Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 23, 1993 TAG: 9305240271
SECTION: MISCELLANEOUS PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KITTY MORGAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"That we will have to deal with environmental issues is inevitable," said Roberta Jorgensen, a Tustin, Calif., architect.
Just how ecological sensitivity will filter into the American home and office - and how significant it will prove - no one knows, said Randall Lewis, executive vice president of Lewis Homes in Upland, Calif. And no one believes a wholesale retooling of the building industry is coming soon.
But Jorgensen and others say the industry will gradually "green" as recycled materials and new technologies for heating, airconditioning and water reuse become affordable and mandatory.
Revolution, no - but evolution, yes. Already changes are under way, in institutions as big as the federal government and as small as a local contractor.
Propelling this evolution is regulation.
"The building industry is going to need to take into account environmental considerations as new information about environmental health emerges," said Bob Borzelleri, an official at the California Environmental Protection Agency.
"The question is, will it do it by choice because it's the right thing to do, or will it be forced to do it because of regulation?"
There are signs of cooperation between the building industry and regulatory agencies. Take the matter of indoor air pollution.
Over the past several years, "sick building syndrome" - a set of health problems linked to sealed office towers - has been studied by federal and state regulatory agencies. New laws are being developed to regulate the ventilation of buildings and the potentially harmful materials they contain.
California's ventilation standard, enacted three years ago, was the first such law, said Richard Stephens, spokesman for the division of occupational health at the California Department of Industrial Regulations. Other states have followed suit.
The National Association of Home Builders, a trade organization in Washington, D.C., has worked with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to shape both recent radon and indoor-air-pollution legislation.
"We have developed a policy stating that there should definitely be more research done" in environmental health, said Saundra Harris, environmental-operations manager for the builders group.
Governmental regulation may force some change, but the marketplace will determine how green the building industry will go.
The public is increasingly concerned about the environment - both natural and man-made - said Burr Brown, a market researcher with Yankelovich Partners in Newport Beach, Calif.
"It's at the forefront of issues. We've elected a vice president who has made it his major issue," he said.
Brown recently spoke to Los Angeles architects and interior designers about the impact on business of public concern about the environment. Consumers want to make a difference, Burr said - but not at great expense or effort.
"Will I rip down my house and rebuild it [to make it ecologically correct]? In a perfect world I might, but there are limitations. The American consumer is saying, `Show me that I can save money over the long term. If you tell me if I use this particular wood that I'll save the life of a woodland creature, but that wood costs 20 times more [than conventional lumber], I'm not going to buy it.' "
But if price and amount of individual effort can be kept low - "if companies make choices simple, so that they fit into a consumer's life" - Burr said, he believes demand for all sorts of products would soar. And companies will be able to market their "greenness."
Even the staunchest proponents of sustainable design acknowledge that they must consider price and convenience.
"Ultimately, consumer demand will drive this," said Jim Bell, who heads the non-profit San Diego-based Ecological Life Systems Institute. "There's no other way."
But Bell and other advocates of sustainable design argue that eventually, the cost of not going green will have to be calculated - and will be unaffordable.
"Right now, when a person buys a house built out of materials that were mined and processed in a way that causes pollution and loss of soil, those costs show up elsewhere. We end up paying them, but we just don't see how we do," Bell said.
Just how these costs may be shifted to the homebuilder and home-buyer is unclear.
"Our profession is not going to change quickly," said Jorgensen, the Tustin architect. "We will have to start with a number of small changes that will eventually add up to a big change in the buildings we design and renovate."
by CNB