Green Construction Technology for Intelligent Buildings - The Referendum on Paint - Part 2

By: Tony Margani of EVOpaint™

Last week we began the referendum on paint by looking into sustainability and what it means for builders and homeowners. To sum up: Incentive!

This week’s focus finds us backstage with builders and how the construction industry’s very gradual and calculated involvement in choosing ‘green’ can be expedited by following this incentive model.

Over the course of the last generation, construction industry experts and associations in partnership with all levels of government have continued to move towards a sustainable built environment. Understanding the challenges and opportunities in the area of intelligent green building technologies as an international issue, these key players sanction methods of innovation in the constructed landscape. Current advancements for new construction and existing property markets clarify the need to better manage the balance of best practices and eco-friendly building materials with particular control over the cost, consumption and waste impact for every home and condominium unit built.

As the developer/builder seeks to meet market requirements with minimum investment in material and labour, an adoption of green construction technology is slow as all known products and techniques significantly add to costs. This has led to an instilled reliability on government incentives, subsidies and green financing structures to even consider deployment. Unfortunately, this leaves the public with sporadic eco-suites that some builders assemble as a show piece  for media events sowing tales of what ‘can be’ rather than mainstream acceptance by offering purchasers what ‘is’. Realizing the need for this shift is a powerful idea to build on right now while complex and costly smart building innovation determines how to be more affordable in the future.

In spite of this a number of major home and condominium developers/builders are making a commitment to sustainability, re-enforcing that it is the way of the future. They recognize that even higher initial costs are justified with an appropriate payback through reduced operating expenditures, increased building value and image. Realistically, however, they demand a green construction technology that saves money while streamlining best practices. They demand what I defined the sustainability index to be:

An incentivized balance in economy and environment with the key ability to quantify the ‘green’ aspects of a product.

“Going green” has to shift from being a vague industry buzz phrase and become something quantifiable.

In response to this need in so far as paint consumption goes let’s refer back to the standard I proposed in Article 1:

A true, sustainable and quantifiable, one-coat paint that never requires a primer or second coat but a single application to achieve a finished result over any surface. This delivers material and labour cost savings of 66% to the builder and consumer and prevents 66% raw material extraction, energy, transport, production and post-consumer wastes, rewarding users beyond their money and time savings with an effortless, tangible, built in eco-incentive.

Unlike green construction technologies that are costly to manufacture and complex to position into building processes, paint is inexpensive to produce by nature of its purpose and is adaptable. The standard as I propose not only offers a very easy endeavour into ‘green’ practices but actually saves the builder money without compromise to the end result. Because incentive and reduction is built into this technology system, the value proposition is significant and acts as a path of least resistance.

Through this model, builders will support a paint system that has substantial prevention in raw material extraction and containers used for production, a more energy friendly supply chain and an unprecedented reduction in paint required for equal square footage. There is no other green construction technology that actually saves money and makes a commitment to our environment on behalf of the homeowner. In recent trials with a local GTA builder, this system delivered over 60% in material savings and more than 80% in labour all while preventing 66% of wastes. Even though paint can be among the smaller costs in a construction project, saving that much time and money just makes sense.

The CaGBC (Canadian Green Building Council) popular for promoting the LEED certification system has done some great work in shifting more and more builders into varying degrees of eco-friendly building design.  And it’s encouraging to see these commitments recognized and awarded by the OHBA (Ontario Home Builder’s Association) and BILD (Building Industry and Land Development Association).

But I believe we need to take the next step towards real incentive for builders by delivering an immediate return on investment.

Given that it’s an added cost for builders to have employees become a LEED AP (accredited professional) or work through a consultant to help navigate the landscape and achieve maximum credits; doesn’t it make sense for an AP to stimulate best practices that actually save a lot of time and money for the builder and not just the homeowner? Realizing this paint model helps to offset additional costs incurred operating under a ‘green’ banner.

It remains accurate that when all parties benefit then true sustainable development will sky rocket.

Purchasers today choose communities and lifestyles that raise their profile by maximizing efficiencies and reducing waste. They know it’s smart and profitable to be at the forefront of introducing effective technology that improves deficiencies and standards. Developers/builders operating under these commitments speak well for quality and long-term value, helping purchasers favour development projects that meet their economic and environmental objectives.

With some experts placing 80% of the environmental footprint of paint products (cradle to gate) coming from raw materials coupled with a generally accepted notion that buildings have an important impact on the resources upon which we all depend, the construction industry has come to consume more than one-third of all primary energy, two thirds of electricity, one-third of all raw materials along with a growing percentage of our freshwater resources. This high resource consumption makes our new buildings ideal candidates for resource conservation, waste prevention and sustainability.

When you think of the paint industry’s chronology of improving paint and painting systems in matters of sustainability and incentive, builders have really had to put up with a lot over the last 50 years (oil to latex, brush to roller, roller to spray gun). Some of you might even be old enough to remember when builders would only prime new homes and condo units and leave the rest up to the purchaser. That idea has since evolved for the better leaving homeowners with a fully painted home however, the idea continues to develop. Through all the convoluted messaging from the paint industry today, there is something good that has come from it, namely that the general public has been conditioned to understand that fewer coats just makes sense. This new frame of mind is an indicator for builders, an obvious choice to add real paint technology into their portfolio of valued ‘green’ advancements.

All of these transitions made for a more efficient, faster delivery process for high and low rise. The added benefit to the paint model I propose is an unprecedented incentive. This is why more and more builders are moving into the sustainable built environment, but as standards intensify so must the incentives.

Following the principles of this paint model will fortify the government and construction industry’s conversation to urgently instill better control on the cost, consumption and waste impact for every home, condominium, and building project. It further supports government efforts in convincing developers/builders to adopt green construction technologies from a perspective that is not commonly considered or lauded in the media.

We need to redefine our idea of paint and manage consumption by being preventative. It is of central concern that the construction industry lead in this initiative, instigating a fundamental shift in architectural coatings. Properly innovated paint products must cut material and labour costs to their absolute minimum simultaneously reducing waste while yielding equivalent results for builders. This allows for a transparent and responsive stewardship for paint use in the construction phase because the most environmentally friendly paint must be the one you consume the least of.

While paint maintains a healthy market acceptance, builders do not have a modern and adaptable palette of innovative product options to better manage their use. Because in the end it’s really all about choice that’s what a referendum is. Hopefully it’s a choice for the best, because high performance homes and buildings increase real estate assets.