Shh - don't tell anyone - these apartments are green! | The Greenwash Brigade

The Greenwash Brigade

Shh - don't tell anyone - these apartments are green!

Riding home the other night, I saw a big sign: "The First Green Apartments in Minneapolis. move2blue.com"

I've been wondering what they meant - suspecting the worst. When I dug deeper, I found a green building problem that in my job I've seen is global in the residential green building world.

On their marketing website, I looked eagerly for details on what made them green. Not only did I find nothing, I didn't even find claims that they were green.

The problem: people building green aren't telling anyone, and if they do, they don't provide any proof.

If you read the developer's website, you learn that Blue will be the first privately-funded LEED certified apartment building in Minneapolis. (That "privately-funded" is very important, because there are five Minnesota Green Communities projects in Minneapolis, one of which is going for LEED certification - and will probably be done before Blue.)

They've recently added a link that I almost didn't find - hidden on the front page is the Race 4 Green, but again, no more details. Is keeping what makes it green a secret a "clever" marketing ploy?

The secretiveness screams greenwashing. The basic lesson of hunting greenwash is to look for details and evidence; obscuring information or providing none is a loud indicator of guilt.

I can't tell whether this is greenwashing or not. The only reason I suspect it might not be is personally knowing a couple members of the development team.

Why is it so hard for developers to market green homes effectively?

Here are my tips:
1: Tell customers what you are doing. How will it affect the occupant? How will it affect the environment?
2: How will buyers or renters know you've done what you said? Is it Energy Star certified? Forest Stewardship Council certified? How many gallons of water does it use, and how does that compare to "normal" faucets?

Why is that so hard?

June 9, 2008 by Janne K. Flisrand
1 comments

tags: green building marketing

Comments (1)

Christina Joy Neumann | Respond
June 24, 2008 8:28 AM PT

Greetings from Pittsburgh,
I was recently at the June Sierra Club Allegheny Chapter meeting and the focus of discussion was the proactive green building program at the Phipps Conservatory, a local botanical garden.

www.phipps.conservatory.org/greencomp1.htm

Even with the green building movement being well underway, many of the chapter members had never really received a good explanation of green building operation strategies before that point. Although the Phipps expansion project is institutional in nature, a myriad of questions opened up regarding the residential sector and how certain techniques could be applied, particularly related to water reuse systems and green building materials. The great amount of questioning indicates to me there is still a large informational gap in the residential sector pertaining to basic understanding of green building strategy. There is certainly still a necessity for residential developers and home improvement retailers as well as public institutions to better explain and demonstrate their initiatives and the potential synergistic benefits to the general public (not just a simple LEED label). Good education drives good marketing, if triple bottom line is the true intention.

Thanks for the insight,
Christina Joy Neumann
apoidea apiary

Tools

Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of American Public Media or its employees. American Public Media is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers.

Marketplace

The Greenwash Brigade