SWASH Ecoseat

Maybe because we just topped off a busy holiday weekend that we are feeling so chipper to post this piece about a toilet seat. Yes, it sounds a little far fetched to us as well. We can see that a low flow toilet (like the Simple Flush that this same company makes) would be seen as green. But a toilet seat?

It took us a while to have the SWASH Ecoseat installed, as it wasn’t as simple as we originally anticipated. However, one we got the thing on we found it to attractive with its modern design.
We can’t argue that the thing feels so sanitary and refreshing. Maybe the French do have something with their bidets.

Anyway, the fact that Americans use 34 million rolls of toilet paper each year to the detriment of the forest environment and this Swash reduces toilet paper consumption by 75 to 100% might give us a second thought about this eco-seat as eco. But what about the extra water usage? With water being a precious resource then this seat (or bidets) cause more water use, right? Water versus TP use?  The comparison might be a little silly. No doubt we feel pretty royal and sanitary on the throne but it might be a stretch to say that we are royally sustainable.

It’s not that we aren’t ecstatic to see the campus using sustainable deign practices be having architect Peter Pfau shoot for a LEED Platinum rating. Some of the sustainable elements will include natural ventilation, a green roof, radiant flooring, a geothermal central plant, abundant daylight, durable and easy to maintain materials, well designed shading for west-facing façade, and post consumer/green materials. Notice the lack of big-ticket items? Just because a building shoots for a LEED Platinum rating doesn’t mean that the budget needs to unsustainable.

When the new three story facility opens we’re sure that the students and facility will be give the building high marks for indoor air quality and the overall healthy study conditions.  It makes us want to go back to school.

Yes, we’ve discussed our feeling about the LEED label and how we would like seeing more money going toward sustainable aspects versus a LEED plaque but nonetheless they built an impressive structure, which currently hosts the international media for the Olympic games. When the Olympics pack-up Vancouver will still have the dazzling sustainable structure.

What we like most is the six-acre living roof (Canada’s largest) which contains 400,000 native plants and grasses, and the green roof acts as an insulator to mediate the exterior air temperature, as well as reduces the building’s storm water runoff and integrates with the waterfront landscape ecosystem. With Vancouver being such a water friendly city, we also applaud the on-site black water treatment and desalinization systems that are projected to reduce potable water use 60 to 70 percent over typical convention centers. On the energy side, the center includes a heat pump system that takes advantage of the constant temperature of the adjacent seawater to produce heating and cooling. Very cool.

The people of Sochi have their work cut out for them if they hope to continue the Green trend of Olympics venues and buildings.

The Going Green Member Forum offered informative green facts from a CHEERS rater as well as some finer points from Build It Green’s Elise Hunter about the Green Point Rated system. We discovered that the HERS Phase II rating will include: whole house energy homes, uniform rating system based on a statewide rating scale, as well as labeling procedures for homebuyers, renters, real estate industry, mortgage lenders who have an interest in home energy ratings. We say Hoorah to that! The speaker also snuck in some tidbits of info that even surprised us such as the “”Energy Efficient Mortgage” that ties into the 203B FHA loan that allows five percent of property value in most cases, while VA loans allows up to $6,000 in green upgrades.

Hunter offered a straightforward overview of the benefits of the Green Point Rated system, the economic pulse (such as occupancy rates are 5.6 percent higher in Green multi-unit apartment buildings in Seattle) and the state of green buildings. We already knew a lot of the info but not everyone does and with the sparse attendance in the room it appears that interest in Green real estate and its many be benefits may have to wait until the real estate industry weathers this storm.

In a Cliff’s Notes version of the myriad incentives, rebates, and tax incentives GREENandSAVE has created a Federal Tax Incentive Decoder and condensed the material to 11 bite sized pages. Best of all, this resource does not cost a dime and can be downloaded at: http://www.greenandsave.com/homecheckup/free_federal_tax_incentive_decoder

We ploughed through some of the well organized and highly useful guide and discovered that beyond the tax credits, homeowners can save even more money through rebates as well as a breakdown to many money and environment friendly loans for energy efficient home improvements. One loan that we like is the Energy Star Loan which homeowners can use for installation of qualifying improvements that are Energy Star rated or meet program standards.

Here are some of the details:
The Loan Amount: $1,000-$15,000
Rate and Term: 6.99%
Fixed Rate; 3, 5, or 10 year term.
ii. Unsecured, no lien.
iii. No Fees or closing costs.
iv. No pre-payment penalty.

Not too shabby.

Finally, the politicians have created some far reaching incentives to truly get on us on the Green road to recovery. This downloadable decoder makes it easy to navigate down that Green road.

On the creatively intriguing side, we walked into the Icynene Inc. display booth only knowing that they create their Icynene LD-R-50 spray foam insulation partially from Castor oil. Honestly, we didn’t exactly know the origin of Castor oil. Castor oil comes from Castor beans (not true beans from Castor plant) and don’t serve a normal food source, so not food for insulation here. Castor crops don’t require pesticides or fungicides or even water to grow and are rapidly renewable. For this insulation, they use 15 eight percent castor oil (and unfortunately 85 92 percent polyglycol, which in our eyes is like using B15 B8 biodiesel. Fifteen Eight percent is better than zero percent but still a long way to go. This product helps eliminate dust, pollen and contains no VOCs as it is water blown. Most traditional cellulose insulation comes from 80% newspaper (up to100% post-consumer recycled) and 20% binders and fire-retardants, commonly borax, boric acid, sulfuric acid, ammonium sulfates and/or other chemical compounds. Smell the goodness.

One of the most disappointing aspects of PCBC would be the continual greenwashing that some organizations and companies wish to convey to the public and trade. The SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) had booth and lots of literature about how they which on the surface seems on the track to be doing the right thing with their Green certification but if you check below the tree cover it might not seem so verdant.

Most Green people would be disillusioned with the fact that SFI finds its roots firmly planted with the lumber companies which of course offers no value. Then they somewhat cleaned up their legitimacy a few years ago by creating third party certification, publicly available standards and a more transparent process.

We met the Director of Green Building for SFI at the PCBC booth where he did the hard sell offering such info that they continue to push the USGBC to include SFI certified wood in the LEED standard. To us, it seems like a lot of lobbying and less to do with the legitimacy of the certification.

When it comes down to it, the SFI wants people to think that they reign superior or even equal to FSC certification but take a look at some of the comparisons where SFI allows:

-use of genetically modified trees

- logging close to rivers and streams that harms water supplies

-use of toxic chemicals while FSC does not allow these in the forests.

And we can go on and on but as they say a picture is worth a thousand words so check out the SFI versus FSC forest land photo courtesy of heartofgreen.

‘nuff said.

Even in a Greencentric city like Berkeley, locals and Bay Area visitors would be Green with envy when they see the just opened David Brower Center. It feels healthy just to walk through the Green down-to-the-bones building which combines advanced technology along with simple recycled materials.

When entering for their housewarming party we had a difficult time not noticing the soaring concrete walls which made us think more dot com than gallery. The fact that in creating a building with an oh- so-feathery carbon footprint (when compared to most structures) Principal Architect, Daniel Solomon included up to 70 percent slag in those walls.

Just like people, what Green buildings have on the inside can be the key. Anyone (or any building) can have a great exterior but look at the Brower Center’s guts and soul. We love the radiant heating and cooling that runs through the floors, as well as the water catchment system and giant cistern that significantly reduce the building’s water use. The building even employs small aspects like the zinc siding and photovoltaic panels that double as sun-shades. The zinc siding will last numerous years without being treated.

The designers and builders designed the edifice be 40 percent more energy-efficient than conventional ones, which includes a day lighting program that uses high-efficiency lighting with automatic controls limit use when daylight is adequate. Normally we don’t get to excited heading to the restroom (no jokes please) but we definitely got giddy with the Icestone countertops, waterless urinals and high powered hand dryer. We’re talking ten seconds max to dry hands.

Besides the physical structure the Brower Center works on the social justice level as it houses various NGOs and ecologically minded companies such as: Center for Ecoliteracy, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) and the Earth Island Institute. We can’t speak for all the staff and workers but having the Brower Center as your office would actually inspire someone to want to come to work.

Usually when people visit a winery, people look for various shades of white or dark red, but here our color paradigm might shift to say Green. The recently opened CADE Winery offers not only solar power and organically farmed winery but hopes to garner LEED Gold status and if so, would be the first Estate Gold LEED certified winery in the Napa Valley.

When visiting a winery, people’s olfactory system normally goes into overdrive but instead of inhaling the aromas of vanilla, rosemary, oak and sage here we took deep breaths of the air. As in indoor air quality. No stuffy AC here as the building relies on natural ventilation. Although the wines remain something to admire, we also dig the other green aspects. CADE utilizes 100% solar power and organic farming methods which both look so green and tasty.

From top to bottom, our Green buzz comes from the other building features like the concrete composed that contains a generous amount (30 percent) of fly ash, steel made up of 98 percent recycled material, FSC glass and wood, as well as blue jeans for insulation and its own concrete mass for cooling.

The Green aspects just continue. It’s too bad that we didn’t bike or drive our electric car (we did carpool) because the winery offers a plug-in base for hybrid electric cars; and bicycle racks. Even better, they offer a shower (hopefully with low flow showerhead) so cyclists can clean up before one of the numerous tastings or events.

For the foodies, the winery offers a full-time chef on site who focuses on organic, sustainable cuisine grown on site. We haven’t had the chance to chow down on the sustainable cuisine but we’ll check back when we do.

Curious about the name? The winery name CADE derives from a Shakespearean term used for an oak cask or barrel.  How about the size? in this case size matters as the winery comprises more than 60 acres, 23 of which were planted as vineyards in 2003. Of the remaining land, 28 acres will be protected in a land trust to ensure that they will always remain open space.  Now there should be a big “Cheers” to that fact.

We got one of the choice rooms overlooking the man made lagoon which plays home to koi, frogs, various plant life and Artemis and Apollo (two impressive swans that live in the lagoon and strut their way around most of the hotel). By the way, the koi pond uses recycled water from the site which they clean and filter prior to entering the pond.

The sparten yet comfortable rooms offer lots of Green aspects. Small things like offering fair trade, organic coffee and not having those tiny shampoo bottles littering the bathroom made a big difference. Here they provide shampoo, lotion in bulk dispensers. We also like that all restrooms use recycled tiles and granite. While in the bathroom, we give wet kudos to the water saving low flow showerhead, which offer plenty of water pressure for one person (but not two, if you catch our drift).

We slept easy not only with a comfy, firm mattress but breathing easy with the low VOC paints were used throughout the rooms and rest of the hotel. It also helped us to know that solar panels provide 12% of the hotel’s electricity.

We know that a boutique type hotel needs a relaxing but unsustainable hot tub (yes, we partook and didn’t feel guilty) but we didn’t feel too keen about the microwave that inhabited our room but even with the little monster we felt pretty energized about our stay. It sure beats a stay in an unsustainable Motel 6.

We could very well come all the way to wine country without visiting some organic, sustainable and do we dare say biodynamic wineries. Stay tuned.

In addition to the great views that most people would ooh and ah about, what gets our green genes going are some of the less sexy LEED elements. Instead of subjecting occupants to dingy indoor views and lighting, the architects designed architectural curtain wall to enable direct views of the outdoor environment for 90% of the building’s occupants. We also like the fact that they used recycled materials for at least 10% of the material construction. The vast majority of the recycled content comes from the building structural steel and in the aluminum curtain wall, not recycled materials used inside the building. Way up high in the sky, the roof will be a highly reflective, lightly colored ‘cool roof’ system that will reduce the affect of urban heat islands. Although the “cool roof” is cool, we’d like to see an actual Green Living Roof up top but we can’t have it all.

With several other Green elements on tap we’re actually looking forward to seeing something attractive and Green hit the South Beach/Soma area. Memo to Tishman – Speyer execs: “Keep sending out those Green building memos.”