Sweet Orange

You might be surprised to learn that the Big Orange is a green jobs hub. In addition, green jobs on the national level are growing faster than most other job categories. Here is a breakdown of how green jobs are an important feature of our economy:

Green jobs on the county level:

Orange County will likely add 3,130 new energy-related jobs over the next three years, most of them in the realm of project managers for construction or design work, according to a new report by a local college-affiliated group.–Pat Brennan, “Report: O.C. to add 3,000 jobs in energy sector”

Green jobs on the state level:

From January 2007 to January 2008, green jobs in California increased by 5 percent, while jobs decreased by 1 percent in the economy as a whole.–Pat Brennan, “Need a job? Think ‘green’ - jobs booming in O.C., statewide“

Green jobs on the national level:

The push for clean energy could lead to explosive job growth in the United States, according to a new report by a clean-energy research group.

The report, Clean Tech Job Trends 2009, says activity is high in the renewable energy market, with some predicting the biggest chance for wealth and job creation since the rise of computers and the Internet.–Pat Brennan, “Report: job potential high in renewable energy“

Green jobs and national security:

According to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, going green is important not only because of the personal job benefits it might bring us, but also for our national security.

We are transferring our wealth to countries around the world who don’t agree with us and, in many cases, are funding the very terrorists that we are sending our young men and women out to fight….We have got to get somehow or other to [energy] independence. It’s doesn’t matter if you are a greeny or not. The bottom line is we cannot keep funding our enemies.–Michael Bloomberg on Meet the Press

For more information on green jobs and the economy, see:

• Energy Efficient Occupations in Orange County, Center for Excellance, California Community Colleges
• Green Business by Media Planet
• EDF’s Clean Energy Jobs State Fact Sheets
  

Graph Courtesy Wikipedia

Yesterday, I wrote about the prefab green home in Newport Beach that developer LivingHomes put up in about four hours. The first home of this type that LivingHomes installed is in Santa Monica and is the home of  Steve Glenn, the CEO of LivingHomes, (To see additional prefab green homes that LivingHomes has built, see the LivingHomes website.)

In addition to being the first home of this type that Living Homes built, the Santa Monica prefab is the first residential building in the U.S. to receive the LEED Platinum rating.* The Newport Beach home mentioned previously as well as homes in Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa are competing for this title in Orange County.

You can view the Santa Monica home in two ways: You can take a tour of the Santa Monica house every Friday from 1-2 pm and the 4th Saturday of each month. Tickets are free and can be reserved through eventbrite.com. Or you can take a virtual tour.

About four hours–that’s all it took to install a prefabricated “green” home onto its foundation in Newport Beach.  After the four modules that make up this sustainably designed home were put into place on the existing foundation, the next step was to bolt everything together. The homeowner, Greg Brown, predicted that he would have the interior completed in four weeks.

Brown and the developer, Living Homes, hope to verify the greenness of the newly installed prefab by applying for the LEED Platinum rating. LEED is the predominate sustainable development rating system, and Platinum is the highest LEED rating.

Some of the characteristics of this home that will help to achieve the Platinum designation are the use of the following:

• 
• recycled material
• low-flow water fixtures
• solar panels
• ventilation system that improves indoor quality
• windows that seal in air
• low- or non-volatile organic compounds
• Energy Star appliances
• construction components that allow the building to be torn down in a way that allows for the easy reuse of  all the parts

The installed cost of this particular prefab green home (model LHKT 1.5), which is available nationwide, is $275 per square foot. This does not include the foundation or land costs.

Related post:

Going for the Green-and Platinum-in Orange County: The 319 Single-family Project in Huntington Beach

Going for the Green–and Platinum–in Orange County: The Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach

This energy efficient and ecologically built residence will demonstrate how homeowners can conserve energy and dollars by adopting and
utilizing green building products and services. It will feature an unparalleled display of energy-saving systems and environmentally friendly materials in a fully operational residence.–Living Green Homes Construction and Development, Inc. on its newly built Huntington Beach home

Saving money and energy. Sounds like a good combination for our economically-strapped times, or any time for that matter. Developer Living Green Homes is attempting to prove a way to do this with its newly built Huntington Beach home that they are seeking a GreenPoint Rated designation from Built It Green as well as the LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The 3213 square-foot, three-story, single-family home has three bedrooms, three full bathrooms and two half bathrooms. It is located in downtown Huntington Beach at 319 21st Street.

If you want to tour this new green home, you can attend today’s grand opening from 1:30 to 4:30. The grand opening will include speakers as well as food and drink from local restaurants. These include 118 Degrees Restaurant, which is located in Costa Mesa, as well as  Andrei’s Conscious Cuisine and Portola Handcrafted Coffee Roasters, which are both located in Irvine.

If you can’t make the grand opening, tours will available in the coming months. During the tours, the sponsors will provide product demonstrations for environmentally friendly building products, appliances, hardware, and services. Eventually, this home will go on the market.

Note: A YouTube video that provides more background on this project is available. Also, thanks to Evan Little of Surtterre Properties for the tweet that informed me of this event.

Related post: “Going for the Green–and Platinum–in Orange County: The Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach”

The green building market is estimated to be worth $30-$40 billion annually by the year 2010. By 2010, approximately 10% of commercial construction starts are projected to be green. According to a 2006 McGraw-Hill Smart Market report, every business day, $464 million worth of construction registers with LEED.–Wikipedia

“The new 8,500-square-foot facility was designed to achieve the highest level of ‘green’ building certification by the U.S. Green Building Council - LEED Platinum Certification. …Guests learn how to implement sustainable features in their own homes and businesses.”–The Environmental Nature Center (ENC), Newport, CA

As the opening quote shows, green building has economic benefits as well as environmental benefits. Here is another statement showing the economic benefits:

LPA estimates that the facility’s sustainable elements will save ENC [The Environmental Nature Center] ~$20,000 per year.–Jetson Green

The predominant system that is used for rating the “greenness” of a development is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Like all systems, it has its drawbacks and is evolving to address those drawbacks. Here is an overview:

LEED is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to ensure that the design, construction, and maintenance requirements result in buildings with some level of sustainability. The current LEED system has four possible levels that a project can attain. These levels, from lowest to highest, are Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. To determine which level a project will receive, points are given for each sustainable feature that fits into one of five categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality

For example, some of the characteristics that contributed to the Nature Center receiving the highest LEED rating, Platinum, are as follows: The building was designed and constructed in a way that that allows for daily operations that uses less resources. These include the ability to use natural ventilation, less water, and a reduced amount of energy by including solar and wind energy components. In addition, during construction renewable and recycled materials were used, and the building was constructed in a way that reduces light pollution.

For a list of Orange County projects with various LEED ratings, go to the USGBC-Orange County site.

You might have heard of sustainable design or green building, but what exactly that means might be vague to you. A general answer is the following: Sustainable design uses certain construction practices, construction and design products, and design criteria to solve development problems in a way that uses features of the natural environment as an advantage. In contrast, most builders currently use design practices that attempt to overcome the natural environment instead of use it to their advantage. In addition, sustainable design uses existing material when possible and does not use toxic materials.

Here are some more details on these green building fundamentals:

Use the features of a building site to achieve a desired result. For example, when conventional building practices are used, the location of the sun is ignored when deciding on how to orient a building. Sustainable design practices use a different approach.

When sustainable design practices are used, the building is situated in a way that takes advantage of the heating or cooling that the sun’s location can provide. Conventional building practices force the home or building owners to rely heavily on costly, high-energy-consumption, mechanical systems to heat or cool a building.

Another example of using the features of a building site to achieve a desired result is using materials from the building site as much as possible. The Nueva Hillside Learning Complex (see picture above), which built sun screens, benches, and decks from the Cypress trees that were cut down to clear the building site, illustrates this point.

View the building site as a system and link that system to other systems. Another way of saying this is close the loop: The output or waste from one system is used as the input to another system. Or the output from one part of a system is used as an input to another part of the same system. For example, waste water can be captured and then reuse for other uses, such as watering landscapes.

Recycle as much as possible. This might include finding new uses for construction waste but, in some cases, could include finding new uses for existing buildings instead of tearing down these buildings.

When possible, share the same building or site among multiple organizations. Of course, this is geared toward commercial and school buildings rather than residential buildings.

That is it for the Reader’s Digest definition of sustainable design. Of course, much more detail is possible. But this will do for an introduction.