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A CLOSER LOOK ATGREENGLOBESThe “green” building ratingsystem backed by the chemical,plastics, and timber industries1
WHAT ISGREENGLOBESGreen building is on the rise, and is on track toaccount for over half of all commercial and institutional construction by 2016. This phenomenalgrowth has spooked some powerful industrieswhose current products and practices the greenbuilding movement aims to improve. So theyinvented their own building certification system andare calling it “green.”Green Globes is a creature of the chemical, plastics and conventional timber industries. It is beingpeddled as a cheaper and easier alternative to thebetter-known LEED green building rating system,and claims to deliver the same environmental results.But if you really want to understand Green Globes,you need to know who’s behind it.Green Globes is administered by an organizationcalled the Green Building Initiative (GBI). Not onlyhave the chemical, plastics and timber industriesstacked GBI’s board of directors, their relative handfulof “members and supporters” are mostly entitiesfrom the same industries that pay-to-play as muchas 50,000 a year. These include trade associations2and lobbying groups like the American Forest &Paper Association, The Vinyl Institute, the AmericanChemistry Council, and the Society of the PlasticsIndustry that are themselves funded by the huge andpowerful corporations whose interests underlie GreenGlobes and drive its agenda.Naturally, environmentalists and truegreen building leaders are few and farbetween. That’s because Green Globesisn’t just another option for the marketto consider in the quest for a moresustainable built environment. It has itsmerits, but it was designed by and forvested interests to make green buildingsafe for manufacturers of plastic products with toxic pedigrees and timberfrom massive, devastating clearcuts.Please see the following page and take a hard look atwho is behind the GBI—and who is not.ABOUTG R E E N WA S H AC T I O NGreenwash Action is a joint initiative of SierraClub and Greenpeace, and is a project of EarthIsland Institute. Our mission is to support progress toward a healthy, biodiverse, climate-stableworld by defending programs that representtrue environmental leadership and challengingspecial interests that use greenwash to confusethe marketplace. Greenwash Action’s immediatefocus is the green building sector where thethreat to leadership is immediate and pressing.
THEPOWERBEHINDGBIADRIAN SMITH GORDONGILL ARCHITECTUREAINSWORTH ENGINEEREDAMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCILAMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATIONAMERICAN WOOD COUNCILANTHONY FOREST PRODUCTSA/Z CORPORATIONBELCHER HOMESBLUE RIDGE FIBERBOARDBOISE CASCADECANADIAN WOOD COUNCILCANFORCAPITAL ONECARPET AND RUG INSTITUTECERTIWOODCHEMICAL FABRICS AND FILMASSOCIATIONCONTINENTAL AUTOMATEDBUILDINGS ASSOCIATIONCROSS CREEK INITIATIVEDEW CONSTRUCTION CORP.DUNKLEY LUMBEREXCEL DRYERGREEN DIAMOND RESOURCECOMPANYHAMPTON AFFILIATESINTERFOR IRRIGATIONASSOCIATION3JELD-WENKIEWIT CORPORATIONLOUISIANA PACIFICMANNINGTON (WOOD & VINYL)MITSUBISHI HEATING & COOLINGMITSUBISHI ELECTRICPLASTIC, PIPE & FITTINGSASSOCIATIONPLUM CREEKPOWER ENGINEERSCOLLABORATIVERAY TONJES BUILDER, INC.RESILIENT FLOOR COVERINGINSTITUTESIEMENS USASIKA SARNAFILSGA DESIGN GROUPSOLVAY SPECIALTYPOLYMERSSTEEL RECYCLING INSTITUTESTIMSON LUMBERTHE VINYL INSTITUTEURS CORPORATIONWASHINGTON FORESTRYPROTECTION ASSOCIATIONWEYERHAEUSERWMA CONSULTING ENGINEERSWHOLE FOODSXPEDXGBI BOARD BY INDUSTRYGBI MEMBERS (TRADE ASSNs & COs)TIMBER23.5%TIMBERCHEMICALS& PLASTICS23.5%CHEMICALS& PLASTICS23.2%ENGINEERING& .7%ARCHITECTSENGINEERS& BUILDERSOTHERINDUSTRIES11.7%ARCHITECTS& ONMENTALNGOS44.5%9.3%0%
SHORTON REALSUBSTANCEAt a high level, Green Globes seemingly covers the major areas of greenbuilding: site, energy, water, materials,indoor environmental quality, and soforth. But dig beneath the surface andyou will find NO MINIMUM BAR FOR PERFORMANCEUnlike more rigorous green building rating systems,Green Globes has no mandatory prerequisites thatensure that certified buildings meet minimum performance levels.Resources section emphasizes Life Cycle Assessment(LCA) for materials assessment, but LCA does notaddress toxic chemicals in building materials or theenvironmental harm caused by intensive loggingpractices for wood products.NUMEROUS POINTS AWARDED SIMPLYFOR FOLLOWING CODE IN BUILDINGOPERATIONSGreen Globes for Continual Improvement of ExistingBuildings (CIEB) awards numerous points simply foroperating a building legally in the jurisdiction whereyour project is located.POINTS NOT LINKED TO POSITIVEENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMESConveniently located access doors get points; so doesthe use of toxic, endocrine-disrupting chemicals incarpet and other materials.LOW-BAR REFERENCE STANDARDS MIXEDWITH HIGH-BAR STANDARDSIn Green Globes low-bar industry-driven referencestandards like the Sustainable Forestry Initiative areco-mingled with leadership standards like ForestStewardship Council and given equal weight.DENIAL OF MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL ANDHEALTH CONCERNSGreen Globes for New Construction’s Materials &A FLAWED APPROACH TO ASSESSINGENERGY EFFICIENCYGreen Globes for New Construction’s approach4to assessing building energy performance includesflawed pathways that do not fully address actualenergy performance and are subject to gaming. GreenGlobes offers prescriptive methods for addressingenergy performance over ones that are more rigorousand holistic, and some measures that earn points arenot assessed until after the building is constructed.
SHORTON REALSUBSTANCETo assist the design team in creating the most energyefficient building possible, comprehensive andstringent energy performance modeling needs tooccur early in the design phase. The inclusion of theseflawed pathways is no accident. As with other areasof Green Globes, if you don’t want to prove highperformance, there are loopholes available to you.QUESTIONABLE ASSESSMENT PROCESSGreen Globes certification is achieved after a “GreenGlobes Assessor” verifies the project team’s claimedachievements in an on-site, in-person audit (accordingto the GBI, “a typical site assessment of a 50,000sq. ft. building takes approximately 4 hours”). Theassessor has tremendous discretion in awardingpoints, and also in deciding which Green Globescriteria are “not applicable”—making it easier toachieve a higher score. The GBI touts the flexibilityand feedback that this process provides as a majorbenefit of their system, but they ignore the conflict ofinterest that can develop when an assessor works inperson with his clients, and the corner-cutting that canoccur when the assessor is under pressure to completea complex audit in a limited amount of time.5(CONTINUED)
GREENGLOBES ISGREENWASHGreen Globes’ leadership claims that they are tryingto bring healthy competition and choice to thegreen building sector, to serve sectors of the buildingmarket that have not yet embraced high-performancepractices and that find more rigorous green buildingratings systems too costly and difficult.But if it’s true that Green Globes isabout “growing the pie,” then why arethey working so hard to “take the pie”from LEED?It’s hard not to conclude that Green Globes’ currentpurpose is to confuse the market and undercut trueleadership green building standards—like LEED andLiving Building Challenge—by offering an easieralternative that protects the narrow interests of theindustries that created it and prop it up.Green Globes provides no incentive for the chemical,plastics and timber industries to make serious progress toward healthier and more sustainable productsand practices. Instead, it protects its sponsors’ vested6interests and passes off business-as-usual practicesand products as “green.” It provides a fulcrumfor lobbyists, PR flacks and bought-and-paid-forpoliticians as they pressure federal agencies andstate governments to adopt Green Globes overmore rigorous standards. And it blurs the importantdistinctions between its watered-down requirementsand high-bar standards that drive actual environmental progress.The definition of greenwash is “Disinformationdisseminated by an organization in order to presentan environmentally responsible public image.” GreenGlobes is greenwash.We urgently need chemical, plastics and timbercompanies to develop practices and products thatdo not ruin ecosystems, pollute our air and water,or threaten the health of our children. But above allelse, we need the GBI to change course so that we candeal with the greatest threat we all face: catastrophicclimate change.
HOWYOU CANHELPGreenwash Action is calling on the GBI to:TELL THE TRUTHEither strengthen Green Globes so that it embodiesthe same level of performance (or better) as LEED inthe areas in which Green Globes is relatively weak,or reposition it and be forthright about the fact that itis not equivalent to more rigorous rating systems likeLEED and the Living Building Challenge.CEASE THE ATTACKSThe companies and trade associations in thechemical, plastics and timber industries that backthe GBI are driving efforts to ban LEED for use byfederal agencies and state governments. They arealso underwriting negative media campaigns againstLEED and U.S. Green Building Council. Theseattacks need to stop.HELP US FIND THE SOLUTIONSAccording to the world’s climate scientists, humanityhas limited time to reduce our greenhouse emissions or we will cross a tipping point where climatechange becomes self-reinforcing, irreversible, and7uncontrollable. It is urgent that industry, environmentalists, and green building proponents stop devotingour resources to battling one another and insteadcome together to identify and implement commonsense, common-ground solutions that reduce theenergy use of buildings, shrink the carbon footprint ofbuilding materials, and promote responsible forestrywhile curbing deforestation around the world.The GBI is unlikely to listen unless we join togetherand speak with one voice.Get involved.greenwashaction.org
LEED and the Living Building Challenge. CEASE THE ATTACKS The companies and trade associations in the chemical, plastics and timber industries that back the GBI are driving efforts to ban LEED for use by federal agencies and state governments. They are also underwriting negative media campaigns against LEED
