The world today is supersaturated with terms, brands, and names that define sustainability. In fact, this author sometimes forgets what words like sustainability, environment, and green even mean. Amidst a cultural movement in which an entirely new dictionary of terms has emerged to create an entirely confusing discourse, it seems the terms themselves have existed before their actual meaning. For example, what does it mean to be organic? If it is organic beef, does that mean that the cows were not injected with growth hormones, or is it that they were raised in a free-range environment, or maybe that no chemicals were used in the packaging process from farm to market? The point is, with most of the sustainability terms and processes out there today, there are few who could agree on what they mean. This is especially frustrating for the consumer.

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Ok then, how do those of us in the building industry communicate to a client [our consumer] why they should make their next project align with the sustainable movement? Do we talk about energy efficiency and lower utility bills, appealing to the clients wallet? Can we pluck at their heart-strings by demonstrating how indoor air quality and the toxicity of certain building materials can affect our loved ones? Or what about the noble plea to save the planet by using recycled materials, clean energy, and so on? The options are endless, the definitions are varied, but most importantly how will our clients know that they are getting what they paid for? What does sustainability even mean?

A Definition:

Sustainability is a uniquely human characteristic. Machines can be efficient and materials can be non-toxic or recyclable, but only humans can be sustainable. Sustainability is first and foremost a way of thinking or feeling. Similar to terms that express emotion, sustainability is a term that requires physical action as well. For example, you can’t be cheerful without first thinking and feeling cheerful, but you also can’t be cheerful without also acting cheerful. The same goes for sustainability. You have to first think sustainably, but also act on those thoughts in order to be sustainable. If you accomplish both aspects of the definition, you acquire the characteristic of being sustain-able, or able to sustain. However, this definition then begs the question of what you should sustain, how you can sustain it, and for how long it should be sustained.

What should you sustain, is an easy question to answer and has to do with where you are. Fresh air, clean water, access to life-giving sunlight and an uncontaminated earth which nourishes and protects are all critical things for our generation to sustain. More specifically, it is a question derived from a sense of place. Your immediate environment is different depending on where you live or build. The sun angles are different, there are different amounts of rainfall, different types of soil, water table heights, heating versus cooling days, prevailing winds, vegetation, etc. For example, you might live in a hot/dry climate that may require you to sustain water and comfortable indoor temperatures.

How to sustain those aspects of your immediate environment involves the understanding of what time you are in. New technologies are released to the market every day. There are also systems and technologies that have been thoroughly tested and are proven to work for your specific site. A blend of time-honored and innovative systems must come together to successfully address the question of how to sustain those critical aspects in your immediate environment. Take that hot/dry climate you’re in. It is ideal for photovoltaic [P.V.] panels and a properly sized rainwater cistern. Though, just like you wouldn’t want to use an out-dated P.V. panel that would be inefficient and potentially toxic, you wouldn’t want to use a cistern through which light could penetrate the walls and cause bacteria to flourish in the water you plan to reuse.

For how long to sustain something is a much more subjective, and therefore difficult, question to answer. In an age where the entire life-cycle of a building and its materials are becoming carefully scrutinized, builders no longer think in terms of ‘build it to last forever’. It may not be long before an architect is responsible not only for how a building comes together, but also how it comes apart. To answer the question of how long we should sustain our buildings, I draw inspiration from Native American culture which believes that every decision we make should be made with the next seven generations in mind. This means that if you decide to build a home, you need to think and plan how that building will affect your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. Or, if the average generation is thirty years, then you have the responsibility to create a plan that addresses all of the issues for your building, its materials, bi-products, and inhabitants for the next two hundred and ten years. Nobody currently thinks like this, but in order to be true to the definition of sustainable, which resides at the intersection of time and place, we have to start thinking like this.

Getting What You Paid For:

There is an ever increasing variety of certification systems for your home which can demonstrate that your money has produced a sustainable product to some degree or another. Among the list you may have heard of are Energy Star Qualified Homes, LEED for Homes, the National Green Building Program, and the Living Building Challenge to name just a few. Each program has an extensive set of requirements that range from producing all of your own energy to placing a shoe rack near your front door. As the added value of these certification systems diminish through the implementation of their requirements into common practice combined with the over saturation of these systems in the market, the best route to follow for most homeowners will be to apply for none of them. Instead, look to your local architect on making a personalized checklist for sustainable or green building practices. Organize them by cost, use terms that everyone understands, and make sure each item is measurable in some way or another. This approach will take the best and most value-oriented requirements from each certification system and cater their components to your specific project. Educate yourself about each item and set a reasonable goal for accomplishing the ones you can afford. When the project is finished, you can even make your own green certificate.