Green Is Baloney

Green is baloney? Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But aren't you just slightly skeptical about the dizzying frequency with which the word 'green' is used to make branding claims--especially in our business? I am. Green. What's it supposed to mean?

Or this: "shades of green." Now that's just annoying. Reminds me of how the word "natural" came to be used to describe all sorts of artificially flavored, colored or scented mass produced products.

Sorry again about the title of this post. Let's take a moment here, safe from the deafening clamor of gibberish, to think about this green business as it relates to our dwellings. If 'green' is to mean renewable and sustainable, a key big picture concept to get hold of is that of "embodied" energy. Here is a witty, carefully researched, plain language description of of a tear down project in which the owner tries to do it right. It was posted recently on TED Talks .


Nutshell: It takes a lot of energy to manufacture and transport construction materials--and more energy after that to make buildings. And. Conventional buildings use too much energy and generate too much waste. And, speaking of waste, there's nowhere to throw away all that we produce because "away" has people living there--or downstream or downwind from there. "Throw away" no longer works. So now what? Green thinking says, create ingenious ways of using less to get more without waste.

Is Gilday Renovations a "green" company? Strictly speaking, no. We are in transition. As building science evolves, so do our practices. As smarter, better materials arrive in the mass market, and as better, smarter ways of doing things are invented, we embrace them. Think of it as a process of continuing education.