For the past 25 years I have been teaching, among other subjects, sustainable construction techniques (Green Construction) and Sustainable Living Solutions (which include the use of non-toxic home and food products). I’m sure that I will be putting up many posts on these interrelated subjects. I’d like to make these posts a bit more all encompassing. To that end I’d like to let you know some of the topics I will be including in these posts:
1. What is Green?
2. Living Green.
3. Basic Green Construction Techniques.
4. Green Renovations.
5. Alternative Energy & Winterization.
For now let’s just toss around a few concepts that will help us with some needed definitions. To begin, let’s add a new word to our dictionary and that word is sustainable. I am defining sustainable as using any resource so that the resource used is not depleted or permanently damaged. Some (green) builders may think of this as simply using renewable resources and materials in their products, others go deeper and include everything in this definition by starting with sustainable site planning followed by the inclusion of energy efficiency and sustainable construction techniques. While builders may only think of sustainability only in terms of their products, for many of us we would include all aspects of life and living from specific areas such as the environment or energy use to a much more wide open area like lifestyle, diet (food) and personal responsibility.
For this post I’d like to focus on one example of how to increase sustainability at home. One of the things my therapist is known to remind me is to understand the difference between wants and needs. Needs are food, sleep, clean air,shelter etc. Wants are everything else. We may think we need winter tomatoes, a new phone, a new car, a new or bigger house but we don’t actually need those things. We want those things. As we are approach the end of this harvest season we have an opportunity to do the right, or sustainable thing. We all like tomatoes and other produce that is seasonable here in the northeast. The problem is most produce can not be grown in the fall and winter locally, most will come from faraway places, actually from faraway countries. Most of these distant producers are both far away (adding the costs of transportation) and lack of any real oversight for healthy production (the use of herbicides and pesticides are generally unrestricted in places like Mexico and Chile.) Starting this fall let’s try and be more sustainable by purchasing organic products from as local a source as possible.
Besides the fact that the food that comes from those distant places is usually picked early for long term shipping and is usually “tasteless”. I once spoke to a woman I knew at the grocery store and asked her why she was buying tomatoes in January from Mexico and she looked at me and said she just did it automatically, as she and her husband always had a salad as part of diner (an attempt at a healthy lifestyle). When I suggested that there were American companies that sold organic produce (generally hydroponic) for just a bit more she took my suggestion and agreed that although it still didn't taste as good as local summer tomatoes, it certainly tasted better than the tasteless stuff she had been purchasing from foreign sources.
As a sustainable consultant for over 25 years I receive requests to assist clients in many areas, including the many different ways to build green. Technically, building green may involve certification of that construction. There are currently two main certifying agencies (US Green Building Council and the National Green Building Standards of the National Associations of Home Builders as well as those who want to build green but don’t care whether or not their work is certified or not certified.
Green building could can vary from those builders who simply purchase “sustainable” products to use in their construction to those that believe green construction should include the entire ownership life-cycle of those products as well as concern that also includes consideration of where the building products are coming from. An example: Is it green to purchase hardwood FSC Certified from Costa Rica (a country that is 4000 miles away)? Is it possible to build a green 5,000 square foot (or larger) home?
These last two questions really bring up the point of any discussion on sustainability. We know that we can find green or sustainable products and we know we can build in a way that protects the environment, but can we continue to do both without sacrificing our lifestyle and changing the fundamental way we live our lives? I believe that the answer is “No.”
Ultimately we are talking about a look far into the future to find a way to live our lives that “does no harm.” If you have ever read Tom Friedman’s books and editorials he has been writing for decades that the American dream is now the whole world’s dream. Everyone wants a car, a refrigerator, and a more materialistic lifestyle. The problem is if the current success of our (the USA) is an example, we would be adding 300,000,000 new consumers to the marketplace each year. This is exactly what is happening in China and India today. Remember, part of the successful lifestyle we are living includes having only 5% of the worlds population and using 25% of the worlds resources. Clearly if we are adding the equivalent of a new middle class America to the world each year we will simply run out of resources (and sooner than you think). We therefore must change the way we live and put forward a new, less materialistic, less consumer driven lifestyle.
Again, not to date myself too much, but if you grew up in the 70’s, your motto was: “You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.” Let’s all be part of the solution. When I talk to my construction clients and explain that one of the reason to buy non-toxic building materials is not just because it’s less toxic to their workers, but because it’s less toxic to this planet. When we purchase organic or natural foods we don’t just eat healthier, we help create a healthier planet. If the world is going to live like Americans then we Americans must change the way we live. If we live sustainable lives, so will the rest of the world.
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