Green Building and Water Efficiency Introduction

Is your water turning green?  We hope so! But what is Green? What is Sustainable?

Today, everyone seems to be talking “green” and “sustainable”. When it comes to water-efficiency and water conservation, these terms represent extremely important trends affecting building owners and managers, manufacturers, end-users, water utilities, government and certainly the water-efficiency practitioner.  For many, this is what we have been practicing all along.

Opinions and definitions vary from individual to individual on the meaning of the terms “green” and “sustainable”.  The Alliance for Water Efficiency offers a few definitions from other sources to improve understanding of what is meant by these terms.

Definitions

Green Building -

A holistic approach to design, construction, and demolition that minimizes the building’s impact on the environment, the occupants, and the community. (California Building Standards Commission)

Sustainable Development -

• A pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future.  (Wikipedia)
• A systematic approach to achieving human development in a way that sustains planetary resources, based on the recognition that human consumption is occurring at a rate that is beyond Earth's capacity to support it. (Answers.com)
• A practice that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (1987 UN Convention on Environment and Development)

Guidelines and Standards

Many jurisdictions (municipalities and other local authorities and state governments with the power to mandate, approve, disapprove, or influence project design and construction) are developing guidelines and minimum standards for new construction and renovations.  These actions mandate or “suggest” design or construction practices, technologies, performance thresholds and metrics in a variety of categories including, but not limited to:

Typical water use efficiency categories within many of the national green building programs include:

• Plumbing fixtures and fixture fittings
• Residential appliances (clothes washers, dishwashers)
• Water treatment equipment (softeners, filtering systems)
• Landscape & landscape irrigation
• Cooling towers
• Decorative and recreational water features
• Water reuse & alternate sources of water (graywater, rainwater and stormwater, cooling condensate and cooling tower blowdown, foundation drain water)
• Specialty processes, appliances and equipment (food service, medical, laboratories, laundries, others)
• Metering & submetering
• Once-through cooling
• Vegetated green roofs
• Building water pressure

It is important to understand the difference between green building standards and green building guidelines, because while guidelines do provide thresholds for efficiency, compliance is usually voluntary.  On the other hand, standards provide definitive efficiency thresholds, but are written in language that is enforceable and is also readily adopted by reference into codes and regulations.

For example, the well-entrenched LEED  Program is comprised of a set of guidelines with which compliance by designers and builders is entirely voluntary (although some jurisdictions are choosing to mandate compliance with LEED to some level of efficiency).  As such, these guidelines are not generally written in language suitable for direct adoption or reference as codes or other regulations (even though some jurisdictions have chosen to do so). 

Currently proposed green building ANSI   standards are intended as candidates for mandates and include these national initiatives:

• ASHRAE Proposed ANSI Standard 189.1P Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings
• Green Globes-Green Building Initiative (GBI) Proposed American National Standard 01-2008P: Green Building Assessment Protocol for Commercial Buildings
• National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) National Green Building Standard

Green Building Programs

The table below displays the major U.S. green building guidelines and proposed standards with national coverage, their general characteristics, and links to the program web site.  Further information on each of these initiatives follows.

The water efficiency provisions of these programs differ a bit, although the Alliance is dedicated to achieving maximum uniformity among all of the residential and non-residential guidelines and standards.  Uniformity definitely eases the burden upon water efficiency practitioners, builders and developers, product manufacturers and government, in that common requirements lower costs, improve familiarity with and knowledge of the requirements, and can, when proven to be successful and feasible, lead to national mandates through Federal legislation.

A more detailed comparison of the indoor water efficiency elements of the major programs with Federal requirements and current plumbing codes shows the similarity and the differences among these programs.  A detailed PDF table comparing these programs is available here - AWE (2008) Water Efficient Indoor Products and Systems - Mandatory and Voluntary Intiatives 

The Alliance for Water Efficiency has been active in the USGBC’s LEED process in our attempt to encourage the expansion of LEED water efficiency credits beyond the simple EPAct 92 plumbing items.  Recently, the USGBC solicited input on the existing products within the LEED portfolio of rating systems. The recent comment letter from the Alliance to the USGBC clearly delineates the areas where we are convinced that the LEED Program is lacking and needs serious attention.

Water efficiency practioners can become involved in the larger green building task.  Because many local green building programs fail to consider or emphasize water efficiency, instead focusing on other important environmental issues, there is a need to bring water efficient practices, designs, and products to the attention of the sponsors and originators of these programs.

Here are some suggestions for increasing the profile and influence of water efficiency in these efforts:

• Learn about and monitor the green building programs that are operating in your area, including both voluntary guidelines and mandates that might be promulgated by your local municipalities.
• Actively seek out and provide advice and input to local governments, the programs, and their managers on water efficient practices and technologies and their importance to local area sustainability.
• Monitor the national standards that are likely to be candidates for adoption (and enforcement) by the local authorities within your own area and by your state government.  Where the local or state mandates are still being considered and developed, provide advice from a national viewpoint in order to achieve commonality.
• Be observant for greenwashing and the tendency to endorse or adopt practices, products, and initiatives that, in fact, are water wasting.  To recognize legitimate practices and products and discern when greenwashing is occurring, always look for independent studies that verify the claims made for water efficiency by the advocates of those practices and products.  Ask manufacturers to substantiate their claims with real world proof of savings and consumer acceptance.