Terms like “Environmental Responsibility”, “Eco-friendly”, “Sustainability” appear everywhere these days, (along with promises to “reduce our carbon footprint”) in every flavor of media. Pick almost any corporate website and you can generally find a detailed section on their environmental efforts.

Go to any grocery store, and you can purchase inexpensive shopping bags proclaiming to be all or mostly recycled content, the use and presumed reuse of which will help eliminate those ubiquitous polypropylene bags that blow around parking lots or yards, and end up in landfills. It is questionable, however, whether or not these bags reduce the problem, or add to it.

So is all this “greenwork” real? Is it effective? Is it sustainable? Or is it all so much greenwashing? In the absence of regulatory agencies for green marketing, some companies play fast and loose with the truth. A recent article in US News suggests that 95% of consumer products make false claims about being green.

Watchdog groups are also proliferating, like Greenwashing Index, Sourcewatch, and (of course) Greenpeace. A trip through these sites display a litany of examples of corporations who make grossly exaggerated or even unsubstantiated claims.

So what is the truth? Are positive environmental changes really being made by large corporations, or is it an illusion? Is a corporation who spends less than 1% of a billion-dollar-per year profit margin on green research a conscientious eco-citizen, or a cynical exploiter of the Green Meme to increase sales?

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

Time for a reality check: corporations exist to make money. They produce products to meet a demand. Corporate altruism, if and when it exists, has to be supported by a revenue stream. Any company that makes too big a sacrifice in this area would either be dismantled by its own shareholders, or forced aside by a more profitable, less ethical business (regardless of what certain radical activists believe).

Big change—truly lasting positive environmental change–can only come about through two mechanisms: legislation (see my previous blog entry on the topic here), or technological/process improvement. Legislation forces a top-down change, and creates a (relatively) level playing field. But it can be difficult to enact sweeping legislation (as illustrated by the recent defeat of the last round of the cap-and-trade bill). Innovation, by definition, increases efficiency or profitability (or both). Green innovation must provide a real benefit to the environment, as well as a net positive benefit to the bottom line (whether that comes by way of positive publicity, or true cost reductions), in order to be adopted.

So perhaps the small amount spent by the hypothetical company above on green research isn’t so unreasonable after all. Even small investments add up over time, and can yield fruit. Credit should be given where due. At the same time, they should not be allowed to grossly overinflate their achievements.

Independent Green analysts are starting to proliferate, and are gaining cachet: Newsweek now publishes an annual ranking of the Top 500 Green Companies. The World Environmental Center awards an annual Gold Medal for International Corporate Achievement. People are starting to notice.

So what can we do as individuals to force accountability? Pay attention to what you see. When purchasing, don’t just take the advertisers word; check for seals of approval from legitimate sources, such as the Green Good Houskeeping Seal. Support those products which show verifiable claims. Educate yourself about legislation that impacts the environment, get involved, and vote! Whichever theory you subscribe to, your vote counts, whether in the checkout line, or on a ballot.

If you have been reading the latest trends in various newsletters based on green topics in building design, it will not take long to see the words “BIM” and “sustainable” used in the same sentence.  Building Information Modeling (BIM) has taken the technology of 3D modeling and added the often overlooked element during building design – time.  More and more building managers want to know ‘how does my building perform over time?’  following up with the next obvious question ‘what can I do now during the design phase to make it perform better?

Sure, BIM is great for architects and engineers to create construction documents.  Even contractors are using 3D models from the designers to construct buildings.  And now we are even starting to see more examples of building owners using the models to manage the buildings after the contractors have packed up their tools and left the site.  Here is a link to one such article;

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/10/27/building-information-modeling-core-sustainable-design

Operating the building the way it was designed to operate will help get the most out of any dollars spent up front designing green systems.  Though a designer cannot guarantee specific energy savings or that all occupants will be completely comfortable, they can narrow in on specific goals and have calculations and computer simulations to back it up.   With the rapid influx of technologies and the increasing complexity of systems, just plain field experience is not enough anymore.  Just because it worked in the past does not mean it was the best solution.  Unfortunately it is very expensive to physically construct tests of various options to reduce energy or to optimize a particular system just to see if they work.  But, since most design and engineering firms are now utilizing 3D to create their construction documents, it is not a hard stretch to use that 3D environment to test a design to make sure it meets the client’s performance expectations.  Then once the designers determine the optimum system, the client agrees, the contractor builds it, the system is commissioned and tuned to work as designed, the building maintenance can use that same data as the system goes through it cycles, adjusting as necessary armed with all the information needed to keep the system running smoothly. 

So, while a nice photorealistic rendering depicting the facade or interior spaces of a building is what typically makes it into the brochures and presentations, the real power of that 3D model is all the information and performance data stored within it that proves the decisions made during the design phase will help the real physical building do what it is intended to do.