Three Green Failures

(Editor's note: At the advice of Andrew's attorney he has deleted the names of the involved parties in this blog posting. They will be referred to as a fruit.)

This is why I think we are failing as a society at developing a more environmentally benign infrastructure. We don’t know what we are doing wrong because we can’t see it. We can’t see it because it too complex. It is too complex because we are limited by our experience.

When I recommended a high efficiency furnace to a friend she was willing to invest a thousand dollars more for the upgrade. When I said that she needs to seal her crawlspace too, so that the duct work was effectively not outside the thermal envelope she said everything is fine as it is. The cost for do the sealing: $60. Even though it was just as important as the furnace upgrade she did not see the value. This happens all the time, everywhere. Her limited experience in building science kept her from not only making the right choices, but kept others from helping her too.

A year or so ago I approached the owner of the very famous, hyper green brewer Pomegranate with a proposal. They should work with their two neighbors who are interested in installing solar electricity and create a small energy district. He told me that they were not interested in installing solar panels at their facility. I was disappointed but understood. Nine months later Pomegranate announced that they were receiving grant money from the DOE to install solar panels in their parking lot. Now whether the owner of Pomegranate was lying to me or not is not the point. Their go it alone and not work with their neighbors is disastrous for creating a better energy infrastructure. They shamefully leverage the government’s money to look better, and hence market more beer. Why share in the accolades when they can be yours alone. They also the missed the true green movement- collaboration. They have developed an intense reputation in town for not communicating.

I recently had an awkward meeting with a woman from Guava, the group Star Fruit put together before he arrived in Washington. She invited me to meet with her, and at the designated time we sat down and talked for all of eight minutes. She started off by asking what I wanted (a little odd actually), when I was only seeking information and looking at potential collaborations with my non-profit and theirs. She was unwilling to tell me what she does, and surprisingly unable to talk about what was happening in her own community, but also expressing little interest in mine. Guava is all about green job training for youth of color around the built environment. When I left I knew she knew close to nothing about buildings, and worse did not care. Her focus was a narrow interpretation of her job description, project coordinator. I had no hope. I was not within her narrow parameter, and hence not a candidate for working with.

I have many happy stories about the green building thing too, please do not misunderstand me. I have long list of people that I consider friends as a result of working at this. I only tell these stories to present the dramatic departure from the wonderful rhetoric we all hear and the shear obvious nonsense that comes from within. Pomegranate is a disgrace when it comes to collaboration, which is real green building. The Guava’s project manager was ignorant of her community and the basics of what green collar work is, but worst of all she was not curious. Their blind spot is bred from a lack of experience, but I am willing to bet that their pride will not allow them to gain that vital experience without a lot of screw ups.