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Building Green in a Black and White World--Chapter 1

The following is an exerpt from the book Building Green in a Black and White World.
Section 1; Chapter 1; Part 1; Introduction to Green Building

David Ritchey Johnston
January 1, 1900
HousingZone

Introduction of Chapter 1: What The Market Tells Us

Building green is more about people than it is about technology. Since so much emphasis has been placed on the technology of green building, this book has been designed to help you shift your focus. For many of your potential customers, the benefits of green building (providing healthier environments both inside and out) evoke images of happy children now and in the future. With this in mind, the key to becoming a successful green builder is communicating with your customers how and why you build green.

Bill Eich,
Bill Eich Construction Co., Inc.
Spirit Lake, Iowa
(712) 336-4438

Bill Eich’s construction company designs and builds six to ten new custom homes each year, doing all their own carpentry. In addition to custom homes, Eich does some commercial work and builds four to eight unit condos each year. For his excellence in remodeling work, Eich was named to Remodeling Magazine’s Hall of Fame in 1996. Eich also received an award from Popular Science magazine in 1992, for the Best New Feature in Housing Technology for his frost protected shallow foundation technique.

Surveys show that Americans are increasingly interested in living a healthy lifestyle and in preserving the quality of life in their communities. The good news for builders is that the market for green homes couldn’t be better. You only have to look as far as your grocery store to see evidence of the changing market. Fresh vegetable salad bars are springing up everywhere, and organic produce is the fastest-growing segment of the food industry.

Green building meets the public where they live. Many market research surveys, including the Wall Street Journal, show that the vast majority of Americans (consistently over 75 percent) consider themselves environmentalists. They are concerned about impacts on the environment that they see around them. Whether these impacts take the form of traffic jams, beaches closing, or the brown clouds that grow each year over their cities, the public wants to preserve their natural world. Choosing to buy a green home allows them to take an active role in counteracting these concerns. The more educated the public is about green homes, the more likely they are to buy green.

Building green is all about meeting your buyers’ desires with a product that reflects what they want out of life: health, comfort, and time to just simply relax. Builders who have responded to this changing market have prospered and claim they will never build the way they once did. In the words of Bill Eich, a custom builder in Spirit Lake, Iowa: "Green building brings a sense of pride back into construction. We consider ourselves ‘born again’ builders. We have reinvented how we build. We see the light and want to convert all the builders we can because it is so much better."

Danny Buck, President
Living Structures, Inc.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
(505) 988-2202

Danny Buck’s company, Living Structures, Inc., is a design, construction, and landscaping firm, owned by six partners and employing fifty people. Living Structures does most of its work in new single family homes, remodeling, and additions. The company also does some commercial work, including a focus on indoor air quality in doctors’ offices and grocery stores. Living Structures builds with alternative wall systems such as straw bale and adobe. Currently, much of their work is with high-end clients, but they are planning on moving into the low-income market and applying green principles there.

Bill’s story: "Our process has evolved since 1984, when we first started building ‘high-tech’ homes. We incorporated current building science using a systems approach to construction. The benefits were immediate. The carpenters could see the difference and knew why they were doing things differently. We were improving the quality of the homes. The performance was so dramatic that it was a no-brainer to incorporate green techniques into our building process. We got such positive feedback from customers that we started including these energy-conserving features in every home. Our core crew said they wouldn’t build the old way. The old way didn’t make sense anymore. Everybody in the company became sold on the new approach to building. When everybody in the company is sold on it, it is easier to sell to the customer."

As the market research in this chapter reveals, and as you probably know from your own experiences, people care deeply about the health of their families, they always want to save money where they can, and they want to contribute to something greater than themselves. Green building meets these desires by reducing the amount of health compromising chemicals used in a home, by improving energy efficiency and thus reducing electric and gas bills, and by offering a practical way for people to contribute to preserving the quality of the environment through reduced resource consumption.

Market research shows that a demand exists for environmentally designed homes that is not yet being met. Good business sense tells us that fulfilling a previously unmet need translates into profit. Becoming a green builder is not only a way to generate profit in the short run, but it can ensure the future of your company. As Santa Fe, New Mexico, builder Danny Buck puts it, "Green building is where the market is headed. I’m 100 percent convinced of it. It’s not a matter of if there is a market for green homes, but when are you going to meet it? I think it is inevitable. The question is, do you want to lead the market or follow your competition? You can choose to be knowledgeable or ignorant. Which do you want to be? It’s time to get on board now."

By the end of this chapter you should have a grasp of national market trends, the types of consumers most likely to be interested in a green home, and what other builders and architects see in the future for green building. From the information gained in these surveys, I will make some suggestions about how to approach marketing your green homes. Chapter 6, "Marketing Strategies," will address the topic in greater detail.

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