet? By the time you wake up in Fairbanks, all of the money will have been doled out east of the Mississippi. It’s a great idea, though, as we need a better infrastructure in order to greatly expand the market for materials reuse. I have forwarded your contact information to my colleagues at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who have over 30 years of experience in promoting materials reuse, ecologically sound economic development, and the deconstruction of buildings and reuse of building materials. They have worked with a number of successful reuse centers that are self sufficient. Habitat’s got a great record with reuse centers as well. Let’s stay in touch.

Would you support trade associations if they were advocating the right sorts of public policies? Or do you reject their participation on principle?    — Alison Wise, founder and executive director, Sea Change Sustainable Business Interest Group, Oakland, Calif.

There are a lot of useful functions that trade associations provide for their member companies, such as continuing education and certification programs, trade fairs, keeping an eye on overall market and political trends, and communicating this information to their members. When trade associations start to communicate industry positions outward, on behalf of their members, the trouble starts.

Part of the problem is structural. A trade association has to be careful not to run afoul of antitrust laws, so they have to be open to all companies in their line of business. As a result, they can never be better than the worst company they represent. This doesn’t rule out ethical behavior, but it does mean that the debate is held hostage to the worst practices in the industry, even when there is critical mass for progress among many of the leading companies. Obviously a group whose mission is to promote wind power or organic farming is less likely to cause problems, but even those industries will be subject to the same forces as they grow.

In two decades of advocacy work, I have reached numerous agreements with companies — even after very contentious conflicts. I have never found common ground with a trade association. They are the junkyard dogs. Their record on environmental-policy debates speaks for itself, in four-letter words.

If companies are going to engage in public policy making, they should speak for themselves, so that they are accountable: to employees, communities, shareholders, suppliers, and customers. They can’t expect to be treated with trust or respect when they play both sides against the middle. The USGBC’s credibility has already suffered because some of its members, under the cover of their trade association, the Resilient Floor Covering Institute, financed a lawsuit against New York state’s green tax credit and misrepresented LEED in briefs to the court.

We now have a situation where trade associations, some of which are financed by corporate members active in the USGBC, have established a rival Green Building Coalition dedicated to undermining the USGBC. It’s a cancer in the green building movement at the moment.

Who are the strongest environmentally sensitive companies on the national level in the U.S. and who are the “baddest bad guys” in terms of environmental impact?    — Angus MacFoodle, Salem, Mass.

This guy doesn’t want me driving a Porsche, he wants to see me buy one for some New York City libel lawyer. It’s a good question for which I can’t give a good answer because there are too many confounding variables, most of which I don’t have enough information about. For example, the same action may be economically beneficial to one company and not to another. Some firms act from a place of abundance, while others act despite financial insecurity. Diversified companies may have more options than manufacturers committed to a single material or product. Some companies prioritize environmental progress, while others prioritize other important goals — working conditions, programs for kids, etc. Making a recycled doormat is one thing; a floor for an operating room or a trauma unit is another.

That being said, one major indicator that distinguishes the better company is the extent to which their “good deeds” are integral to their core business. More than one automaker boasts a high-profile green building, and Wal-Mart specifies energy-efficient components for their stores. Some go so far as to say that those are public-relations fig leafs to cover the otherwise harmful environmental impacts of their core business. The impact of those efforts is dwarfed, however, by health care companies rejecting PVC in their medical devices and buildings, playground manufacturers abandoning arsenic-treated wood, or carpet companies taking back their product. The big difference is that suppliers, customers, competitors, and peers all react to innovations in core business function.

I know, I know, you want names. Thumbs up, thumbs down. You decide then. Who is the stronger?

America’s leading carpet manufacturers — Milliken, Shaw, Interface — have some exemplary “take back” and remanufacturing programs, and as a result they have more “green” awards than P. Diddy has bling. But they were/are also responding to a gathering storm of concern about the volumes of carpet in the nation’s landfills and the fact that many green designers eschew carpeting for a variety of reasons. There was a time when it was foreseeable that green buildings would not be carpeted. That’s changed now because carpet companies are some of the most aggressive industrial innovators. It takes nothing away from a revolutionary like Interface CEO Ray Anderson, who changed a corporate culture, to note that his innovations are also consistent with a smart long-term business plan.

Then there is the Firestone Building Products division — not a brand that pops to mind when you say green building. Their sales reps look about as natural showing products at a green building trade show as they would showing some love at a P. Diddy show. As far as industrial roofing products go, the bar is not so high. Selling white, energy-saving roofs is all you need to do to earn your bragging rights. But Firestone just reversed themselves on a relatively recent decision to enter the PVC membrane roofing market. They stopped construction of a factory, put major national contracts at risk, took themselves out of a profitable market, and phased out 800 tons of annual PVC production, citing environmental reasons.

Are there any user-friendly sources of information on safe and sustainable building products?    — Johanna Polsenberg, Washington, D.C.

There is no better source for information on green and healthy building materials than the Environmental Building News. Our goal, of course, is to make it so that someday you won’t have to do special research, or even ask. It won’t be on the store shelf if it is not healthy.

I believe many plastic water pipes are made of PVC materials. If this is true, is the water coming into contact with the vinyl contaminated?    — Dan Busemeyer, Champaign, Ill.

Some PVC pipes manufactured before 1977 leach the human carcinogen vinyl chloride into the water in the pipes. According to one civil engineer who has submitted comments [PDF] on PVC pipes to the USGBC, peer review studies have raised more recent concerns: In one study, the levels of lead in water distributed by lead-stabilized PVC pipes was generally very low, yet the levels of lead in water from newly installed PVC mains were found to temporarily exceed the levels recommended by the World Health Organization. A variety of studies demonstrate that UV light assists in the migration of lead and tin in PVC pipe. Lead has also been detected in another study of waterlines. Leaching of lead from the PVC appears to be responsible for lead elevation in these water samples.

What is the best environmental choice for siding?    — Arthur Amidon, Huntington, N.Y.

I got a lot of questions about specific materials choices, and generally I have referred these to my colleague Matthew Cacho, who staffs the desk for HBN. But I would like to use this one to make a few overarching points about materials choices. First, recognize that your decision will reflect your values, what is “best for you,” because there is no “best” answer and there is no way of objectively quantifying the pros and cons of competing materials. Think about it for a minute — how will your system weigh global-warming impacts against carcinogens in human breast milk? Second, the overall analysis of which is “best for you” will include lots of details about the structure (including whether it is new construction or remodeling, its location, its function) and about you (what is important to you politically, economically, aesthetically).

To make my choice, I would start by applying the Cradle to Cradle framework developed by chemist Michael Braungart and architect Bill McDonough, which envisions a goal of two material cycles. One cycle consists of organic materials that can be safely composted at the end of their useful life into soil and nutrients to grow new organic materials. We should strive to use as much of these as possible; this will encourage ever-improving production and manufacturing techniques. The other cycle consists of synthetic materials, ubiquitous and necessary in the industrial world. These should only be used if they can be locked into a zero-waste cycle of perpetual reuse with the end-of-life waste from our products becoming food for a new industrial cycle. Materials that cannot be effectively composted, reused, or truly recycled at the end of their life should be avoided.

Next, I would think locally. Reduce the environmental impacts of transportation and support local economies. What siding options are manufactured locally, and what sort of siding is best suited to my bioregion?

Finally I would think about my own values. I would want to make my choice resonate with activist campaigns that are looking out for the public interest. So I would not buy cedar shakes from a clear-cutting timber firm, even if the product was indigenous to where I lived. I would not choose vinyl because there is an international campaign to replace it with better materials. Given my budget and sense of aesthetics, I’d probably end up going for the expired license plates, like that hippie’s house in Blue Vinyl.

I’m heading to law school next year with huge expectations and even larger goals. I believe a healthy environment is necessary for peace, and I believe environmental issues will become a high priority when deciding both domestic and foreign policy within my lifetime. What should I look for when deciding where to attend law school, and how can I maximize my experience?    — Katherine Armstrong, Charleston, S.C.

I think you’re onto something. Today, some of the most positive environmental impacts are the result of work that is not considered “environmentalism,” for example, design, engineering, and procurement. Two of the biggest environmental drivers from a public-policy perspective are probably tax policy and global trade policy right now, great areas in which a committed environmentalist could make an impact. So, that is to say, I would not limit your choice to the schools with renowned environmental law programs.

Personally, I maximized my experience by never taking a class I wasn’t interested in just because it would be on the bar exam. You’re going to pay through the nose for a bar review course anyway, and they work. I filled that space with lots of clinical work. I had chosen Northeastern University Law School, largely because their cooperative education program built in lots of experiential learning. But one could also fill it with scholarship, or interdisciplinary studies. Bottom line, law school doesn’t have to be a drag. It was mostly a fun and exhilarating time for me. The late 3rd Circuit Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. even let me skip out of my internship early a few times in order to see Springsteen’s six-night run at the hallowed Philadelphia Spectrum in September 1984.

I agree that the Boss is the best, but I am very curious about the obscure band, the Peasants, that produced an album called The Best of Bill Walsh. Was this some sort of tribute to your great works? Or was it about the football coach, and you just liked the name of the album? Where can I find this music on the web?    — Jim Vallette, Southwest Harbor, Maine

Funny you should ask. The last column moved someone to send me an email informing me that the Peasants are alive and well in cyberspace. As for the meaning of the music, literalism usually makes for bad criticism. I know how frustrated Springsteen gets when people keep pestering him about whether Crazy Janey and her mission man are real people or not, so you should just take it for what it’s worth. Don’t forget the follow-up effort either, Live From Sunny Italy, featuring the eco-anthem “Reunite Gondwanaland.”