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Dilbert needs NESEA
October 3rd, 2010In case you missed it, below is the speech I gave at the 2010 NESEA Annual meeting.
Thank you, Jennifer, for your kind words. Let me say it has been a pleasure working with Jennifer over the last year. It excites me to think about how much the organization has jelled in the last year and how much potential we have in the years to come. This is all due to the hard work of Jennifer and the staff.
I’d also like to thank NESEA Rhode Island, and in particular John Jacobson for setting up the event, lining up a fantastic speaker, and being a gracious host. Thank you very much.
Jennifer gave you a great overview of the changes that have taken place over the past year. If you read the annual report, I mentioned some changes we made at the board level that tie in nicely. However, I want to spend the next few minutes talking to you about NESEA’s mission and how we measure whether we’ve achieved the mission or not. Our mission is stated as: NESEA advances the adoption of sustainable energy practices in the built environment.
So what tells us when we’ve achieved our mission?
I recently read an article in the in the Wall Street Journal, written by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Scott lives in California, and wrote the article to explain the process he went through to build a “green” home.
Before I read a portion of the article, here is Scott’s definition of “green”: I think of it as living the life you want, with as much Earth-wise efficiency as your time and budget reasonably allow.
Here’s what Scott had to say in the article:
Let’s say you love the Earth. You see an article in a magazine about a guy who built a “green” house using mostly twigs, pinecones and abandoned bird nests. You want to build a green home, too. So you find an architect, show him the magazine and say, “Give me one just like this.”
Good luck with that.
Your architect only knows how to design homes using materials that his local planning commission is likely to approve. But he wants the job, so he tries hard to talk you out of using twigs, pinecones and abandoned bird nests. He tells you that no builder will build it. He tells you it won’t get approved by the city. He tells you it won’t stand up to earthquakes, hurricanes or termites. But you persist. You’re saving the Earth, damn it. No one said it would be easy.
So the architect—and later your building engineer, too—each asks you to sign a document saying you won’t sue them when beavers eat a load-bearing wall and your entire family is crushed by forest debris. You make the mistake of mentioning this arrangement to your family, and they leave you. But you are not deterred because you’re saving the planet, damn it. You’ll get a new family. A greener one.
Your next hurdle is the local planning commission. They like to approve things that are similar to things they’ve approved before. To do otherwise is to risk unemployment. And the neighbors don’t want to live next to a house that looks like a compost pile. But let’s say, for the sake of this fascinating story, that everyone in the planning commission is heavily medicated with medical marijuana and they approve your project over the objections of all of your neighbors, except for the beavers, who are suspiciously flexible. Now you need a contractor who is willing to risk his career to build this cutting-edge structure.
Good luck with that.
No builder wants a risky project that could end his career. And how would he price it? He’d have to learn a whole new building method and find subcontractors willing to take on the risk. Amazingly, after a long search, you find a builder who is willing to tackle the project for about 25% more than the cost of a traditional house frame, which is reasonable given the extra business uncertainties. You’re OK with the extra costs because you’re saving the Earth, damn it.
Against all odds, you get the house built. But you can’t figure out why your monthly energy bill is the same as your neighbor’s. That magazine article assured you that twigs, pinecones and bird nests are excellent insulators. Where did you go wrong?
Here’s a person, Scott Adams, who, I’m going to assume, has more resources than most of us in the room and he’s detailing his excruciatingly painful process of trying to do the right thing and build what he considers a green home. If it’s this difficult, we’ll never see widespread adoption. Reading this article made me think. Would his experience have been any better if he had simply lived within NEASEA territory? Doubtful. Would the process have been better if he or his architect were an active NESEA member? Went to BE regularly and had a network of other NESEA members to rely on? Absolutely.
That, in real terms, is what NESEA is all about. It’s about bringing that architect, the builder, the planning committee member together. It’s sitting them down and saying, we’ve seen this technique a hundred times, and it works. You need to start using this technique in your designs, building with these materials and approving these methods. This is clear to those of you that have been active NESEA members for years.
The connecting piece between our mission and this story is that Scott Adams lives in California and didn’t know that NESEA exists to reach out to. That’s the fulfillment of our mission: reaching out to more and more people with our knowledge and helping spread sustainable building practices. I’m not saying that we, the NORTHEAST Sustainable Energy Association, need to have a chapter in California, but rather that I think our focus needs to be on making NESEA a recognized leader in sustainable energy practices — so that, next time, a lost dreamer in California knows to call the northeast for help. Once we’ve reached that level, I’ll know we’ve achieved our mission. This isn’t an easy task, but I hope you’ll ALL join me by becoming a member, donating or volunteering your time. As a group I know we can make a sustainable future a reality.
