Value Beyond Cost Savings - Green Building Finance Consortium

Value Beyond Cost Savings: How to Underwrite Sustainable PropertiesBeyond building assessment systems, there are scores of product and materialassessments and certifications. Many of these product, material or feature certificationsare incorporated as part of the broader whole building rating systems such as LEED. Thechallenge with these product or material rating systems is to find sources of informationthat have sufficient funds, independence, and technical expertise to provide usefulcomparative information. Greenwashing—the practice of making sustainability claims thatare not backed up or are overstated—is prevalent in the industry and will be a continuingconcern.Product rating systems, like the Cradle to Cradle® product certification system, a privateeco-labeling system launched in 2005 which had over 300 products certified as of Fall2009, provide a reasonably consistent methodology for evaluating products and can helpowners and designers in their product selection, but they only rate products who seek themout and pay them, so the number of products reviewed is just a fraction of the totalavailable.Companies like BuildingEase.com are entering the product and materials space and shouldimprove the process of sustainable product selection and acquisition. BuildingEase.com is aglobal trade exchange for construction products, designed to be like Amazon.com/eBay/Expedia, but only for the construction industry. It endeavors to be a comprehensivesource of products and materials worldwide. They have created a proprietary green filter sosearch results will appear filtered by how green their attributes are, as well as with side byside comparisons, user feedback ratings, distance from job site and other information. Thesite is also designed to facilitate aggregate bidding. 12Integrating Life Cycle Assessment practices, which measure the embedded energy/carbonrequired to produce a product, is also an important part of new product rating databases.Given the huge amounts of investment, job implications, etc. of a negative review of aproduct or system, good information is still hard to find.Finally, there are a growing number of organizations that identify, assess, and certifyservice providers such as contractors, plumbers, electricians, commissioners, and otherprofessions on their sustainability expertise. The credibility and and rigor involved withthese different groups is highly variable. The key here is to understand explicitly therequirements for certification and/or listing in the directory and use the list accordingly.Even if a list requires no special requirements other than interest in sustainability, it couldbe useful.It should also be noted, that given the penetration of sustainability through every aspect ofbuilding design, construction and operations, sustainability training is now integrated intothe general education requirement for many professional certifications.12 The author has not done significant verification of the site’s claims, but mention this site because its aspirations andproposed approach are important indications of the direction of product and material solutions to the problems of greenwashing and product and material overload.24