by Christopher Hill

I am sitting here looking out at a wet, dark and windy day here in Richmond, VA.  In many ways I can relate to the clouds.  As an attorney I almost always feel like I am raining on the “sustainable building” parade.  On Build2Sustain conference calls, I always feel like I’m the one saying “whoa” we need to think about the liability.

As I’ve said at Musings before, Eeyore is one of my favorite characters from A. A. Milne.  Eeyore, you may remember, is the donkey on whom it’s always raining.  He is the loveable character that always feels like the sky is falling, but plugs along anyway.

I can relate.  I am firmly committed to sustainable building.  I think that the economic impact, combined with the moral imperative, make such a goal both worthy and required.  However, certain risks are inherent in any new use of technologies and any new mode of thinking, no matter how worthy.   Some of the issues that will need to be dealt with by contractors, architects, owners and, yes, lawyers, are the following:

• Insurance- the insurance industry is still catching up with energy related underwriting
• What standard of care applies due to a green building claim?
• Potential Trademark claims
• Longer time horizons and contractual or government requirements on energy goals

I sometimes feel like we are rushing past these issues without the careful thought that we need to give such risks in our (understandable) enthusiasm.  I tell clients to plan ahead, but it is human nature to be overtaken with excitement at a new venture and the vision of a better, cleaner, world.  However, until these issues are hammered out (hopefully without litigation to have judges tell us what to do), this march to a sustainable future will be a slow one.

The government can only do so much through mandate.  The private sector must be ready to move forward and pour money into sustainability.  Without some assurance and possibility to at least manage these risks, project owners and builders will be justifiably wary.  The sooner the risks are at least out in the open, if not resolved, the sooner the private sector will get fully behind sustainable construction and building management.

Until then, Eeyore and I will keep plugging through the rain.

This content is published by the permission of its author.

My recent post at Aribra.com

Join The Team

Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 07:30PM

If you've been following our twitter account, you already know that we're moving beyond theory and becoming a business. It's time to take our concepts out of the lab, so to speak, and bring them to our pilot project. One step...to build our roster of design/build professionals.

The Revolution? #1

I follow lots of green and sustainable folks on twitter. I read lots of blogs and I check in on linkedin groups and attend conferences. I feel like I'm pretty well versed in the green building space and something keeps coming to me over and over again when I think about our culture and the "green" movement. As a whole we're not undergoing a revolution and we probably never will. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, a paradigm shift in thinking often doesn't lead to a revolution that can be televised. This is the first of a multi-part series of posts here at build2sustain, designed to outline our thinking on the culture of sustainability and how is folds neatly (and sometimes not so neatly) into American values and what we can do in the building and real estate development industries to make sustainable design and building part of our culture. Much of what you are about to read is an amalgamation of thoughts combined in my brain over the past few years of following the sustainable design movement. These thoughts owe as much to Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell and Andrew Bacevich as they do to William McDonough, Michael Braungart, and Janine Benyus. I don't think I've quoted any of them directly here, if I have, my sincere apologies. This isn't meant to be a book, a thesis or even a white paper. This is still our blog and discussion is always encouraged.

A great start to a series by James Bedell of Build2Sustain.

Balancing the Board

Friday, October 2, 2009 at 08:10PM

We lean on our advisory board so much to shape our strategy going forward. Our first stepping stone to our pilot project is publishing a white paper (due out in December) The Business Case for Sustainable Renovation what I love about our board is the diverse personalities and philosophies serve as natural counterweights and help us craft our market strategy.

In one corner we have Chris Hill, who's business-case practicality consistently reminds me that the people who will ultimately write the checks for our renovations usually think with their wallets first and we need to make a strong ROI case to them for why this makes sense.

A great outline of the Build2Sustain advisory board of which I am honored to be a part.

Chris Hill, advisory board member, has chosen to share his thoughts with us this week on what brought him to Build2Sustain.

Let me start by saying how honored I am to be a part of the Build2Sustain advisory board. When James Bedell (@jamesbedell on Twitter) first approached me, I was floored.  With all of the other great attorneys out there who deal in the "green building" arena (see the links to some of their sites in my blogroll at Construction Law Musings), my first thought was "Why me?"  At heart, I am a risk manager for construction professionals, not a major "green" advocate in any political sense.

Then James explained the Build2Sustain concept.  In short, B2S is a concept a long time coming.  The plan and method to the B2S "madness" is to make sure that we show the world that sustainable works, both economically and environmentally.  Anyone that hears me talk about sustainable building will hear my "People think with their wallets" approach to the sector, and to sustainable construction.  I firmly believe that if we can show how economically viable sustainability can be, the rest of the benefits will follow.  James explained that this philosophy (for lack of a better word) is one of the underpinnings of the B2S concept.

Please check out Build2Sustain. The project and concept is great and I am honored to be a part of it.

I woke up this morning and went about my normal routine but today was different. I could feel it building inside me. A sense of hope springing forward as I began to think about the generational challenges we are faced with and why this generation, our generation is ready for them. I look at what we can do, and what we are already doing and I realize that we will overcome not just this economic crisis, for those come and go. But we will overcome the crises of education, of health care and of energy within our lifetimes. Before I start to sound like too much of a salesman for the current administration, I want to share why I think our generation-the new professionals are uniquely suited to the age we were born into.

A great post from my friend James Bedell of Build2Sustain fame. Check out the whole post to get your weekend off right.

What Issues Need To Be Addressed In a Sustainable Project?

by richcartlidge on May 8, 2009

in Law & Regulatory

Sustainable projects present a plethora of unique issues which must be addressed by an attorney prior to and during construction of the building in order to minimize the potential for future litigation.

A great post from May by my friend, Build2Sustain fellow traveler, and newly minted attorney (way to go Rich), Rich Cartlidge. Click the link above for the whole thing.