INTERVIEW WITH :
Joe Van Belleghem: Focuses on Sustainable Projects,
Part 1
Joe Van Belleghem is a developer from British Columbia who has
devoted his business to sustainable projects. We recently talked to Joe about
how to make high performance buildings—that are better for occupants and the
environment—pay off.
An accountant by training, Joe’s a partner at Windmill Developments, a Vancouver, B.C.-based company that focuses solely on sustainable projects. He is also president of BuildGreen Developments, which consults to all levels of the Canadian government on LEED projects and sustainable design. Joe was the development consultant for the Vancouver Island Technology Park, a high-tech park that was awarded a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. The project was also awarded the 2002 Building Owners and Managers Association B.C. Earth Award and the Urban Development Institute Sustainable Development Award.
BetterBricks: How did you first connect with sustainable building concepts?
Joe: For the majority of my development career, I didn’t embrace green building. Occasionally, I used a specific green building technique but this was largely in response to community pressures, municipal requirements or regulations, or I thought it could enhance our zoning chances.
I had bought into the belief that being green and good to the environment had to cost more. A big reason for this was that my university education in commerce and accounting hardly touched on environmental issues. Environmentalism was viewed as a cost of business. The underlying message from university training was do “the minimal amount possible to avoid prosecution.”
During this phase of my development career, I became increasingly uncomfortable with what I was doing and the day-to-day conflicts with community and environmental groups who opposed our projects. I was not adding value and not having fun. One day I quit the development business.
This turned out to be a blessing. I got involved in some other businesses and regrouped. But I was drawn back to development as a result of an opportunity to be involved in a government project—the renovation of an old hospital into a commercial technology park. This was a spec project, in other words, “build it and they will come.” I was hired as the development consultant with a tight budget and time frame. The project motivated me, as I believed it could be an important catalyst in growing the technology sector in our community. Early in the design process, I decided the project should be built as a green building. Of course, many concerns were raised about cost, timing and whether we could do it. To be honest, I didn’t know if we could do it either. What was largely motivating me at the time was I thought it would be a good way to distinguish the project in the marketplace and get some free press.
This project, the Vancouver Island Technology Park, ended up being the first LEED gold project in Canada and was built on budget and on time. It transformed my life and sent me down a path and journey that have been incredible. What made the difference in this project was a booked called, “Natural Capitalism.”
BetterBricks: How has the book “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawken influenced your thinking?
Joe: As I mentioned above, the marketing and public relations benefits were my primary motivation in getting involved in green buildings, but fortunately, shortly after this decision, I read “Natural Capitalism.” It was an enormous wake-up call for me. It made me appreciate the value of our natural capital and the tremendous opportunity we have to look to the environment for solutions in how we run our business or develop our buildings. I began to read every book I could find on green buildings.
My mindset began to change. I challenged everything I knew and what others knew. Why are we doing it this way? How would nature do it? The phrase, “It can’t be done” was not an acceptable answer and I channeled that negativity into personal motivation. If there was an obstacle or regulation in the way, change it. I didn’t practice integrated design as it should be done in this early project. Later, I realized to be even more effective I had to engage those around me in the importance of green buildings.
I couldn’t believe what happened. Being good to the environment was resulting in economic wins. Environmental techniques such as construction waste management, and energy and water efficiencies utilizing a natural systems approach to storm water management, paid off economically.
BetterBricks: Can you explain what you call the "Whole-System Costing" approach? What do you consider to be the boundaries of a project for cost analysis purposes?
Joe: Whole-system costing applies to everything we do in a building. For example, utilizing more efficient lighting results in less heat. That impacts cooling requirements. But whole-system costing for me started to go beyond the building. Our projects are routinely generating anywhere from 50 to 70 percent water savings. Can you imagine the financial savings to us as taxpayers in water treatment facilities and distribution systems if all buildings used 50 percent less water? This is an important concept particularly in large developments, where site infrastructure costs can be significantly reduced by utilizing more environmentally friendly solutions within the building.
Whole-system costing also goes well beyond building and infrastructure issues and affects the bottom line and society. Why would a company want to be located in an unhealthy building that provides poor thermal comfort, and poor lighting and indoor air quality, when a 3.7 percent increase in productivity has roughly the same economic impact as the entire cost of a building and its operating and maintenance costs over 30 years? There is obviously a direct impact to our children, health care costs and other issues if we understand the positive impacts that buildings and sustainable community planning have to our economy, our environment and well being.
BetterBricks: Have there been key technical consultants who have helped you realize your sustainability goals?
Joe: We utilize modelers, commissioning and re-commissioning agents, ecologists, architects, engineers, etc. Really, whatever technical consultant we need to get the job done. The triple bottom line (TBL) approach that balances economic, environmental and social objectives in developing projects is a core element and heart of our business and we need consultants who understand this. There are a lot of people doing green buildings but the best are those who have the “heart” for it. I want to work with people who get this so we can achieve higher performance and greater economics in our projects.
This goes beyond consultants and into the purchasing chain. As building owners we have a responsibility to support the leaders in industry. When I look at buying carpet, for instance, I look at how deeply committed the company is to sustainability. Do they also make a non-green carpet? What are they doing from a research perspective? Are they upfront in what they are doing?
BetterBricks: How have you incorporated the process of integrated design into your projects and who is typically involved?
Joe: Integrated design requires gathering together the consulting team, sales people, purchasing agents, modelers, and commissioning agents. We do some select consulting to public institutions and I can’t stress the importance of facility staff, purchasing agents, financial people, human resources and user groups in the process. Get key stakeholders involved. It is also important to get the contractor to the table. They have a lot of knowledge and we need to engage them in the process or our chances of success are significantly reduced.
Many developers of projects are scared of large groups because they think it bogs down the design process, but I have not seen this. One amazing project we are involved in with the city of Calgary is called the Water Center. It has the most comprehensive integrated design process I have seen to date. I have participated in several design sessions where there have been over 40 people involved. Although this is a large group, the buy-in is greater by the users. They have embraced natural ventilation, open office concepts and sustainable building principles. The net result will be an amazing building. User groups are making economic tradeoffs, in other words, open space for greater daylighting and higher quality lighting that will create an amazing building with a lot of economic value for the city.
(November 2004)
Joe Van Belleghem: A Developer’s Perspective, Part 2
BetterBricks: You have mentioned in presentations that sustainable buildings give you a marketing advantage. How has this manifested in reality?
Joe: Businesses, particularly knowledge-based companies, know the importance of their people. There is no question in leasing office space that talking about the attributes of green buildings has a direct impact on leasing. The sales pitch is different but I am convinced it has a direct impact. The Vancouver Island Technology Park was leased during a period right after the tech sector melt-down, after a major company left Victoria. It was the most successful leasing project in the community.
I believe that condo sales in our mixed-use projects are enhanced by green buildings. You never know whom you are selling to—it could be to a mother with a child with asthma or it could be someone who is concerned about rising utility costs.
BetterBricks: How have the sustainability aspects of your projects improved community relations?
Joe: The typical developer tends to be negative or manipulative with community associations and environmental groups like the Sierra Club because often their opposition to a project could kill it or affect the density or costs associated with development. So inevitably the developer uses the approach of, “If I do this, will you give me this?” or “If I put in an ecological stormwater system, will you support the development?” Or the other approach is to hold back on what they are prepared to offer as a negotiating tool.
This is a stupid approach and sets up an adversarial relationship with community associations and environmental groups, who really have a lot to offer. Listen to them; they know their communities. What they have to say can often be key to the success of a development. On one of our projects, the community was concerned about increased traffic. As a result, the municipality wanted us to widen the road to the site to accommodate this. After listening to their concerns I realized that widening the road would only compound the problem. So we worked with the municipality, community and bicycle associations and didn’t widen the road. Instead we installed a new bicycle trail to the site that the municipality and province helped connect to regional trails. This trail serves the local community and college next door and has become a community amenity. However, the biggest winner was the project; as it turned out, the bike trail became a key marketing feature.
By utilizing a TBL (triple bottom line) approach we try to put our best foot forward and then expand on that with stakeholders to see if we can find innovative ways to try new green techniques in the building. The key is to be upfront and go out of our way to get involved in addressing issues in a community. In our Calgary project, we put in two affordable housing units as we really wanted to demonstrate the importance of integration rather than segregation. We ensured the units have the same finishes and quality of design. They use 50 percent less energy and 60 percent less water so they will stay affordable as utility prices increase. We worked closely with the city, which agreed to purchase the units from us. These units have not affected our marketing of the high-end housing and we’re hopeful that the city’s leadership will have a positive impact on future affordable housing initiatives.
Lastly, as developers, we have to understand that environmental groups like the Sierra Club, David Suzuki Foundation and others have a lot to offer. The book “Natural Capitalism” really opened my eyes to this. I never consider these groups as a threat but as a learning opportunity. We need to break down this barrier between business and environmental groups.
BetterBricks: How has the press responded to your efforts? Has this helped sell your projects?
Joe: Yes, our press coverage on projects has been amazing. I am still seeing articles today that refer to the Vancouver Island Technology Park, built several years ago.
Any positive press is always a good thing—it helps sell and promote our projects. We have experienced this in all our development projects. It is also good for the green building movement as the more articles written the greater the awareness by the customer, which creates demand for more green buildings.
There may be a time when this starts to taper off, but our goal as a company is to try to stay ahead of other developments and continue to create newsworthy stories. This is also part of the whole-system costing approach: less money spent on marketing means more money invested in the building to improve environmental performance and hence marketability.
BetterBricks: How useful do you find LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for achieving sustainable buildings?
Joe: The interesting thing is when I did the Vancouver Island Technology Park I didn’t know about LEED. We just set out some environmental principals and I discovered LEED at a conference in 2000. I immediately saw the marketing benefits of being certified under LEED but also saw that we were missing some issues like indoor air quality. LEED proved to be a very important checklist.
It bothers me when I see articles from consultants who talk about how we should bring LEED out early in the design process and go through the checklist. I have seen and used this approach and it is the wrong way. It does not engage the team and brings about a LEED point-chasing mentality. I like to focus on environmental strategies for the first few design sessions and get the team more engaged in why we are doing this. Then we use LEED as a checklist to ensure we have not missed anything and to focus on the intent of credits in LEED.
The important part is that certification is a must. There is too much, “I used LEED but didn’t certify.” Most of the projects that have made these claims wouldn’t even get certified or their claims are largely overstated. Certification is important for keeping focus and accountability in the process. However, it is also about celebrating the process when the project is completed. Obviously as a developer, certification is useful from a marketing perspective. But it also means we are showing our customers that we are willing to be audited by a third party to confirm we are doing what we said we would do. For universities and government it is even more important they certify, not only from a public relations perspective but to celebrate the accomplishment.
Projects that don’t certify because of the cost of LEED registration and documentation is nonsense, particularly when they then say they would have been LEED silver but didn’t want to incur the cost. Often what people are really saying is they don’t want to do commissioning and energy modeling but they blame that on LEED costs. Commissioning and energy modeling are not LEED costs; they are smart business decisions. The actual documentation costs of LEED are minimal to a project’s budget. In our development projects, they generally cost less then $20,000. And this cost doesn’t vary much by size of building.
BetterBricks: What do you see as future business opportunities? What about future trends in the building market?
Joe: There is no question green buildings are going to become more prevalent as demand for them increases in the market. For instance, the largest landlord in Canada, Public Works Canada (the GSA of the North), is requiring a green building rating certification on their new building projects, plus they are going to give preference in leasing to green buildings. Obviously, these types of initiatives, in addition to recognizing such benefits as productivity, will increase demand. Further, utility costs are going to go up, making green buildings more attractive.
I personally think institutional investors, mortgage lenders or developers who own their buildings should be focusing on green building now. They will be putting themselves at risk and be subject to asset devaluation if they don’t seriously look at green buildings. Do they really want to build a building that will be at a competitive disadvantage in terms of operating costs and marketability in the future?
Also, cities across North America are adopting or mandating LEED, like Seattle and Portland that have LEED silver standards. In Canada, Calgary has adopted silver as a minimum and recently Vancouver, a co-host for the 2010 Olympics, has shown real leadership in setting a minimum LEED gold certification for its own buildings.
Our growing knowledge-based economy and the predicted future shortage of skilled labor over the next 30 years will result in companies locating in communities where they can attract and retain employees. Those communities that embrace a triple bottom line approach and enhance their environment and quality of life in their communities are going to be in the best position to attract and retain companies. Developers are going to have to follow suit.
For us, the future is exciting and the opportunities are endless. We are turning down many proposals from across North America because we need to be selective and go after those that are consistent with our values, as capital is limited and must be preserved for important projects. Unfortunately, investors who share our values are not as readily available as traditional investors. Many think that being good to the environment costs more. As a developer we don’t see this—we believe a TBL approach makes a lot of economic sense.
These are exciting times. I now enjoy getting up every day and going to play. But make no mistake about it: I am a Capitalist, a Natural Capitalist, who gets no greater pleasure then making money as a result of doing the right thing.
To learn more about Joe Van Belleghem and his companies, visit www.windmilldevelopments.com or www.buildgreendevelopments.com. Joe Van Belleghem can be reached at Windmill Development Group Ltd/BuildGreen Consulting Inc., 1009 Hampshire Road, Victoria, BC, Canada V8S 4S8; 250-592-6769; joevb@shaw.ca.
(November 2004)
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