Made in Minnesota: sourcing local building materials

I just returned from Greenbuild 2009, and the talk this year was focused on reducing carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions. So how do you do this in your community, workplace, home, or building project? One of the simplest ways to do this is to choose local building materials.
I have talked about local in the past and thankfully, there are now even more resources to help you source local building materials right here in Minnesota.

The Dovetail Partners - Minnesota Made project assists communities in meeting sustainability goals and builds projects that use products nearest to specific communities. Dovetail works with the local contractors to put money back into the community, provides green building education, and calculates the environmental impact of using local building materials for each project. Dovetail also offers a map of local building materials and the report Green Building Materials - Made in Minnesota.

The Midwest Home Magazine - Made in Minnesota database allows you to search from over 300 products made in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Building Materials Database from the University of Minnesota's Center for Sustainable Building Research provides a wide array of technical information on building materials, including location and distance traveled for manufacturing.

Remember: not only does choosing local building materials help the environment, but it also helps the local economy!

Green Treated Lumber

I recently received an inquiry involving a viewer's concern over a home improvement show that built a children's play area/retaining wall using green treated lumber. The question was "what potential health hazards are there in using green treated lumber?"

While I am not an expert on this by any means, I found these links very helpful (provided to me by colleague Dr. Jim Bowyer). I hope they help.

What's In That Pressure Treated Wood?

CCA-Treated Wood for Residential Use

Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA): Questions & Answers: What You Need to Know About Wood Pressure Treated with Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA)

Greenbuild and Greening the Economy

I just returned from Boston for Greenbuild, the nation's largest green building conference. While I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of affordable methods to build green and information for rural communities, I came away very inspired and hopeful that America may finally be moving in the right direction, and that sustainability for all might one day be possible.

One of the master speakers was Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy. He gave an inspirational speech on how green jobs will both fix our economy and positively impact climate change. He also stressed the importance of our new president - not as the first black president, but as the first green president who is dedicated to improving sustainability, and how that is something everyone in the country will benefit from.

We should never lose sight of why we are doing what we're doing - Van Jones

In order to make green jobs successful, a complete shift toward sustainable thinking is needed. The only true way to get us out of this economic slump will be to invest in sustainability and green jobs, and basically do the opposite of the current model of our failed economy. Jones spoke of three shifts we need to make:

-Local Production. We're the largest consumers in the world, not producers. We currently consume 5-7% more than we produce, something that in Nature simply could never sustain itself.Shifting production of goods locally will not only produce more green jobs in our country, it also poses an opportunity to bring social benefits to everyone. And of course using local materials minimizes negative environmental impacts as well.

-Thrift. Our economy is powered by debt instead of smart savings, by credit instead of creativity, by borrowing instead of building. In Nature, nothing is free and no animal can survive a winter without harvesting and rationing energy wisely. In addition to saving money and being smarter about monetary choices, we should be more thrifty in our consumption as well. Think smaller homes, smaller cars, and more energy-efficient everything, and nothing bought on credit. Reward those that are doing a good job, not those that are failing.

-Environmental Restoration. Our economy runs on environmental devastation instead of protection and restoration. This model is simply not sustainable as there is no such thing as an endless supply of anything in Nature. Every choice we make needs to have an environmental focus. Choose materials and methods of energy that are renewable and durable, and practices that give back to the environment instead of taking away.

It seems so logical, doesn't it?

So where do we start? Looking at green building standards and finding good information at places like Dovetail's Eco-Affordable Housing Program is one good place to begin. According to Greenbuild master speaker Kevin O'Connor from television series This Old House, America currently has over 125 million homes that were built before today. So while looking at new construction is important, we need to be retrofitting America first to really change how our buildings are impacting the environment. It's also a great place to build some green jobs. Minnesota currently has its own green remodeling standards - among the very first in the country. Click here for more information on Minnesota GreenStar.

We need to retro-fit America - Van Jones

I found his speech very inspirational and believe that this economic downturn, while difficult, will prove to be the very thing we need to become more sustainable as a whole. It's really exciting, if only we can remember that now we're free to fly or fall - and we have the choice of which way to go. We can no longer ignore sustainability - it is going to be the thing to make us succeed instead of being something to be afraid of.

One thing to note is that as green building shifts even further to the mainstream and more green jobs become available, those of us that have been doing green for a long will no longer be the alternative, we will be the cornerstone of the industry and the economy. It is important that we are informed by good information and that we continue to help others who ask for it, even though we are essentially competing for a piece of the green pie. This shift is already becoming apparent at Greenbuild, where vendors were much more informed of environmental jargon than last year, and which was attended by more green building consultants than ever. Let's continue to help each other by both being open with our environmental information and also choosing sustainability for the wellness of our society as a whole.

Van Jones's speech can be found here.

Minnesota GreenStar Credits related to Windows

In a previous post, I mentioned how LEED credits relate to windows. If you are installing windows in a new home, replacing windows in an existing home, or manufacturing/selling window products, knowing the Minnesota GreenStar credits that relate to windows might also be helpful.

Minnesota GreenStar is only related to residential projects, not commercial. It has both a Remodeling program and a New Homes program.

The Minnesota GreenStar checklist and manual are extremely detailed, and for a person who has not yet gone through the process, it may seem a bit daunting. I have taken out the credits relating to windows and posted them below. Click to enlarge the photo. If you'd like a larger version, please contact me and I'd be happy to send you a pdf version of the file.

Minnesota GreenStar Remodeling related to windows

Minnesota GreenStar Remodeling checklist
Minnesota GreenStar Remodeling manual

Minnesota GreenStar New Homes as relating to windows

Minnesota GreenStar New Homes checklist
Minnesota GreenStar New Homes manual
Minnesota GreenStar New Homes points thresholds for home size

Just a note about the program - Windows made with FSC-certified materials or local materials can attain points. However, it currently does not state that windows made from environmentally preferable materials, such as rapidly-renewable, recycled-content, or salvaged material-content can attain points. However, if such a product did exist, it would be taken into consideration for point allocation. So if you've got a great idea for this type of window, be sure to let the Minnesota GreenStar people know.

Local Materials in LEED

I hope this post helps to answer any questions about how LEED addresses 'local' materials.

LEED-New Construction (Credits MR 5.1 and 5.2) requires that the product be extracted, processed, AND manufactured within a 500 mile radius of the site. Either 10% (or more) or 20% (or more) of total materials in the whole project have to fit this criteria, based on cost of materials. If only a certain percentage of a product fits these qualifications, then that percentage of the total price of that product is used in the calculations of total materials cost in the project.

LEED-Homes (Credit MR 2.2) requires that the product be extracted, processed, AND manufactured within a 500 mile radius of the site. LEED-H bases this per building component and not as a percentage of total materials in the project. In this way, components would not need to rely on other products in the project to qualify for local credits. At least 90% of the component per weight or volume must meet the local criteria to qualify.

Click image to enlarge

Here's a link to a report we did on local materials that also highlights how other green building programs address "local": http://www.dovetailinc.org/reportView.php?action=displayReport&reportID=95

Made in Minnesota - Cold Spring Granite

Choosing a local material is a great way of supporting your local business and being environmentally sensitive. In the near future, I will be looking at different types of local materials and their various attributes in order to identify what products we have right here in Minnesota.

Last week the Mississippi Headwaters chapter of the USGBC hosted a bus tour of Cold Spring Granite company. The tour included visiting a granite mining operation, the fabrication plant, and also their new LEED-NC office facility. According to the tour, by taking the bus instead of driving all separately, we saved over 500 gallons of gasoline on our trip to Cold Spring, MN.

History
Cold Spring Granite company has been in business for over 110 years, and has been dedicated to new technology and innovate thinking since started by Scottish stonecutter Henry Alexander. This mission for innovation kept them in business through the Great Depression, war rationing, and other hard fiscal times. They have produced not only granite and natural products, but also ships and engines, in order to stay in business. Currently Cold Spring has 28 active mines in North America and imports natural stone from all over the world. The Cold Spring west facility (which we toured) has over 750 employees, of which 28% have been there for over 25 years. They produce many different products in many colors, from countertops and memorial stones to structural building components. Cold Spring Granite is committed to best mining practices and learning how to be a more sustainable company overall.

Attributes of natural stone products
Remember - all building materials have some sort of impact on the environment and use up something, and are only green in relation to other building materials. According to the tour, granite and natural stone have both green and non-green attributes.
Going Green
Part of Cold Spring’s commitment to sustainability is participating in the Natural Stone Council’s (NSC) green initiative. Like many building products industries, the natural stone industry is looking at how their products work as a green building material in the eyes of many green building standards, including LEED. In order to maintain integrity, the NSC wants to be very transparent and honest about the attributes surround natural stone materials, and hired a third-party research organization, the University of Tennessee Center for Clean Products, in 2007. Currently 70% of the domestic stone industry is contributing information for life cycle analysis data in hopes of understanding where natural stone products fit with life cycle analysis around the issues of embodied energy and water. After this research is completed, the NSC hopes to have a clearer path for how to move forward with greening their industry.

One potential path is to create certification standards for environmental stewardship in the natural stone industry. Federal and State Agencies currently guide practices, but the industry wants to go beyond to set other guidelines. In much the same way that FSC has done with sustainable forestry, environmental organizations and the natural stone industry could potentially work together to create the certification standards. Creating their own certification standard could reward companies for environmental stewardship and potentially make a standard for USGBC's LEED program to set preferences for. The natural stone industry already has the advantage of an existing product tracking system. This could minimize the challenges of chain-of-custody tracking that certified wood products currently have. When the results from the NSC research project are in, we can see how the natural stone industry decides to move forward with their environmental practices.

On the tour, we learned some areas of environmental stewardship that Cold Spring Granite is already attempting to address.

1. Water Consumption
Large quantities of water are consumed in natural stone extraction and fabrication. Water is used in mining to minimize dust, which can be a health hazard to workers. Steps are being taken to try to minimize the amount of water used, but it is an important part of the process. Recycling all of the water used in fabrication has become standard practice of Cold Spring Granite in an effort to be more environmentally-conscientious.

2. Site Practices and Reclamation
Large amounts of waste, site impacts, and the abandonment of mines post-use are big concerns. Extracting stone is still mining the earth, and that process remains the most efficient way to get to natural stone products. Thankfully extraction processes have greatly improved with new technology. Twenty years ago the blasting practices resulted in 50% waste, but today mines produce 20% waste in the mining process typically. Waste products can be recycled into a variety non-dimensional aggregate products, resulting in no waste products at all. Cold Spring produces no waste and also uses a new non-explosive process for some of the their mining. The process uses slot drilling, diamond wire for cutting rock and plastic bladders filled with water to push the stone out. This process results in even less waste around the edges of the block, eliminates blasting, and also requires less labor. Cold Spring does not abandon mining sites, and is looking to ways to help communities redevelop them into something else post-use. Currently about 2/3 of mining companies are concerned with mining abandonment.

3. RadonAll products from the earth potentially contain a certain amount of radon. The EPA has determined that most stone is not at dangerous levels, although some are higher than others. On the tour, the guide stated that there is no standard protocol or mechanism for testing a certain product specifically for radon, rather that it depends on the air in the space. She also said that she has never heard of a case of radon poisoning from natural stone, but that the NSC and Cold Spring Granite are taking radon very seriously and keeping abreast of progress for radon testing of specific products.

Cold Spring Granite and LEED
Cold Spring is dedicated to building all of its facilities to LEED specifications, and is looking at LEED for Existing Buildings to green some of its existing plants as well.The last part of the tour was their new LEED-NC office building. This building, waiting to attain LEED Silver certification, is attached to one of the fabrication plants. It takes advantage of natural daylighting, has outside views in 95% of its spaces, used low-VOC products, and is highly water-efficient. The project received Innovation and Design credits for using large quantities of extremely-locally sourced granite for most of the building; even some of the furniture is made of granite!

LEED-NC points related to natural stone and granite
MR 3.1 and 3.2 – Material Reuse/Salvage – Granite countertops and other stone treatments can be taken from existing buildings and reused in projects in either the same application or new ones
MR 5.1 and 5.2 – Locally sourced materials – Stone can be easily tracked from its source so it’s easy to decipher if it fits into the 500 mile radius
SS 7.1 – Heat Island Effect – using light colored stone in building façade or for paving applications reduces the amount of heat radiated from the sun and helps reduce the heat island effect.
Overall, the tour was great - really informative, fun, and well put-together. I am currently exploring the possibility of incorporating granite from Minnesota into one of our Minnesota-Made Homes. Stay tuned for more information on local materials!

For more information on Cold Spring Granite, click here.
For more pictures from the tour, click here.

Following wood from the forest to the home

Wood is a great building material; it sequesters carbon, can be grown and used in non-toxic organic fashions, and is both highly recyclable and renewable. It also has low embodied energy through its harvesting and manufacturing process, and can be tracked in a way that other materials can't.

Forest Floor to Showroom Floor, Part 1



The Blandin Foundation sponsored a very compelling video of Aitkin County, MN - one of the first forests in the United States to become FSC-certified - which follows wood from a sustainable forest through the manufacturing process, onto the showroom floor and into a green building project. It has been broken into two parts for easier loading. Enjoy!

Forest Floor to Showroom Floor, Part 2

Minnesota Climate Change Initiatives

Taking steps for climate change has reached the local level in a big way. Mayors and cities councils in Minnesota (and across the world) have declared their intentions of working with a number of programs, which are going to have some impacts on how buildings are built in Minnesota.

Below is the list of Minnesota cities and counties that have formally declared their intent through the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, the Sierra Club's Cool Counties or Cool Cities, and/or Cities for Climate Protection in an effort to lessen their local contribution to global climate change:

Apple Valley
Aurora
Bemidji
Buhl
Burnsville
Chisholm
Duluth
Eagan
Eden Prairie
Edina

Hennepin County

Hibbing

Hutchinson
International Falls
Lake City
Mahtomedi
Milan
Minneapolis
Mountain Iron
Ramsey County

Red Wing
Rochester
Roseville
Sauk Rapids
St. Paul
Sunfish Lake
Tower
Turtle River
Virginia
White Bear Lake
Winona

In addition, Minnesota also recently became the seventh state to pass the “Next Generation Energy Act of 2007” into policy, which sets a state goal of certifying 100 commercial buildings to the Green Globes or U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard by December 31, 2010. The bill also mandates utilities to include in their conservation improvement plans programs that facilitate professional engineering verification to qualify a building as Green Globes-certified, Energy Star-labeled or LEED-certified.

Be sure to keep an eye out for more great Minnesota initiatives, and if you can, attend the Mayors' Forum on Green Initiatives on November 27, 2007, 3:45 - 6:00 p.m. at the University of Minnesota to see more on what is happening in the Twin Cities regarding green initiatives. Click here for more information.

Do you know of any local climate change initiatives not mentioned here? Let me know!

And great job, Minnesota!

Building Materials and LEED

I wanted to pass this great information along; it is not new information but sometimes it helps to see it all in one place.

Salvaged Wood from Minnesota

Inhabitat has a great comprehensive working list of what one should look for when choosing building materials. Be sure to check out Part One for specifics on LEED-Homes and material selection.

Green Building 101: Materials and Resources Part One
Green Building 101: Materials and Resources Part Two

And don't forget about the option of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). While definitely not the most simple way to choose materials, it is the most complete way to ensure that your structure will use the least amount of embodied energy via materials.

And if all else fails and everything seems too complicated, remember that choosing something locally is always a good choice.

How to source local materials

For me, the most important thing to do when being sustainable, is to take advantage of local products and vendors. Using local materials not only reduces your ecologic footprint by minimizing transportation, it also stimulates the local economy.

Wood from Todd County, Minnesota

Here are some strategies for finding local building materials:

· Start by talking to people in the area, and ask a lot of questions. "Joe" from down the street might actually have a passion for making his own countertops from rocks in his cornfield, for example. Chances are that Joe probably knows someone too. Get the word out, and let people know what you're looking for.

· Talk to the local county economic developer to hone in on what local businesses and materials are available.

· Contact your local DNR and see what foresters are in the area (they might have wood on their own land to sell or can hook you up with local foresters). http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/contact/locator.html

· What were the old buildings made out of? Chances are whatever it is, it was probably local. Also, are there any buildings that need to come down that materials could be salvaged from? Does the local junkyard have any items that could be reused?

· Open the local phone book and look at the businesses. Are there local artisans that would be interest making something out of local materials? Buy something from a locally-manufactured plant instead of from a big box store. For example, there is a solar panel plant in Starbuck, MN, a high-efficiency boiler plant in Greenbush, MN, and Marvin Windows is also made in Minnesota. Also remember that just because a distributor is local it doesn’t mean the product is made locally.

· Check out sustainable materials, such as wood from sustainable forests. Minnesota has a lot of sustainably-managed forests. You can see if there is anyone local to your area by going here: http://www.certifiedwoodsearch.org/overview.aspx

Choosing sustainable materials

What exactly is a sustainable building material, and how can you be sure you’re choosing the best one?

A Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) can be used for balancing the environmental and economic performance of building products. LCAs calculate the total embodied energy of a product by considering harvesting, manufacturing, distribution and eventual disposal. There are many LCA resources available, a few of which are included here.

• Perhaps the most well-known LCA system, the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute is attempting to make their software more accessible to builders. They offer free demo software for their Environmental Impact Estimator available on their website.
• The BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) software, created by National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Building and Fire Research Laboratory can be downloaded for free from here. It is aimed at designers, builders, and product manufacturers and includes actual environmental and economic performance data of many products.
• The Boustead Model version 5.0, by Boustead Consulting out of the UK, offers a free demonstration disk from here. The program hosts an extensive database of fuels and energy use, raw materials requirements, solid, liquid and gaseous emissions.
• ECO-it, created by PRé Consultants from the Netherlands, calculates the environmental load of a product and shows which parts of the product contribute most. A demo version can be downloaded from the website or the full software can be purchased for $147.
• If LCA software is not available, The U.S. Pollution Control Agency has an Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Guide that explains the “green” attributes of certain materials.
• If you still have questions about sustainable materials, Dovetail Partners offers detailed reports and information about responsible consumption and sustainable materials.

As an added note, when I choose materials, I prefer to use local materials over anything else. Even if FSC-certified wood is available from China, I prefer to use non-FSC wood from Minnesota. How you choose materials is really up to you.

One thing to keep in mind: a recent study estimated that the wood from a log home could build 12 regular stick-frame homes. However, if this log home was built using logs from the local region, the total embodied energy of that home would be less than from those 12 typical stick-frame houses. The log home construction also increases the demand for large diameter wood, which means people will keep growing it in the forests, and stimulates the local economy. I am not advocating either type of construction over the other, but more the understanding that we need both types of housing in order to stimulate diverse forests, and balance housing needs with embodied energy.