Signs of Change: China converting phone booths to WiFi hotspots

I don't know if this belongs under "internet news" or "recycling", but at the end of last year China announced plans to convert its existing network of public phone booths to WiFi hotspots. It is not certain yet, but it sounds like access will be free, putting China a long way towards achieving universal WiFi coverage.

At least, for those that can afford smartphones or laptops.

As the largest emerging economy in the world, what happens in China can be a good predictive model for the US, especially businesses with global aspirations. And this report tells us a couple of things about what's going on in China.

One of the key points in this is that public phone booth usage has dropped so low (most phones are used less than once per day) because cell phone market penetration is nearing 100%. As we are seeing in the States, even "dumb" phones provide a startling array of features, and cellular technology in Asia tends to be ahead of what we have here. This means nearly 100% of the market has access to QR readers, web apps, mobile search, text messaging, and social networking. Pew estimates 83% of American adults have cell phones; a huge and growing number. Many Americans, though, have feature-poor phones, leaving a lot of room for future adoption of more advanced mobile technologies.

The other major point underlines the realization of wireless and universal connectivity. Cloud computing and data storage is increasing, and with that comes a need for reliable, continuous connections. This is why I got upset last year when AT&T announced their reduced data plans, but then I looked carefully at my usage patterns and realized I spend the bulk of my mobile computing time connected to a WiFi network. Between home, the office, and a few local restaurants with free WiFi, less than 2% of my data transfer was over the cellular network.

That's changed. Recently I discovered the joy of streaming video on my iPhone. I catch up on a lot of news, YouTube updates, and even movies via Netflix while on the road, and for the first time ever I'm nearing my monthly data cap.

Yes, I could probably live without watching movies on my phone while waiting in line at the grocery store, but video is growing as a digital tool; just look at Qwiki. Demand for mobile video will only increase, and people will continue using larger, more complex files and programs while on the road. Eventually we will exceed the data capability of the cellular networks, and the only way to continue growing will be increasing WiFi coverage.

Re-purposing the phone booth network is a brilliant idea. I would love to see it catch on here as well.

[h/t PSFK]

BEES Sustainability Database Moves Online, Offers Limited Time Discount on Listing

The BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) database developed by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) is a tool for life cycle analysis for building products.  It is now available as a nifty new online tool at http://www.nist.gov/el/economics/BEESSoftware.cfm. It allows the user to research a vast array of sustainability data on a wide variety of building products. Economic performance and environmental performance are both evaluated, and graphed as simple snapshot. The underlying numbers are all available too, including data on the presence of a huge array of chemical compounds, toxins, metals, and greenhouse gasses; energy usage in various categories; and more.  Even better, multiple products can be compared.

BEES is not simply a bunch of information.  It is software that draws info from its product database and does useful calculations that can be tailored to a specific project. On entering the system, the user can select products by the part of the building in which they are used.  Evaluation can be straight, or weighted according to a set of 12 impact criteria: Global Warming, Acidification, Eutrophication, Fossil Fuel Depletion, Indoor Air Quality, Habitat Alteration, Water Intake, Criteria Air Pollutants, Smog, Ecological Toxicity, Ozone Depletion, and Human Health.  There are several preset weightings to choose from, or the user can define the weighting.

Moving BEES online makes it operating system independent. (Previously, it was downloadable software that only ran on Windows OS.)  This means that you can access it with common web browsers on your computer.  Yes, you can even access it on your iPhone, although I wouldn’t recommend that for your first adventure into the system; some of the display on iOS Safari is a little buggy, and it helps to know where to expect information to appear.
Products in the database include a mix of generic and proprietary products, but the proprietary list tends to be limited. One of the advantages of having BEES live online is that NIST can now add new products easily.

Manufacturers can submit their products to the database, which has two kinds of value.  It will the improve usefulness of BEES, and it may give participating manufacturers an edge in getting specified on projects where sustainability calculations (LEED or otherwise) are factor in choosing products.

To participate, contact Anne Landfield Greig, Four Elements, LLC, the BEES Certified LCA Practitioner who works directly with the BEES project.  She will walk you through the process:

   Anne Landfield Greig
   Principal, Four Elements Consulting, LLC
   Seattle, WA
   w +1 206.935.4600
   m +1 240.426.1098
   anne@fourelementsllc.com

According to the BEES team, "A typical building product manufacturer should anticipate a cost of about $8,000 for the first product and $4,000 for each additional product with similar processing steps. These prices are well below the cost of validating, completing, and incorporating your data set into BEES Online, and represent a limited-time offer that is guaranteed only while funds are available. Manufacturers can expect a questionnaire seeking data from the following departments:

      Accounting - quantity of materials purchased
      Production Control - quantity of output
      Facilities - energy use
      Environmental - waste and releases."

"Vegitecture"

We may be seeing the first salvos of a major architectural trend. "Vegitecture" -- the incorporation of plants into architecture -- has become part of the "green" building movement in more than one sense of the word. It creates new opportunities for many products used in a building's envelope and site work.

Plants purify air and water, enhance health, deter violence, and add a beautiful aesthetic to urban spaces.  Incorporating them into into a building project contributes a local source of food, reduces storm water run off, and may reduce heating and cooling loads.  These benefits are making plants a more popular part of architectural design, especially in urban environments.

The blog, www.vegitecture.net, discusses the many architectural uses plants provide including green roofing, green bridges, green walls, garden sheds, green transportation terminals, eco-hotels, and other applications.

Urban planners around the world have been incorporating plants in urban design as seen here.  They are incorporating plant islands in the middle of sidewalks, as well as pop-up greenhouses, garden domes, etc.

Certain products are jumping on the "vegitecture" wagon.  Kristar Enterprises manufactures a product that provides a dual architectural purpose -- stormwater management TREEPOD® biofilters. These open-bottomed tree box filters remove suspended solids, petrochemicals, grease, bacteria, heavy metals, and other pollutants. The biofilters enable the project to meet the 80 percent TSS (Total Suspended Solids) removal requirement in certain regions while simultaneously providing a beautiful living piece of landscape.

Other building products that may be useful in these types of projects include waterproofing agents, different types of glasses, roofing systems, ceiling systems, plumbing equipment, irrigation equipment, and eco-friendly building materials.

Fed Ups Building Requirements to LEED Gold

From ENR:

The nation’s biggest landlord, the U.S. General Services Administration, is requiring LEED Gold certification as a minimum in all new federal building construction and substantial renovation projects. GSA is updating its facilities standards by the end of the year to enable the projects to meet the LEED Gold requirement...

This is clearly good news for manufacturers targeting government construction, but I'm more excited about the larger message: our expectations for sustainable design are increasing. Green building has been a big enough topic for long enough that it could be suffering from idea fatigue, but instead people seem to have internalized the message; "sustainable" is now the baseline.

Fire Safety is now a Green Issue

My associate, Aaron Chusid, is fond of saying: "The green building movement is over; it won. We don't talk about a 'fire-safe building movement' anymore because fire-resistive design has become a regular part of construction. We have to start discussing sustainable design in the same way."

Aaron's insights may be a bit premature, because a new report by the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM) makes it clear that fire safety is also a green building issue.

Their report, titled Fire Safety and Green Buildings - Bridging the Gap is a free download. I recommend it as required reading for all building product marketing executives during their midwinter break. It is chock-full of issues and challenges to inspire fresh marketing strategies for the new year.

It points out that a single-attribute approach to sustainable product selection can produce unintended fire hazards. For example:

• Engineered wood systems may make efficient use of forest resources, but they may not provide the same fire safety.
• Photovoltaic panels on a roof provide renewable energy, but they can be a hazard to fire fighters.
• Some insulations with excellent thermal resistance also generate smoke that  hinders fire fighting.
• Vegetative roofs have lots of environmental advantages, but shouldn't prevent fire department access.

Reading this report may help you identify threats or opportunities in the changing marketplace. One of Chusid Associates' clients, for example, is launching a new marketing initiative stimulated by the report. Their door opener is that the NASFM has raised concerns about the fire safety of products in its niche. This prepares the way for demonstrating that the firm has already solved the problem, allowing its customers to be both green and fire safe.

10 Tips For Producing “LEED” Specs

What can you do to make it easier for your customers to understand and specify green building products?  The following is advice from CSI's Sustainability Practice Group. It is a good guide for building product manufacturers to study when preparing any "green" marketing literature.

1. There is no absolute difference between a “LEED” spec and a normal spec. You can write a spec for a sustainable building and never use the words “sustainable,” “green,” or “LEED” in it. If the spec is written in a clear, concise, correct and complete manner, sustainability can be built in.

2. BUT you should state your goal for a spec in Division 01 - General Requirements. Is your project to be “LEED Certified” or “LEED Certifiable”? Knowing the design intent of the owner and architect helps the contractor.

3. A list of LEED requirements is not a spec. If the instructions to the contractor are unclear, you’ll pay for them to guess. Product selection and code compliance are the designer’s responsibility.

4. Do the legwork before you open bidding. Do not spec products that cannot meet your sustainable design requirements. You’ll pay for that, too.

5. Know what level of “Green” the owner wants. If the owner wants LEED certification, don’t waste time and money requiring floormats that are made of recyclable material as they don’t contribute a thing to your LEED goal.

6. There is no “maybe” in a contractor’s vocabulary. “Maybe” in a LEED Scorecard will be translated as “no.” Either you’re pursuing a credit or not. Tell the contractor what must be done, not what could be done.

7. Make data collection important. Contractors put off unimportant paperwork. If data for LEED credits must be handed in with Applications for Payment, it’ll get done.

8. Don’t overwork -- and thus overpay – the contractor. Limiting contractors to collecting and recording data for a few products also limits the time and resources they need to do the work. Target the products that will get you the credits you want.

9. Explain, explain, explain. Budget for site visits and meetings where you’ll explain what you’re doing to the contractor, the subcontractors and the facility managers.

10. Let CSI show you how to manage your construction documentation:

• Join CSI’s Sustainability Practice Group – It’s FREE! The next meeting is scheduled for December 21, and the group will be discussing Sustainable products, standards and guidelines.
• Post questions in CSI’s Sustainability Forum.
• Learn to use CSI’s GreenFormat, a format for structuring product data.

FTC Revisions to Green Guides

New revisions to the FTC "Green Guides" were proposed yesterday. According to the FTC website:

The Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, commonly known as the Green Guides, to help marketers avoid making environmental claims that are unfair or deceptive...The Green Guides outline general principles that apply to all environmental marketing claims and then provide guidance on specific green claims...

 A summary of the proposed changes can be found here. It is worth a read, but I do not see any major substantial changes forthcoming. In general it follows the trend to increased transparency, backing claims with hard data, avoiding universal claims of "eco-friendliness" in favor of more specific descriptions, and using certifications that state the basis for the certification.

West Coast Green - a green-tech show

Last week, a friend convinced me to attend show that's new for me: West Coast Green. In its fourth year, it emphasizes "green innovation" in its literature. When I first arrived, I wasn't sure it would be a good show for me, nor for the exhibitors I know best, manufacturers of traditional building products with their green essentials in place. But this show appealed to the building science and technology geek in me, and for the right exhibitor it looks like a great show.

The audience was foreign to me. I'm a veteran of CSI shows and AIA shows, where we see lots of architects and interior designers looking for beautiful finishes and fixtures. GreenBuild appeals to many of the same people, except that everything needs its green story. This show, on the other hand, was not really geared to designers of the visual effects of projects. The education tracks, which are a good key to any show's intended audience, didn't emphasize visual design:

• Future communities
• Energy and water
• Smart grid
• Products and technologies
• Business, branding and social media
• Entrepreneurship

The lineup of speakers was really impressive: it was the reason my friend was attending and the reason she convinced me to come with her. William McDonough's "Deep Dive" presentation was a fascinating 3 1/2 hours long. Van Jones kicked off the event (via webcam) with an energizing story about green jobs. Building Green and Intel presented several sessions each. I plan to go back to the web site to see if I can catch the speeches I missed by Hunter Lovins, Michelle Kaufmann and Panama Bartholomy. These are exciting speakers to the green building community, and I'm sure they helped draw a diverse crowd of attendees.

The key sponsors were energy and technology companies, including PG&E, IBM, and Intel. The 150 or so exhibitors included a few beautiful countertops and wood products, a huge proportion of insulation products, lots of energy monitoring and lighting controls, several LED lighting companies, brick and decking made from recycled materials, and wastewater and landscape water management systems. Many of the systems were geared toward small projects: residential, retail, and small office buildings. In fact, it was this residential look that initially turned me off; but my second look, which came after good experiences in the education sessions, revealed plenty of systems that could scale up to large commercial and institutional projects.

For manufacturers of building products, I'm not yet sure to whom to recommend exhibiting at West Coast Green. It's not a great audience for interior design products, but it's an unusually good one for high-tech systems and innovative green products. I do think that it and other regional green technology shows are worth watching and evaluating.

Did you exhibit at West Coast Green? Did you think about it, but decide not to? I'd be curious to hear what you decided and why, and whether you'll consider exhibiting there next year.

Build business with sustainable architecture

My competitor is making some questionable claims about the environmental benefits of his building products. I think he’s doing it to capitalize on the “sustainable architecture” movement. How can I legitimately jump on this bandwagon?—B.T.W., CEO

 Sustainable architecture means building in ways that have minimal impact on the land, reducing the energy required to build and maintain buildings, conserving nonrenewable resources, and creating and maintaining buildings that do not have toxicity problems. The growing interest in this trend means building product manufacturers are facing new consumer attitudes, regulatory requirements, manufacturing considerations, and competitive challenges.



Finding the best response for your business can be difficult. There are few, if any, building products that do not have some adverse environmental impact. Also, most designers and builders have little experience with “environmentally correct” buildings, and there are few standards to guide them.

A few manufacturers have exploited this situation by “greenwashing” their products and making exaggerated or unfounded claims. To avoid this superficial response and maintain credibility, examine your business and products to identify their environmental strengths and weaknesses. Then develop your marketing strategy by answering the following questions:

What are your customers’ attitudes? Will they commit their own resources for the sake of environmental resources? It’s easy to accept a “green” product that has an established reputation and costs no more than competing products. But will specifiers and builders risk using a new or more expensive product strictly for its alleged environmental benefits?

What impact will new regulations have on your business? For example, limitations on volatile organic compounds continue to be tightened, and several jurisdictions require certain building materials to have a recycled content.

What is your competitive situation? Do your competitors have an environmental marketing advantage? If not, be sure that the benefits of being the first in your product category to offer a green product outweigh the costs of market development.

Is there an opportunity to reposition your business? Some roofing manufacturers, for example, now make liners for landfills.

How can you adapt your research and development? Look for new designs, sources of raw materials, and manufacturing processes that improve your environmental report card.

The current interest in sustainable architecture will inevitably subside as today’s environmental innovation becomes tomorrow’s industry standards. Until then, if you have environmentally correct products, you’ve got to tell it to the world.

Your marketing media
Besides helping sales, your ads, literature, and public relations should give customers the data they need to make informed product selections. Your marketing communications must be accurate and complete. If you claim an environmental benefit for your product, you must be ready to disclose and document far more information than you are used to, such as the types and sources of raw materials and manufacturing emissions. But you can use this information to your advantage by getting listed in directories of recycled and green products. Also, look into certification programs that provide credentials for environmentally improved products.

Your communications materials must reinforce your environmental statement. Use paper with recycled fiber and vegetable oil-based inks. Make sure your mailings and catalogs are recyclable. Challenge your graphic designers, printers, and magazine publishers to help you project a consistent image by being aware of the environmental impact of their services.

To reduce the volume of paper you distribute, print abbreviated catalogs. Offer a fax service so customers can request only the data they need. Consider using high-density computer disks and CD-ROMs. Put your materials in reusable binders with clear plastic sleeves that allow new title pages to be inserted.

Your sales effort
Your salespeople, of course, must be trained so they can answer questions about the environmental aspects of your company and products. But you should also consider ways to make their activities more environmentally conscious. Take advantage of technology to reduce their travel. Use overnight delivery services, fax machines, and modems to support your telemarketing. Another way to cut travel is to use sales agencies, which represent several manufacturers within a small territory.

Your plant
Take a look at your plant. Does it release toxic emissions? Have you optimized your energy utilization? Is your plant situated for efficient distribution? Some industries favor small, local plants instead of large national operations. In addition to reducing fuel consumption, local plants can be more responsive to regional needs.

Your product
The use of recycled materials to produce building products has caught the public imagination more strongly than perhaps any other aspect of sustainable architecture (Marketing Specs, July 1993, p. 8). Are you taking advantage of the reliable and economical supplies of used metal, glass, and plastic now available? Is your scrap put back into the production process or recycled appropriately? When virgin materials are needed to produce your product, are your supplier’s environmental practices part of your purchasing criteria?

Reduce your packaging by designing it to be incorporated into the completed construction, recycled, or returned for reuse. Some communities require job site debris to be sorted and recycled, and packaging that simplifies a contractor’s job will have a marketing advantage.

How else can you reduce job site waste? In many instances, prefabrication improves environmental performance. For example, factory-applied finishes can capture nearly all solvents and over-spray for reuse.

What about the performance of your product itself? Over a building’s life, more energy is consumed in operating it than in creating it, so product quality is a critical factor in sustainable architecture. How efficiently does your product operate? How easily can it be maintained? How long will it last? Can it be recycled when replacement is finally required? These are all issues that affect your product’s environmental standing.

Construction has typically been governed by expediency, first costs, and cash flow. The wild card in sustainable architecture is how far it will go towards fostering new values based on long-term building economy and performance. Will concrete pavement, for example, with a 50-year-plus life expectancy, take market share from less durable asphalt pavement?

If that happens, companies that have environmentally sound products and practices will, in the long run, be more competitive than those that don’t. As in any changing market, however, the short run is full of risks as well as benefits. The sustainable architecture movement seems remarkably free of individuals who do not appreciate the pragmatic concerns of business. Perhaps they realize that there is no value in sustainable architecture if it does not sustain your business as well.

Have a question you'd like us to answer?
Send an email to michaelchusid@chusid.com

By Michael Chusid
Originally published in Construction Marketing Today, Copyright © 1994

"Be The One" uses QR codes to promote Gulf clean-up

As both an important environmental story and a creative use of social media technology, the "Be The One" effort deserves your attention. From their website:

In light of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, Women of the Storm is rallying to restore America’s Gulf coast now and for future generations. The “Be the One” effort intends to galvanize the nation around the cause of coastal restoration in order to demand that government leaders address this critical issue.

Considering one of their sponsors is YouTube I'm not surprised they're using social media well, but I was impressed by their use of QR codes to encourage people to sign their petition. Note the simple, but effective, customization.

In addition to QR codes on signs and billboards, they are offering a scannable t-shirt, taking the usual benefit of branded clothing a step farther. Now instead of just a passive, but mobile, poster, the shirt becomes a portable hyperlink to the site. Presumably, people who wear this shirt will wear it around similarly-minded groups, who would be highly likely to also sign the petition. In other words, imagine a couple of people show up wearing this at the next USGBC meeting. Talk about highly targeted marketing!

This is a great example of what's possible with QR codes: create a highly targeted landing page, put the code where it will have the most impact, and use some outside-the-box creativity. This could have a huge impact at trade shows, with your whole staff wearing scannable shirts as they're out networking. I want to see these in the product demo area at World of Concrete and the Concrete Decor Show; put one on the concrete artist your company is sponsoring, with the message, "Want to know more about the products I'm using? Scan my shirt!"

Please take a minute to check out the "Be The One" page and sign their petition. The Gulf oil spill is one of the environmental disasters of our age, and to be true to our ideals of sustainable design we must also clean the world outside our buildings.

Ocean Day

My calendar lists July 19 as "Ocean Day (Japan)". We've been discussing a lot whether "blue" is becoming the new "green" as water-conservation awareness grows, so I did some quick research on the holiday.

Ocean Day, or Marine Day, is a national holiday set for the third Monday in July; originally fixed on July 20, it was moved to create a three-day holiday weekend at the beginning of the summer beach season. Historically the holiday celebrates the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Hokkaido in 1876, but the modern holiday was founded in 1996 and focuses more on beach trips and "gratitude for the blessings of the oceans and to hope for the economic prosperity of maritime Japan" (Wikipedia entry, 7/6/2010).

This sounds like a great marketing opportunity, especially for companies with a presence in Japan and eastern Asia, to discuss your company's stance on water conservation and protecting the oceans. Have you started to put together your "blue" story yet?

Building Product Nutrition Labels Arrive in 2011

Light bulbs will display "nutritional labels" starting next year, according to an announcement from the FTC.

Starting in mid-2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced today, consumers shopping for light bulbs will notice new labeling on packaging designed to help them choose among the different types of bulbs on the market – traditional incandescent bulbs, and newer high-efficiency compact fluorescent (CFL) and light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs. The new labels will enable consumers to save money by selecting the most efficient bulbs that best fit their lighting needs.

Under direction from Congress to re-examine the current labels, the FTC is announcing a final rule that will require the new labels on light bulb packages. For the first time, the label on the front of the package will emphasize the bulbs’ brightness as measured in lumens, rather than a measurement of watts. The new front-of-package labels also will include the estimated yearly energy cost for the particular type of bulb.

Eco-insiders and sustainable design advocates have been predicting and calling for this type of labeling for years. Light bulbs are particularly well suited to the treatment, given the confusing interplay of wattage, lumens, energy cost, and more; I expect that if this program is successful it will quickly spread to other building products. Voluntary and preemptive labeling could help companies get ahead of the curve and cement their reputation for environmental leadership.

H/T TreeHugger and EcoGeek for the tip.

Greenwash of Week

The following claim is from a building product manufacturer's sales literature:

"The copper used by [Company] is recycled, is recyclable and has a zero life cycle cost, since it is warranted for the life of the wall."

Copper products can contain high percentages of recycled content, provide a long service life, and can be recycled without loss of metallurgical value. However, it is greenwash to claim that this amounts to a zero life cycle cost.

The cost of fabricating, transporting, and installing the product virtually guarantees that the product will have a positive life cycle cost. The only exception I can imagine would be if the raw value of copper escalates so much that the product's scrap value in the future offsets the present value of construction. But I doubt the manufacturer intends to warrant this economic claim.

The sales sheet would have been just as effective if the manufacturer had claimed:

"The copper used by [Company] is recycled, is recyclable and is warranted for the life of the wall."

Trend: Stilted Construction

In an attempt to minimize flood damage from hurricanes, some communities on the East Coast are promoting construction on stilts. Elevating buildings allows storm surges to flow underneath structures rather than hitting them broadside.

www.topsider.com/images/WilmingtonSquare.jpg

West Coast communities are starting to get into (onto?) stilts for another reason: to avoid damage and deaths due to tsunami.  A small town in coastal Oregon has broken ground for a new municipal structure on stilts.

www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/cannon_beach_may_be_site_of_fi.html

Communities in the Midwest that are prone to flooding rivers might also consider this technique of construction. Flooding will likely become more common due to climate change, deforestation, paving of otherwise permeable soil, and population pressures that will drive people to build in flood plains.

Stilt-construction may open markets for new building products manufacturers who anticipate demand and develop solutions.

Consider products such as:

• Increased demand for railings and stairs.
• Elevators and lifts.
• Improved methods for bringing utilities up to building.
• Soffits for underside of building.
• More efficient ways to build and brace elevated framing.
• Furnishings, lighting, and pavings for under building.
• Increased insulation due to exposure of building underside.
• Scour-resistant foundations.
• Frangible links that allow auxiliary parts of structures to wash away without damaging critical structures.

Contact me if you want to brainstorm how stilted construction might impact your business.

AIA 2011 Convention Call for Presentations due July 1

Next year's AIA 2011 Convention in New Orleans presents an opportunity for your company to establish your expertise on how innovative planning, design, and construction methods, along with evolutionary or revolutionary approaches to practice, collaboration, and partnerships can create more resilient urban ecosystems where cities of all scales contribute to a region’s sustainability and regeneration.

Due to the many disasters New Orleans has recently faced, the city has had thousands of renovations in the past few years.  The 2011 convention call for presentations invites your company to propose an educational seminar on one of the aforementioned topics relating to the process of creating a more sustainable resilient urban ecosystem.

Proposals are due July 1, 2010.

Chusid Associates can help you generate presentation topics and proposals.

Greensite Awards 2010

Concrete Construction gets it right. They recognize there's more to "green" than LEED, and that celebrating those extra factors is how the industry will move to the next level in sustainable design.

That's why I like the Greensite Awards.

Sustainable building practices are gaining acceptance in the competitive world of concrete construction. The editors of Concrete Construction and The Concrete Producer have created a new award program to recognize the concrete community's innovative contributions to green building. We will honor the country's best projects in ten different categories, and award one project as the overall GreenSite Project of the Year. 

Two years ago one of our clients won for their work on Ft. Irwin; the project was never LEED scored, and I'm sure it would not have done well, but the design-builder was able to drastically reduce environmental impact by using innovative concrete wall systems to cut the construction time in half. That's the kind of innovation we need, and that's what Concrete Construction is recognizing.

The call went out a month ago, and the deadline is August 27th. If you worked on a project that used concrete in a substantial way and had innovative approaches to sustainable design, consider applying.

Antimicrobial Products to be Reviewed by FDA

Chusid Associates has previously warned against the use of antimicrobial agents in building materials. We have cited their lack of efficacy in preventing or controlling disease, exaggerated marketing claims that skirt legal restrictions, and the potential for antimicrobial abuse to spawn drug-resistant pathogens.

Now, there is yet another concern. The leading antimicrobial products are dangerous to human health.

The synthetic antimicrobial agent triclosan - marketed under the name Microban(R) - is found in numerous products both durable and consumable.  This is includes certain materials used as countertops and food prep surfaces, wall surfacing materials and upholstery, hardware and plumbing trim.  It also includes a host of antimicrobial soaps and similar personal care and household products.

The FDA is going to review the use of such products at the behest of U.S. Rep Edward Markey (MA), who introduced a bill in congress banning the use of triclosan in personal care products. Restrictions against the products in building materials could follow.

If you are building with materials that contain triclosan or Microban, or if you're specifying such materials, you might want to read this article:


http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-closer-20100419-20,0,7890670.story

The Rewards of Construction Writing

I like what I do.  Writing about construction materials is a quest.  I’m lucky to make my living dong something that’s a quest, because it keeps the work interesting.  And the quest is no minor thing: it’s the quest for the future.

One of the enduring constants of the construction industry is its resistance to change, due in large part to the high risks and liabilities attached to construction.  Designers and contractors are dis-incentivized by our system to try new or innovative techniques and materials: if anything goes wrong, the financial and career damage can be severe.  So there is a tendency to avoid anything new until the risk has been run and avoided by somebody else – that is, until it’s not new anymore.  If everyone follows that M.O., nothing can ever change or improve.

In other industries, a material or technique that costs less, is easier to use, and improves performance over the existing choices would be adopted quickly.  In construction, the rare material that meets those criteria still has a huge hurdle of credibility to overcome.  The spectre of failure, and the liabilities accompanying it, looms large.

It is, therefore, one of the prime missions of the construction journalism, not only to report on the arrival of new technologies and ideas, but to explain them.  A new technology’s potential for progress will only be realized if designers, contractors and owners are given the opportunity to understand current methods and the issues they raise, as well as how a new solution meets old needs in a better way.  Just giving a prose version of the sale pitch is not enough.  Simply explaining “what it does” is not enough. A real evaluation of a new option requires knowing “how it does it.”  Claims need proofs, and limitations need to be defined. The actors in the construction drama must develop confidence in anything new before they’ll leave the safety of the tried and true, and confidence comes only from knowledge and understanding.

Many of the most progressive strides in construction today are towards sustainable methods and materials.  An honest discussion of sustainability often entails demystifying science that’s well outside the immediate concerns of the industry.  It sometimes means unraveling popular misconceptions.  It means avoiding greenwashing, and sometimes calling out greenwashing that’s being done in that area of business.  One of the welcome aspects of writing about sustainable technologies is repeated discovery that the aspects that make them sustainable are frequently the same aspects that make them more affordable or higher-performing.

If, and only if, we explain new ideas accurately and comprehensively, they can be evaluated on their merits and not on the basis of ignorance and fear.

One of the services that construction journalism provides to the design community is a better understanding of conditions and practices on the jobsite.  Case Studies become a conduit for sharing lessons learned.  By closing the gap between studio and field, between theory and practice, we may be helping reduce the frictions and misunderstandings that make construction more difficult and risky. We like to think that spreading knowledge of what is being done, and what can be done, across the construction industry helps make it more of a community.