New Sustainable Building Products

New, Green Products Can Save Energy and Increase Comfort

With the backsliding of the current federal government, state governments, local jurisdictions, and private businesses need to do more to forge ahead in addressing climate change. The building industry is a big contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions (GHG). It is also conservative and slow to change. Many construction innovations and new building products, however, are in either the research, prototype, or early adoption phase. A few examples are:

• Pre-cast “self-cooling” concrete walls incorporate scalloped or deeply fluted exterior surfaces. A car radiator is similar — lots of surface area for wind to pass over and remove heat. A building project in Houston combined these grooved walls with reflective white paint, which also repels dirt. Vertical fin walls were added to the exterior as well as shade-giving plants on the sunny side. Monitoring showed interior temperatures 18 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than in nearby buildings with standard flat walls. The result: less cleaning, lower maintenance, reduced energy bills, and greater comfort for residents, with only a slight increase in construction costs. Society gets fewer GHG emissions and electrical grid pressure relief.

• A transparent window coating uses applied quantum physics to outperform conventional heat-reducing coatings. Multiple refractive indices inside stacked ultrathin layers collectively transmit or reflect light based on wavelength. The application is like polarized sunglasses, but unlike sunglasses, the coating remains clear and effective no matter the angle of incoming light. During heat waves, 87 percent of heat gain in our houses is through windows. This new coating blocks heat-producing ultraviolet light and infrared rays but not visible light. Tests of this wide-angle spectral filter coating yielded temperatures 13 degrees Fahrenheit lower than conventional glass. This coating can also be applied to car windshields and sunroofs. Comfort is improved with less energy demand.

• EcoSmart gypsum wallboard (GWB) uses 25 percent less water to fabricate, produces 20 percent less CO2 emissions, weighs 20 percent less, and saves 20 percent of fuel during transportation. EcoSmart 5/8-inch Type X board has a slight increase in cost — 7 percent — but has already captured about 35 percent of market share. It is considered cost competitive because installers love the reduced weight. Concerns about acoustic and fire-resistant properties, both of which depend on density, turn out to be unfounded. Tests show performance equal to standard 5/8-inch GWB.

To avoid big temperature swings, buildings incorporating passive solar design strategies rely on material with high thermal mass. Concrete is one such widely used material. A double layer of 5/8-inch GWB performs equally well, is less expensive, and a better choice for multi-storied structures harnessing natural heating and cooling technologies.

Speeding up our adoption of these and other innovations in sustainable building materials could greatly reduce carbon emissions not just in the building sector but overall. 

Deconstruction Versus Demolition

Save Money, Energy, Lots of Materials but Not Time

We live in a throwaway economy. Advertising, built-in obsolescence, and undervaluing labor contribute to this system. Right-to-repair laws are pushing against this embedded pattern, with California being one of the leaders and early adopters. The construction industry generates massive amounts of waste when buildings are demolished or renovated — 22 percent of everything in landfills in California, according to a statewide waste study. When demolished, a typical 2,000-square-foot house produces around 240 cubic yards of debris.

Buildings account for 40 percent of global use of raw materials and are one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions. Deconstruction is an alternative to demolition. It is a careful process that involves taking apart a building to salvage reusable materials. Disassembling a building can be time-consuming and requires skilled workers, but it reduces the need for new materials, conserves energy, and minimizes environmental impact.

Offsetting the time issue is the tax advantage that the building owner can gain. IRS rules allow an owner to get a tax credit for materials being salvaged for reuse or recycling. After a site visit, an IRS qualified appraiser prepares an inventory of salvageable materials with their “fair market value” numbers, usually about a third of the cost of the same materials when purchased new. Separately, the owner contracts with a deconstruction contractor or their builder if the crew is skilled in deconstruction. Since 75-90 percent of materials in a home can be reused, repurposed, or recycled, the tax benefits often add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, these tax deductions can be claimed only when materials are donated to a nonprofit organization such as Habitat for Humanity or The ReUse People (TRP).

Why has deconstruction not gone mainstream? As mentioned, it is working against a system designed to make it easy for people to throw things away. Taking longer can also be a deterrent, but that can be lessened by disassembling interior spaces while waiting for permits. To encourage deconstruction, a community needs property with a building dedicated to storage and display of materials (like Habitat’s Reuse Stores). This requirement has been mostly offset by one successful program that sells most of the salvable materials on site before deconstruction begins. The final challenge is how to get contractors to use salvaged materials in their projects. 

Although not mainstream, deconstruction does happen. Locally, the Miramar Hotel tile reuse project in Montecito donated large quantities of iconic blue roof tiles to affordable housing projects in the community. Rebuild Green deconstructs about 100 houses a year in the Bay Area. In 2016, Portland became the first city to institute an ordinance requiring deconstruction of single-family houses built before 1940 slated for removal. Half a dozen other cities have followed Portland’s example. Palo Alto requires the deconstruction of all residential and commercial buildings slated for removal regardless of age. Boulder mandates 75 percent of buildings by weight be diverted from landfills. Can Santa Barbara follow these examples?

Headway in Curbing Packaging Waste

Europe is Moving to Reshape Its Packaging Culture

Plastics have brought convenience and benefit to our lives but also pollution, toxicity, and environmental degradation. Globally, almost 500 million tons of plastic are produced each year, 90 percent of which ends up contaminating our planet. Alarmingly, plastic production is forecast to soar and could triple by 2040.

The framework for a global plastics treaty was adopted by 175 countries in 2022 with final negotiations to happen later this year, followed by implementation starting early next year. Despite being a giant step forward, much remains to be done to reverse our plastic polluting ways.

Perhaps the most encouraging are the sweeping measures that the EU (European Union) has just enacted to address packaging waste. The regulations aim to reduce environmental damage and promote sustainable practices. The PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) sets binding targets on throw-away plastics. On average, every person in the EU generates 418 pounds of packaging trash each year, and this figure is growing.

For the first time, the EU has created goals to combat the growing problem of waste by reducing packaging regardless of the material involved. Packaging must be 5 percent less by 2030, 10 percent by 2035, and 15 percent by 2040. The PPWR’s fundamental goal is to reshape packaging habits everywhere in the EU. The protocol requires that almost all packaging material be recyclable by 2030. Plastic packaging is especially singled out with minimum recycled content standards. Takeout restaurants must provide reuseable containers. Single-use plastic bags, straws, utensils, etc. will be banned by 2030. Similarly for miniature packaging of toiletry products, ubiquitous in the hospitality industry. Plastic and metal beverage containers will be collected separately via deposit-return programs.

These EU rules cover the full life cycle of packaging, including the manufacture, composition, and reusable or recoverable nature of materials. The requirements are designed to foster innovation. One example being researched in Singapore is to duplicate the gut flora of a super worm (Zophobas atratus) that degrades plastics. Using the microbes found in the worm’s gut in varying combinations, scientists have been able to efficiently break down the most prevalent types of plastics in a scalable and replicable manner.

While challenges remain, adoption of the PPWR is a big leap forward in the fight against plastic pollution and waste proliferation. Being the biggest producer of packaging waste, the U.S. needs to follow suit. As an added benefit, all these rules, requirements, and measures provide a big boost to creating a circular economy.

Changing Transportation and Housing Patterns

Addressing Climate Change by Changing Mobility and Housing Biking, small businesses, and social housing are preserving the charm of Paris.

With increasingly bleak reports of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, are there any places making rapid progress on climate change that can offer hope? Maybe.

Transportation, the second largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions, is becoming electrified. Even better, however, is reducing the use of cars through policies designed to increase walking, biking, and public transportation. In 2021, Paris rolled out a plan to become 100 percent cycle-friendly in five years. This journey was already well underway — car trips in Paris fell by more than 60 percent in the previous two decades, public transit rides increased by 40 percent, and bicycle trips increased by 20 percent. Bicycling in the French capital more than doubled between 2020 and 2024 from 5 percent to 11 percent. Cycling infrastructure, bicycle parking spots, and traffic light changes prioritizing cyclists are mushrooming. Car parking on Paris streets is systematically being eliminated and has shrunk by more than 50 percent.

Another innovation that complements these mobility changes is in housing. Since the start of this century, municipal policies have aggressively been creating social housing to keep middle- and lower-income residents in the heart of the city. One of the goals of this effort is to preserve the ineffable character of Paris — beloved by the French and tourists alike. One-quarter of all Parisians live in public housing, an increase from 13 percent in 2000. The philosophy is that those who produce the riches of the city deserve to live in it. Teachers, sanitation workers, janitors, nurses, university students, bakers, and butchers are all benefiting from this program.

Like cities around the world, Paris is confronting growing homelessness. The initiatives that City Hall has taken to keep low-income citizens from being squeezed out go far beyond what most other cities are doing. Whether Paris will achieve an equitable, diverse city remains to be seen. The challenges are formidable, but the goal is to have 30 percent public housing for low-income residents and 10 percent for middle-income inhabitants by 2035. Paris is already a dense city, but it can use its legal authority to preempt the private sale of a building and convert it into public housing. The city has also sharply restricted short-term rentals, while transforming old train rights-of-way and condemned buildings into social housing. Over the past 25 years, the city has built or renovated 82,000 apartments for families and added 14,000 student units. Rents can be as little as $650 per month for apartments.

Housing is only part of the equation for achieving a balanced city; the other part is creating a healthy mix of small businesses: boulangeries, cheese shops, bicycle repair places, corner delis, flower stalls, and artisan workshops. The city can favor these types of small businesses because it is the landlord of 19 percent of city shops. It limits the number of chain businesses in preference for small operations, thus creating continuity and an enhanced sense of timelessness.