Start with practices and systems that use less...

Jonathan Wright, Wright Builders

02/03/2009

Name: Jonathan Wright
Business: Wright Builders
Position: Founder and CEO
NESEA member since: the beginning
Website: http://www.wright-builders.com/

Business description: Residential and commercial builders with more than 30 years of experience, we incorporate a wide variety of sustainable and recycled products and methods in our projects. We specialize in cost-effective, energy-efficient construction.

How do you define sustainability?
Practices of work and consumption that limit the wasting of resources. Can a building be sustainably designed and use oil heat? Well, not really in the long run, but_ if the construction is super efficient, we can get most of the way there.

What project are you most proud of?
Village Hill Northampton, Massachusetts, currently underway, because all our dwellings will be LEED certified.

What energy advice do you have for the new president?
Everything he has said for two years is right on, I think. Public building efficiency, conservation, public transportation ...

What promising technology would you like to know more about?
Small co-generation, and any developments in small scale district heating.

What's the public's biggest misunderstanding regarding sustainable energy systems?
That energy independence is a matter of machinery and equipment, when, in the main, it is first and always a matter of practices and systems that use less to start with. Also, the essential importance of building orientation in gathering seasonal solar energy and controlling cooling costs.

What prompted you to join NESEA?
Going way back, NESEA gathered up the people and ideas focused on solar and emerging technology.

What's the most irritating example of "greenwashing" you can think of?
They are everywhere -- green carpet, huh? I think the flex fuel Chevy Suburban gets a pretty good prize, as it's emblematic of the tragic hoax of corn ethanol.