Report: The Future of Green Homes in Portland - May 2006

On May 4th, 2006 we held a forum on "The Future of Green Homes in Portland, Oregon", a gathering of over 60 professionals from different green building sectors (policy, building, design, finance, real estate, non-profit agencies, education, and development) discussing what is needed to move green building forward in the region.

The complete report of the forum is available in PDF format. The Outline of the report, Event Desciption, Common Themes and the Call to Action are below.


Outline
I.   Event Description    (p.2)
II.  Common Themes    (p.2)
III. Sector Summaries   (p.3)
IV. Call to Action          (p.6)
V.  Appendix                (p.7)
    A. Panelist Comments (p.7)
    B. Participant Input on Obstacles and Opportunities by Sector (p.12)
    C. List of Participants (p.21)
    D. Participant Evaluation Questionnaire Responses (p.23)

I. Event Description

Interest in green or sustainable building in the residential market is growing quickly and some aspects of the market are strong. However, many barriers and unresolved issues remain before green building becomes mainstream practice. This event was an opportunity for key players in the residential industry to gather, take stock, and identify strategies and actions which will strengthen and expand green building.

Organizations involved in green building, principally Earth Advantage and The Green Home Forum, invited colleagues to join in a dialogue about the future of green building in Portland. Representatives came from seven sectors: Development, Building & Design, Finance, Realty, Policy, Green Programs and Education. A list of the approximately 60 people who participated is included in the Appendix.

At the start of the forum, a representative from each sector offered an overview of the current issues facing that sector. Following these presentations, all the event participants had an opportunity to offer their written comments regarding what they saw as the obstacles and opportunities, not only for their sector, but for other sectors as well. Once everyone had offered their comments, members of each sector met as a group to review the comments and identify what issues they thought were of highest priority. The day ended with a report of findings from each group.

This report summarizes comments made by participants. A complete record of all comments is included in the Appendix.

II. Common Themes

Notably, there was a strong similarity among issues that ran across all sectors. While the points were not surprising in themselves, the commonality of these issues indicates that changes addressing these matters would have significant benefits for many sectors in the green home field. The common themes were as follows:

1. Demand for green homes is rising, mostly because of increased energy costs as well as health issues. This is having a positive impact in terms of putting more focus and more resources towards green homes. There is an opportunity to build on awareness and interest in the community.

2. There is a need for education at all levels throughout all sectors to support and refine perceptions of what green building is-from compelling story telling to consumers, to sustainability-infused courses in schools, to on-going professional development and specialty trades skill-building.

3. Green building and green homes need definitive descriptions and a cohesive brand and identity to clearly convey the concepts to a general audience.

4. There is no common means of valuing green homes. Verifiable metrics on the performance, benefits and economic value of green homes over time are needed to create a shared level of understanding and information across all sectors.

5. The wide array of different codes and standards for green building, products, practices, financing, etc. poses a major barrier to greater adoption of green home building. Standardization and streamlining, again at all levels and for all sectors, is needed for more widespread acceptance.

6. While a variety of financial incentives currently offered by government and non-profits encourage adoption of green building practices, the consolidation of such incentives into one manageable unit would enhance their effectiveness.

7. Setting green home goals for the region that are meaningful, measurable, and easily understood would help unify the various green home efforts and offer momentum to the mechanisms described above.

IV. Call to Action

Two pivotal target areas emerged from the Vision Forum:

A. The establishment of a goal for sustainable green building for Portland would serve as a catalyst for driving the movement forward. This goal may be 50,000 - 100,000 'green homes' by 2015. Clearly, adoption of such a goal would need to be embraced by all sectors of the market and advocated strenuously by policy. As a 'sustainable' leader of the nation, Portland needs to take just such a stance.

B. Create a "value proposition chain" that seamlessly and concisely articulates the value of green homes to appraisers, listing agencies, realtors, financial institutions and ultimately, home-buyers and owners. A universally agreed upon and cohesive value proposition chain will serve to coalesce the respective efforts of the different green home sectors which are now fragmented. This type of coordinated effort is essential if we are to reach a "tipping point" whereby green building moves forcefully into the mainstream.

Action Plan:

Clearly further Forums are required to capitalize on the idea-seeds that have been sown. A change agent team, which we have dubbed 'The Group of 18' emerged from the Vision Forum. This Group identified themselves as willing to chart the next steps. We will be calling on this group to gather and map out the path. It will be challenged to:

A. Engage all relevant participants for the purposes of creating a shared set of green home criteria relevant for all sectors of the green home arena. With this distilled, we then need to formulate visions, standards and strategies to establish a measurable Portland goal for green homes that will aid in accelerating broad adoption.

B. Narrow in on each of the core participants in the financial-real estate value proposition chain with a view to identifying feasible changes that need to be addressed to create such education and value.

While the Group of 18 has stepped forward, please feel more than welcome to contact Earth Advantage if you wish to be part of this crucial change agent team. We cannot be too busy to attend to the fundamentals that ultimately affect how we all live.