Ashley Anne StrobridgeEnvironmental Science IProfessor Charles MillingLiterature Review5/1/11

Abstract: Since the Industrial Revolution, the people of industrialized nations have gathered more and more in cities, and made the land surrounding and within these cities more and more “built-up”/urbanized. This “building-up,” or development of the landscape, has led to the pollution of our watersheds, loss of habitat for flora and fauna leading to loss of biodiversity, and a lack of connection with the natural world around us, as well as a lack of connection to each other. Cities have become less about community, and more about commerce. This review will define just what sustainable development is, which will be the framework that this paper will refer back to while exploring different articles that illustrate aspects of sustainable development, or greening the built environment. We will explore the reasons why we must change our built environment, how we can do so, and how once we make the necessary changes toward sustainable development, our built environment can help rather than hinder us on the road to sustainability and community.

Definitions and abbreviations:IEQ: Indoor Environmental QualityLEED: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

Sustainable Development:

There are five practical features to sustainable development, they are as follows:

1. Environmental limits2. Demand management3. Environmental efficiency4. Welfare efficiency5. Equity

Environmental limits are the thresholds that the environment imposes for “certain human activities in terms of resources, absorption of waste, and maintenance of life support services such as temperature and protection against radiation,”(Smith et al. 18). These limits define our world as finite, yet we continue to treat our resources and the earth that provides them as infinite. Sustainable development hopes to create a built environment that acknowledges these thresholds and to work within them.

Demand management is an important policy and concept that accepts environmental capacity limits. Instead of the ‘predict and provide’ approach to meeting the demands of the

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public in creating a built environment, basic objectives are met rather than a derived demand. This incorporates methods of recycling and reusing, as well as reducing demand for energy.

According to Greening the Built Environment, environmental efficiency is defined as ‘the achievement of the maximum benefit for each unit of resources and waste produced.’ Environmental efficiency can be created in many ways; they are as follows:

1. “Increasing durability so that environmental costs are spread over a longer useful life

2. “Increasing technical efficiency of resources conversion, for example through greater energy efficiency or recovery of waste heat.

3. “Avoiding the consumption of renewable natural resources, water and energy faster than the natural system can replenish them.

4. “Closing resource loops for example by reuse, recycling and salvage.5. “Simplifying and avoiding the need for resource use (non-renewable)” (Smith et

al. 19)

Welfare efficiency is the equivalent of environmental efficiency and has the goal of achieving the greatest human benefit from economic activity. A built environment that hopes to achieve this must provide a greater range of opportunities for enhanced productivity and health. Finally, equity has to do with providing each person with an equally healthy environment within which to function, regardless of class, race, sex, species etc.

These five aspects of sustainable development spelled out by Smith et al.’s book Greening the Built Environment, as well as other aspects of green building will be examined more fully with the exploration of the continuing texts I explain for this review. The next text, Effects of Green Buildings on Employee Health and Productivity, I will explore why green buildings are important.

Green buildings can have a profound effect upon the health and wellbeing of the people living and working within. Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) can affect productivity and health and can lead to either the degradation of such, or its improvement. Poor air quality, extreme temperatures, insufficient light, excess humidity, and insufficient ventilation can affect psychological health as well as physical health (Singh et al. 1665). These are dangers not only to the people working in the buildings, but to the employer as well, as these health problems can lead to loss of productivity. In a study conducted in Lansing, MI , Singh and her colleagues researched the affect on “employee perceived asthma and respitory allergy symptoms and depression and stress conditions and the effect of these perceived changes on self-reported absenteeism, work hours affected and productivity changes, following the movement from traditional to green (according to LEED) office buildings,” (Singh 1665). They studied the

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employees’ reaction to traditional office space, and then green office space, and found that the event of absenteeism was substantially reduced, as well as affected work hours after the move to a green building. Health and wellbeing, as well as productivity, were sharply increased as a result of moving to a green building.

In Singh’s study, it is clear that green buildings have a positive impact on the health and productivity of those functioning within their walls. There are many ways a building can go green, in the next texts I will explore how.

In Genevra Pittman’s article Building the Superefficient Home, Pittman outlines the new standards that are coming into effect that will require household appliances to be more efficient. Driers will be required to use 5% less energy, where washers are going to be required to use 40% less energy; most other appliances fall somewhere in between. Clothes washers and dishwashers are going to be required to use less water, with clothes washers using 50% less water. With the energy saved over 30 years, 40% of American homes could be powered for one year, and with the water saved, Los Angles could be supplied with water for 25 years. The new efficiency will be achieved by retooling appliances with better insulation, seals, compressors, and temperature controls. This retooling will require workers, which will result in more manufacturing jobs. All around, this agreement for new regulations on efficiency reached by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, NRDC, and other environmental and energy-efficiency organizations will be a great step towards better technical efficiency, which as noted above, is one aspect of environmental efficiency, one of the five practical features of sustainable development.

In Josephine Hearn’s article Home Energy Makeover, she explains that “in the U.S., homes account for 20% of carbon dioxide emissions, mostly though electricity use and heating systems that run on natural gas and oil. Efficiency improvements, which can be completed in a matter of hours, can lower energy consumption as much as 40%,” (Hearn 16). If the nation were to retrofit their homes by increasing insulation and upgrading appliances, by 2020 we could cut emissions by up to 160 million tons annually, while saving homeowners $21 billion in utility bills each year. There is a program called PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) in place in many states where the town pays for the retrofitting of homes in these ways, and the owner pays back over time from what they save in heating and air-conditioning costs. The owners’ savings eventually outpace what they are required to pay back. It is also a win-win situation because all of these retrofitting jobs go to out of work construction crews.

There is plenty of unused open window space in buildings and skyscrapers around the world. This is a resource that Peter Stark and Ana Dyson, and their company HeliOptrix hope to utilize for solar power using a new technology that they developed. Sandwiched between two glass panes in a window, a pyramid-shaped solar concentrator catches 85% of sunlight as it

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moves on a pivot following the sun, which it is programmed to track all day, in any season. This new technology is being looked at for use in a skyscraper in Korea, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, a hospital in the Middle East, and a technology center in Botswana. It is already in use at Syracuse University’s Center for Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems, (Ferris 22). This is an example of utilizing the built environment to generate energy, and avoiding the need for consumption of non-renewable energy sources, which is listed above as an aspect of environmental efficiency, one of the practical features of sustainable development.

Learning from Informal Cities, Building for Communities explores how impoverished communities have much to offer by displaying examples or recycling and reusing at its most ingenious. The slums of India are full of folks reusing old garments and collecting rainwater to use in growing food or for drinking, (Ilieva & Lian 24). This type of ingenuity is key if we are to work with nature to reduce our consumption of resources.

The article The Virtues of Human Waste by Jocelyn Zuckerman illustrates just how important and easy closing that resource loop can be. By incorporating aromatic sawdust into outhouses which then use the human waste mixed with the sawdust for fertilizer once it has gone through a breaking down period at a composting site which kills the pathogens, a new way to utilize human waste has been found. This innovative solution to waste management, invented by Sasha Kramer who has a PhD in ecology from Stanford, has been utilized in Haiti and has become a real hit there by creating clean, practically odorless waste management, (Zuckerman 22-23). This idea, which also uses the sawdust for ‘flushing,’ would make for a great replacement to traditional water toilets.

Over the last century, the number paved roads and surfaces have increased rapidly. According to Masonry Design, “these impervious surfaces created significant environmental and economic impacts such as stream bank erosion, flooding, and polluted streams, lakes, rivers and estuaries.” The EPA and many other environmental commissions echo these sentiments. The EPA lists porous pavement as a Best Management Practice performance tool on their NPDES site (EPA). The article Permeable Pavement Comparisons offers a summary of what these types of pavement are and how they work. Essentially, permeable pavement has interlocking pavement tiles that fit together in a grid with spaces in between each tile for small stones and gravel to filter the water that comes into contact with them into the ground, through tubes and more gravel, for further filtration. Permeable pavement has an incredible longevity of more than 20 years, and will still be standing when regular pavement has long become a victim to potholes and wear. This kind of increased durability feeds into environmental efficiency, as well as welfare efficiency.

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What to do with storm water is a big problem for many cities and urban areas, from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, to the city of Philadelphia, where as divulged in Dana Difilippo’s article Philly Seeks Answers Down the Drain, storm water mixes with waste water and overflows into rivers, and into people’s basements, creating numerous health and ecology hazards. There is a new solution being discussed and put into place where instead of digging new tunnels, ditches, and culverts, a more ecologically sound method is being used. Impervious surfaces, which are the main problem in water run-off, are being replaced with permeable ones which will filter the run off. Green roofs are being put in place to catch rain water. Urban farms, rain gardens and newly planted trees are all being used to catch the rain and storm water in order to keep it from creating overflow with wastewater. Despite zoning laws and reluctance from the some of those in power in Philadelphia, the residents of Philadelphia are in motion to create a new green built environment to replace the old malfunctioning one. Robert Traver, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Villanova University and director of the Villanova Urban Stormwater Partnership stated of the replacement of concrete barriers to nature with ones that mimic her, “It really is easier to work with nature than to try and fight it." (Difilippo). This type of working with nature exemplifies welfare efficiency, one of the five practical features to sustainable development.

The central goal expressed in the article Redrawing the American City by Laura Wright, is explained best by Randy Blankenhorn, CMAP's (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning) executive director, “What we really want to do is build suburban downtowns where people want to be -- a thriving, vibrant, and attractive downtown that's got open space, business, entertainment, and transportation." The article outlines the efforts of CMAP is to rebuild Chicago’s suburbs in order to avoid continuing to destroy wild, undeveloped lands by building outwards, these efforts of CMAP should save the people of Chicago quite a lot of money in transportation costs. Many of Chicago’s suburbs have become dilapidated, but there is an effort to rebuild using green standards, and utilizing the already-in-place rail system. One aspect of the greening of Chicago’s built environment includes creating green roofs, which are grassy park-like areas with flowers, and the one on top of Chicago’s City Hall is even equip with a beehive. Chicago is making the effort to rebuild itself with green aspects in mind, creating “Millennium Park, a leafy plaza where city dwellers can dine at the Park Grill restaurant, catch a concert at the Pritzker Pavilion, stroll among white oak and flowering cherry trees, or picnic in a quiet spot near the water”(Wright 1). As well as miles of bike lanes and plenty of green buildings built with community at its core. This type of development keeps environmental limits in mind when constructing by creating livable places on top of dilapidated ones, utilizing old spaces in a new type of recycling.

Instead of the Interstate highway system, the article Roadmap to the Future suggests that rapid transit buses, light rail, high efficiency vehicles, oil security fees, traffic management

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systems, congestion pricing, alternative transportation, and smart growth can be better transportation methods than using your car on the interstate. All of these alternatives to the way we currently travel simplify and avoid the need for non-renewable resources use, aspect five of environmental efficiency.

Sarah Schmidt’s A Wildlife Crossing That’s Truly Wild explains how nature and human-made structures can coexist. In Vail, CO, there is a proposal to build a football field sized wildlife bridge that will serve wildlife as well as people traveling the highway over which the bridge may be built. According to the article, “More than a million animals are killed each year trying to cross the road in the United States,” (Schmidt). The bridge will be a huge tree and vegetation lined path over the six-lane highway that runs between Vail and Boulder. According to the article, there are no bridges like this in the U.S., but they are “really effective” in Canada and Europe. This bridge is related to welfare efficiency, the welfare of the people traveling the road, as well as the animals trying to cross it.

Summary: Whether we are dealing with issues of public health, productivity, transportation, or housing, it can all be tied back to the five practical features of sustainable development. All of these articles discuss aspects of sustainable development and greening the built environment, which is truly something that humans must learn to utilize if we are going to continue to dwell upon Earth. Earth is finite, and treating her like she and her resources are infinite can only lead to certain destruction.

Bibliography:

Difilippo, Dana. “Philly Seeks Answers Down the Drain.” Onearth: A Survival Guide for the Planet. 19 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 April 2011. <http://www.onearth.org/article/phillywater>.

Grushkin, Daniel. “Roadmap to the Future.” Onearth. Winter 2011: 48 & 49. Print.

Ferris, Dave. “Innovate: Windows that Generate Energy.” Sierra: Explore, Enjoy, and Protect the Planet. March/April 2011: 22. Print.

Hearn, Josephine. “Home Energy Makeover.” Onearth. Spring 2010: 15 & 16. Print.

Ilieva, Pavlina, and Kao Pao Lian. “Learning from Informal Cities, Building for Communities.” Futurist 1 Sept 2010: 24-26. Ebscohost. Web. 20 Feb 2011.

“Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavement.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 10 Sep. 2009. Web. 8 Dec. 2010. <http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/menuofbmps/index.cfm>.

Pittman, Genevra. “Building the Superefficient Home.” Onearth. Winter 2011: 58 & 59. Print.

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Schmidt, Sarah. “A Wildlife Crossing That’s Truly Wild.” Onearth. NRDC. 8 Feb 2011. Web. 20 Feb 2011. <http://www.onearth.org/article/a-wildlife-crossing-thats-truly-wild>.

Singh, Amanjeet, Matt Syal, Sue C. Grady, and Sinem Korkmaz. “Effects of Green Buildings on Employee Health and Productivity.” American Journal of Public Health 1 Sept 2010: 1665. Ebscohost. Web. 20 Feb 2011.

Smith, David. “Permeable Pavement Comparisons.” Masonry Design. 2010 Lionheart Publishing. Summer 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http://www.masonrydesignmagazine.com/content/view/241/40>.

Smith, Maf, John Whitelegg, and Nick Williams. Greening the Built Environment. Earthscan/James & James, 1997. Print.

Wright, Laura. “Redrawing the American City.” Onearth: A Survival Guide for the Planet. 1 Dec 2009. Web. 30 April 2011. <http://www.onearth.org/article/redrawing-the-american-city>.

Zuckerman, Jocelyn C. “The Virtues of Human Waste.” Onearth. Winter 2011: 22 & 23. Print.

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