In Nature there is seldom one solution or one way of being that works for all circumstances.  The same is true when developing sustainable strategies for your building projects or business plans.  This walnut is shutting down for the change of seasons.  If trees behaved like it was always summer they would perish.  Human endeavors have seasons too.  When we learn how to make appropriate shifts in strategy with changing conditions we come closer to operating sustainably.

Forget that so many world records were broken in the water at the Water Cube. There is another gold medal that should be hung around someones neck.  The real winner from this venue was WATER and ENERGY.

The Cube collects rain water that falls on the outer surface and roof facade.  One engineering estimate is that the building will collect 10,000 tons of rain water, 70,000 tons of clean water and 60,000 tons of swimming pool water on an annual basis.  That’s not a drop in the bucket.

And the LED lighting reduces the electrical needs by somewhere around 60% over conventional lighting.  As a bonus LEDs don’t contain mercury, emit no or little ultraviolet light and produce almost no heat that needs to be overcome with air conditioning.

Add the high visibility of the project and you have a poster child for good design.  I would have to dig deeper into the specifics of the project but on the surface I give them a gold medal for good design.

It’s late August and many of the landscapes are at the point where they are either extremely dry and unsightly or soaking up water from irrigation systems.  But those aren’t the only two options.  A carefully planned landscape design can do a number of things to assist the sustainability of a project.  Appropriate landscape designs can:

• reduce the need for potable water used for irrigation by 50% to 100%
• reduce the heat-island effects of the built environment
• decrease the quantity of site run-off water
• increase the quality of site run-off water
• lower annual average heating and cooling costs
• improve worker productivity and employee retention
• improve the quality of the site ecology
• reduce the need for frequent mowing that requires fossil fuels
• improve air quality

Add the value of all of these services together and it’s clear that landscape design is one critical component of sustainable planning.  Does your project team include someone that can optimize that potential?

One of my favorite quotes is by Joseph Campbell in “On the Edge of Chaos: Navigating through Global Change” He writes, “the edge of chaos is a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy.” In other words, it is how we deal with crisis, not that there is crisis. If you think of the current economic climate as chaotic (and I think that’s fair) you can either view that as cause for alarm or opportunity for creative problem solving. Sustainable thinking can help your business navigate the tricky edge of chaos so that you surf the expanding set of opportunities in a healthy way that keeps your business vital. The economics of energy is the current driver for chaotic change. As one of the five main focus areas for sustainable design, energy is a great place to start thinking two and three steps ahead of your competition. Do you know how your company will respond to a carbon cap and trade scenario, or a carbon tax? The Lieberman-Warner bill was the shot across the bow. That it failed is not an indication that carbon thinking is going away. It is only an indication that a carbon economy is not ready for prime time. Stay tuned and design your strategies now.

Thanks for getting the word out about us.

Claude and Chas

Thank you.